Leaning back in his chair he lit a cigarette. At that moment his eye was arrested by a large photograph of the notorious John O’Hara over the fireplace, and he began to think of how the man had tricked him by getting away by sea, while the police were hunting the countryside for him. From O’Hara’s photograph his eye wandered to a brightly-printed card hanging on the wall, with a drawing of a steamer on the top.
For some time he read the letterpress of the card without having any idea of what it meant; then in a flash he realised that the problem was solved. At high tide the next morning the s.s. Cockatoo would sail from the port of Ballybor for Liverpool, and if O’Hara had tricked him by the sea, then he could trick Larry O’Halloran by the same means.
The following morning, a quarter of an hour before the Cockatoo was due to sail, two Crossleys dashed on to the quay, and before the usual crowd of quay loafers knew what was happening, they were outside the yard gate, and a strong guard of police with rifles at the ready had surrounded the gangway to the steamer. In a few minutes more the arms were all aboard the boat, stacked in an empty passenger saloon, guarded by police, and two minutes after Blake had given the captain his instructions, the Cockatoo was on her way down the river for England.
IV.
THE RED CROSS.
An Englishman who has lived in Ireland for any length of time, knows that rivalry in religion and politics not only divides parts of Ireland, but even causes divisions in families. At one time recently things had reached such a state of passion that an Irish soldier or policeman who visited his home in the south or west was liable to find the door of his home shut in his face, and even to lose his life.
In a small town in the west of Ireland—in England you would call the place a village—there lived some years ago a shopkeeper named John Dempsey, a steady hard-working man, who left politics alone and attended to his own business. In due course Dempsey married and had three children—two boys, Patrick and William, and a daughter, Sheila.
The children were educated at the national school, and as soon as their minds were capable of understanding anything, the wicked and stupid policy of hatred of and revenge on England was drummed into their ears week by week, month by month, and year by year, until the English appeared to their childish imaginations to be the greatest monsters of brutality in the world.
After the late war started, not before, the British newspapers and magazines impressed upon us the thoroughness of the German preparations for this war, and amongst other things, of how the present generation had had instilled into their minds from early childhood a hatred of the British by every schoolmaster and learned professor in Germany. For years past this German method has been carried on in Ireland, Irish national school teachers preparing the present generation of young men and women for the present Sinn Fein movement.
You have in England a saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, which applies very well to many national school teachers in the west and south of Ireland, who, though they can tell you of every wrong which England has inflicted on Ireland during the last three hundred years, yet know nothing of the greatness and power for good of the British Empire; nor do they realise the vast benefits which Ireland reaps as a partner of the Empire.
As time went on John Dempsey made and saved much money on porter, eggs, and other things, and as the boys appeared to be clever and anxious to get on in the world, he decided that they should complete their education in Dublin, Patrick eventually to become a doctor, and William to enter the priesthood; but as soon as the father announced his intentions, Sheila, who had never been separated from her brothers, implored that she might go with them and become a hospital nurse.