self-preserving instinct which forbids us to persist in knocking
our heads hard against our stone walls. But it was different where
the beholder was so situated that he could imagine himself riding
or striding after the rapturous march-music to fields of peril
and valour and glory, without diminishing the vividness of the
picture by simultaneously supposing himself some quite other person.
The gleam in young Felix M'Guinness's eyes, as he watched the red
files dwindle and twinkle out of sight, was to the brightening up
beneath his grandfather's shaggy brows as the forked flash is to
the shimmering sheet-lightnings, that are but a harmless reflection
from far-off storms. And there, indeed, pleasure paid a ruinous
duty. If those who were liable to it did not imitate Mick Doherty's
prudence and hold aloof, the reason may have been that they had
not fortitude enough to turn away from excitement offered on any
terms, or that their position was less desperately tantalising than
his; and the latter explanation is the more probable one, since few
lads in and about Kilmacrone can have had their martial aspirations
baulked by an impediment so flimsy and yet so effectual.

There was nothing in the world to hinder Mick from enlisting
except just the unreasonableness of his mother, and that was an
unreasonableness so unreasonable as to verge upon hat her neighbours
would hare called "quare ould conthrariness." For, though a widow
woman, and therefore entitled to occupy a pathetic position, its
privileges were defined by the opinion that "she was not so badly
off intirely as she might ha' been." Mick's departure need not
have left her desolate, since she had another son and daughter at
home, besides Essie married in the village, and Brian settled down
at Murghadeen, here he was doing well, and times and again asking
her to come and live with him. Then Mick would have been able to