Nor, when the '45 convulsed Scotland, and
shook England to its centre, did one man at Morristown raise his hand
or lose his life. For so much at least that windswept corner of Kerry,
beaten year in and year out by the Atlantic rollers, had to thank
Colonel Sullivan.

Nor for that only. In many unnamed ways his knowledge of the world
blessed those about him. The small improvements, the little advances in
civilisation which the English intruders were introducing into those
parts, he adopted: a more orderly house, an increased neatness, a few
more acres brought under the plough or the spade, whole roofs and few
beggars--these things were to be seen at Morristown, and in few other
places thereabouts. And, above all, his neighbours owned the influence
of one who, with a reputation gained at the sword's point, stood
resolutely, unflinchingly, abroad as at home, at fairs and cockfights
as on his own hearth, for peace. More than a century was to elapse
before private war ceased to be the amusement of the Irish gentry. But
in that part of Kerry, and during a score of years, the name and weight
of Colonel Sullivan of Morristown availed to quiet many a brawl and
avert many a meeting.

To follow the mean and the poor of spirit beyond the point where their
fortunes cease to be entwined with those of better men is a profitless
task. James McMurrough, tried and found wanting, where all favoured
him, was not likely to rise above his nature where the odds were equal,
and all men his rivals. What he did in Galway City, that bizarre,
half-foreign town of the west, how long he tarried there, and whither
he went afterwards, in the vain search for a place where a man could
swagger without courage and ruffle it without consequences, it matters
not to inquire. A time came when his kin knew not whether he lived or
was dead.

Luke Asgill, who could rise as much above The McMurrough as he had it
in him to fall below him, who was as wicked as James was weak, was
redeemed, one may believe, by the good that lurked in him. He lay many
weeks on a sick-bed, and returned to everyday life another man. For,
whereas he had succumbed, a passionate lover of Flavia, he rose wholly
cured of that passion. It had ebbed from him with his blood, or waned
with his fever. And whereas he had before sought both gain and power,
restrained by as few scruples as the worst men of a bad age, he rose a
pursuer of both, but within bounds; so that, though he was still har