AN IRISH STRIKE
We hurry away, much against our will, from these attractive scenes because of the breaking out of the railway strike. The newspapers are all very alarming, and we are threatened with being flung for an indefinite period upon the hospitality of our most hospitable friends. We do not fear for a minute that that would fail us, but we are due in England at appointed dates, and so we bustle off, “against the heart” as the French say.
But when you make acquaintance with a strike from an Irish point of view, it seems one huge joke. Never did we make a journey to the sound of so much laughter as that day. Every station was crowded with soldiers, and all the inhabitants mustered on the platforms to exchange sallies with them. An eager, curious, good-humoured gathering greets and speeds the train which is supposed to be kept running at imminent risk of riot and peril.
A very splendid looking police-inspector came into our carriage and had an animated conversation on the prospects with an elderly gentleman whom he addressed as “Judge.” Both seemed inspired with glee.
When we arrived in Dublin there was indeed a slight drawback in finding no porters available for our many boxes. But the stalwart man of the party made “no bones,” as they would say, about shouldering them himself, and this was accomplished amid the unstinted enthusiasm of the “jarvies.” He was aided ‹save the mark› by the only faithful porter, as old as Pantaloon, who quivered and quavered behind him. A further occasion for cheers.
“Ah, will ye look at the gintleman! To think of the likes of him now, being put to carry the thrunks! Isn’t it ashamed of themselves they ought to be! Well done, Larry, it is a grand old boy ye are! Let me get a hould of the box, yer honour. Oh, begorra, isn’t it the stringth of ten ye do be having....”
“And how do ye like Dublin now, Mr. Smith?” we heard a pretty Irish girl saying to a stalwart young British soldier on the platform.
He was grinning down at her in stolid admiration. She herself had dove-like eyes and a dove-like cooing voice.
We think he liked Dublin very much indeed.
It was the laughing face behind the mask of tragedy.