free
air of free men. Even when walking in the prison-yard, on cold or fair
days, when the air was like a knife or when it had the sun of summer in
it, it still had seemed to choke him.

In prison he had read, thought, and worked much. They had at least done
that for him. The Attorney-General had given him freedom to work with
his hands, and to slave in the workshop like one whose living depended
on it. Some philanthropic official had started the idea of a workshop,
and the officials had given the best of the prisoners a chance to learn
trades and make a little money before they went out into the world. All
that Dyck had earned went to purchase things he needed, and to help his
fellow prisoners or their families.

Where was he now? The gap between the old life of nonchalance,
frivolity, fantasy, and excitement was as great as that between heaven
and hell. Here he was, after four years of prison, walking the highway
with two of the humblest creatures of Ireland, and yet, as his soul
said, two of the best.

Stalking along in thought, he suddenly became conscious that Michael and
Christopher had fallen behind. He turned round.

"Come on. Come on with me." But the two shook their heads.

"It's not fitting, you a Calhoun of Playmore!" Christopher answered.

"Well, then, list to me," said Dyck, for he saw the men could not bear
his new democracy. "I'm hungry. In four years I haven't had a meal
that came from the right place or went to the right spot. Is the little
tavern, the Hen and Chickens, on the Liffeyside, still going? I mean the
place where the seamen and the merchant-ship officers visit."

Michael nodded.

"Well, look you, Michael--get you both there, and order me as good a
meal of fish and chops and baked pudding as can be bought for money.
Aye, and I'll have a bottle of red French wine, and you two will have
what you like best. Mark me, we'll sit together there, for we're one of
a kind. I've got to take to a life that fits me, an ex-jailbird, a man
that's been in prison for killing!"

"There's the king's army," said Michael. "They make good officers in
it."

A strange, half-sore smile came to Dyck's thin lips.

"Michael," said he, "give up these vain illusions. I was condemned for
killing a man not in fair fight.

"I can't enter the army as an officer, and you should know it. The king
himself could set me up again; but the distance between him and me is
ten times round the world and back again!" But t