Peg O' My Heart Part 12

He lay back and closed his eyes.

Angela sat perfectly still.

In a few minutes he opened them again. There was a new light in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

"Ye heard me speak, did ye?"

"Yes."

"Where were ye?"

"Above you, behind a bank of trees."

A playful smile played around his lips as he said: "It was a GOOD speech, wasn't it?"

"I thought it wonderful," Angela answered.

"And what were yer feelings listenin' to a man urgin' the people against yer own country?"

"I felt I wanted to stand beside you and echo everything you said."

"DID you?" and his eyes blazed and his voice rose.

"You spoke as some prophet, speaking in a wilderness of sorrow, trying to bring them comfort."

He smiled whimsically, as he said, in a weary voice:

"I tried to bring them comfort and I got them broken heads and buck-shot."

"It's only through suffering every GREAT cause triumphs," said Angela.

"Then the Irish should triumph some day. They've suffered enough, G.o.d knows."

"They will," said Angela eagerly. "Oh, how I wish I'd been born a man to throw in my lot with the weak! to bring comfort to sorrow, freedom to the oppressed: joy to wretchedness. That is your mission. How I envy you. I glory in what the future has in store for you, Live for it! Live for it!"

"I will!" cried O'Connell. "Some day the yoke will be lifted from us.

G.o.d grant that mine will be the hand to help do it. G.o.d grant I am alive to see it done. That day'll be worth living for--to wring recognition from our enemies--to--to--to" he sank back weakly on the pillow, his voice fainting to a whisper.

Angela brought him some water and helped him up while he drank it. She smoothed back the s.h.i.+ning hair--red, shot through gold--from his forehead. He thanked her with a look. Suddenly he burst into tears. The strain of the day had snapped his self-control at last. The floodgates were opened. He sobbed and sobbed like some tired, hurt child. Angela tried to comfort him. In a moment she was crying, too. He took her hand and kissed it repeatedly, the tears falling on it as he did so.

"G.o.d bless ye! G.o.d bless ye!" he cried.

In that moment of self-revelation their hearts went out to each other.

Neither had known happiness nor love, nor faith in mankind.

In that one enlightening moment of emotion their hearts were laid bare to each other. The great comedy of life between man and woman had begun.

From that moment their lives were linked together.

CHAPTER VIII

ANGELA IN SORE DISTRESS

Three days afterwards O'Connell was able to dress and move about his room. He was weak from loss of blood and the confinement that an active man resents. But his brain was clear and vivid. They had been three wonderful days.

Angela had made them the most amazing in his life. The memory of those hours spent with her he would carry to his grave.

She read to him and talked to him and lectured him and comforted him.

There were times when he thanked the Power that shapes our ends for having given him this one supreme experience. The cadences of her voice would haunt him through the years to come.

And in a little while he must leave it all. He must stand his trial under the "Crimes Act" for speaking at a "Proclaimed" meeting.

Well, whatever his torture he knew he would come out better equipped for the struggle. He had learned something of himself he had so far never dreamed of in his bitter struggle with the handicap of his life.

He had something to live for now besides the call of his country--the call of the HEART--the cry of beauty and truth and reverence.

Angela inspired him with all these. In the three days she ministered to him she had opened up a vista he had hitherto never known. And now he had to leave it and face his accusers, and be hectored and jeered at in the mockery they called "trials." From the Court-House he would go to the prison and from thence he would be sent back into the world with the brand of the prison-cell upon him. As the thought of all this pa.s.sed through his mind, he never wavered. He would face it as he had faced trouble all his life, with body knit for the struggle, and his heart strong for the battle.

And back of it all the yearning that at the end she would be waiting and watching for his return to the conflict for the great "Cause" to which he had dedicated his life.

On the morning of the third day Mr. Roche, the resident magistrate, was sent for by Nathaniel Kingsnorth. Mr. Roche found him firm and determined, his back to the fireplace, in which a bright fire was burning, although the month was July.

"Even the climate of Ireland rebels against the usual laws of nature!"

thought Kingsnorth, as he s.h.i.+vered and glanced at the steady, drenching downpour that had lasted, practically, ever since he had set foot in the wretched country.

The magistrate came forward and greeted him respectfully.

"Good morning, Mr. Roche," said Nathaniel, motioning him to sit down by the fire.

"I've sent for you to remove this man O'Connell," added Nathaniel, after a pause.

"Certainly--if he is well enough to be moved."

"The doctor, I understand, says that he is."

"Very well. I'll drive him down to the Court-House. The Court is sitting now," said Roche, rising.

Kingsnorth stopped him with a gesture.

"I want you to understand it was against my express wishes that he was ever brought into this house."

"Miss Kingsnorth told me, when I had arrested him, that you would shelter him and go bail for him, if necessary," said Roche, in some surprise.

"My sister does things under impulse that she often regrets afterwards.

This is one. I hope there is no, harm done?"