The brutality of the Coercion Act had been moderated and already the
agricultural and dairy produce of the country had developed so
remarkably that the terrible misery of by-gone days, when the
potato-crop would fail, had been practically eliminated, or at least
in many districts mitigated.

O'Connell accepted the proposition.

Through the country he went speaking in every village he passed
through, and sometimes giving several lectures in the big cities.
His mode of travelling was in a cart. He would speak from the back
of it, Peg sitting at his feet, now watching him, again looking
eagerly and intently at the strange faces before her.

They were marvellous days, travelling, sometimes, under a golden sun
through the glistening fields: or pushing on at night under a great
green-and-white moon. Peg would sit beside her father as he drove
and he would tell her little folk-stories, or sing wild snatches of
songs of the days of the Rebellion; or quote lines ringing with the
great Irish confidence in the triumph of Justice:

"Lo the path we tread
By our martyred dead
Has been trodden 'mid bane and blessing,
But unconquered still
Is the steadfast will
And the faith they died confessing."

Or at night he would croon from Moore: