away.

CHAPTER II

THE PANORAMA OF A LOST YOUTH

As O'Connell hurried through the streets of the little village thoughts
surged madly through his brain. It was in this barren spot he was born
and passed his youth. Youth! A period of poverty and struggle: of empty
dreams and futile hopes. It passed before him now as a panorama. There
was the doctor's house where his father hurried the night he was born.
How often had his mother told him of that night of storm when she gave
her last gleam of strength in giving him life! In storm he was born: in
strife he would live. The mark was on him.

Now he came to the little schoolhouse where he first learned to read.
Facing it Father Cahill's tiny church, where he had learned to pray.
Beyond lay the green on which he had his first fight. It was about his
father. Bruised and bleeding, he crept home that day--beaten. His
mother cried over him and washed his cuts and bathed his bruises. A
flush of shame crept across his face as he thought of that beating. The
result of our first battle stays with us through life. He watched his
conqueror, he remembered for years. He had but one ambition in those
days--to gain sufficient strength to wipe out that disgrace. He trained
his muscles, He ran on the roads at early morning until his breathing
was good. He made friends with an English soldier stationed in the
town, by doing him some slight service. The man had learned boxing in
London and could beat any one in his regiment. O'Connell asked the man
to teach him boxing. The soldier agreed. He found the boy an apt pupil.
O'Connell mastered the art of self-defence. He learned the vulnerable
points of attack. Then he waited his opportunity. One half-holiday,
when the schoolboys were playing on the green, he walked up
deliberately to his conqueror and challenged him to a return
engagement. The boys crowded around them. "Is it another batin' ye'd be
afther havin', ye beggar-man's son?" said the enemy.

O'Connell's reply was a well-timed punch on that youth's jaw, and the
second battle was on.

As O'Connell fought he remembered every blow of the first fight when,
weak and unskilful, he was an easy prey for his victor.

"That's for the one ye gave me two years ago, Martin Quinlan," cried
O'Connell, as he closed that youth's right eye, and stepped nimbly back
from a furious counter.

"And it's a bloody nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with
deadly precision on Quinlan's olfact