Sean, for the especial benefit of constable just ahead: "Wars for democracy and small nations! And that's the only way they can keep us in the British empire. Brute force. Nice exhibition for the American journalists in town."
Constable stalked Sean back to edge of crowd. Sean looked at him steadily with slight twinkle in his eye. Miss Barton, Miss Pankhurst, and I climbed up a low stone wall that commanded the guarded street, and clung to the iron paling on top. Sean came and stood beneath.
Miss Pankhurst, regarding crowd in puzzled manner: "Why do you all smile?
When the suffragists were arrested we used to become furious."
Sean looking up at her in kindly manner in which old rebel might glance at impatient young rebel: "You forget. We're very used to this."
Miss Pankhurst made an unexpected jump from her place. She wedged her way to the line of soldiers. As she talked to two young Tommies they blushed and fiddled with their bayonets like girls with their first bouquets of flowers. Twice a British major admonished them.
Miss Pankhurst, returning: "Welsh boys. Just babies. I asked them why they came out armed to kill fellow workers. They said they had enlisted for the war. If they had known they were to be sent to Ireland they would have refused to go. I told them it was not too late to act. They could take off their uniforms. But they? They're weak—weak."
As dusk fell, party capes and tulle mists of head dresses began to appear between the drab or tattered suits of the bystanders. Among the coming reception guests was Susan Mitchell, co-editor with George Russell on The Irish Homestead.
Susan Mitchell, of constable: "Can't I go through? No? But there's to be a party, and the tea will get all cold."
In the courage of the crowd, the people began to sing The Soldiers' Song. It took courage. It was shortly after John O'Sheehan had been sentenced for two years for caroling another seditious lyric. A surge of sound brought out the words: "The west's awake!" Dying yokes. And a sudden right-about-face movement of the throng.
Crowd shouting: "Up the Americans!"