At this point Jones, who had never tasted poteen before, suddenly realised that he was nearly drunk, and that before he became quite drunk it would be wiser to lie down on a bed. On inquiry, he found that he was to sleep with young Hegarty, the idea of which so staggered him that he felt soberer at once, and determined to try and hold out.
Suddenly there came a violent knocking at the front door, followed by what sounded like the bang of a rifle-butt on the back door. At once the Hegartys put out the light, and started to hustle Jones up a ladder to a loft above the kitchen.
But by now the poteen had quite got to Jones’s head; and when the police went into the kitchen, they found old Hegarty and his son still struggling to get an I.R.A. officer up the ladder. The Hegartys now let go of Jones, who promptly closed with Blake, and a tremendous struggle started in the kitchen.
In a few minutes Jones was overcome, and lay on the floor with a heavy constable sitting on his chest. Blake then ordered the Hegartys to light the lamp, and afterwards to stand against the wall with their hands over their heads, and the constables to take Jones outside and shoot him. But he had not reckoned on Maria, who burst into the kitchen and with piercing screams endeavoured to throw her arms round Jones’s neck. Maria was a strong girl and desperate, and it took Jones and the two constables all they knew to shake her off and struggle out of the house.
Luckily Maria did not attempt to leave the house, and ten seconds after the back door had closed, six revolver shots rang out in quick succession, followed by the sound of a heavy body falling on wet ground. After telling Maria and her mother to go to their bedroom, Blake took Hegarty and his son into the back-yard, and showed them the body of the unfortunate Volunteer officer thrown by the police on the manure-heap. During the next half-hour he had little difficulty in getting all the information he required about local Volunteers (he made no mention of the arms), and after warning them not to move the corpse, the police left the house.
Maria appears to have been greatly taken with Jones’s youthful beauty, and nearly ruined the whole show again by insisting on her father and brother going out to bring in the corpse and lay it out in the kitchen. Luckily the Hegartys were too much afraid, and Jones told Blake afterwards that the agony of lying with his face buried in liquid manure was nothing to the agony he suffered listening to the Hegartys arguing whether his corpse should be left lying on the manure-heap to be eaten by dogs, or brought into the kitchen and laid out as a “dacent son of ould Ireland” should be.
While this argument was still raging a car stopped at the front door, and again the police rushed into the house, out at the back door, dragged the corpse off the manure-heap, through the house, and flung it on top of the real Volunteer officer in the back of the car. After telling the Hegartys that they would throw the body into the lake, the police drove off at a furious rate in the direction of Ballybor.
On returning to barracks, Jones at once rushed off to have a hot bath, while Blake went to his office to find his two clerks snowed up with paper, correspondence which had arrived by the goods mail while they had been out. After they had some food, Jones was all for raiding the rector of Cloonalla at once; but Blake made the fatal mistake of attending to the correspondence then, and putting off the raid to the following night.
The next night they set out with a strong force of police for the Cloonalla Rectory, but found, though there were evident signs that their information had been correct, that the arms had been removed; the rector was most indignant, and they returned defeated.
A few nights afterwards, when at dinner, Blake showed Jones the following paragraph in an Irish paper.