free!"

"But don't you want Ireland to be free?" Marsh asked.

They had walked on across the field until they came to a barred gate,
and Marsh climbed on to the top bar and perched himself there while
Henry stood with his back against the gate and fondled the muzzle of the
horse which had followed after them.

"I don't know what you mean when you say you want Ireland to be free!"
Henry exclaimed.

"Don't know what I mean!..." Marsh's voice became very tense again, and
he slipped down from the gate and turned quickly to explain his meaning
to Henry, but Henry did not wait for the explanation. "No," he
interrupted quickly. "Of course, I don't know much about these things,
but I've read some books that father gave me, and I've talked to my
friends ... one of them, Gilbert Farlow, is rather clever and he knows a
lot about politics ... he argues with his father about them ... and I
can't see that there's much difference between England and Ireland.
People here don't seem to me to be any worse off than people over
there!"

"It isn't a question of being worse off or better off," Marsh replied.
"It's a question of being _free._ The English are governed by the
English. The Irish aren't governed by the Irish. That's the difference
between us. What does it matter what your condition is so long as you
know that you are governed by a man of your own breed and blood, and
that at any minute you may be in his place and he in yours, and yet
you'll be men of the same breed and blood? I'd rather be governed badly
by men of my own breed than be governed well by another breed...."

Henry remembered Ulster and his father and all his kinsmen scattered
about the North who had sworn to die in the last ditch rather than be
governed by Nationalists. "That's all very well," he said, "but there
are plenty of people in Ireland who don't want to be governed by your
breed, well or bad!"

"They'd consent if they thought we had the ability to govern well,"
Marsh went on. "Anyhow, we couldn't govern Ireland worse than the
English have governed it!"

"Some people think you could!..."

But Marsh was in no mood to listen to objections. "You can't be free
until you are equal with other people, and we aren't equal with the
English. We aren't equal with anybody but subject people. And they look
down on us, the English do. We're lazy and dirty and ignorant and
superstitious and priest-ridden and impractical and ... and comic!... My
God, _comic_! Whe