‘The mere rumour may materially assist his son’s election,’ said the priest slyly. ‘Only with the party who have no votes, Father Luke,’ rejoined Miller. ‘That precarious popularity of the mob is about the most dangerous enemy a man can have in Ireland.’ ‘You are right, sir,’ said the priest blandly. ‘The real favour of this people is only bestowed on him who has gained the confidence of the clergy.’ ‘If that be true,’ cried Gorman, ‘upon my oath I think you are worse off here than in Austria. There, at least, we are beginning to think without the permission of the Church.’ ‘Let us have none of your atheism here, young man,’ broke in his aunt angrily. ‘Such sentiments have never been heard in this room before.’ ‘If I apprehend Lieutenant Gorman aright,’ interposed Father Luke, ‘he only refers to the late movement of the Austrian Empire with reference to the Concordat, on which, amongst religious men, there are two opinions.’ ‘No, no, you mistake me altogether,’ rejoined Gorman. ‘What I mean was, that a man can read, and talk, and think in Austria without the leave of the priest; that he can marry, and if he like, he can die without his assistance.’ ‘Gorman, you are a beast,’ said the old lady, ‘and if you lived here, you would be a Fenian.’ ‘You’re wrong too, aunt,’ replied he. ‘I’d crush those fellows to-morrow if I was in power here.’ ‘Mayhap the game is not so easy as you deem it,’ interposed Miller. ‘Certainly it is not so easy when played as you do it here. You deal with your law-breakers only by the rule of legality: that is to say, you respect all the regulations of the game towards the men who play false. You have your cumbrous details, and your lawyers, and judges, and juries, and you cannot even proclaim a county in a state of siege without a bill in your blessed Parliament, and a basketful of balderdash about the liberty of the subject. Is it any wonder rebellion is a regular trade with you, and that men who don’t like work, or business habits, take to it as a livelihood?’ ‘But have you never heard Curran’s saying, young gentleman? “You cannot bring an indictment against a nation,’” said Miller. ‘I’d trouble myself little with indictments,’ replied Gorman. ‘I’d break down the confederacy by spies; I’d seize the fellows I knew to be guilty, and hang them.’ ‘Without evidence, without trial?’ ‘Very little of a trial, when I had once satisfied myself of the guilt.’ ‘Are you so certain that no innocent men might be brought to the scaffold?’ asked the priest mildly. ‘No, I am not. I take it, as the world goes, very few of us go through life without some injustice or another. I’d do my best not to hang the fellows who didn’t deserve it, but I own I’d be much more concerned about the millions who wanted to live peaceably than the few hundred rapscallions that were bent on troubling them.’