Father Cahill smiled happily. He was much older, but though the
figure was a little bent and the hair thinner, and the remainder of
it snow-white, the same sturdy spirit was in the old man.

"They're like boy and girl together, that's what they are," said
Flaherty with a tone of regret in his voice. "He seems as much of a
child as she is when he's with her," he added.

"Every good man has somethin' of the child left in him, me son.
O'Connell was goin' in the way of darkness until a woman's hand
guided him and gave him that little baby to hold on to his heart
strings."

"Sure Peg's the light o' his life, that's what she is," grumbled
Flaherty. "It's small chance we ever have of broken heads an'
soldiers firin' on us, an' all, through O'Connell, since that
child's laid hands on him." Flaherty sighed. "Them was grand days
and all," he said.

"They were wicked days, Flaherty," said the priest severely; "and
it's surprised I am that a God-fearin' man like yerself should wish
them back."

"There are times when I do, Father, the Lord forgive me. A fight
lets the bad blood out of ye. Sure it was a pike or a gun O'Connell
'ud shouldher in the ould days, and no one to say him nay, and we
all following him like the Colonel of a regiment--an' proud to do
it, too. But now it's only the soft words we get from him."