up barriers, when you should be knocking them
down!"

It was useless to be angry with Marsh or to argue with him. In
everything that was done, he saw the malevolent intent of a treacherous
people.

"Look at this," he said one evening when the English papers had come in,
and he pointed to a leading article in the _Morning Post_ in which the
writer stated that the bravery of the Irish soldiers showed that the
Irish people had now no feeling or grievance against the English, and
therefore Home Rule was no longer necessary. "Already, they're plotting!
They defile the dead ... they use our dead men as ... as political
arguments!"

"But the _Morning Post_ has no influence in England," Henry retorted
angrily. "It's only read by footmen and sluts!..."

"Some of our people are dubious," John went on. "They're inclined to
take your point of view, and trust the English. I'll read this paper to
them. That'll pull them up. We'd have been content with Home Rule
before, but we want absolute separation now. We don't want to be
associated with a race that makes bargains on bodies!..."

"You're doing a damned bad work, John!..."

"I'm helping to keep Ireland Irish, Henry!" He paused for a few moments,
and then, laughing a little self-consciously, he proceeded. "Do you know
that poem of Yeats's?"

_It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone._

Henry nodded his head.

"Well, we're going to see whether we can't make Yeats re-write it.
Good-night, Henry!"

2

He stayed in Dublin for a few weeks, gathering up old threads and
working on his novel; but the book made slow progress, and so, thinking
that if he were in a quieter, less social place, he could work more
quickly, he went home to Ballymartin, and here, soon after he arrived,
he received a letter from Roger, announcing that he intended to enter
the artillery almost at once. "_I can get a commission_," he wrote,
"_and so I shall go in. You said something about wanting to join at the
same time as me, but perhaps as you are going to be married to Mary
shortly, you'll want to wait until afterwards. If I were you I should
apply for a commission in an Irish regiment._"

He put the letter down abruptly. Ever since the death of Ninian, he had
felt convinced that the four friends were to be killed in battle.
Gilbert had been the first to join, and Gilbert was the first to be
killed. Then Ninian joined ... and Ninian died. Roger, too, would be
killed,