was, fought on front and flank, with the thunders of the Church, and
the ribaldry of malicious tongues to scatter their venomed darts
abroad, Parnell was a doomed man. Not that he lacked indomitable
courage or loyal support. But his frail body was not equal to the
demands of the undaunted spirit upon it, and so he went to his grave
broken but not beaten--great even in that last desperate stand he had
made for his own position, as he was great in all that he had
undertaken, suffered and achieved for his country. It was a hushed and
heart-broken Ireland that heard of his death. It was as if a pall had
fallen over the land on that grey October morning in 1891 when the
news of his passing was flashed across from the England that he
scorned to the Ireland that he loved. It may be that those who had
reviled him and cast the wounding word against him had then their
moment of regret and the wish that what had been heatedly spoken might
be unsaid, but those who loved him and who were loyal to the end found
no consolation beyond this, that they had stood, with leal hearts and
true, beside the man who had found Ireland broken, maimed and
dispirited and who had lifted her to the proud position of conscious
strength and self-reliant nationhood.


FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This is not exact. What Dillon proposed was that Parnell,
McCarthy and Dillon himself should be the trustees, the majority to be
sufficient to sign cheques. When Parnell objected to a third being
added, Dillon made the observation which ruined everything: "Yes,
indeed, and the first time I was in trouble to leave me without a
pound to pay the men" (O'Brien's _An Olive Branch in Ireland_).]