“Ah, the tragedy! ah, the farce of it all!—I dreamed of a free, happy country, of a free, happy people prospering and blessed when the tyrant was overthrown—I thought I could help on this glorious time; and what happens? I am struck down by the hand of a friend in a miserable squabble; inglorious, farcical!—O Ireland, Ireland! the follies of your own children may be a greater curse to you in the days to come than have been the crimes of the stranger who has usurped your rights.”
While I held his hand, stooping over him, with a heart too full for speech, he opened his eyes again, and said,—
“Barry, brother, you have forgiven me for that stone I threw at ye on Fanad Head?—ay, and the poor old mother is gone, and father too—and the guns are in Kilgorman—and Wolfe Tone is coming—and the French are preparing to deliver us; yes, they are on the way—and a time of joy is coming to Ireland—Barry, Barry, do ye hear the rustle of silk by the hearthstone? Do ye think the ghost is here?—I hear something—put but the light, boy, and lie close—there, there—my God, it is mother!” and he swooned away.
I thought he was dead, and I began to pray, when I heard him murmur,—
“Barry, are ye there, dear?—I can’t see ye at all, at all. Why don’t ye light the lamp?—there is no air!—open the window!—light, light, give me light!” and he fell back dead.
It was the bitterest, saddest moment of my life. Yet I felt a curious envy of him. He was out of the whirl and confusion and chaos of our unhappy time! Peace be with him! I loved him as my own soul, with a love which was not weakened but made only more pathetic to me that his ideals for the happiness of our loved country were not my ideals.
But there was comfort for me—of a kind I perhaps little deserved—close at hand. When I had drawn my coat over Tim’s face, I rushed upstairs, calling aloud as I went,—
“Kit, Kit, I am coming! where are you, Kit?”
Then by-and-by I heard, far off, from a remote attic up in the roof of the rambling old building to which I had never before penetrated—I heard, faintly, a voice calling me by name, which fell on my heart like sweetest music. And when the rusty key had turned in the rusty old lock, and the crazy door was pushed open, I found a pair of arms flung tightly about my neck, and a pair of lips pressed close against mine, with cries of “Thank God, Barry! thank God, Barry! you are here at last.”
It was a meeting of smiles and tears, of most delicious joy, with a background of infinite sadness.