ve to be detached
from his force) to escort the prisoners into Dublin. Lord Strathnairn
suddenly got an inspiration. He had every single button, brace buttons
and all, cut off the prisoners' trousers. Then the men had perforce,
for decency's sake, to hold their trousers together with their hands,
and I defy any one similarly situated to run more than a yard or two.
The prisoners were all paraded in the Castle yard next day, and I
walked out amongst them. As they had been up all night in very heavy
rain, they all looked very forlorn and miserable. The Castle gates were
shut that day, for the first time in the memory of the oldest
inhabitant, and they remained shut for four days. I cannot remember the
date when the prisoners were paraded, but I am absolutely certain as to
one point: it was Shrove Tuesday, 1867, the day on which so many
marriages are celebrated amongst country-folk in Ireland. Dublin was
seething with unrest, so on that very afternoon my father and mother
drove very slowly, quite alone, without an Aide-de-Camp or escort, in a
carriage-and-four with outriders, through all the poorest quarters in
Dublin. They were well received, and there was no hostile demonstration
whatever. The idea of the slow drive through the slums was my mother's.
She wished to show that though the Castle gates were closed, she and my
father were not afraid. I saw her on her return, when she was looking
very pale and drawn, but I was too young to realise what the strain
must have been. My mother's courage was loudly praised, but I think
that my friends O'Connor and little Byrne, the postilions, also deserve
quite a good mark, for they ran the same amount of risk, and they were
no entirely free agents in the matter, as my father and mother were.

Dr. Hatchell, who attended us all, had been physician to countless
Viceroys and their families, and was a very well-known figure in
Dublin. He was a jolly little red-faced man with a terrific brogue.
There was a great epidemic of lawlessness in Dublin at that time. Many
people were waylaid and stripped of their valuables in dark suburban
streets. Dr. Hatchell was returning from a round of professional visits
in the suburbs one evening, when his carriage was stopped by two men,
who seized the horses' heads. One of the men came round to the carriage
door.

"We know you, Dr. Hatchell, so you had better hand over your watch and
money quietly." "You know me," answered the merry little doctor, with