d, O Father of
history!"

CHAPTER XI

BESIDE THE SINGING RIVER

Father Letheby was coming home a few nights ago, a little after twelve
o'clock, from a hurried sick-call, and he came down by the cliffs; for,
as he said, he likes to see the waters when the Almighty flings his net
over their depths, and then every sea-hillock is a star, and there is a
moon in every hollow of the waves. As he skirted along the cliff that
frowns down into the valleys of the sea on the one hand, and the valleys
of the firs and poplars on the other, he thought he heard some voices
deep down in the shadows, and he listened. Very soon the harsh rasp of a
command came to his ears, and he heard: "_'Shun! 'verse arms_," etc. He
listened very attentively, and the tramp of armed men echoed down the
darkness; and he thought he saw the glint of steel here and there where
the moonbeams struck the trees.

"It was a horrible revelation," he said, "that here in this quiet place
we were nursing revolution, and had some secret society in full swing
amongst us. But then, as the little bit of history brought up the past,
I felt the tide of feeling sweeping through me, and all the dread
enthusiasm of the race woke within me:--

'There beside the singing river
That dark mass of men are seen,
Far above their shining weapons
Hung their own immortal green!'

But this is a bad business, sir, for soul and body. What's to be done?"

"A bad business, indeed," I echoed. "But worse for soul than body. These
poor fellows will amuse themselves playing at soldiers, and probably
catching pneumonia; and there 't will end. You didn't see any policemen
about?"

"No. They could be hiding unknown to me."

"Depend upon it, they were interested spectators of the midnight
evolutions. I know there are some fellows in the village in receipt of
secret service money, and all these poor boys' names are in the Castle
archives. But what is worse, this means anti-clericalism, and
consequently abstention from Sacraments, and a long train of evils
besides. It must be handled gently."

"You don't mean to say, sir," he replied, "that that Continental poison
has eaten its way in Ireland?"

"Not to a large extent; but it is there. There is no use in burying our
heads in the sands and pretending not to see. But we must act
judiciously. A good surgeon never acts hastily,--never hurries over an
operation. _Lente,--lente_."

I saw a smile faintly rippling