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Peg O' My Heart

Peg O' My Heart

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Chapter 1 THE IRISH AGITATOR MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE

Word Count: 2682    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

ys more and knows less th

land, yer

ing else, Mr

cism or just t

h, Mr. O'

dge ye must be of igno

might th

much with

nd listenin' to it n

iracle has hap

irac

at the same time is indade

on his blackthorn stick, and sha

voke the M

ied the other meekly, "bei

like yerself. But ye won't while I've a tong

with a mischievous twink

o nade somethin' to ba

hey asked questions instead of answering them. They began to throw themselves, against Father Cahill's express wishes and commands, into the fight for Home Rule under the masterly statesmanship of Charles Stuart Parnell. Already more than one prominent speaker had come into the little village and sown the seeds of temporal and spiritual unrest. Father Cahill opposed these men to the utmost of his power. He saw, as so many far-sighted priests did, the leg

l, one of the most notorious of all the younger a

dship and struggle, and worked his way to Dublin. It was many years before Father Cahill heard of him again. He had developed meanwhile into one of the most daring of all the fervid speakers in the sacred Cause of Liberty. Many were the stories told of his narrow escapes

y. He had suddenly appeared in the town he was born in a

ahill was determined to stop

ed, and with but little of the fire of life in him. Now as he stood before Father Cahill and looked him straight through with his piercing eye, sho

. Ye can face the constabulary yerself and the few of the rabble that'll follow ye. But

ar-away glint came into his eye, and t

n', Father Cahill; havin' NO liberty and t

fifteen years of withered youth in that

the priest. "It's contented they've been

" retorted O'Connell, "to judge by their po

e if the Divine Word is

of the whole world. The Divine Word should bring Light. It

to spreadin' the Lig

n O'Connell's lip

it must be a DARK-LANTERN

n of Michael O'

on his tongue, and with a flash of power that turned to w

and sickness and misery! Michael O'Connell, who was thrown out from a bed of fever, by order of his landlord, to die in sight of where he was born. It's his son is talkin', Father Cahill, and it's his son WILL talk while th

us intensity of his attack. Everything that had b

remendous appeal the man had to the suffering people. Just for a mom

he Holy Church," said the priest gently, as

nell. "Praise be to heaven for that!" He la

r them to eat,' sez the British government. 'Give them prayers,' say the priests. And so the

ce thrilled with in

isten to ye talk that

he first to PREACH truth are the last to

th and love for Him in their hearts. To tache the little children and bring them up in the way of God. I've baptised them when their eyes first looked out on this wurrld of sorrows. I've given them in marriage, closed their eyes in death, and

ck. His only happiness had been in ministering to their needs. And now to have one to whom he had taught his first prayer, heard his fi

elf-denial he had passed in this little place. But in his brain O'Connell pitied the old man for his wa

ed on to the government of cruelty and oppression there was small hope of freeing the people who had suffered so long in silence. O'Connell was in the front band of men striving to arouse the sleeping nation to a sense of its own power. And nothing was going to stop the onward movement. It pained him to differ f

declamatory force of the orator failed, "don't ye think it would be wiser to attend a little more

" hotly answer

e EARTH more like a heaven and he'll be more apt to listen to stories of the other one. Tache them to kape their hovels clean and their hearts and lives will have a betther chance of health. Above all b

ther wurrd," cried Fath

trode in fr

hat there was less sin in the villages of Ireland than in any other c

re ye s

. And when they're born you baptise them, and you have more souls entered on the great register for the Holy Church. Bodies livin' in perpetual torment, with a heaven wavin' at them all through their lives as a reward for their suffering here. I tell ye ye're wrong! Ye're wrong! Ye're wrong! The misery of such marriages will reach through all the generations to come. I'd rather see vice

. He had struck at the real keynote of Ireland's misery to-day. The spirit of oppression followed them into the privacy of their lives. Even their wives were chosen for them by their teachers.

ds were blasphemy. He loo

done?"

ay will be said on St. Ker

eetin' there to-day

n to it," repli

dden my peo

have to drag them

trate. The police will be there

umber them

be riotin'

ed O'Connell. "It's the great dead who lead the world by their

ask you in the name of the Church

e of the suffering peo

you! Don'

voice of my dead fa

eat you

is louder than yo

n's tears no po

ming down his cheeks. He made no effort to staun

in sight of his home. Mine was the only hand that wi

' do? Ye say the people are ignorant and wretched. W

llin' to be one. I'd be a thraitor if I passed my life without

yer life away, F

he first and I w

move ye?" cr

ly," replied

hat is

'Connell strod

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