“What has Dennis done?”
None of them answered. It seemed to Bertram that they weren’t sure of trusting him.
It was the young priest who answered.
“Does it matter to the Black and Tans what an Irishman has done, or not done? It’s only surprising that they didn’t kill poor Dennis at sight. It’s a Reign of Terror, without law, without justice, without mercy.”
“On both sides,” said Bertram, sharply. “I see no distinction in murder—Sinn Fein or Black and Tan.”
The priest laughed uneasily, but into his large dark eyes leapt a little flame of passion.
“Sinn Fein does no murder. It fights in self-defence for the liberty of Ireland, and executes spies and murderers—the British soldiery and their bloody rabble, the Black and Tans.”
Bertram groaned with a kind of anguish. He had used the same arguments with Joyce, with Kenneth Murless, with all that crowd. But when the priest spoke them his mind refused to admit this one-sided view, this assertion that Ireland had no guilt.
“It’s all madness,” he said. “Madness and murder. Insane anarchy. Black-hearted crime. How can you defend it as a Catholic priest—even as a Christian?”
The priest shrugged his shoulders.