Chapter XX: Part 20

He fell asleep again, and when he awoke, wakened by a heavier sound of shooting, it was almost six o'clock, and it was light. "That must be the soldiers," he thought, listening to the heavier rifle fire. He sat up in bed, and glanced about the room. "I _was_ an ass not to keep the shutters closed," he said aloud. "A stray bullet might have come in here ... I wonder whether the shutters would stop a bullet. After all, Bibles do!..."

He could just see the Republican flag floating from the flagstaff on the roof of the College of Surgeons. "They're still there, then!" And while he sat looking at it, he heard the sound of some one, wearing heavy boots, coming down the streets, making loud clattering echoes in the silence. "That's funny!" he said. "People are going about already. Perhaps it's over ... practically over!..."

He got out of bed, and as he did so, he heard the sharp rattle of rifles, and when the echo of it had ceased, he could not hear the noise of heavy treading any more. He stood still in the centre of the room, listening, and presently he heard a groan. He ran to the window and looked out. In the roadway, beneath him, an old man was lying on his back, groaning very faintly.

"They've killed him!" Henry murmured, glancing across the road at the hotel, from which the sound of firing had come. "They didn't challenge him ... they just shot him!"

Four times, the old man groaned, and then he died. He was lying in the attitude of a young child asleep. One leg was outstretched and the other was lightly raised. His right arm was lying straight out from his body, and the hand was turned up and hollowed. Very easy and natural was his attitude, lying there in the morning light. He looked like a labourer. "Going to his work," I suppose. "Thinking little of the rebellion. Just stumping along to his job ... and then!..."

There was a bundle lying by his side, a red handkerchief that seemed to be holding food ... and flowing towards it, trickling, so slowly did it move, from his body was a little red dribble....

Henry looked at him with a feeling of curiosity and pity. He had never seen a man killed before. He had never seen any dead person, not even Mrs. Clutters, until his father died. He had purposely avoided seeing Mrs. Clutters' body ... something in the thought of death repelled him and made him reluctant to look at a corpse, and so, when he had been asked if he would like to see Mrs. Clutters, he had made some evasive reply. It had been different when his father died. He had looked on him, not as a dead man, but as his father, still, even in death, his father, able to love and be loved. When he thought of death, he thought, not of Mr. Quinn, but of Mrs. Clutters, and always it seemed to him that the dead were frightful.... But this old man, a few moments ago intent on getting to his work in time, and now, cognisant, perhaps of all the mysteries of this world, had nothing frightful about him. There was beauty in the way he was lying in the roadway ... in that careless, graceful attitude ... as if he were gratefully resting after much labour....

He looked across the roadway, and now it was plain that the shapeless thing that had looked in the dim light like paper blown to a corner by the wind, was a dead man. He, too, was lying on his back, with his legs stretched straight out and slightly parted ... and while Henry looked at him, it seemed to him that the man was familiar to him. The brown dust-coat he was wearing!... And then he remembered. It was the red-haired, angry-looking, nervous man, who had chewed his moustache and gaped about him with bloodshot eyes....

He dressed, and went downstairs. The servants were up, and moving about the house, and one of them came to him.

"Will you have your breakfast now, sir!" she asked, and when he had answered that he would, she said, "There's no milk, sir. The milkman didn't come this morning!"

"It doesn't matter," he replied. "I'll have it without!"

He went to the front of the house, while his breakfast was being prepared, and looked out of the window. In the bushes on the other side of the road, he could see a youth, crawling on his stomach, and dragging a rifle after him. He raised himself on to his knees, and glanced up at the hotel, where there were some soldiers who had been brought in during the night, and when he had raised himself, the soldiers in the upper windows saw him, and fired on him. He got up and ran across the path towards the shelter of the trees, and as he ran, the bullets spattered about him. Then he staggered ... and Henry could not see him again.

3

An ambulance came and the bodies of the rebel and the labourer were put into it and taken away. The horse had been hauled to the pavement, and it lay in a great congealed mess of blood that had poured from a gash in its throat....

4

Later in the morning, the people began to move about, and after a while the streets were full of sightseers. It was possible now to learn something of what happened on the previous day and during the night. There had been fierce fighting in places. Soldiers were hurrying from the Curragh, from the North of Ireland, from England. The thing was serious ... the rebels had seized various strategic points, and were determined to fight hardly. During the night, realising that Stephen's Green was a dangerous place to be in, they had left it for the shelter of the College of Surgeons. Some of them were still there, sniping from safe points.

Henry went out and wandered about the streets. If there were soldiers in Dublin, there were very few, and the rebels still had possession of the city. He listened to the comments of the people who passed him, and as he listened, he realised that there was resentment everywhere against the Sinn Feiners. Behind one of the gates of the Park, a Sinn Feiner was lying face downwards in the hole he had made to be a trench, and the crowd climbed up the railings to gape at him. A youth thrust his way through the people and peered at the dead man, and then he turned to the crowd and said to them, "Let's get the poor chap out and bury him!" A girl looked at him resentfully, and hurried to a towsled woman standing on the kerb, and told her what the youth had said, and instantly the woman rushed at him and hit him about the head and back. "No, ye'll not get him out," she yelled at him. "Let him lie there an' rot like the poor soldiers!"

"They forgot, the Sinn Feiners, that these women's husbands and sons are at the Front!" Henry thought.

What madness was it that possessed them to rise? A little group of men and boys had set itself against a Power in the interests of people who did not desire their services. They could not hope to win the fight ... they had not the gratitude or the good wishes of the people for whom they were fighting. What were they going to do next? They had taken the Post Office and the College of Surgeons and other places because there was no one to prevent them from taking them ... but what were they going to do next? They could not, even the wildest of them, believe that this immunity from attack would last forever. Was there one among them with an idea of the future of Ireland, of the complexities of government?...

He wanted to get hold of a leader of them and ask him just what he proposed to do with Ireland?...

5

The rumours this day were wilder than they were on Monday. A man assured Henry that the Pope had arrived in Ireland on an aeroplane and that Dr. Walsh, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin had committed suicide the minute he heard of the outbreak of the Rebellion. Then the rumour changed, and it was said that the Pope had thrown himself from the roof of the Vatican. Lord Wimborne, the Viceroy, had been taken a prisoner, and was now interned in Liberty Hall.... The Orangemen, sick of England, were marching to the support of the Sinn Feiners, under the leadership of Mr. Joseph Devlin! Ireland was entirely surrounded by German submarines in order to prevent British transports from landing troops....

6

There was looting in Sackville Street. Henry had made his way towards the General Post Office, for he had heard that John Marsh was there, and while he stood about, hoping that he might see him, the looting began. Half-starved people swarmed up from the slums, like locusts, and seized all they could find. They destroyed things in sheer wantonness....

"Well, if a city is content to keep such slums as Dublin has, it must put up with the consequences!" Henry thought. And while he watched, he saw John Marsh going to a shop which was being looted. He hauled a hulking lad out of the broken window and flung him back into the crowd.

"Damn you," he shouted, "are you trying to disgrace your country?" He pointed his rifle at the crowd. "I'll shoot the first one of you that touches a thing!"

But it was impossible for them to control the looters, and while John guarded one shop, the crowd passed on to another.

"John!" said Henry, going up to him and touching his arm.

He started and turned round. His face was drawn and haggard and very pale.

"Henry!" he said, smiling. "I wondered who it was. I wish you'd gone away when I asked you to go. It wasn't because I wanted to get rid of you, Henry. I wanted you to be out of this ... so that you could go and get married in peace!"

"You can't win, John. You know you can't win!..."

"I know we can't win a military success! ..." He drew his hand across his eyes. "My God, I'm tired, Henry!" he said. "I'm worn out. I haven't slept since Saturday night...."

"John!"

"Yes, Henry, what is it?"

"Come away with me. You know you can't win ... you can't possibly win. Well go over to England together...."

"I'm fighting England, Henry, not visiting it!"

"You can hide there for a while ... until you can get away to France or America!"

"Go away and leave them now, Henry?"

"Yes. The longer you hold out, the worse it'll be for everybody. The people are against you ... I've heard things to-day that I never expected to hear in Dublin...."

"I know they're against us. We thought there would be more on our side, but that's all the more reason why we should fight. The people are getting too English in their ways, Henry ... they think too much of money. All those women in the Combe ... do you know why they're against us? ... because they can't get their separation allowances! We won't win a military success ... we all know that ... McDonagh and Pearse and Connolly and Mineely and all of us ... we know that ... but well win a spiritual success!"

"A spiritual success?"

"Yes. Well remind the people that Ireland is not yet a nation and that there are Irishmen who are still willing to die for their country. They've become very English, but they're not altogether English, Henry. They've still some of the old Irish spirit in them, and we may quicken that!"

"Nothing will ever convince you, I suppose, that the English aren't a robber race?..."

"Nothing. I daresay the mass of the people are decent enough, but I don't know and I don't care. All that matters to me is that my countrymen shall not become like them!..."

"You're ruining the work of thirty years, John. Blowing it up in a childish rage!..."

"You always thought I was a fool, Henry, but I don't think as you think. We won the Home Rule Act by fair and constitutional means ... and they've done us out of it. The Ulster men had only to yell at them, and they gave in. Do you think they'll keep their word after the War?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't. They'll use that damned Amending Act to cheat us as they've cheated us before. No, Henry, this is a poor hope, but it is a hope. You see, when we're beaten and those of us who are left alive, surrender, the English will be sure to do the right thing ... from our point of view! That's one of the things we count on. They'll put us down with great firmness. They'll make an example of us. They'll shoot us, Henry ... and when they do that, we'll win. We're not popular now ... oh, I don't need you to tell me that ... but we'll be popular then. The English will make us popular!"

"Isn't it a little mean, John, to hit them when they aren't looking?"

"Mean! They've hit us often enough, haven't they? They got us on the ground when we were sick and kicked us. Why shouldn't we take advantage of them?"

"The Germans!..."

"Why shouldn't we go to the Germans, or to any one who is willing to help us? Wolfe Tone went to the French!..."

"You won't come away with me?"

"No. I came here to die, Henry, not to be safe!"

They stood for a few moments in silence, looking at each other, and then John put out his hand to Henry who took it in his.

"I must get back now," John said. "Good-bye, Henry. I don't suppose I shall ever see you again. If we lose, you and your friends can come and try your way. I've always wanted to die for Ireland ever since I was able to understand anything about my country, and I shall get my wish soon. Good-bye, Henry!"

"Good-bye, John!"

"I hope you and your wife will be very happy!" He made a wry smile, as he went on. "I'm afraid you won't be able to get to England just as soon as you wished. If you'd gone when I asked you to go!..."

"I must get back now," he said again.

"Yes, John!"

"I'm glad I saw you. I wondered last night where you were...."

"And I wondered where you were."

"I was here. I've been here since Monday morning!"

He moved a few steps away, and then turned back.

"I've always liked you, Henry," he said, taking Henry's hand in his, "even when you made me angry. I wish you were on our side...."

"I see no sense in this sort of thing, John!"

"I know you don't. And perhaps there isn't any sense in it, but that may not matter. It's something, isn't it, to find men still willing to die for their ideals, even when they know they haven't a chance of success? The Post Office is full of young boys, who want nothing better than to die for Ireland. Well, that's something, isn't it, in these times when most of our people aren't willing to do anything but make money? Good-bye again!"

He went back to the Post Office, very erect and very proud and very resolute.

"By God," said Henry to himself, "I wish I had the heart to feel what he feels!"

7

He was sitting in the smoking-room of the Club, trying to write. He had written to Mary earlier in the evening, assuring her of his welfare, and Driffield, a Treasury official, who had come into the Club for a few moments, had offered to try and get it put into the special mail "pouch" which was sent from the Castle every day to London. "You mustn't say anything about the Rebellion," he said. "Just say you're all right. I can't promise that it'll go off, but I'll do my best!" The restless, excited feeling which had possessed him since the beginning of the rebellion still held him, and he was unable to continue at anything for long. All day he had wandered about the city, learning more of its backways than he had ever known before. He had penetrated more deeply into the slums than he had done when he had explored them with Gilbert Farlow, and it seemed to him that there was nothing to be done with them or with the people in them. They were decaying together, and the sooner they decayed, the better would it be for Ireland. All his counsels that day were counsels of despair. What was the good of working and building when this was the material out of which a nation must be made? What was the good of trying to make sure foundations when impatient, undisciplined people like John Marsh came and threw one's work to the ground? Was it not better that every Irishman of alert and vigorous mind should leave Ireland to rot, and choose another country where men had stability of mind and purpose?...

"But one must go on trying. If the house be pulled down, we must build it up again. One must go on trying...."

He would get his friends together, and they would plan to save what they could from the wreckage. "And then we'll begin again! Whatever happens, we must begin again!"

He was tired of playing Patience, tired of reading, and tired of sitting still. Perhaps, he thought, he could write. It would be odd afterwards to think that he had written a story during a rebellion. There was a great German ... who was it? ... Heine or Goethe?... Oh, why couldn't he remember names!... who had gone on writing steadily, though there was battle all about him.... He settled himself to write, though he had no plan in his mind, and as he wrote, he felt that the story, whatever it might grow to be, must be comic. "I feel like a clown making jokes in the circus while his wife is dying," he said to himself....

But his restlessness persisted, and after a while he put his manuscript aside, and took up a book which he had found in the bookcase: William James's _Pragmatism_: and began to read it. He remembered a discussion of Pragmatism by the Improved Tories, when Gilbert had described a pragmatist as an unfrocked Jesuit....

And while he was burrowing into the first chapter, thinking more of James's graceful style than of his matter, there was a great rattle, an incessant hammer-and-rasp noise in the street.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, jumping up and dropping the book, "what's that?"

Then it ceased, and there was a horrible quietness for a few moments, followed by the crack-crack of rifles, and then again the ra-ra-ra-rat-rat-rat-rattle-rattle....

"Machine guns!" he exclaimed. He knew instinctively that they were machine guns. "It ... it startles you, that noise!"

It went on, rattling, with little pauses now and then as if the gun were taking breath, for an hour or more: a paralysing sound, as if some giant were drawing a great stick swiftly along iron railings.

"I think I'd better put the light out," he said, going across the room to where the switch was, and as he went there was a cracking sound in the window, and a bullet flew across the room and lodged in the wall....

He switched the light off, and stood for a while in the dark. Then he opened the door and went out and stood on the landing. The servants were sitting huddled together on the staircase, nervous looking, indeed, but not frightened. It seemed to him to be remarkable that these girls should have kept their nerve as finely as they had. He smiled at them, as he closed the door behind him.

"They're making a lot of noise, aren't they?" he said.

"Isn't it awful, sir?" one of them answered.

He did not speak of the bullet which had come into the room. "It must have been a stray," he thought, "and there's no sense in upsetting them!"

"The soldiers are firing across the Green," he said aloud, "at the College of Surgeons. I think we're safe enough here, but I'd keep away from the windows!..."

"Yes, sir, we are!"

He went to his room, and sat at the window. At this height it was unlikely that any stray bullet would come near him. But he could not see any one. He could hear the wild-fowl crying in the Park ... distinctly, in the pause of the firing, he could hear a duck's quack-quack....

8

He went to bed, and tried to sleep, but could not. The firing from the machine-guns was intermittent now, but it still went on, and there was a continuous crackling of rifle-fire. Several times he got up and looked out ... he had a curious and persistent desire to see whatever was going on ... to be in it ... extraordinarily he was anxious not to miss anything. _He was neither afraid nor aware of the fact that he was not afraid._ He had simply the sensation that exciting things were happening, that he wanted to see as much of them as possible, that he was excited, that his blood was flowing rapidly through his veins, that there was something hitting the inside of his head, thumping it. Then when he was tired of straining to see into the darkness, he went back to bed again, and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. And sometimes he succeeded in sleeping for a while ... but always the noise of the machine-guns woke him....

He went to the window when the dawn broke, and looked across the Green to the College of Surgeons.

"It's still flying," he muttered as he watched the tri-colour flowing in the wind.

9

And now the Rebellion began to bore him. He could not work, and the walks he could take were circumscribed. He walked down to Trinity College and stood there, watching the soldiers on the roof of the College as they fired up Dame Street to where some Sinn Feiners were in occupation of a newspaper office, or along Westmoreland Street towards the Post Office. Wherever he went, there was the sound of bullets being fired ... but after a while, the sound ceased to affect him. There were snipers on many roofs ... and people had been killed by stray bullets ... but, although the sudden crack of a rifle overhead made him jump, the boredom grew and increased. He wanted to get on with his work....

The soldiers were pouring into Dublin now ... more and more of them.

"It'll be over soon," he said to himself.

It seemed to him then that the thing he would remember always was the dead horse which still lay on the pavement, becoming more and more offensive. Wherever he went, he met people who said to him, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Impossible to forget the corrupting beast, impossible to refrain from saying too, "Have you seen the dead horse?" Magnify that immensely, increase enormously the noise, and one had the War! Noise and stench and dead men and boredom!...

He wandered about the streets, seeing the same people, listening to the same statements, making the same remarks, wondering vaguely about food. He had seen high officials carrying loaves under their arms, and little jugs of milk....

"I wish to God it was over," he exclaimed. "I'm sick of this ... idleness!"

He spoke to a soldier in Merrion Square. "Do you like Dublin?" he said.

"Oh, fine!" he answered. "We've been treated champion. I 'aven't seen much of it yet, of course," he went on. "I've been 'ere ever since I landed!" He pointed to the pavement. "But I know this bit damn well. You know," he went on, "we thought we was in France when we arrived 'ere. Couldn't make it out when we saw all the signs in English. I says to a chap, as we was walking along, ''I,' I says, 'is this Boolone?' 'Naow,' 'e says, 'it's Ireland.'"

"And what did you say?" said Henry.

"I said 'Blimey!'" He moved to the kerb as the soldier further along the street called "Pass these men along" and when he had called the warning to the next soldier, he returned to Henry. "I say," he said, "wot are these Sinn Feiners? I mean to say 'oo are they? Are they Irish, too?"

Henry tried to explain who the Sinn Feiners were.

"But wot they want to do? Wot's the point of all this ... this 'umbuggin' about? We don't want to fight Irish people ... we want to fight Germans!..." He looked about for a moment, and then added, as if to clinch his statement, "I mean to say, I _know_ an Irish chap ... 'e's a friend of mine ... but I don't know no bloody Germans, an' wot's more I wouldn't know them neither ... dirty lot, I calls 'em!"

"You know," he went on, "this is about the 'ottest bit of work a chap could 'ave to do. These snipers, you know, they get on your nerves. I mean to say, 'ere you are, standin' 'ere, you might say, in the dark an' suddenly a bullet damn near 'its you ... or mebbe it does 'it you ... one of our chaps was killed in front of that 'ouse last night ... they been swillin' the blood away, see!..." Henry looked across the road to where a man was vigorously brooming the wet pavement. The soldier proceeded: "Well, you don't know where it's comin' from. 'E's up on one of these 'ere roofs, 'idin', an' you're down 'ere ... exposed. 'E kneels be'ind the parapet, an' 'as a shot at you, an' then 'e 'ops along the roof to another place, an' 'as another shot at you.... You don't 'alf begin to feel a bit jiggery when that's 'appening'...."

10

There was no malice in that soldier. He was puzzled, as puzzled as he would have been if his brother had suddenly seized a rifle and lain in wait for him. He looked upon the Irish as his comrades, not his enemies. "I mean to say, we're all the same, I mean to say!..." He had been in camp at Watford. "We was in a picture-palace, me an' my pal ... a whole lot of us was there ... and then a message was put on the screen: 'All the Dashes report at once!' I never thought nothink of it you know. Of course, I went all right. But I thought it was just one of these bloomin' spoof entrainments. They done that to us before ... two or three times ... just to see 'ow quick they could do it ... an' I was gettin' 'a bit fed-up with it. I'd said 'Good-bye' to a girl three times ... an' it was gettin' a bit monotonous. 'At it again,' I says to my pal, as we hooked back to the camp, but when we was in the train, an' it didn't stop an' go back again, I says to 'im, ''Illoa,' I says, 'we're off!' An' I 'adn't said 'Good-bye' to 'er this time. I thought to myself, 'I won't make a bloomin' ass of myself this time!' An' there we was ... off at last! 'This is a nice-old-'ow-d'ye-do!' I says. I didn't want the girl to think I was 'oppin' it like that ... sayin' nothink or anythink.... When we got to Kingstown an' 'eard we was in Ireland ... well, I mean to say, it _surprised_ me, I tell you.... Wot I can't make out is, wot's it all about? I mean to say, wot do these chaps want?"

"They want to be free!..."

"But ain't they free? I mean to say, ain't they as free as me?"

"They don't think so."

"Well, wot can I do that they can't do?"

Henry did not know. "You ast me anythink," the soldier went on, "they're a lot freer'n wot we are. I mean to say, we got conscription in our country, but they ain't got it 'ere...."

There was another interruption, to enable a motor-cyclist to pass along. When he returned to Henry, he said, "You know, when we got 'ere, an' all the people come out their 'ouses an' treated us like their long-lost brother, we couldn't make it out at all, an' when we 'eard about the Sinn Feiners, we didn't know wot to think. I mean to say, we didn't know 'oo they was. One of our chaps thought they was black ... you know ... niggers ... but I told 'im not to be a bloody fool. 'They don't 'ave niggers in Ireland,' I says, 'They're the same as us,' I says. 'I mean to say ... they're _white_!...'"

12

He wrote to Mary again, hoping that he would be able to get it into the Castle "pouch," and then he went to seek for Driffield who had promised to try and send his previous letter to England by the same means, and Driffield, very dubious, took the letter and said he would do what he could. She would be full of alarm ... he did not know whether she had received his messages, and, of course, he had received none from her. It was Thursday now, and still the rebellion was not suppressed. The city was full of dead and wounded men and women, and there was difficulty about burial. He thought of people in the first grief for their dead, unwilling that the hour of interment should come ... and then, when it came, and there could not be interment, suddenly finding their grief turned to consternation, and what had been the object of mourning love, become abhorrent, so that there was an unquenchable desire, a craving that it might be taken away....

It was dangerous to be out of doors after seven o'clock, and so, since no one came to the Club, and it was impossible to read or write, he spent most of the evening in brooding.... If the rebellion were not speedily suppressed, it might be impossible for him to get to Boveyhayne in time for his marriage ... but the rebellion could not last very long now, and at worst his marriage would only be postponed a little while. His mind moved from thought to thought, from Mary to Gilbert and Ninian, then to John Marsh and his father and to the boy in Stephen's Green who had been told to dig a trench, but thought that he was digging his grave ... and then, inconsequently, he saw in his imagination the ridiculous figure of a looter whom he had seen in Sackville Street, swaggering up and down, clothed in evening dress, and carrying a lady's sunshade. He had a panama hat on his head, and was wearing very thick-soled brown boots ... and loosely tied about his waist were a pair of corsets....

He laughed at the remembrance, and as he laughed, he looked towards the window, and saw a great red glare in the sky. From the centre of the city, flames were reaching up, vast and red and terrible....

"Good God!" he exclaimed, "the place is on fire!"

13

The fire continued during the whole of the next day. It was impossible to get near the burning buildings, and so, though people knew of the fire, they did not know of its extent. The south side of the city, separated from the north, where the fire was, by the river, knew nothing of what was happening across the Liffey. It seemed now, this horror following on the horror of the fighting, that Dublin must be destroyed, that nothing could save it from the flames.... Then, by what efforts no one can ever realise, the fire was controlled, and the reddened sky became dark, and frightened citizens went to their beds to such sleep as they could obtain.

14

The next day, the Rebellion collapsed. Henry had walked out of Dublin, for it was easier now to move about, and coming back in the afternoon, suddenly felt that the Rebellion was over. A man came cycling past at a great pace, and as he went by, he shouted to Henry, "They've surrendered!" and then was gone. There was a cooler feel in the air. It seemed to him that a great tension had been relaxed ... that, after a day of intolerable heat, there had come an evening of cool winds. As he approached the city, he could see groups of people standing about in the road, and he went to one of them, and asked if the news were true.

"Some of them's surrendered," he was told, "but there's a lot of snipers still about!"

They could hear desultory firing as they spoke.

"Ah, they'll give in quick enough now," a man said. "Sure, they can't hold out any longer!"

He hurried back to the city, and when he reached the Club, he saw that the tri-colour was no longer flying over the College of Surgeons.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

1

On Sunday morning, he met Lander, who had a military pass, and together they went to Sackville Street.... There were some who had said that this was the proudest street in the world. It had little pride now. Where there had been shops and hotels, there were now heaps of rubble and calcined bricks. The street was covered with grey ash that was still hot, and one had to walk warily lest one's feet should be burnt. The Post Office still stood, but the roof was gone and the inside of it was empty: a hulk, a disembowelled carcase....

"MacDonagh and Pearse and Connolly have been taken," said Lander. "They say Connolly's badly wounded...."

"Have you heard anything of ... of John Marsh?"

"Yes. He's dead. They say he was killed soon after the fighting began ... in the street!..."

Henry did not speak. He glanced about him at the ruin and wreck of a city which, though it had many times filled him with anger, yet filled him also with love; and for a while he could not see clearly.... Somewhere in this street, John Marsh had been killed. He had died, as he had desired, for Ireland, and a man can do no more than give his life for his country ... but what was the good of his dying? It was not enough that a man should die ... he must also die well and to purpose. Oh, indeed, John had believed that such a death as this would be a good death, to much purpose, but it is not the dead who can judge of that ... it is the living to whom now and forever is the task of judging what the dead have done.

"It's a pity," said Lander, "that the slums weren't destroyed, too!..."

"Perhaps," Henry answered, "we can build a finer city after this!"

"Perhaps," said Lander dubiously, for Lander knew the ways of men and had small faith in them.

2

They walked along the quays until they reached the Four Courts, and while they were standing there, a sickly woman, with a fretful, whining voice, plucked at Henry's arm.

"Is it over, mister?" she said, and when he nodded his head, she turned away, exclaiming fervently, "Oh, thanks be to the Holy Mother of God!"

"The Holy Mother of God had damned little to do with it," Henry said to Lander. "It was machine guns...."

3

Lander had obtained a permit for him, so that he could go to England, and in a little while, he would leave the Club and go to Westland Row to catch the train to Kingstown. There was a strange quietness in his heart. He had lived through a terror and had not been afraid. He had seen men immolating themselves gladly because they had believed that by so doing they would make their country a finer one to live in.

"It was the wrong way," he said to himself, "but in the end, nothing matters but that a man shall offer his life for his belief!"

Gilbert Farlow and Ninian Graham had not sought, as he had sought, to escape from destiny or to elude death. It was fore-ordained that old men would make wars and that young men would pay the price of them ... and it is of no use to try to save oneself. John Marsh, too, had had to pay for the incompetence and folly of old men who had wrangled and made bitterness ... And now, in his turn, he must pay the price, too. One must die ... in that there is no choice ... but one may die finely or one may die meanly ... and in that there is choice. Gilbert and Ninian and John, each in his way, had died finely. It might have been that he would have died meanly in Dublin, casually killed, for no purpose, for no cause.... Well, he had not been killed meanly. There was still time for him to live on the level of his friends. If youth has had committed to it the task of redeeming the world from the follies of the Old, Youth must not shrink from the labour, even though it may feel that the Old should redeem themselves....

He would go to Boveyhayne and marry Mary, and then he would take her to his home ... he must do that ... and when he had given his house to her, he would enlist as a soldier. "Life isn't worth while, if one is afraid to lose it ... a year or two more, what do they matter if a job be shirked?" "It isn't the time one lives that matters," he went on, "it's what one does in the time!"

4

As the mail-boat steamed out of the harbour, he climbed to the top deck and stood there gazing back at the shore. Exquisitely beautiful, Ireland looked in the evening glow. Up the river, in an opal mist, he could see Dublin, still sore from her latest wounds, and here close at hand, he saw the waves of mountains reaching far inland, each mountain shining in the light with a great mingling of colours. Beautiful, but more than beautiful! Other lands had beauty, too, more beauty, perhaps, than Ireland, but if he were leaving them as he was now leaving Ireland, he should not feel the grief that he now felt. This was his land ... his own country ... and the elements which had been mingled to make it, had been mingled also to make him, and he and it were one. It was strange that he should carry so heavy a heart to Boveyhayne, when he should have gone there gladly ... but it was not of Mary or his marriage that he was then thinking. It was of the farewell he was making to this old city which had known much grief and many troubles. When he returned to Ireland he would go straight to Ballymartin, by Belfast, from England. He would not see Dublin again. Firmly fixed in his mind, was that belief. He would serve ... and he would die. Foolish, he told himself, to think like that, but, even while he was rebuking himself, the thought thrust itself into his mind again....

5

The boat was almost out of sight of land. He had stood at the end of the deck, gazing back at Ireland until only the clouded head of a mountain could be seen, and then that too had been hidden. He turned and looked forward, and as he did so, he saw in the distance, low in the sea, the hulls of three ships of war. The mail-boat slowed down, as they approached, to let them pass. Naked and lithe, they looked, as they thrust their bodies through the sea, sending the water up from their bows in shining arches. He could see the men standing about the decks, looking steadily ahead ... and then the war-ships passed on to their work, and the mail-boat gathered up speed and plunged on towards Wales. Over there, he thought, somewhere in that haze, is England, and beyond England, France and Flanders and the fields of blood and pain....

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

* * * * *

The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the same author.

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

John Ferguson: A Play in Four Acts

_Cloth, 12mo., $1.00_

In Europe Mr. Ervine is perhaps better known for his contributions to the theatre than for his fiction, a number having been presented by the Irish Players at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. "John Ferguson" is as serious and important a piece of work as he has ever done. In the development of his plot Mr. Ervine not only evidences a skill in characterization, but he shows also a knowledge of technique and a marked ability in the creating of suspense.

"Never have the tragedies of everyday life been presented in dramatic form more truthfully or more poignantly."--_The Dial._

"The conspicuous merits of the play consist in its perfect naturalness, its progressive interest, the consistency, variety, and vitality of its personalities, the deep emotional interest, of situations arising out of contrasted character, and the easy action of its hidden machinery. This work puts Mr. Ervine in the first rank of living dramatists. It may be commended confidently to all discerning readers on its literary merits. In the theatre it would be irresistible, if a competent cast could be found for it"--_The Nation._

Four Irish Plays

_Cloth, 12mo., $1.00_

The plays are "Mixed Marriage," "The Magnanimous Lover," "The Critics," and "The Orangeman," first produced in 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1914, respectively, the first three at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and "The Orangeman" at the Palace Theatre, Maidstone.

"Establishes the author in the front rank of the realistic dramatists of the Irish Theatre.... As a veracious study of life and character among Irish working classes ... it is superior to anything written by Synge, Yeats, or Shaw.... The piece, in its realism, earnest purpose, and dramatic force, is worthy of John Galsworthy, and has the additional merit of being almost entirely free from anything like special pleading. Never prolix or oratorical, the compact and homely dialogue is full of shrewd observation and sage comments, pertinent to the contributory causes of a conel private and public tragedy.... The play is as able as it is significant, one well worthy of the boards of a National Theatre."--_The Nation_ (Commenting on "Mixed Marriage," the first of these plays.)

Alice and a Family

_Cloth, 12 mo., $1.25_

"Alice is a sharp witted, sensible child of the London streets. ... She looks after a family that has lost its director, the mother, while the father has been thrown out of the work he knows by an accident.... It is a lower level of life than Dickens explored, that of the London laboring man; it is handled as sympathetically and as vividly as Dickens might have and with no trace of the false sentimentality that afflicted him at times.... Alice is a child to be loved and admired and not to be forgotten soon. It is a capital story and a fine piece of work ... as enjoyable a blend of fun and hard sense as we have met in a long while."--_New York Sun._

"Just wholesome human nature working in one of the short and simple annals of the poor. The best of Dickens without his too profuse pathos."--_Reedy's Mirror._

"A juvenile Mrs. Wiggs, not of the cabbage patch, but of the London pavements ... a wholesome bit of lite illumined with an optimism that even poverty cannot dim."--_Duluth News-Tribune._

"St John G. Ervine has firmly established his claim to a place in the ranks of those younger writers to whom we look for the worth-while novels of the future."--_New York Times._

"A delightfully entertaining story, full of humor and common sense philosophy.... St John G. Ervine has already won a place as one of the foremost of the present day novelists."--_Independent._

"One of the most brilliant novels I have read in recent years."--_William Lyon Phelps._

MRS. MARTIN'S MAN

By ST. JOHN G. ERVINE

_Cloth, 12mo, $1.35_

The central figure in this truthful picture of Irish home life is Mrs. Martin--an exceedingly interesting character---a, steadfast, self-reliant woman who through the exercise of common sense averts a domestic tragedy and brings harmony into a troubled household. No less an unusual creation, however, is James--"Mrs. Martin's Man." Intolerant, overbearing but yet possessed of a certain romantic attractiveness, he is one of the most commanding characterizations of recent fiction.

Mr. Ervine's style is agreeable; it is simple and full of the tang and flavor of Irish speech, though there is little of the conventional dialect usually connected with Irish stories. The theme is marked by an absence of cant and conventionalism and by a love and wisdom for mankind that are most pleasing.

Though this is Mr. Ervine's first novel, his plays depicting Irish characters have been produced with considerable success at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In "Mrs. Martin's Man" as in his dramas, he gives a faithful portraiture of the simple folk of Erin.

"A story of remarkable power and workmanship."--_N. Y. Sun._

"An intimate picture of Irish life. Brings with it the force of an overwhelming truth. It is not merely plausible, it is convincing from its first word to its last"--_Boston Transcript._

"An almost perfect literary performance, and a most interesting and unhackneyed story."--_N. Y. Globe._

"Far out of the usual groove of fiction.... One of the finest, most sincere stories which have come this way for many a year."--_Brooklyn Eagle._

"I have seldom read so spontaneously appealing a story of Irish life. It breathes the frank open nature, the naive humor of Ulster in every line. One could not imagine a more pathetic, yet withal noble figure than Martha Martin."--_London Globe._

Eight O'clock and Other Studies

_Cloth, 12mo., $1.00_

Mr. Ervine presents in this book a remarkable collection of intimate human studies. These short sketches, seventeen in number, are rare bits of realism, truthful pictures of the life of the common people.

"If evidence were needed, these short stories are sufficient to prove that the best in fiction may sometimes be put into the briefest form."--_Boston Transcript._

"The author is an artist in life and an economist in expression."--_New York Globe._

"This little book of 'Studies' presents a very considerable variety both of treatment and of theme.... Contains in miniature the substance of many large and imposing books; it is at once artistic, thoughtful, and significant."--_New York Times._

"Practically all the sketches are written in a humorous vein, but the opening one, 'Eight O'Clock,' is a little tragedy in dialogue that is very touching. The book should afford a great deal of amusement for the discriminating reader who knows good work when he perceives it."--_Springfield Republican._

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York