'Thanks, friends!' he says, with a weary smile. 'It was idle in me to bid you take the oath once more; for having once sworn I know you will be faithful. Yet will it be as music to mine ears, as I roam in a foreign land, to recall the solemn cadence of your beloved voices. Nay--weep not! Be of good cheer. See these flowers around, and take courage with the omen. Mark how they droop and sink--grieving together for the dying-day. A few hours of sleep and they will wake refreshed again, and lift up their loving heads unto the sun, with dew-tears of gladness glistening upon their eyelids.' 'Oh, Theobald, what will become of us when you are gone?' cries out Robert Emmett, a boy of seventeen. 'You carry hope with you in the folds of your mantle. Once gone, we shall be left in darkness, groping.' Tone shuddered, and fought with himself against presentiment. 'I have watched over the cradle of Liberty,' he whispered, dreamily. 'God forbid that I should ever see its hearse.' Then passing his palm across his eyes as if to shut out a nightmare, he said, laying a hand on the broad shoulder of a young man beside him, 'Courage, boy Robert! True, I go from you. But here is the Elisha who shall take up the mantle which I leave a legacy with Hope wrapped in it. Look up to your brother Thomas, Robert--the wise and prudent, the sage man in counsel. Follow him as you have followed me; faithfully, truly, till I return. For I shall return, if God so wills it, I promise you. This night I sail for America, but am under no promise to stay there. I shall make my way to France, and lay our grievances at the feet of the Directory. There is nothing for it but to amputate the right hand of England. Oh, how I hate the name of the thrice accursed! France is the surgeon who shall do the job. I would fain give a toast before I go, if Doreen will lend the flask she hugs so carefully.' 'It is for your journey, Theobald,' was Doreen's soft answer. 'Never mind me,' he returned, with assumed gaiety. 'Let us pour a last libation to our common mother.' A man who had been spreading his great length upon the grass, now jumped up with an oath. A giant he was; evidently, from his dress, belonging to the half-mounted class. His big kindly flat face was shaded by a Beresford bobwig, under which twinkled a pair of roguish eyes set in a sallow skin. His buckskin breeches were worn and greasy; his half-jack-boots were adorned with huge silver spurs; while a faded scarlet vest (fur-trimmed, though it was summer) closed over his broad chest; and a square-cut snuff-coloured coat, with all the cloth in it, hung from his brawny shoulders.