on.

A flame leaped through the mob. The men muttered imprecations as a new
light flashed from their eyes. All their misery fell from them as a
shroud. They only thought of vengeance. They were men again. Their
hearts beat as their progenitors' hearts must have beaten at the Boyne.

The great upheaval that flashed star-like through Ireland from epoch to
epoch, burned like vitriol in their veins.

The women forgot their crying babies as they pressed forward, screaming
their paean of vengeance against their oppressors.

The crowd seemed to throb as some great engine of humanity. It seemed
to think with one brain, beat with one heart and call with one voice.

The cry grew into an angry roar.

Suddenly Father Cahill appeared amongst them. "Go back to your homes,"
he commanded, breathlessly.

"Stay where you are," shouted O'Connell.

"In the name of the Catholic Church, go!" said the priest.

"In the name of our down-trodden and suffering people, stay!" thundered
O'Connell.

"Don't listen to him. Listen to the voice of God!"

"God's help comes to those who help themselves," answered the agitator.

Father Cahill made his last and strongest appeal:

"My poor children, the constabulary are coming to break up the meetin'
and to arrest HIM."

"Let them come," cried O'Connell. "Show them that the spirit of Irish
manhood is not dead. Show them that we still have the power and the
courage to defy them. Tell them we'll meet when and where we think fit.
That we'll not silence our voices while there's breath in our bodies.
That we'll resist their tyranny while we've strength to shouldher a gun
or handle a pike. I appeal to you, O Irishmen, in the name of yer
broken homes; in the name of all that makes life glorious and death
divine! In the name of yer maimed and yer dead! Of yer brothers in
prison and in exile! By the listenin' earth and the watching sky I
appeal to ye to make yer stand to-day. I implore ye to join yer hearts
and yer lives with mine. Lift yer voices with me: stretch forth yer
hands with mine and by yer hopes of happiness here and peace hereafter
give an oath to heaven never to cease fightin' until freedom and light
come to this unhappy land!"

"Swear by all ye hold most dear: by the God who gave ye life: by the
memory of all ye hold most sacred: by the sorrow for yer women and
children who have died of hunger and heart-break: stretch forth yer
hands and swear to give yer lives so that the generations