“The quality of mercy is not strained.”
“Sinn Fein has no mercy,” said his father. “It’s ruthless and bloody and cruel.”
“Need we meet cruelty by cruelty?” asked Bertram. “Wouldn’t chivalry gain more for us?”
“Never!” answered his father harshly. “The Irish Catholics don’t understand the meaning of chivalry. These Sinn Feiners would stab a man in the back who held out his hand in friendship and forgiveness.”
“You’re Irish of the Irish!” said Bertram. “Your Irish blood is in my veins. We of all people should understand the passion of our race for liberty, their remembrance of old crimes against their faith and land, their frightful heritage of memory. I loathe this guerrilla warfare, but I understand its motives and impulses. In their spirit it’s as much a fight for liberty as that of any people who strive to free themselves from a foreign yoke. O’Brien’s deed was not real murder, at least in his soul and conscience, because it was an act of war—armed men against armed men, and ours with no right in Ireland, except that of ancient conquest. Surely there’s a difference. Surely as an Irishman, you see there’s no moral baseness in what O’Brien did? Except the madness of argument by blood and force for an ideal of liberty which might be gained by other means.”
“Every word you say convinces me that you’re on the side of the rebels,” said Michael Pollard. “You’re a traitor in my own household. I’ll be glad when you leave my house before I have to turn you out.”
It was the second time that Bertram had been called traitor. Once it was his wife who called him that. Now it was his father. He went white to the lips at the sound of it, and that last sentence of his father’s put passion into his brain.
“Did God make you without humanity?” he asked. “Is it for nothing that you’ve lost the love of all your children and now risk the love of the woman who bore them, and is stricken by your harshness in her old age?”
Michael Pollard’s face became ashen in colour at these words from his son. He took a step forward, and then raised his hand sharply.
“Silence, sir! I have one son who is a comfort to me, and to his mother. Digby does his duty and is loyal. I find no loyalty in you. I don’t wish to hear more of your rebellious insolence.”