CHAPTER XL.
THE BILL IN COMMITTEE.
[Sidenote: The first fence.] Yes, there was something intoxicating to an Irish Nationalist--after all his weary years of waiting--in seeing the House of Commons engaged in Committee on the Bill which is to restore the freedom of Ireland.

And as I looked across the House on May 8th, with every seat occupied--with galleries crowded--with that air of tense excitement which betokens the solemn and portentous occasion--there rose to my brain something of the exaltation of passion's first hour.

The Unionists might rage--the Tories might obstruct--faction might bellow its throat hoarse--Orangemen swear that they would die rather than see Home Rule--for all that, nobody could get over this great fact, of which I saw the palpable evidence at that solemn and historic hour.
But if for a few brief moments one was inclined to abandon oneself to the intoxication of this great hour, there was plenty to bring one very quickly back to solid earth, and to the sense of the long, dreary, and thorny road which Home Rule has yet to traverse.
Time after time Mr.Chamberlain gets up to continue the obstructive debate.

Gravelled for matter, he clutches any topic as a means of lengthening the thin chain of his discourse.

Mr.Redmond--the Parnellite leader--happens to be for a few moments out of the House.