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"Go on," said Kenny with a dangerous flash of interest in his eyes. "You've an undeniable facility, John, with what you call the truth." "It's an unfortunate characteristic of highly temperamentalized individuals " "Painters, Irishmen and O'Neills," put in Kenny with sulky impudence. "That they frequently skirt the rocks for themselves with amazing skill.
Only, he said that it would be hard to be drowned with the luck of the O'Neills round his neck, and therefore did not believe that we should be so. But he knew nothing of the island, nor whether it was inhabited. He had seen it from the hills yonder once or twice, when he was hunting, and the chase had led him to the shore.
The O'Briens, the O'Neills, the O'Mullaghlins, the O'Connors, and the M'Morroghs, "the five bloods," as they are called, were certainly Celts, but whether in virtue of their being, or claiming to be, the royal races respectively of Minister, of Ulster, of Meath, of Connaught, and of Leinster, or from whatever other reason, these races were "within the king's law," and were never "mere Irish" from the first planting of the Anglo-Norman power in Ireland.
The following Sunday evening she was invited to the O'Neills' for supper, and the Reverend MacGill was invited too. The knowledge of this interesting meeting impending made it possible for her to view Genevieve and Arthur, again out on a Sunday afternoon stroll, with a certain equanimity.
The volunteer method having failed thus ignominiously, Essex was made officially Governor of Ulster, and supplied with troops; for the O'Neills were now threatening, and the Deputy, Fitzwilliam, was inactive. Tirlogh O'Neill and his kinsman Sir Brian were very promptly brought to submission. In the south Desmond, between threats and promises, was persuaded to resume an air of loyalty.
By his matrimonial alliances with the Irish chieftains, the O'Neills, the MacCarthys, O'Carroll of Ely, and O'Connor of Offaly, his bargains with many of the other Irish and Anglo-Irish nobles, and by his well-known prowess in the field, he had succeeded in making himself much more powerful in Ireland than the English sovereign.
Then the four of us went up the beach to the shelter of the low, grassy sand hills above it, and there Dalfin turned and faced us with a courtly bow, saying gravely: "Welcome to Ireland, Queen Gerda, and you two good comrades. There would have been a better welcome had we come in less hurry, but no more hearty one. The luck of the O'Neills has stood us in good stead."
"My son, it is not good for a man to show idle curiosity but it is no foolish question if I ask who you are that you wear the torque of the O'Neills which was lost." "I am Dalfin of Maghera, father. The torque has come back to me, for Dubhtach is avenged." At that the hermit gave somewhat like a smothered shout, and his stately way fell from him altogether.
The lands settled by the Normans around Dublin, which were called the English pale, were alone under English laws; besides five septs the O'Neills, the O'Connors, the O'Briens, the O'Lachlans, and the MacMoroghs all the rest were under the Brehon, or Irish law; and an injury, or even murder done by an Englishman on one of the Irish, was to be atoned for by a fine according to this code.
Whereon he laughed, and said that the luck of the O'Neills would be all that he needed, while Bertric went without a word and cut the lashing of the ship's oars, and set two handy on the after deck. Now we could see the beach and the white ranks of breakers which lay between us and it. Bertric looked long as we neared the first line of them, and counted them, and his face brightened.
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