"Come and listen to it," replied the agitator.
"I've forbidden my people to go."
"They'll come if I have to drag them from their homes."
"I've warned the resident-magistrate. The police will be there if ye
thry to hold a meetin'."
"We'll outnumber them ten to one."
"There'll be riotin' and death." "Better to die in a good cause than
to live in a bad one," cried O'Connell. "It's the great dead who
lead the world by their majesty. It's the bad livin' who keep it
back by their infamy."
"Don't do this, Frank O'Connell. I ask you in the name of the Church
in which ye were baptised--by me."
"I'll do it in the name of the suffering people I was born among."
"I command you! Don't do this!"
"I can hear only the voice of my dead father saying: 'Go on!'"
"I entreat you--don't!"
"My father's voice is louder than yours, Father Cahill."
"Have an old man's tears no power to move ye?"
O'Connell looked at the priest. Tears were streaming down his
cheeks. He made no effort to staunch them. O'Connell hesitated, then
he said firmly
"My father wept in the ditch when he was dyin', dying in sight of
his home. Mine was the only hand that wiped away his tears. I can
see only HIS to-day, Father."
"I'll make my last appeal.
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