Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/635

I5&3-] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 61$ Geraldine cliief was at that moment in a cabin at Glan- quichtie, five miles up the river. The captain, with half a dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, stole in the darkness along the path which followed the stream, and this time no friendly scout gave warning of the enemy's approach. The house was surrounded, the door dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed, as his brother had killed Henry Davell four years before in Tralee. So ended a rebellion which a mere handful of English had sufficed to suppress, though three-quarters of Ire- land had been heart and soul concerned in it, and though the Irish themselves man for man were no less hardy and brave than their conquerors. The victory was terribly purchased. The entire province of Munster was utterly depopulated. Hecatombs of helpless crea- tures, the aged, and the sick, and the blind, the young mother and the babe at the breast, had fallen under the English sword, and though the authentic details of the struggle have been forgotten, the memory of a vague horror remains imprinted in the national traditions. Had no Saxon set foot on Irish shores, the tale of slaughter would have been as large or larger. To plunder' and to kill, to massacre families of enemies, and to return to their dens with the spoil, while bards and harpers celebrated their triumphs, was the one occupation held in honour by the Celtic chiefs, and the Irish as a nation only began to exist when English rule at last made life and property secure. But England still pays the penalty in the hearts of an alienated race