Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/274

 254 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. fell. $t). 1570. Sir Henry Sidney was premature in con- January. c i ud i ng tlia t the troubles of the country were at an end. The Gilbert method of treatment has this disadvantage, that it must be carried out to the last extremity, or it ought not to be tried at all. The dead do not come back ; and if the mothers and the babies are slaughtered with the men, the race gives no further trouble ; but the work must be done thorough- ly ; partial and fitful cruelty lays up only a long debt of deserved and ever- deepening hate. In justice to the English soldiers however it must be said that it was no fault of theirs if any Irish child of that generation was allowed to live to manhood. One more group of examples shall be mentioned to show what their conduct was. The facts themselves hap- pened two years after Gilbert's doings at Kilmalloch. But it is desirable to bring the subject before the reader with all its distinctive, features ; the language in which the story about to be related is told, implies even more than it says, and by its commonplace, business-like, and altogether natural tone, indicates rather a deliberate and habitual principle of action than an exceptional outburst of violence. To the west of the Wicklow mountains, on the fron- tier of the Pale, a few soldiers were stationed to protect the farmers of Dublin and Kildare. The officer in com- mand, or sergeant-major as he was then called, was a certain Mr Agard, and he had four other officers under him, Captain liungerford, Captain George, Lieutenant Parker, and Captain Wingfield. Agard's services were