“And then I began to get a stitch, a terrible stitch, and every yard I went it got worse. Money for nothing! Yes! What? I couldn’t go another yard, and I pulled out my gun and came about under a lamp and waved it at them.
“It was money for nothing the first time since I came over. They pulled up like a tide coming against a wall—the old girls, and the boys, and the cripples, and the dogs, all treading on one another’s toes. And while I waved I tried to get rid of my damned stitch. ‘Now you stop where you are,’ I said, giving my gun a final shake, ‘or you’ll find it the worse for you!’ And round I went, and started to run again. And all the dogs barked, and all the beggars picked up their crutches, and all the married women hitched their garters, and came after me again. And I didn’t know where I’d got, and I charged over a few more blind men, and I got the damned stitch again, and I stopped and shook my gun at ’em, and we all lined up again, and then we started off once more. And then, when the stitch was killing me, a tram came by, and I made a running jump on to the step, and dug my gun into the conductor’s ribs. ‘No funny business with the bell,’ I said. ‘You let her rip.’
“And I waved my gun all round the tram, and everybody tried to get off at once, and two or three dear old ladies spread themselves on the floor, and I said to one, ‘Yes, madam, that’s very nice, and we’ll bring you to at the other end; but we’re letting this old tram rip just now.’”
He sank back in his seat, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, muttering, “Money for nothing!” Then he saw the clock, and beat his mouth with his handkerchief, and cried, “My God, my God, my God! I was due somewhere else half an hour ago,” and seized his hat and stick and hurried through the swing doors of the Shelbourne into the street.
We found Dublin more interesting every day.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRTH OF SINN FEIN
During our first months, September, October, and November, Ireland passed into a state of war. The country had been going there step by step, by way of raid and arrest on the one hand, and hedge and ditch shooting on the other; but the walk turned to a run and the run to a slide when the system of reprisals began. As summer turned into autumn, and autumn wore out, the hate and terror engendered by the deeds of either side were to beget the shameful happenings of the winter, so that Ireland, like a woman frightened during her time, produced a monster when her hour came.
The three months saw the mellow sunshine of an Indian summer exchanged for dreary autumn skies, saw the tender mauves and lavenders of the flowers in Phœnix Park—flowers which for delicacy of hue I have not seen exceeded in any part of the world—decay and change for hardier blooms; witnessed the soft starlight nights become the early evenings and the discourteous hours when, through the curfew—at this time from twelve to three—wind swept the desolate streets. The months witnessed the fear, which had been gathering over the land in clouds, come down upon the country in rain.
To what page shall one turn in the book of history, on what paragraph shall one put a finger and say—“Here was the beginning! Here ended Ireland’s golden age.”