He was pessimistic. “It’s not much of a job going to the Castle!” he exclaimed. “There are Sinn Feiners always watching. I shall be shot as a spy.” But for all that he went. Returning to lunch, I met Mrs. O’Grady in the hall.
“No news, mum?”
“None.”
“And her upstairs going about this way and that just as if it wasn’t her fault. ‘God forgive you, mum,’ I sez, ‘for I never will.’ She thinks nothing of me, never a word, but it’s ‘Mrs. O’Grady, have you swept the stairs?’ ‘Mum,’ I sez, ‘the stairs can wait with them two away like this.’ ‘Nonsense, Mrs. O’Grady,’ she sez, ‘rubbish! Work will pass the time for you, so it will. Nothing like being up and doing, and keeping yourself occupied.’”
“How I wish they’d take her!”
“It’d be a charity, mum; but there’s not one of us but would wear ourselves thin to get her out.”
“I wonder. Mrs. O’Grady, send up lunch as soon as you can, please. I’m off to see what I can do this afternoon.”
“Shall I order something in case they get back for dinner?”
I shook my head. “Time enough when we see them, Mrs. O’Grady.”
“It’s a drop of gin I’ll have ready for my man, God help him, if the life’s still in him.”