Easiness, the failing of the old-world Irishman, had been Uncle Ulick's bane through life. It was easiness which had induced him to condone a baseness in his nephew which he would have been the first to condemn in a stranger. And again it was easiness which had beguiled him into standing idle while the brother's influence was creeping like strangling ivy over the girl's generous nature; while her best instincts were being withered by ridicule, her generosity abused by meanness, and her sense of right blunted by such acts of lawlessness as the seizure of the smuggling vessel. He feared, if he did not know, that things were going ill. He saw the blighting shadow of Asgill begin to darken the scene. He believed that The McMurrough, unable to raise money on the estate—since he had no title—was passing under Asgill's control. And still he had not raised his voice.
But, above all, it was easiness which had induced Uncle Ulick to countenance in Flavia those romantic notions, now fast developing into full-blown plans, which he, who had seen the world in his youth, should have blasted; which he, who could recall the humiliation of Boyne Water and the horrors of '90, he, who knew somewhat, if only a little, of the strength of England and the weakness of Ireland, should have been the first to nip in the bud.
He had not nipped them. Instead, he had allowed the reckless patriotism of the young O'Beirnes, the predatory instincts of O'Sullivan Og, the simulated enthusiasm—for simulated he knew it to be—of the young McMurrough to guide the politics of the house and to bring it to the verge of a crisis. The younger generation and their kin, the Sullivans, the Mahoneys, the O'Beirnes, bred in this remote corner, leading a wild and almost barbarous life, deriving such sparks of culture as reached them from foreign sources and through channels wilder than their life, were no judges of their own weakness or of the power opposed to them. But he was. He knew, and had known, that it became him, as the Nestor of the party, to point out the folly of their plans. Instead, he had bowed to the prevailing feeling. For—be it his excuse—he, too, was Irish! He, too, felt his heart too large for his bosom when he dwelt on his country's wrongs. On him, too, though he knew that successful rebellion was out of the question, Flavia's generous indignation, her youth, her enthusiasm, wrought powerfully. And at times, in moments of irritation, he, too, saw red, and dreamed of a last struggle for freedom.
At this point, at a moment when the crisis, grown visible, could no longer be masked, had arrived John Sullivan, a man of experience. His very aspect sobered Uncle Ulick's mind. The latter saw that only a blacker and more hopeless night could follow the day of vengeance of which he dreamt; and he sat this evening—while Asgill talked on the hill with The McMurrough—he sat this evening by the light of the peat-fire, and was sore troubled. Was it, or was it not, too late? He occupied the great chair in which Sir Michael had so often conned his Scudery of winter evenings; but though he filled the chair, he knew that he had neither the will nor the mastery of its old owner. If it had not passed already, the thing might easily pass beyond his staying. Meanwhile, Flavia sat on a stool on the farther side of the blaze—until supper was on the board they used no other light—brooding bitterly over the loss of her mare; and he knew that that incident would not make things more easy. For here was tyranny brought to an every-day level; oppression that pricked to the quick! The Saxons, who had risen for a mere poundage against their anointed king, did not scruple to make slaves, ay, real slaves, of a sister and a more ancient people! But the cup was full and running over, and they should rue it! A short day and they would find opposed to them the wrath, the fury, the despair of a united people and an ancient faith. Something like this Flavia had been saying to him.
Then silence had fallen. And now he made answer.
"I'm low at heart about it, none the less," he said. "War, my girl, is a very dreadful thing." He had in his mind the words Colonel John had used to him on that subject.
"And what is slavery?" she replied. There were red spots in her cheeks, and her eyes shone.
"But if the yoke be made heavier, my jewel, and not lighter?"
"Then let us die!" she answered. "Let there be an end! For it is time. But let us die free! As it is, do we not blush to own that we are Irish? Is not our race the handmaid among nations? Then let us die! What have we to live for? Our souls they will not leave us, our bodies they enslave, they take our goods! What is left, Uncle Ulick?" she continued passionately.
"Just to endure," he said sadly, "till better times. Or what if we make things worse? Believe me, Flavvy, the last rising——"