He pointed here and there with his hand; and with seeming irrelevance. "You'd be sorry afterwards," he said, "for you'd think of this, Ulick. God forbid that I should say there are no things for which even this should be sacrificed. God forbid I should deny that even for this too high a price may be paid. But if you play this away in wantonness—if that which you are all planning come about, and you fail, as they failed in Scotland three years back, and as you will, as you must fail here—it is of this, it is of the women and the children under these roofs that will go up in smoke, that you'll be thinking, Ulick, at the last! Believe me or not, this is the last thing you'll see! It's to a burden as well as an honour you're born where men doff caps to you; and it's that burden will lie the black weight on your soul at the last. There's old Darby and O'Sullivan Og's wife—and Pat Mahony and Judy Mahony's four sons—and Mick Sullivan and Tim and Luke the Lamiter—and the three Sullivans at the landing, and Phil the crowder, and the seven tenants at Killabogue—it's of them, it's of them"—as he spoke his finger moved from hovel to hovel—"and their like I'm thinking. You cry them and they follow, for they're your folks born. But what do they know of England or England's strength, or what is against them, or the certain end? They think, poor souls, because they land their spirits and pay no dues, and the Justices look the other way, and a bailiffs life here, if he'd a writ, would be no more worth than a woodcock's, and the laws, bad and good, go for naught—they think the black Protestants are afraid of them! While you and I, you and I know, Ulick," he continued, dropping his voice, "'tis because we lie so poor and distant and small, they give no heed to us! We know! And that's our burden."
The big man's face worked. He threw out his arms. "God help us!" he cried.
"He will, in His day! I tell you again, as I told you the hour I came, I, who have followed the wars for twenty years, there is no deed that has not its reward when the time is ripe, nor a cold hearth that is not paid for a hundredfold!"
Uncle Ulick looked sombrely over the lake. "I shall never see it," he said. "Never, never! And that's hard. Notwithstanding, I'll do what I can to quiet them—if it be not too late."
"Too late?"
"Ay, too late, John. But anyway, I'll be minding what you say. On the other hand, you must go, and this very day that ever is."
"There are some here that I must not be seeing?" Colonel John said shrewdly.
"That's it."
"And if I do not go, Ulick? What then, man?"
"Whisht! Whisht!" the big man cried in unmistakable distress. "Don't say the word! Don't say the word, John, dear."