Peg O My Heart | Page 9

he reached the outskirts. He
paused and looked around. There was the spot on which the little cabin
he was born in and in which his mother died, had stood. It had long
since been pulled down for improvements. Not a sign to mark the tomb
of his youth. It was here they placed his father that bleak November
day--here by the ditch. It was here his father gave up the struggle. The

feeble pulse ebbed. The flame died out.
The years stripped back. It seemed as yesterday. And here HE stood
grown to manhood. He needed just that reminder to stir his blood and
nerve him for the ordeal of St. Kernan's Hill.
The old order was dying out in Ireland.
The days of spiritless bending to the yoke were over. It was a "Young
Ireland" he belonged to and meant to lead. A "Young Ireland" with an
inheritance of oppression and slavery to wipe out. A "Young Ireland"
that demanded to be heard: that meant to act: that would fight step by
step in the march to Westminster to compel recognition of their just
claims. And he was to be one of their leaders. He squared his shoulders
as he looked for the last time on the little spot of earth that once meant
"Home" to him.
He took in a deep breath and muttered through his clenched teeth:
"Let the march begin to-day. Forward!" and he turned toward St.
Kernan's Hill.

CHAPTER III
ST. KERNAN'S HILL
To the summit of the hill climbed up men, women and children. The
men grimy and toil-worn; a look of hopelessness in their eyes: the sob
of misery in their voices. Dragging themselves up after them came the
women--some pressing babies to their breasts, others leading little
children by the hand. The men had begged them to stay at home. There
might be bad work that day, but the women had answered:
"If WE go they won't hurt YOU!" and they pressed on after the leaders.
At three o'clock O'Connell ascended the hill and stood alone on the
great mount.

A cry of greeting went up.
He raised his hand in acknowledgment.
It was strange indeed for him to stand there looking down at the people
he had known since childhood. A thousand conflicting emotions swept
through him as he looked at the men and women whom, only a little
while ago, it seemed, he had known as children. THEN he bent to their
will. The son of a peasant, he was amongst the poorest of the poor.
Now he came amongst them to try and lift them from the depths he had
risen from himself.
"It is Frankie O'Connell himself," cried a voice.
"Him we knew as a baby," said another.
"Fightin' O'Connell! Hooray for him!" shouted a third.
"Mary's own child standin' up there tall and straight to get us freedom
and comfort," crooned an old white-haired woman.
"And broken heads," said another old woman.
"And lyin' in the county-jail himself, mebbe, this night," said a third.
"The Lord be with him," cried a fourth.
"Amen to that," and they reverently crossed themselves.
Again O'Connell raised his hand, this time to command silence.
All the murmurs died away.
O'Connell began--his rich, melodious voice ringing far beyond the
farthest limits of the crowd--the music of his Irish brogue making
cadences of entreaty and again lashing the people into fury at the
memory of Ireland's wrongs.
"Irish men and women, we are met here to-day in the sight of God and

in defiance of the English government," (groans and hisses), "to clasp
hands, to unite our thoughts and to nerve our bodies to the supreme
effort of bringing hope to despair, freedom to slavery, prosperity to the
land and happiness to our homes." (Loud applause.) "Too long have our
forefathers lived under the yoke of the oppressor. Too long have our
old been buried in paupers' graves afther lives of misery no other
counthry in the wurrld can equal. Why should it be the lot of our
people--men and women born to a birthright of freedom? Why? Are ye
men of Ireland so craven that aliens can rule ye as they once ruled the
negro?" ("No, no!") "The African slave has been emancipated and his
emancipation was through the blood and tears of the people who
wronged him. Let OUR emancipation, then, be through the blood and
tears of our oppressors. In other nations it is the Irishman who rules. It
is only in his own counthry that he is ruled. And the debt of hathred and
misery and blasted lives and dead hopes is at our door today. Shall that
debt be unpaid?" ("No, no!") "Look around you. Look at the faces of
yer brothers and sisthers, worn and starved. Look at