legal and social life of the Dominion to give the benefit of his
splendid talents to the service of Ireland. It was a service rendered
all in vain, though, to the end of his life, with a noble fidelity, he
devoted himself to his chosen cause, thus completing a sacrifice which
deserved a worthier reward.

At this period the Home Rule Cause seemed to be buried in the same
grave with Parnell. It may be remarked that there were countless
bodies of the Irish peasantry who still believed that Parnell had not
died, that the sad pageant of his funeral and burial was a prearranged
show to deceive his enemies, and that the time would soon come when
the mighty leader would emerge from his seclusion to captain the hosts
of Irish nationality in the final battle for independence. This idea
lately found expression in a powerful play by Mr Lennox Robinson,
entitled _The Lost Leader_.

But, alas! for the belief, the chieftain had only too surely passed
away, and when the General Election of 1895 was over it was a
battered, broken and bitterly divided Irish Party which returned to
Westminster--a Party which had lost all faith in itself and which was
a byword and a reproach alike for its helpless inefficiency and its
petty intestine quarrels.




CHAPTER VI

TOWARDS LIGHT AND LEADING