The lawyer looked calmly up at the menacing giant and laughed. 'Put it down, big baby,' he said. 'You dare to think me half-hearted because I won't take a pike and try to knock down St. Patrick's. Does any man in Ireland love Erin more than I? Learn, fool, that men have different functions assigned to them. Do your best, if God wills it so. When the battle's lost ye'll want me to bind your gashes. I've listened to much rubbish this afternoon. Now you, in your turn, listen to the truth, which is bad enough--ochone! I _know_ that all your martial goings-out and comings-in are reported one by one; I _know_ that they are broidured and embellished before they cross the sea. I have reason to suspect--I admit I cannot prove it yet--that such cooked accounts are given of your doings as actually to alarm the British cabinet. You are playing into Pitt's hands. I have heard that they even talk of "martial-law" as possible. If they come to that, the Lord be merciful to our poor Erin!' Mr. Curran's head sank on his breast, and tears ran down his rugged cheeks; while the conspirators glanced one at the other with pallid faces. Martial law! rough and ready tribunals presided over by the tools of England! Sure their host's terrors must carry him away. And yet he might be right, judging from the past. It was quite possible that they were being deliberately driven to the shambles in cold blood--like victims marked out for slaughter by some savage despot. Cassidy laid down the decanter, and began to stammer apologies for his petulance. The noise of voices at high words brought Sara into the room, who, frightened at the sudden dread which seemed to have invaded the party, clung to her father, while she turned an inquiring glance to the undergraduate. 'What is it, father?' she murmured with dim fear, for the adored face of Robert was distorted with passion, while his hands shook like leaves. 'A Union is it that they want?' the boy muttered 'twixt chattering teeth. 'I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence--to the last drop of my blood--and when death comes, I will call down the eternal curse of Heaven upon the destroyers of our freedom!' Sara felt dizzy, and would have fallen but for her father's encircling arm. Dark shadows of foreboding were flitting across her mind. Was he whom she elected to worship to be drawn into the whirlpool after all? Was Robert to share Theobald's fate--to be banished from friends and motherland? In her gentle loving heart she registered a vow that if that fate should come on him, the sorrow of his exile should be soothed by no hand but hers.