light, jab-jabbing the poor fellow in his cell. Nay, it appeared to be in
my own bedroom, searching for my face and challenging me, "Are you there?
Ha, ha, are you there?" What an eerie torture, to a slumbering soul, in
that recurrent flame from the prison darkness! The thing stings and
shocks me.'

It gnawed. His heart was full, and perhaps also his mind with the idea,
'Is it ours to impale the soul as well as the body of a fellow-creature?
Surely that is reserved for a higher tribunal!'

The up-come of Ireland would provoke a story affecting Sir George Grey in
a family sense. An ancestor, Ram by name, of his step-father had figured
in a somewhat sudden meeting with Dean Swift. This was Sir George's
telling of it:

Dean Swift, in a modest phaeton, happened to be jogging past Gorey, the
residence of Ram. At that moment, out of the gate drove the more imposing
carriage of the latter, and there was a collision. The Dean and his
phaeton were thrown into the ditch, but neither, by good luck, suffered
hurt. Instead of uttering words, which even the cloth might not have
suppressed in some, the witty Dean shot these lines at Ram's apologetic
confusion:

Here's Ireland's pride and England's glory
Upset by the great Ram of Gorey.

The Ireland, to which Sir George's military duties introduced him, might
have driven laughter from all but Irishmen. Turmoil and discontent
gripped the land; naked want was among the people.