'We were just discussing,' said Mary O'Dwyer, 'the failure of our
attempt to organize a field hospital and a staff of nurses for the
Boers. It is a shame to have to admit that the English garrison in
Ireland can raise thousands of pounds for their war funds, and the Irish
can't be got to subscribe a few hundreds.'

'The wealth of the country,' said Grealy, 'is in the hands of a
minority--the so-called Loyalists.'

'Nonsense,' said Finola sharply. 'If you ever gave a thought to anything
more recent than the High-King's Court at Tara you would know that the
landlords are not the wealthy part of the community any longer. There's
many a provincial publican calling himself a Nationalist who could buy
up the nearest landlord and every Protestant in the parish along with
him. I'm a Protestant myself, born and bred among the class you speak
of, and I know.'

'You're quite right, Miss Goold,' said Tim. 'The people could have given
the money if they liked. I attribute the failure of the fund to the
apathy or treachery of the priests, call it which you like. There isn't
a Protestant church in the country where the parsons don't preach "Give
give, give" to their people Sunday after Sunday. And what's the result?
Why, they have raised thousands of pounds.'

'After the poem you published in last week's _Croppy_,' said Hyacinth
to Mary O'Dwyer, 'I made sure the subscriptions would have come in. Your
appeal was one of the most beautiful things I ever read. It would have
touched the heart of a stone.'

'Poetry is all well enough,' said Tim. 'I admire your verses, Mary,
as much as anyone, but we want a collection at every church door after
Mass. That's what we ought to have, but it's exactly what we won't get,
because the priests are West Britons at heart. They would pray for the
Queen and the army to-morrow, like Cardinal Vaughan, if they weren't
afraid.'

'I believe,' said Finola, 'that we went the wrong way about the thing
altogether. We asked for a hospital, and we appealed to the people's
pity for the wounded Boers. Nobody in Ireland cares a pin about
the Boers. Why on earth should we? From all I can hear they are a
narrow-minded, intolerant set of hypocrites. I'd just as soon read the
stuff some fool of an English newspaper man wrote about "our brother the
Boer" as listen to the maudlin sentiment our people talk. We don't want
to help the Boers. We want to hurt the English.'

'And you think----' said Grealy.

'I think,'