n."

"He came back yesterday," said Godfrey, "and the flag he has hoisted
is a large Union Jack."

Now the Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other
flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without
giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses
the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool flew a
Union Jack out of the window of a Dublin house underneath which the
Irish leader happened at the moment to be proclaiming his loyalty to
the Empire and his ungovernable love for the English people. The fool
who hoisted the flag was afterwards very properly denounced for having
gone about to insult the Irish nation. The Dean might, I think, have
set floating a banner with three Orange lilies emblazoned upon it like
the fleur-de-lys of ancient France. No one's feelings would have been
much hurt and no one's enthusiasm unusually stirred. But it is
characteristic of the Dean that when he does a thing at all he does it
thoroughly.

"Just come and look at it," said Godfrey. "It's enormous."

We went into the library, from the windows of which a clear view can
be obtained of the town and the church which stands above it. There
certainly was a flag flying from the church tower. I took a pair of
field-glasses and satisfied myself that it was the Union Jack.

"Would you like me to speak to the Dean about it?" said Godfrey.

"Certainly not," I said. "Any interference on your part would
merely--and these are rather exciting times. The Dean is entitled, I
think, to a little license. I don't suppose he means to keep it there
permanently."

Then, borne to us by a gentle breeze across the bay, came the sound of
the church bells. We have a fine peal of bells in our church,
presented to the parish by my father. They are seldom properly rung,
but when they are--on Christmas Day, at Easter and on the 12th of
July--the effect is very good.

"Surely," I said, "the Dean can't be having a Harvest Thanksgiving
Service yet? It's not nearly time."

Then I noticed that instead of one of the regular chimes the bells
were playing a hymn tune. It was, as I might have guessed, the tune
to which "O God, our help in ages past" is sung in Ireland. The hymn,
since Babberly's first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of
battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants
that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn. Elsewhere, in
England, in S