"Dublin, Nora," she said. "And we are—"
"We are eighteen miles away from Dublin," I said.
When we had seen the last milestone that told us that we were eighteen miles away from Dublin, we thought we were very near; but now, our thought was how very far away we were from there.
The booming continued. We could picture our friends, our comrades, boys and girls fighting with rifles against those big guns whose booming could be heard eighteen miles away.
"We must not lose a minute. We must hurry, hurry, hurry till we get to Dublin," I said, and saw that unconsciously I had been putting on my shoes and stockings, and that I was ready for the march.
In the torment of our minds as to what those big guns might be doing at the moment in Dublin, the pain, the weariness and the hunger of our bodies went unnoticed. We swung along as best we could, trying to keep to the beat of a march, and determined to be in Dublin before dark. We entered a village. Usually when we came to a village we walked at an ordinary pace so as not to attract notice by an appearance of haste. But this time, in our impatience to be in Dublin, we threw all cautiousness to the winds and went as quickly as we could. We passed through the village; but just as the main street ended and the Dublin road began again, we saw a barricade. Like the others it was made of country carts, but unlike them it was guarded by both police and soldiers. They seemed to be more particular at this one for we saw them stop a cyclist and give his bicycle a most thorough examination. They looked under the saddle, and into the tool-bag; and then they turned their attention to the rider. His pockets were turned out one by one. I suppose they were looking to see if he carried a dispatch.
After him came two boys who were stopped as they were walking past. We were almost at the barricade by this time and we saw close beside it a restaurant. As usual they had left a space for pedestrians to pass through and unfortunately for us, the door of the restaurant was on the other side of the barricade. It was, if I might use the phrase, next door to it. But the boys, who had just been stopped by the military, unintentionally did us a good turn, for they began to resist being searched. While they were talking indignantly, and struggling with the soldiers, Agna and I slipped through into the restaurant. When we had asked for something to eat we went to the window to see what was the outcome of the struggle. To our surprise, we saw the boys laughing and chatting with the soldiers who were examining their pockets.
We did not realize how hungry we were till we began to eat our dinner. We finished all before us for we had not eaten since lunch the day before; and it was three o'clock then. The waitress kept hovering around as if she would like to speak, but did not know how to begin. At length she asked us if we were going far.
"To Clontarf," I answered.