m is what he means by patriotism. I
can understand quite easily what Irish patriotism meant ten years ago.
Gorman's friends wanted my land, a definite, tangible thing. I wanted it
myself. But now they have got the land, and yet Gorman goes on talking
patriotism. It is not as if he had no sense of humour. Gorman sees the
absurdity of the things he says just as plainly as I do. The ridiculous
side of his own enthusiasm is never long absent from his consciousness;
yet he goes on just the same. I wish I understood how he manages it.

CHAPTER IX.

Now that my leg has been smashed up hopelessly, by that wretched German
shell, I shall never ride or shoot again. I have to content myself with
writing books to occupy my time, a very poor form of amusement compared
to tramping the fields after partridge. I suppose it is inevitable that
a man in my position should indulge in regretful memories. My mind
goes back now and then to certain days in my boyhood and I find myself
picturing scenes through which I shall not move again.

There are fields stretching back from the demesne which used to be mine.
In the autumn many of them were stubble fields and among them were gorse
covered hills. I used to go through them with my gun and dogs in early
October mornings. There were--no doubt there still are--though I
shall not see them--very fine threads of gossamer stretching across
astonishingly wide spaces. The dew hung on them in tiny drops and
glittered when the sun rose clear of the light mist and shone on them.
Sometimes the threads floated free in the air, attached to some object
at one end, the rest borne about by faint breaths of wind, waved to and
fro, seeking other attachment elsewhere. Some threads reached from tufts
of grass to little hummocks or to the twigs which form the boles of elm
trees. Others still, with less ambitious span, went only from one blade
of grass to another or united the thorns of whin bushes. The lower air,
near the earth, was full of these threads. They formed an indescribably
delicate net cast right over the fields and hills. I used to see them
glistening, rainbow coloured when the sun rays struck them. Oftener I
was aware of their presence only when my hands had touched and broken
them or when they clung to my clothes, dragged from their fastenings by
my passing through them.

I have no idea what place these gossamer threads occupy in the economy
of nature. I find it difficult to believe that the li