ring is
some deed of rapine and murder. No; liberty is not to be achieved by
such bands as these. France is your country--there liberty has been won;
there lives one great man whose notice, were it but passingly bestowed,
is fame."

He sank back exhausted. The energy of his speech was too great for his
weak and exhausted frame to bear. Captain de Meudon had come to Ireland
in 1798 to aid in the rebellion; he had seen its failure, but had
remained in Ireland trying vainly to give to the disaffection some
military organization. He had realized the hopelessness of his efforts.
He was ill, and very near to death. Now I stood by his bedside in a
little cottage in Glenmalure.

Boy as I was, I had already seen enough to make me a rebel in feeling
and in action. I had stood a short time before the death-bed of my
father, who disliked me, and who had left nearly all his property to my
elder brother, who was indifferent to me. My father had indentured me as
apprentice to his lawyer, and sooner than submit to the rule of this
man--the evil genius of our family--I had taken flight. The companion of
my wanderings was Darby M'Keown, the piper, the cleverest and cunningest
of the agents of rebellion. Then I had met De Meudon, who had turned my
thoughts and ambitions into another channel.

My companion grew steadily worse.

"Take my pocket-book," he whispered; "there is a letter you'll give my
sister Marie. There are some five or six thousand francs--they are
yours; you must be a pupil at the Polytechnique at Paris. If it should
be your fortune to speak with General Bonaparte, say to him that when
Charles de Meudon was dying--in exile--with but one friend left--he held
his portrait to his lips, and, with his last breath, he kissed it."

A shivering ran through his limbs--a sigh--and all was still. He was
dead.

"Halloa, there!" said a voice. The door opened, and a sergeant entered.
"I have a warrant to arrest Captain de Meudon, a French officer who is
concealed here. Where is he?"

I pointed to the bed.

"I arrest you in the king's name!" said the sergeant, approaching.
"What----" He started back in horror. "He is dead!"

Then entered one I had seen before--Major Barton, the most pitiless of
the government's agents in suppressing insurrection.

The sergeant whispered to him, and his eye ranged the little chamber
till it fell on me.

"Ha!" he cried. "You here! Sergeant, here's one prisoner for you, at any
rate."

Two so