THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 \
 
 THE 
 WASTED ISLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 EIMAR O'DUFFY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
 BT DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 VAtL-BALLOU COMPANY
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 2058017
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A GENTLEMAN'S SON I 
 
 II GLENCOOLE 22 
 
 III END OF A STORY 40 
 
 IV YOUNG ENGLAND 49 
 
 V WlLLOUGHBY TOWERS IOI 
 
 VI DUBLIN 124 
 
 VII STEPHEN 169 
 
 VIII A DEAD HAND 190 
 
 IX A MEETING 212 
 
 X THE RUSTY SWORD 239 
 
 XI WAITING . . .270 
 
 XII GUNS 302 
 
 XIII WAR 6 *. . .- . 334 
 
 XIV AN AMATEUR ARMY 391 
 
 XV GATHERING CLOUDS 441 
 
 XVI CATASTROPHE - . * 496
 
 THE WASTED ISLAND
 
 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A GENTLEMAN S SON 
 
 LOVE'S main function is to make the world go round and 
 he cares nothing for the subsequent fate of the instru- 
 ments he uses to that end. " From fairest creatures we desire 
 increase " and many a clever young man who has been caught 
 in Nature's lure has spent a life of vain regrets unconsoled by 
 the physical perfection of the offspring for whom he has sacri- 
 ficed his happiness. 
 
 One such was that handsome and plausible young physician 
 Eugene Lascelles who, one night of wonder in a garden by 
 the sea, told pretty, foolish, affectionate Alice Reilly that he 
 loved her, and in due course led her to the altar. So far as 
 their personal happiness was concerned their wedding was a 
 disaster. The honeymoon itself revealed insurmountable bar- 
 riers between their souls: six months of married life accentu- 
 ated them. He was too selfish and she was too stupid to 
 make the best of things and in another year all pretence of 
 agreement between them was gone: hatred even was begin- 
 ning to creep into the soul of the man and despair into that 
 of the woman. It remained to be seen whether Nature 
 would justify her trickery by making the union fertile. Alice 
 longed for a son in the hope of thereby regaining her hus- 
 band's affections ; and to him a son was a necessity to console 
 him for his disappointment in his wife. So in patient long- 
 ing the third year of their marriage went by; in desperate 
 longing the fourth. And then, in the spring-time of the first 
 year of the closing decade of the century, Bernard was born.
 
 2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 2 
 
 Dr. Lascelles stood by his wife's bedside and looked down 
 on his three day old son. 
 
 " He'll be like his father, won't he? " said Alice. 
 
 " He's a Lascelles all right," assented her husband . . . 
 " But he has your eyes," he added, thinking she deserved some 
 commendation. 
 
 " Really? Do you think so? " she said happily. 
 
 He hated her habit of answering everything with a further 
 question, but on this occasion made no comment. His wife 
 smiled to see him take the tiny fist of his son in his fine, white, 
 capable hands. 
 
 " My son," he said. 
 
 To himself he was saying: 
 
 " Mustn't let her have too much to say in his up-bringing. 
 I'll make a man of him . . . make him a success in life . . . 
 she shan't teach him any damned nonsense." 
 
 He lingered a moment contemplating his son, then kissed 
 his wife and went out. 
 
 He went through his work that day in a state of preoccu- 
 pation, son and wife alternately sharing his thoughts. 
 
 " Why' did I marry her? Better not ask myself that again. 
 . . . Doesn't bear examination. ... I once thought her 
 witty. How often has she told me the story of her Aunt 
 Jane and the pot of mustard? 
 
 " Mustn't exasperate myself. The Boy is some compen- 
 sation after all. I'll make a man of him . . . keep him out 
 of her clutches . . . her rotten little ideas and superstitions. 
 Good lord! 
 
 " I promised her he'd be a Catholic, but she shan't make 
 a Jesuit of him. . . . My son a Jesuit ! Not likely . . . nor 
 any sort of a priest. 
 
 " I'll make him a good staunch Britisher for all that he's 
 a Catholic. . . . Must keep that Fenian brother of Alice's 
 away from the house . . . sarcastic, disloyal young hound ! " 
 
 His thoughts here became incoherent. Clarifying again 
 they reverted to his son.
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 3 
 
 " Will Alice try to make him a Nationalist as well as a 
 Catholic? Bah! She's no politician. She hasn't the brains. 
 . . . Wish she had, in a way. 
 
 "Why did I marry a woman without any brains? . . . 
 Says she's a heart anyway. So she has. She's so unselfish 
 that she makes my life a burden to me. . . . Damn these 
 religious people." 
 
 He meditated bitterly on the folly of his marriage. 
 
 " What a hot-headed sentimental young fool I was. She 
 was beautiful and sweet, and I thought her witty. . . . That 
 story of her Aunt Jane . . . good lord! 
 
 " Well, she might have been worse. . . . She keeps the 
 house well, and there's the boy. . . . Jove, I don't half 
 realize that I've got a son. . . . Must be nicer to her for 
 his sake. After all, she's his mother . . . 
 
 " But how many more times must I listen to the story of 
 her Aunt Jane and the pot of mustard ? " 
 
 With a deliberate effort he put his wife's shortcomings 
 out of his head and made plans for the boy. Now if Eu- 
 gene Lascelles was dissatisfied with the course of his life he 
 was eminently satisfied with himself. Indeed his main ob- 
 jection to his wife was her difference from himself, and when 
 he resolved to make a man of his son he meant to make him 
 as like himself as possible. 
 
 " I'll make a success of him. He'll be a credit to his fa- 
 ther. . . . Public School and Varsity man of course. . . . 
 Shall it be Eton or Harrow? . . . And after that, Oxford 
 probably. . . . Shall I put him in the Army?" 
 
 This consideration made him pause. The Army had much 
 to recommend it socially ; but then, a chance bullet in a 
 skirmish on the outposts of the Empire, and twenty years of 
 work and hope thrown away. 
 
 " No. We can do better than that. A Public School 
 and Varsity man has the Empire at his feet." 
 
 He visioned wonderful things. 
 
 " But, damn it, I'd forgotten his religion. He'll have to 
 go to one of those Jesuit holes, I suppose. . . . Good lord!
 
 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 What would my poor father have said to that? Break with 
 the family tradition, isn't it? 
 
 " Still, Ashbury ranks as a Public School ... and he'll 
 go to Oxford anyway." 
 
 He began to feel satisfied that after all the divergence of 
 the boy's career from the family tradition would be but small. 
 The Lascelles, be it noted, were descended from a Huguenot 
 who had settled in Queen's County early in the seventeenth 
 century, and, owing to the laws then in force, acquired &t 
 a very low price an estate which had been confiscated from 
 the native owners in the name of civilization and religion. 
 This gentleman had married a lady of his own faith and 
 nationality, and reared his family along with the neighbour- 
 ing Protestant settlers in such a manner as to preserve them 
 from all contact with and contamination from the surround- 
 ing Papist multitude. Fortune, industry, and the turn of 
 history favoured the Lascelles. From being persecuted they 
 became persecutors, and in defence of their rights in this 
 prerogative they fought for William at the Boyne and helped 
 to rivet the chains on their beaten countrymen after Lim- 
 erick. During the century-long swoon in which Ireland 
 then lay, they gained prosperity in peace, and eventually, 
 finding their prosperity threatened by their erstwhile pro- 
 tector, flew to arms, inscribed " Free Trade or Else " 
 
 on their banners, and along with their kind almost suc- 
 ceeded in disrupting the British Empire. They helped to 
 dragoon the rebels in '98; petitioned violently against the 
 Union in '99; protested as violently against its repeal in 
 1845; and then, save for passive and financial support of 
 the Unionist Cause, dropped out of public life. 
 
 Such was the ancestry of which young Bernard was to be 
 made worthy, a task requiring on the father's part much toil 
 and vigilance. There was much the boy must learn ; there 
 was more of which he must be kept ignorant. There were 
 fixed ideas to be implanted in him ; and fancies of course 
 the boy would have fancies to be eradicated. There were 
 certain courses which his mind must take, and he, the father,
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 5 
 
 would trace them out and guide him accordingly. Yes. 
 He would make a man of his son. 
 
 3 
 
 " So this is my nephew ! " 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles enjoyed complacently her brother's homage 
 to her son. She asked the usual question. 
 
 " There's far too much of his Majesty in him," Chris- 
 topher replied. " I wish he was more like you." 
 
 A long rambling talk followed. She was much more at 
 home with her brother than with her husband, and she be- 
 came quite animated with tales and praises of young Ber- 
 nard. Christopher listened sympathetically. He was a tall, 
 self-possessed young man, who never seemed completely se- 
 rious, a perpetual puzzle to his brother-in-law. He closely 
 resembled his sister in features, but the play of thought and 
 intelligence across them caused a world of difference in ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "How's his Majesty been behaving himself lately?" he 
 asked. " Oh, you needn't answer. I can read it in your 
 eyes." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't call him that name, Chris." 
 
 " It suits him better than his own, anyway. You'd think 
 he was the hero of a novel with that mouthful." 
 
 " You'll be his godfather, won't you, Chris? " 
 
 " What does he want with a godfather at his age ? " 
 
 " Chris, you silly ! I didn't mean Eugene's. I meant the 
 baby's." 
 
 " It's a big responsibility. Don't I have to guarantee that 
 he'll renounce the devil and all that sort of thing? " 
 
 " No. If you hold him without dropping him at the 
 christening it's all we'll expect from you." 
 
 Dr. Lascelles returning from work seemed little pleased 
 at meeting his brother-in-law. 
 
 "Still clinging to effete old Yurrop?" he said, speaking 
 jocularly to conceal his displeasure. " I thought Wall Street 
 would have recalled you to her yearning bosom before this."
 
 6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Christopher answered seriously. The Doctor's pleasan- 
 tries never moved him to laughter. 
 
 " I meant to go tomorrow," he said, " but now I must 
 wait for the christening. Alice has asked me to be the god- 
 father, you know." 
 
 The Doctor said " Oh ? " colourlessly, and changed the 
 conversation. A few minutes later the two men left the 
 room together and descended to the hall. Here Lascelles 
 drew Christopher into his consulting room and confronted 
 him nervously. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " you're going to be my boy's god- 
 father. I trust you won't abuse that position." 
 
 " He shall have a christening mug as good as can be got," 
 replied the other impassively, " and on every birthday an 
 increasingly valuable present." 
 
 The Doctor seemed nonplussed. 
 
 " Look here," he said irritably, " you don't seem to catch 
 my meaning. ... I don't want you to make a Nationalist 
 of him." 
 
 "You seem to think very highly of my powers as a 
 proselytiser," replied the younger man. " Or is it the cause 
 itself you're flattering? " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," said the Doctor stiffly. " I'm 
 merely informing you of my wishes." 
 
 " Well, the boy's young yet, and he may never be any use. 
 They're born, not made, you know. Good-bye, old man. 
 I'm off to see about that mug." 
 
 4 
 
 Young Bernard broke no traditions in the early years of 
 his growth. He grew normally; he laughed and cried 
 normally; he ate normally; he got sick normally; his teeth 
 erupted normally ; his fontanelles closed normally ; he walked 
 and talked at a normal age. His mother adored him and 
 his father gave him first place among all his possessions. 
 He had a normal number of brothers and sisters: two of 
 each to particularize.
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 7 
 
 He passed his childhood in a bright airy nursery sur- 
 rounded with toys and comforts. Pleasant pictures adorned 
 the walls. There were illustrated nursery rimes; photo- 
 graphs of Queen Victoria and her consort and the Prince of 
 Wales; coloured representations of victorious British sol- 
 diers charging Zulus; and a supplement from a Christmas 
 annual depicting a little boy wearing his father's red tunic, 
 labelled " A Chip of the Old Block" 
 
 With his brothers and sisters he grew up as a gentleman's 
 child should. He was washed and combed regularly, and 
 neatly and prettily dressed. He was trained to be " good," 
 which meant not being a nuisance to nurse; and to be polite 
 to visitors, which meant answering their inane questions 
 nicely without sheepishness or giggling. He learnt his 
 A. B. C. and how to count and how to recite simple verses 
 about lambs and spiders. He was taken to the seaside in 
 the summer and to the Pantomime at Christmas. In short, 
 he had a very pleasant time, and he was a very nice little 
 boy. 
 
 His first great crime against tradition was committed at 
 the age of six, when one terrible day he played with Hektor 
 O'Flaherty. For a full realization of the enormity of this 
 deed the circumstances under which he came to be forbidden 
 to do so must first be told. Hektor O'Flaherty was a dom- 
 ineering youth of eight, the leader of a gang of youngsters 
 whose martial games Bernard had long wished to join. 
 Stephen's Green, the scene of their warlike operations, was 
 also the place to which nurse each morning led the decorous 
 cavalcade of Dr. Lascelles' children, consisting at the time of 
 Alice in the perambulator, Eugene, aged four, holding on to 
 nurse's skirts, and Bernard ranging free in all the independ- 
 ence of trousers and six winters. Here nurse would choose 
 a shady seat, bury her nose in a novelette, and with her toe 
 against the wheel of the perambulator, impart to the sleep- 
 ing Alice the sensation of reposing on the topmost bough 
 of a wind-shaken tree. Bernard was thus left to his own 
 resources and the insipid company of Eugene. On one of
 
 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 these mornings Hektor's operations had brought him into the 
 vicinity and Bernard had conquered his shyness sufficiently 
 to go up to the young general and say: 
 
 " Can I play with you? " 
 
 And while a ruddy glow spread over his countenance, the 
 hero had looked him over slowly and said : 
 
 " All right. Fall in." 
 
 That evening the Doctor had come up to the nursery to 
 see his children, and Bernard had poured out a rapturous 
 tale of his doings. His father listened impatiently and then 
 asked: 
 
 "Who is this Hektor?" 
 
 Bernard had no more definite information, but nurse had 
 said he was one of them O'Flaherties of Baggot Street ; and 
 the Doctor's brows had contracted, and he had said that 
 Bernard must on no account play with Hektor again. 
 
 "Why, daddy?" 
 
 " Because he's not a nice boy." 
 
 " Sure he's awfully nice." 
 
 " Don't say ' sure.' You're not to play with him because 
 I tell you so, and that's all about it." 
 
 Then, with a parting injunction to nurse to see that his 
 wishes were carried out, he kissed his son hurriedly and left 
 the room. 
 
 For a few days Bernard had obeyed his parent's behest, 
 but this was mainly due to his nurse's vigilance. In those 
 youthful days he did not appreciate the difference between 
 Stephen's Green and Upper Baggot Street, and his whole 
 soul revolted against the tyranny which robbed him of the 
 only thing in life which at the moment seemed worth having. 
 At last, realizing one day that Eugene and the perambulator 
 would be a severe encumbrance to nurse's pursuit, he seized 
 a favourable moment to slip from her side, and dodging 
 through a shrubbery, rushed off to find the gang. 
 
 Hektor received him coldly, asking why he had stayed 
 away so long. Bernard explained that his nurse had kept 
 him.
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 9 
 
 " Well, if you're afraid of your nurse you needn't come 
 here," said Hektor, whereat the Army laughed loudly. 
 
 "Silence!" bellowed the general. "Remember you're 
 on parade." 
 
 The warriors smothered their laughter and wiped out their 
 smiles, while Bernard explained that he had just run away 
 from nurse in defiance of all orders. He could see that he 
 rose considerably in Hektor's estimation at this and finally 
 the latter bade him fall in with the rest. 
 
 " Number! " said Hektor. 
 
 The Army proceeded to do so. Number one was a rather 
 coarse boy called Har'ld, who lived in Cuffe Street. He 
 was the second in command, and would have been a bully if 
 Hektor had not kept him well in hand. Number two was 
 Hektor's younger brother Michael. He ought really to have 
 been in Har'ld's place, but Hektor, rather than suspect him- 
 self of nepotism, relegated him to the ranks. Number three 
 was another Baggot Street boy called Hugh. Number four 
 was Har'ld's brother Willy, a dirty little youngster with a 
 perpetually dripping nose. The rest of the Army, acting 
 as the enemy for the time being, was waiting in an adjacent 
 shelter intending to hold it to the death against Hektor's at- 
 tack, which was to be delivered as soon as the departure of 
 a keeper in the vicinity rendered it possible. Meanwhile 
 Hektor divided his forces into three parties. Hugh and 
 Willy were to attack the right flank; Har'ld and Bernard 
 were to deliver a frontal attack; while Hektor and Michael 
 were in reserve, ready to fling themselves into action when 
 needed to push home a victory or stave off defeat. 
 
 The uniformed figure of law and order having taken its 
 departure, the battle began. Bernard, rushing blindly into 
 action, was at grips with a wiry little newsboy, when he felt 
 himself drawn out of the fight from the rear. Nurse had 
 come up, taken him by the slack of the pants, and hauled 
 him ingloriously home. 
 
 Words cannot describe the pain and anger of Dr. Lascelles 
 on learning of the plebeian tastes of his son. " Your con-
 
 io THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 duct," he explained, " has been unworthy of a gentleman's 
 son," and hastened to apply with a strap the recognized cure 
 for such behaviour. 
 
 After this incident the children were taken to the Leinster 
 Lawn for their recreation, so the young mutineer saw noth- 
 ing of his hero for some months. Then nurse was taken ill 
 and had to return to her home in the country, and her place 
 was taken by a much less conscientious person who openly 
 ignored the Doctor's instructions and brought the children 
 once again to Stephen's Green, where henceforward Bernard 
 played to his heart's content with Hektor and his followers; 
 a happy state of things which lasted until the flowing tide of 
 social and pecuniary prosperity carried his father to Merrion 
 Square, where the children were more desirable if less orig- 
 inal. 
 
 5 
 
 A tendency to play the politician which early manifested 
 itself in Bernard, was a symptom of abnormality that would 
 have alarmed his father had he not been too busy diagnosing 
 other people's complaints to notice it. 
 
 After an abortive attempt to organize the inhabitants of 
 the nursery into a monarchical state (abortive because it re- 
 quired too continuous a use of make-believe, which Bernard 
 always detested) he applied his statecraft to the construction 
 of toy commonwealths. The nursery was well stocked with 
 toys of the usual kind: dolls, tea-sets, soldiers, animals, rail- 
 ways, bricks, and odds and ends. Each child had its share 
 of these, and Bernard with a piece of chalk divided the 
 nursery table into three territories for their occupation. 
 This done he tried to institute wars between the different 
 states, but Alice was too young and Eugene too unenterpris- 
 ing to make the game a success, and eventually it was aban- 
 doned for another scheme by which all toys and owners 
 were united under his own energetic rule into one vast city 
 state. 
 
 First the railway line was laid, and each child received
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 11 
 
 ground on which to build a station. Then battered bricks 
 eked out with cardboard boxes formed the framework of a 
 wonderful metropolis. Stables, cottages, shops and temples 
 lined its thoroughfares, which were paraded by soldiers, 
 cows, lions and chessmen. The railway ran under tunnels 
 made out of drapers' boxes, on the roof of one of which a 
 shepherd tended his sheep, while on another Noah and his 
 family, a brass band, and a cat with her kittens formed har- 
 monious groups. Proportion was flouted. A fox terrier 
 filled a whole carriage of. the train, while a family of china 
 elephants reposed comfortably in the tender. And as for 
 the train it visited strange places in its journey, travelling 
 frequently from Dublin, via New York or Timbuctoo, to 
 Howth. 
 
 The principal occupations of the citizens were travelling, 
 wolf hunting, and courts martial. One day the train would 
 buzz .round and round transferring the population of New 
 York to Howth; the next all commercial activity would 
 come to a standstill while the wolves from the neighbouring 
 woods were repulsed in a marauding raid on the suburbs 
 with horse, foot and artillery. A third day would see a 
 reign of terror in full swing, Noah, chessmen and visitors 
 from Japan being tried in batches and blown from the can- 
 non's mouth. (All offences were thus treated, from treason 
 to overcrowding on the railway.) 
 
 There were wars too, based on no quarrel and fought with 
 no strategy, in which the soldiery on each side stood up to 
 each other like Frederick's Prussians while marbles mowed 
 them down, the prize of victory being a triumphal march 
 through the streets of the capital. 
 
 Time and again the whole mighty Babylon was swept 
 away by the barbarian hand of nurse, only to rise again on 
 its ruins as glorious as ever. Thus hour after hour through 
 the seemingly endless days of childhood they played, each 
 suiting the game to his own tastes. For Alice liked best to 
 gather her citizens round a table and entertain them to a 
 banquet, and Eugene loved to parade his soldiers and arrange
 
 12 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 aesthetic groups on the station platform and then sit and 
 gaze at them, while Bernard was for ever and ever dissatis- 
 fied, and built and destroyed, and reconstructed, and de- 
 stroyed again, and in the intervals dreamed great projects 
 which he never found himself able to accomplish. 
 
 Dissatisfaction often caused him to give up play alto- 
 gether, much to the disappointment of the others, whose 
 amusements became chaotic without him, and plunge into 
 the world of books. There were beautiful illustrated edi- 
 tions of Cinderella and Bluebeard in the nursery, but his 
 favourites were a big History of England, British Battles, 
 and a bound volume of the Navy and Army Illustrated. 
 From these he drew much of the inspiration of his games, 
 and back to them he went after his recurring failures. 
 There was also a big Shakespeare, plenteously illustrated, 
 which he found very hard to understand, though he man- 
 aged to appreciate the story of many of the pictures by re- 
 ferring to the text beside. Passages and characters here 
 and there had a strange fascination for him. MacDuff was 
 his favourite character, and next to him came Sampson and 
 Gregory. Indeed their scene was the only part of Romeo 
 and Juliet that held any interest for him. He loved the 
 line " No sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir. But I 
 bite my thumb, sir," and (but this was a little later) the 
 sonorous ring of some of the speeches in the tragedies pleased 
 him long before they conveyed any meaning. 
 
 In those days the artist in him was concerned mainly with 
 form. The solid shapes of things gave him pleasure. He 
 liked the firm stand of a toy regiment of Life Guards, and 
 the small broad wheels of railway trucks, and the straight 
 symmetry of the tracks ; and he would stand for hours watch- 
 ing a steam-roller at work. The smell of furniture vans 
 and of certain stone bricks that formed a temple in Babylon 
 were his only exotics. 
 
 6 
 
 Mr. Christopher Reilly kept his promise to Doctor Las- 
 celles. The christening mug was orthodox and very expen-
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 13 
 
 sive, and each of Bernard's birthdays brought a present over 
 from America. First it was a rattle, a wonderful silver 
 rattle, with melodious little bells attached. Next year came 
 a cow, a most life-like animal, with horns of cow-horn, and 
 a realistic " moo." The third year brought a huge wooden 
 railway train with doors and windows that opened and shut. 
 After that came soldiers and cannons, and clockwork trains, 
 and a magic lantern which he .was not allowed to use, for 
 fear of accidents, and which eventually rusted away from 
 neglect. For his eighth birthday ... but let us turn to 
 his mother's letter of thanks. 
 
 My Dear Chris, 
 
 I'm so glad to hear that you are quite well and getting on 
 so splendidly. Why don't you hurry up and get married? 
 Are the American girls not so charming as we are told? 
 
 Why on earth did you send Bernard that Child's History 
 of Ireland? You might have known what would happen. 
 Eugene was perfectly furious, he flung it straight into the 
 fire and Bernard was crying for hours after. The whole 
 birthday was spoilt. Now please don't think that I mind 
 myself, because I don't. I should like Bernard to be a pa- 
 triotic Irishman but his father simply won't have it and it's 
 impossible as you know for me to have any say. Besides 
 I'm not going to have politics spoiling the happiness of my 
 home. 
 
 I haven't much news. Old Dr. Wilton is dead. The 
 children had chicken pox but are well over it. Eugene gave 
 me a Christmas present of a new drawing-room suite, but 
 like most of his presents it's for himself as much as for me, 
 and it's not as if I hadn't hinted enough for a necklace. 
 
 When are you coming over to Dublin again? I'm long- 
 ing to see you, and you'll be delighted with your godson, 
 he's such a pretty child. 
 
 Try and come soon. 
 
 With much love from 
 
 Your loving sister, 
 
 ALICE,
 
 i 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Her brother's reply was brief. 
 
 / shall be in Dublin on business, he wrote, next month, 
 and I'll take a short holiday there as well. I am sending 
 Bernard another present to replace that which his father 
 did in beastly rage destroy. 
 
 I see old England's on the warpath again for Justice and 
 Mammon, so I suppose His Majesty is in fine imperial fettle. 
 Don't heed him. The Boers are a small people standing up 
 for their rights against a bully, and that's all there's to it. 
 
 Thine, 
 
 CHRIS. 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles ran upstairs to the nursery with this letter 
 and its accompanying parcel. The children deserted Baby- 
 lon and rushed to her arms in a body. 
 
 " A present from Uncle Christopher," she said, giving 
 the parcel to Bernard. " He's coming to see us soon. 
 Won't that be nice?" 
 
 " Oh, mummy, what's he like? " 
 
 " Like his photograph, of course." 
 
 " Y'es, but I mean how big is he, and how does he talk." 
 
 " Such a boy! He's tall, and you'll hear him talk when 
 he comes." 
 
 " Mummy, come and see my new invention." 
 
 " I haven't time, darling. Some other day." 
 
 Bernard looked dismayed. 
 
 " Just for a minute, mummy," he pleaded. 
 
 He drew her over to the city and tried rapidly to impress 
 her with some wonderful piece of railway engineering. She 
 listened absently with an occasional insincere " Yes," or 
 " Really," her glazed eyes showing that her thoughts were 
 elsewhere in Chatham Street with the butcher and grocer 
 most likely. Bernard, disappointed, let her go without com- 
 pleting his lecture. 
 
 " Mummy never seems to listen to us," he complained 
 when she had gone.
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 15 
 
 "Why don't you open your parcel?" asked Eugene, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 7 
 
 " I see that we are about to fight the Boers," said Dr. 
 Lascelles one day, unfolding a large map of South Africa at 
 the dinner table. 
 
 " How terrible! " said his wife. 
 
 " Serve them right," answered the Doctor. " They've 
 been asking for trouble this long time, and by God they'll 
 have it." 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles remembered her brother's letter. 
 
 " It's a shame for a big country to be attacking a little 
 one," she said. 
 
 " Do you think England's going to let herself be bullied 
 by a pack of Dutch farmers? " 
 
 " I don't think anything. I only know the Boers are 
 standing up for their rights." 
 
 " Rights! " scoffed the Doctor. " Precious lot you know 
 about rights. These Boers are a truculent narrow-minded 
 lot of money-grubbing psalm-singing bigots." 
 
 Mrs. Lascelles would sacrifice anything for peace. 
 
 " Perhaps you're right, dear," she admitted. 
 
 " There's no ' perhaps ' about it," rejoined her husband 
 irritably. " Of course I'm right." Doctor Lascelles had 
 nothing but scorn for his wife's belief in the infallibility of 
 the Pope, but he had not the slightest doubt of his own. 
 
 " Very well, dear," said his pusillanimous wife with a 
 sigh, mentally comparing her husband's hectoring behaviour 
 with Chris's considerate statement of a case. The Doctor 
 went on studying his map. 
 
 War means the slaughter of myriads of men, the destruc- 
 tion of homes, the impoverishment of masses; in its train 
 come crime, misery and disease; it is the root of hatred and 
 revenge, it is the plague and despair of the world. What 
 manner of man then is this who can look forward with com- 
 placency nay, with eagerness to the loosing of all these
 
 16 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 horrors with his connivance and at his expense upon a distant 
 people, a small people of whose existence he but recently 
 became aware and whose destruction can in no wise improve 
 his happiness? Let his friends speak for him: they would 
 praise him highly; call him generous, kind-hearted, hos- 
 pitable; a good husband and father; a man of culture and 
 taste; an excellent companion and a sayer of good things; 
 a judge of wine and cigars too; a gentleman. They are 
 not far wrong either. He is beyond doubt a hard-working 
 capable physician, popular wherever he goes, and a social 
 success. He has indeed all the attractive virtues ; and if he 
 is selfish, overbearing and tyrannical it is known only to his 
 family; if he is a snob it is noticeable only to his social in- 
 "feriors; and if he is narrow-minded and hypocritical it is 
 known only to God. 
 
 8 
 
 Bernard impatiently waited for his nurse to finish brush- 
 ing his hair. It was an annoying process at the best of 
 times, for at the end of every stroke of the brush she brought 
 the bristles down on to his ears or some other sensitive part ; 
 but now it was intolerable, for Uncle Christopher had come 
 from America and was waiting below in the drawing-room 
 to see him. The operation being at last concluded to nurse's 
 satisfaction he rushed downstairs to the drawing-room, but 
 shyness overcoming him at the door, he entered with com- 
 mendable decorum. 
 
 A tall gentleman was talking to Mrs. Lascelles beside the 
 fireplace. He looked over at Bernard's entrance and said: 
 
 "Hello! Is this Bernard?" 
 
 " This is your godson," said Mrs. Lascelles, beaming on 
 them both. Bernard came nearer. 
 
 " Dp you remember me at all? " said Uncle Christopher, 
 to which Bernard solemnly answered " No." 
 
 " That's strange," said Uncle Christopher, " because it's 
 barely eight years since we parted." 
 
 "How absurd you are, Chris," giggled Mrs. Lascelles,
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 17 
 
 and Bernard, forgetting his shyness, laughed outright. 
 
 " I was only a baby" then," he said. 
 
 " May I take Bernard out to tea? " inquired Uncle Chris- 
 topher, and, on his sister's assenting, " Will you come along 
 to Mitchells with me ? " he asked Bernard. 
 
 Bernard had no objection to offer and inside a quarter of 
 an hour they were seated at a table laden with good things. 
 
 "Have an eclair?" said Uncle Christopher, holding a 
 plate towards his nephew. Bernard, remembering previous 
 teas when his father had been the host, asked : 
 
 " Aren't they unwholesome ? " 
 
 " Very," said his uncle with his eyes twinkling. " Take 
 two." 
 
 For a time there was silence while Bernard made devastat- 
 ing raids on the gorgeous contents of several plates. After- 
 wards by sympathetic questioning the man set the child suffi- 
 ciently at his ease to let him talk spontaneously, and Chris- 
 topher was delighted with the intelligence of his nephew 
 and the clear voice and accent in which he spoke. En- 
 thusiastically Bernard told him of his wars and cities, and 
 Christopher casting aside all the difference of age between 
 them joined with him in an eager conversation. The dreams 
 and limitations of his own childhood came back to his mem- 
 ory, and he became a child again comparing notes with an- 
 other child. Bernard on his side was gloriously astonished 
 to find in his uncle a kindred spirit. Nobody had ever lis- 
 tened to him in this way before. When he tried to interest 
 his father in something that was all the world to him it was 
 " Yes, yes " impatiently, and " I must be off, laddie. I'm 
 busy." How he hated that word " busy," the spoiler of a 
 thousand joys. Why were grown ups always busy? Why 
 wasn't his uncle busy? 
 
 " What does being busy mean ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " It means having something unpleasant to do. And that 
 reminds me, I'm busy this evening, so I'll leave you* home 
 at once." 
 
 " But you'll come and see my toys tomorrow, won't you ? "
 
 1 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard inquired anxiously. His uncle promised to do so, 
 and the pair parted company at Dr. Lascelles' hall door, each 
 mightily pleased with the other. 
 
 Home again, Bernard felt a kind of chill come over him. 
 This was the land of absent-minded " Yes, yes," and " I'm 
 busy, laddie." His thoughts went back down the street 
 after his uncle, and he resolved to confide in him many 
 dreams and fancies such as he had never wanted to divulge 
 before. Slowly he ascended to the nursery, and blinking 
 after the darkness of the stairway entered the gas-lit room. 
 Its familiarity struck oppressively to his heart. Eugene and 
 Alice dull homely figures in their overalls called him 
 joyfully in their everyday voices to come and join in their 
 game, but he shook his head and retired moodily to a chair 
 apart. 
 
 " Sometimes," Eugene remarked to Alice, " Barnie goes 
 on like a grown up." 
 
 Bye and bye Bernard fetched the Army and Navy Illus- 
 trated from a shelf and immersed himself in it. Eugene and 
 Alice weary of play began to make remarks. 
 
 "Granny!" said Eugene, and Alice tittered. Bernard 
 pretended not to hear. 
 
 " Granny! " repeated Eugene, giving the book a shove by 
 way of emphasis. 
 
 " Shut up ! " snapped Bernard. 
 
 " Temper cat," said little Alice. 
 
 Something snapped inside Bernard's head. He was seized 
 with a violent desire to wring Alice's neck, but knew bet- 
 ter than to touch her, for punishment of the direst kind 
 always visited any assault on his sister. " The boy who 
 would strike a girl is a coward," was his father's dogma, the 
 natural result being that since Alice was an irritating little 
 tyrant both boys heartily detested her. So it was on Eu- 
 gene's head that the blow fell. The corner of the chronicle 
 of Britain's glories drew blood from his pudgy nose and he 
 fled to nurse howling. Instantly the culprit was arrested 
 and brought to justice before the bar of the dinner table.
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 19 
 
 Sullenly determined that his brother, chief witness standing 
 by in all the glory of injured innocence, should not have the 
 pleasure of seeing him punished, he began by stubbornly 
 denying his crime: a disastrous course. Such an attitude 
 could not long be maintained in the face of systematic brow- 
 beating and eventually he was forced to admit the truth. 
 
 " To think that my son could be a liar! " said Dr. Las- 
 celles solemnly. " A liar! " he repeated. " Don't you know 
 that the most despicable of all faults is dishonesty, and hon- 
 esty the first of all virtues. Think how splendid it would 
 be to look back on a long life and say ' I never told a lie.' 
 You can never say that now." 
 
 Bernard hung his head and traced the outlines of the 
 pattern of the carpet with his toe. 
 
 " And to think that you should deliberately strike your 
 little brother so as to make him bleed. Your behaviour 
 today has been that of a liar, a bully and a coward. Go 
 away. I'm ashamed of you." 
 
 But in spite of his crimes his mother came up to his bed- 
 side and put her arms round him and kissed him. 
 
 So ended an eventful day, eventful enough even as here 
 related with perhaps the most important event left out. 
 For as his father delivered his homologue upon truth Ber- 
 nard had looked once into his eyes, and in that look doubt 
 for the first time entered his soul. The age of acceptance 
 was over. 
 
 9 
 
 Uncle Christopher came several times to the nursery dur- 
 ing the remainder of his stay in Dublin. Mrs. Lascelles 
 smiled indulgently on him, calling him " a great child," and 
 pitying this weakness in an otherwise sensible nature. Ber- 
 nard liked to see him standing watching their play (he was 
 one of those men who never sit down), his hands in his 
 trousers' pockets, an amber-stemmed pipe between his fine 
 white teeth, making now and then in his pleasant voice some 
 illuminating suggestion on engineering or politics. Alice
 
 20 THE WASTED ISLAND - 
 
 too confided to Bernard that she loved Uncle Chris " be- 
 cause he had such twinkly eyes." 
 
 Babylon improved marvellously between his suggestions 
 and his gifts. The children, it should be mentioned, were 
 well brought up, having a code one of whose clauses for- 
 bade asking for presents. Toys, of course, always came to 
 them in a flood at Christmas time or on their birthdays, but 
 they were always of father's or mother's choice, and conse- 
 quently not always satisfying. Uncle Chris appreciated their 
 needs better and commenced by remedying the shortage of 
 building materials. Babylon immediately solved her hous- 
 ing problem and shook off a great slumland of cardboard. 
 
 " What do you think you need most now? " he asked an- 
 other day. 
 
 " It's a pity we haven't more straight tracks," said Ber- 
 nard. " It's not very real to have the train always on a 
 curve. Oh, I'm not hinting, you know," he added with a 
 sudden blush as he remembered the code. 
 
 " I'd noticed that myself, old man," and Christopher pro- 
 duced a parcel. 
 
 One day he arrived to find a battle in progress between the 
 armies 'of Eugene and Bernard. 
 
 "Go it, Ireland!" said Bernard triumphantly as a can- 
 non ball ploughed a lane through Eugene's cavalry. 
 
 " Why do you call yourselves Irish and English ? " asked 
 Christopher, surprised to hear the elements of treason com- 
 ing from his father's son. 
 
 " I know it's funny," replied Bernard, " because they're 
 both the same, aren't they? But, you see, when we used to 
 be French and English neither of us wanted to be the 
 enemy. So now Eugene is the English because they have 
 the biggest city in the world, but I'd rather be Ireland be- 
 cause we live there you know." 
 
 " An excellent reason too," said Uncle Christopher. 
 
 " Do you notice," said Bernard afterwards to Eugene, 
 " Uncle Christ sometimes says things in a queer way as i* he 
 meant something else? "
 
 A GENTLEMAN'S SON 21 
 
 " You're always thinking queer things," was all Eugene's 
 reply. 
 
 Soon after that Uncle Christopher went away, and he left 
 behind him as a last present for Bernard a book in a grey 
 blue cover called Cuchulain of Muirthemne. " Kewkelayn 
 of Murthem," Bernard pronounced it, and he read it fasci- 
 nated, and as soon as he had finished it re-read it, and re- 
 read it again, till he came to know it almost by heart. The 
 great stand up fights between champions and the clash of 
 armies in battle delighted him immensely, but the wonder- 
 ful descriptions of costumes appealed to him almost more 
 keenly. He used to try and imagine himself clad in a shin- 
 ing white shirt striped with purple down the sides, a gold 
 shield on his back with a border of silver and edge of white 
 bronze as sharp as a knife, a great spear in his hand, and a 
 mighty two edged sword with silver hilt at his jewelled belt. 
 
 But most of all, as in after days he loved the catalogue of 
 the ships in Homer, he loved the catalogue of the troops on 
 the eve of a battle. And one passage always thrilled him 
 tremendously when he read it. This was where MacRoth 
 describing to Fergus the arrival of the Ulstermen on the 
 field of Ilgaireth, tells at last of a downhearted troop of 
 leaderless men, to which Fergus replies: " I know them 
 well, and it is well for those on whose side they are, and it 
 is a pity for those they are against, for they are Cuchulain's 
 men from Muirthemne." 
 
 Up till then his favourite heroes had been Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, Nelson, Wellington and Lord Roberts, but now 
 Cuchulain and Conal and Fergus and the rest displaced them 
 entirely. They were more heroic, more lovable, and in- 
 finitely more real. He longed now to talk to Uncle Chris 
 about his treasure and to ask his explanation of the strange 
 discrepancy with accepted history which it involved. But 
 Uncle Christopher was gone away.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GLENCOOLE 
 
 I 
 
 A SOLITARY cyclist was wheeling his machine up a 
 narrow and uneven road winding through the Dublin 
 mountains. It was a hot summer day and the cyclist's 
 clothes were covered with dust and his brow with sweat. 
 For a mile he plodded on in grim determination, till at 
 length he reached the highest point of the track it was 
 little more and looked down into the valley beyond. It 
 was a beautiful scene that met his gaze ; a verdant glen well 
 wooded with beech and pine and mountain ash, and watered 
 by a little stream that splashed and sparkled down the centre. 
 A wisp of lazy smoke and a splash of white proclaimed the 
 presence of an occasional cottage, and far below the road 
 could be seen to cross the tiny rivulet by a totally dispro- 
 portionate bridge. The cyclist stood admiring the view for 
 some minutes, then sat down by the roadside and lit a 
 cigarette. When it was finished, he mounted his bicycle 
 and free-wheeled down the slope into the glen. Reaching 
 the bottom he again dismounted to climb the further slope, 
 and just before reaching the gap that led out of the glen 
 stopped at the garden gate of a two storied cottage. This 
 he opened, and advancing up -a short walk, rapped with his 
 fingers on the sun-blistered green-painted door. He heard 
 a heavy step on the flags within and the door was opened 
 by a majestic looking man, well-dressed, with longish but 
 well-groomed white hair, and neatly trimmed beard. He 
 stood for a moment in the doorway, looking inquiringly at 
 the cyclist. 
 
 " Don't you recognize me, Ward ? " said the latter. 
 22
 
 GLENCOOLE 23 
 
 "Well, if it's not Chris Reilly!" cried the white haired 
 man in a hearty voice. The voice was strangely inconsistent 
 with the hair, which, one suspected, was prematurely white. 
 
 Christopher looking at him could see that this was a young 
 man made old; that it was suffering that had furrowed his 
 brow and sorrow that had sunk his eyes so deep in their 
 sockets. 
 
 " I'm glad you haven't forgotten me," he said. " It must 
 be twenty years since I saw you last." 
 
 " You were only a lad then," replied the other, " but 
 those twenty years haven't changed you as much as they've 
 changed me. . . . Come inside. You can leave your bicycle 
 against the wall there." 
 
 Christopher followed him into a small red-flagged hall 
 from which a flight of plain deal stairs led to the upper 
 storey. Ward put his head through a doorway on the left 
 and told some one to prepare tea, and then motioned his 
 guest to enter the room opposite. Christopher did so, and 
 almost gave vent to an exclamation of surprise so different 
 was the furnishing of the room from what the exterior of the 
 cottage would lead one to expect. As for the room itself 
 it was similar to all of its kind: with two small windows 
 looking out into the shrubbery in front of the house, and 
 a big open hearth, filled now with golden-flowered furze 
 branches. But the furniture was of mahogany; there were 
 two comfortable arm-chairs; and a cottage-piano stood in a 
 corner. Moreover the walls on three sides of the room were 
 lined with book-cases, and even a hurried glance would show 
 that their contents were the collection of a true book-lover. 
 There were no pictures in the room save for a coloured re- 
 production of the Sistine Madonna over the mantelpiece and 
 a few photographs here and there. 
 
 " Yes. Twenty years. Twenty mortal years," said Ward 
 pensively as they sat down. He remained silent a few mo- 
 ments meditating. 
 
 Christopher, watching him, allowed his mind to travel 
 back to the last occasion on which he had seen him. Be-
 
 24 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 fore his mind's eye passed a vision of an attic in London, 
 in which five men, including himself, a boy of seventeen, 
 and Ward, a young man of twenty-three, were preparing 
 to sit down to a meal. In imagination he felt again the 
 tense anticipatory excitement of the moment, for these men 
 were going from that meal to certain death. All of those 
 present seemed to be in a greater or less degree affected by 
 the imminence of the crisis except the leader, a quiet de- 
 termined-looking man with iron-grey hair and beard, who 
 appeared to have no care in the world except the proper 
 preparation of the supper. As the party was about to sit 
 down this man suddenly exclaimed: " By Jove, we haven't 
 enough butter. That won't do at all. A death-feast with- 
 out butter would be unthinkable. . . . Chris, like a good 
 fellow run down the street for some butter." And he saw 
 himself leave the room. 
 
 He was roused from his reverie by the voice of his host. 
 
 " You went out to fetch something, didn't you? " queried 
 Ward. 
 
 " Butter," said Christopher with a smile, and added, " I 
 had some trouble in getting it, and when I got back I found 
 the police-van and a great crowd at the door, and over their 
 heads I saw the helmets of the policemen who were arresting 
 you." 
 
 " You had a lucky escape. What did you do after- 
 wards ? " 
 
 " I lay in hiding in east-end attics for the best part of a 
 year, and then got away to America. I've lived there ever 
 since." 
 
 " And what brings you over here now? " 
 
 Christopher looked round the room hastily as if to assure 
 himself that nobody could overhear him, and sinking his voice 
 replied : 
 
 "You know that the English are going to fight the 
 Boers?" 
 
 Ward nodded. 
 
 " Well," Christopher went on, " there are a few people
 
 GLENCOOLE 25 
 
 who'd like to give a helping hand where it's needed." 
 
 Ward suddenly became convulsed with energy. 
 
 " For God's sake, Reilly," he exclaimed, " think what 
 you're about. You're going to waste yourself . . . waste 
 yourself." 
 
 Christopher was amazed at this outburst, and was about 
 to speak when he heard a tap at the door. 
 
 " Come in," said Ward, and a girl entered with a tea- 
 tray, which she deposited upon the table. As Ward went 
 to pour out the tea a dark shy boy of about ten years of age 
 came into the room. 
 
 "Well, laddie, where have you been?" asked Ward. 
 
 " Over in Glendhu, father," said the boy. 
 
 " This is my son, Stephen, Chris," said Ward. 
 
 Christopher held out his hand which Stephen touched hur- 
 riedly, immediately afterwards retiring to a distant chair. 
 
 " How did you find me out? " asked Ward in the course 
 of the meal. 
 
 " I met Magrath in Brunswick Street the other day, and 
 he told me." 
 
 " Is he with you in that business? " 
 
 " Not he. He was always a quitter." 
 
 They talked on indifferent subjects for a while. All the 
 time Stephen sat silent, and Christopher's attempts to draw 
 him into conversation extracted only monosyllables or a 
 somewhat sheepish smile. Christopher was beginning to 
 think the boy stupid and to compare him unfavourably with 
 his bright little nephew in Dublin, when in the middle of 
 something he was saying he happened to glance in Stephen's 
 direction and saw that the boy's eyes were fixed intently 
 upon himself as if he were analysing what he was saying. 
 Stephen at once looked away, but as long as he remained in 
 the room Christopher felt uncomfortably conscious of being 
 under constant inspection. 
 
 Tea over the men produced their pipes and adjourned 
 to % seat in the garden where they basked in the mellow 
 warmth of the afternoon sun. Stephen whistled up a dog
 
 26 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and went off with him for a walk. After a short silence 
 Christopher spoke. 
 
 " I was very surprised by what you said before tea. 
 thought you were unchangeable." 
 
 " So did I once," said Ward grimly. 
 
 " But how much have you changed? " asked the younger 
 man anxiously. 
 
 "Just to this extent: that I see no good in letting a man 
 waste his life pursuing the unattainable or serving those who 
 don't want to be served." 
 
 " I'd like to know," said Christopher thoughtfully, " what 
 brought a man like you to that frame of mind ? " 
 
 " It's a long story," said Ward. " Have you patience to 
 listen to all that has happened to me since since you went 
 out for the butter ? " 
 
 " That's what I came for," said Christopher. 
 
 2 
 
 " You know, of course," said Ward, " that Doyle turned 
 Queen's evidence. As a matter of fact he had betrayed us 
 from the beginning. If ever a man looked honest and trust- 
 worthy' that man was Doyle. I would have trusted him more 
 completely than myself; and I was to have married his sis- 
 ter. She trusted him too, the dear girl. The best and 
 bravest girl ever born in Ireland, Chris. Well as she knew 
 that her brother and her sweetheart were going to certain 
 death she made no complaint and never tried to stop us. 
 Well, Doyle proved false, and when a man like him is 
 found wanting, Chris, it shakes your faith in mankind and 
 makes you ask whom can one be sure of ? But Doyle wasn't 
 our only disappointment. You'd think that the imagination 
 even of a race of slaves would be fired by what we proposed 
 to do. England's ministers, the authors of all Ireland's 
 miseries, slain in their own stronghold, and the heart of the 
 Empire held against her by a handful of determined Irish- 
 men. What oppressed people would fail to take new cour-
 
 GLENCOOLE 27 
 
 age and new inspiration from such an exploit? Ireland 
 failed. The weaklings joined with their masters in thanks- 
 giving for the unmasking of the conspiracy; the strong man 
 and his parliamentary following politely deprecated our 
 folly ; and the best that any one said for us was that we 
 were honest but misguided. . . . Misguided! We were 
 called misguided by men who mouthed the name of Robert 
 Emmet on the election platforms for a foreign Parliament. 
 
 " Meanwhile we languished in gaol. You've heard that 
 Rafter went mad. Superior people remarked that it was no 
 wonder as revolutionaries were half mad already. You 
 know what nonsense that is. You know what a solid man 
 Rafter was: not much of the high-strung fanatic about him. 
 Yet their treatment drove him mad. The wonder is that 
 any of us remained sane. 
 
 " No better leader ever fought for Ireland than James 
 Milligan. They gave him a life sentence, but in twelve 
 years they had killed him. He lies in a nameless grave in 
 Portland Prison and Ireland has forgotten him. ... As 
 for me, I was young and they let me off with seven years. 
 Seven years of hell they were. They didn't think it enough 
 to take my freedom from me and rob me of the sight of the 
 sky and the trees and the grass, but they made the ten 
 square feet of ground they gave me as uncomfortable as the 
 inventions" of petty spiteful minds could make it. I had 
 only one window and it was so small and so far from the 
 floor that the sun never reached me. Just one little bar of 
 sunlight used to shine high up on the opposite wall for half 
 an hour of the day. I used to wait for it and Watch it all 
 the time it was there, and if that hour was cloudy then my 
 whole day was black. ... I had only a stool to sit on and 
 it was clamped in the centre of the cell, so that if I wanted 
 to rest my back I had to sit on the floor leaning against the 
 wall. And my little table was also clamped down at such a 
 distance from the stool that I had no comfort in eating my 
 food.
 
 28 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " They talk of the rack and the scavenger's daughter of 
 Elizabethan days. Well, modern England is civilized and 
 her tortures are more refined. 
 
 "They wouldn't even let me sleep. On the pretext of 
 making sure that I hadn't escaped (as if I could escape 
 through a window ten feet up and fifteen inches square with 
 two thick bars to it, and the door locked and bolted) they 
 flashed a light through the spy hole every hour. They 
 flashed it on my face deliberately to wake me, and soon I 
 came by force of habit to wake beforehand in expectation 
 of it. 
 
 " Do you wonder Patsy Rafter went mad ? 
 
 " They took seven years out of my life that way. Took 
 my youth clean away from me so that it was worse than if 
 it had never been. I went into that cell a young man of 
 twenty-three and I left it at thirty, tottering and half 
 crazed. 
 
 " How I love the sunshine ! It's the greatest gift of God 
 to man, and well do they know it who send their fellow 
 creatures to gaol. When I got my release I wanted to 
 leave cities behind and begin a new life out in the open 
 where the sun could shine on me and the breezes blow 
 through and through me and bring me new strength. 
 
 " And I wanted sympathy. When for seven years you've 
 heard nothing but sharp commands shouted at you, you want 
 kindness, you want to be praised and made much of. And 
 then it was for Ireland I had suffered, and I had lived for 
 the day when Ireland should tell me I had deserved well of 
 her. But Ireland had forgotten me. The old spirit had 
 passed away and save for a few faithful souls men looked 
 upon me as an ordinary criminal. 
 
 " But Mary remembered. She had waited for me all 
 those years, and at the end of them, knowing what I would 
 like, she got me this cottage and filled it with my books and 
 brought me here from the gaol gate. 
 
 " And now I could have been happy but for the spiteful 
 minds of men. Minds that are too small to take in any-
 
 GLENCOOLE 29 
 
 thing else, take in suspicion with a wonderful facility. 
 When I married the sister of Doyle the traitor, men looked 
 at one another knowingly. Insinuating talk was in the air. 
 Some people suggested that my short sentence was a sign 
 that I had given information; others that my imprisonment 
 was not genuine. 
 
 " Strange that the one name remembered out of all who 
 took part in our enterprise should be the traitor's. 
 
 " But the suspicions of men mattered little to me. Why 
 should I mind the glances of village gossips when the sun 
 shone upon me? No. I care nothing for what men think; 
 but serve them again? Never. 
 
 " And then, as if I had not suffered enough, my Mary 
 was taken from me when Stephen was born. No man 
 could have had a better wife, and no cross word ever passed 
 between us. She was too good for this world altogether but 
 there was no one to follow her coffin but myself." 
 
 Michael Ward paused, gazing vacantly in front of him. 
 The accumulated misery of twenty years was working upon 
 his soul. As for Christopher, he remained silent. There 
 was no comment to make upon this record of a broken life. 
 
 After a time Ward by an almost visible effort of the will, 
 cast his brooding memories aside and turned to his com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Can't you understand me now?" he said. "Can you 
 free a slave who uses his very chains as a weapon against 
 his liberator? " 
 
 Christopher hesitated before replying, and when he spoke 
 his words came haltingly. It was as if he weighed each 
 before he let it fall. 
 
 " After such a story as yours," he said, " one like me, who 
 has suffered nothing, must feel that any opinion he offers 
 must to a certain extent contain some element of imper- 
 tinence. But what I think is this. Your sufferings might 
 be ten times worse than you have said, and men ten times 
 more unjust, ungrateful and small-minded than you have 
 found them to be, and yet there still remains Ireland."
 
 30 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 He reddened slightly as he said this, for he was not given 
 to voicing primal things. The words seemed to touch some 
 responsive chord in the older man's soul, for he looked up 
 suddenly with a strange light in his eye. But this was only 
 momentary. His head drooped again and he said: 
 
 "You're young and vigorous. I'm old and broken: old 
 and broken at forty-three." Then, almost beseechingly, 
 " Leave me to my trees and sunshine. I'm tired." 
 
 Christopher was reminded of Mangan's lines: 
 
 And lives he still then? Yes, old and hoary, 
 At thirty-nine from despair and woe. 
 
 and felt that this wreck of a man, clinging so desperately to 
 what was left of the youth within him was too pathetic a 
 creature to argue with. 
 
 Suddenly Ward sprang to his feet. 
 
 " But this is a melancholy reception to give you," he said, 
 " after twenty years' separation. Let's take a stroll down 
 the glen." 
 
 Christopher looked at his watch and said: 
 
 " I'm afraid it's nearly time for me to be off. I've a long 
 ride before me." 
 
 " Nonsense. You'll stay the night surely? " 
 
 After some persuasion Christopher agreed, and they set 
 out for the gap at the far end of the glen. Here they left 
 the road and ascended the tree-clad hillside, treading a car- 
 pet of pine-needles. 
 
 " One of our few surviving woods," said Ward. " Ire- 
 land is being steadily stripped of her trees by the short 
 sighted greed of her land owners. I come here every day to 
 enjoy the sight of them so long as they are left to me. Al- 
 ready a little wood beyond the hill there has been cut down 
 and I can't bear to look at the spot." 
 
 There was sorrow and anger in his voice. They had 
 paused in their climb to take breath. 
 
 " All over the country this wholesale destruction of ir- 
 replaceable beauty goes on," continued Ward. "And be-
 
 GLENCOOLE 31 
 
 cause some damned young fool of a land owner is drinking 
 and whoring in London these trees here that I've known 
 and loved for years will soon be taken to pay for his pleas- 
 ures. . . . Well, let us enjoy them while they last. Aren't 
 they magnificent? " 
 
 " In America," said Christopher, " they call them sun- 
 shine-stoppers and regard them merely as potential telegraph 
 poles." 
 
 They resumed the ascent and emerging from the belt of 
 trees reached the top of the hill. A magnificent panorama 
 spread itself before them. Across the valley were the gently 
 curved Three Rock and Two Rock Mountains, bare and 
 barren, with little woods in the valleys beneath. To the 
 south the Sugar Loaf, threatening and volcanic-looking, 
 domineered over his little brother. Away to the left Bray 
 Head sloped to the sea. 
 
 " Such a compact little country! " said Christopher, men- 
 tally comparing it with the great sprawling bulk of Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 " I find it sufficient," said Ward. " I haven't travelled 
 more than a couple of miles beyond the glen since Mary 
 died." 
 
 Skirting the edge of the wood they descended to the val- 
 ley. As they neared the house they overtook Stephen and 
 the dog. Ward slapped the boy heartily on the back, ask- 
 ing had he had a good walk, to which Stephen merely an- 
 swered " Yes," and taking his father's arm, accompanied 
 the men home in silence. 
 
 3' 
 
 During supper Christopher, under Ward's questioning, 
 talked of America and of his life there, and when Chris- 
 topher endeavoured to shift the conversation to Ireland, 
 Ward skilfully fenced him off and reverted to the original 
 topic. All the time young Stephen sat silent, listening in- 
 tently, and, so Christopher fancied, taking in as much of 
 what was unsaid as of what was said. After supper Ward
 
 32 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 put a match to a pile of wood which had been substituted 
 for the furze boughs on the hearth. 
 
 "Curious primeval instinct, isn't it?" he remarked. 
 " It's a fine warm night, but without a fire we always feel 
 something lacking." 
 
 " Another of the things they deprive you of in gaol," he 
 was reflecting. 
 
 The men lit their pipes and drew their chairs up to the 
 cheerful blaze. 
 
 " Go and get your Horace, Stephen," said Ward, and the 
 boy left the room. 
 
 " He's young to have got to Horace," remarked Chris- 
 topher. 
 
 " Eleven. Well, yes. I was only doing Caesar myself 
 at that age, but then that was at school. I teach Stephen 
 myself." 
 
 Stephen returned, carrying a slim copy of the Third Book 
 of Odes, and stood beside his father's chair. 
 
 "Where are we now?" asked W T ard. 
 
 " First half of Ode Two." 
 
 " Read it out then. You won't mind? " he added, look- 
 ing apologetically at Christopher, who shook his head. 
 
 Stephen began to read the ode beginning: " Angustam 
 amice pauperiem pati." He then translated the first three 
 stanzas into very fair English, and began on the fourth. 
 
 Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori/ " he read. " ' It 
 is sweet and proper to die for one's country.' Is it?" he 
 asked, looking up. 
 
 " That's only one of Horace's attempts at nobility," said 
 Ward. 
 
 " Then he must have thought other people would think it 
 noble," said Stephen. 
 
 " Not necessarily," said Ward. 
 
 Stephen looked hard at his father for a moment, seemed 
 to realize that he shirked being questioned, and picked up 
 the translation where he had left off.
 
 GLENCOOLE 33 
 
 Stephen went early to bed, and after his departure Chris- 
 topher said : 
 
 " That boy has brains." 
 
 " So I think," replied Ward. " But he's a queer lad al- 
 together. You've noticed how seldom he speaks. That's 
 not shyness. He's always like that. And yet he's not mopy. 
 He spends most of his time out ratting or rabbiting with his 
 dog, and he's as healthy as can be." 
 
 " Does he read much? " 
 
 " Next to nothing. To my knowledge he's only read one 
 book in his life, and he hasn't finished that one yet. It's 
 a big history of France, and he's been working his way 
 slowly through it for the best part of a year. It seems to 
 me that though he has plenty of brains they work very 
 slowly and methodically but when they once get hold of a 
 thing they never let it go again. When I give him new in- 
 formation on any subject he doesn't make any remark: just 
 looks hard at me and then goes away to let it sink in. Yes. 
 He's a queer lad." 
 
 " Yesterday," said Christopher, " I was entertaining a 
 little boy who is his opposite in every way. He's a nephew 
 of mine and my godson, and he's all chatter and questions, 
 questions that take some answering too. And though he's 
 only eight he's a tremendous reader. Your boy is luckier 
 than Bernard, though. He has room for full development 
 up here, but my nephew will have to shake his active little 
 mind free from shackles and hammer it against walls if it 
 is to grow at all. His father's a narrowminded irreligious 
 bigot and a violent Unionist, and my sister is completely 
 under his thumb, so I know the kind of up-bringing he'll 
 get. They'll train his mind to run in a groove, and a 
 damned twisty groove it will be, dodging obstacles and down- 
 hill all the way. They'll try to prevent him thinking too 
 much and fix his attention on the accepted. They'll teach 
 him that things as they are are all for the best ; that it is 
 unwise to probe too deep into ideas which it would be dan-
 
 34 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 gerous to follow to their logical conclusion; and that the 
 connection with England is part of the established order of 
 the universe. ' Eat, shirk, and be respectable, for tomorrow 
 you may be knighted,' is the motto they'll set him, and if 
 he's the boy I take him for he'll be struggling most of his 
 youth with the fog they'll raise round him, like Peer Gynt 
 with the Boig. If I could only be near I'd be some help 
 to him but God knows what this war may bring." 
 
 " So you fully intend to throw your life away for a people 
 who are only a name to you ? " 
 
 " No. I fight against England. Those I fight with don't 
 matter a damn, though for that matter they've as good a 
 cause as England ever fought against." 
 
 "Well, it's no business of mine. But I hate to see life 
 wasted." 
 
 " So does any man. It all turns on what you mean by 
 waste." 
 
 " Any life given for this island of ' bellowing slaves and 
 genteel dastards ' is wasted. And I tell you this, I'm not 
 going to let Stephen waste himself for such a people. You're 
 afraid that your little nephew may drift into one kind of 
 slavery and you'd like to hurry him into another. My 
 Stephen shall be slave to nothing. Written or spoken word 
 about this island of fools and traitors he has never seen or 
 heard, and never shall so long as I can prevent it." 
 
 " Then he becomes a slave to you and to ignorance." 
 
 Ward was momentarily taken aback. He fumbled for 
 words for a minute and then stammered out: 
 
 " I don't want him to suffer as I did." 
 
 " Not even of his free choice ? " 
 
 " There's no free choice," Ward almost shouted in his 
 excitement. " This damnable old island gets her spell on 
 you and you're no longer your own master. Well I know it, 
 and so do you." 
 
 " Metaphysical rubbish," said Christopher coolly. " Eye- 
 wash, my friend. The will to do what one considers one's 
 duty comes from oneself. There's no Granuailing about it.
 
 GLENCOOLE 35 
 
 And as for you, if you jail your boy's mind you'll go one 
 worse than those who jailed your body . . . 
 
 "My God!" he exclaimed suddenly, "are children's 
 minds always to be at the mercy of the fools who beget 
 them?" 
 
 " You have no son, Reilly," said Ward. 
 
 " Which remark, though tragic, is quite off the point," 
 replied the other. 
 
 He put his pipe in his pocket and lit a cigarette. Ward 
 refilled his pipe, and for quarter of an hour they smoked 
 in silence. Ward was thinking hard, and the younger man, 
 watching him intently, seemed to follow his meditations. 
 
 " Besides," he said at length, " you can't keep him igno- 
 rant for ever. And when knowledge comes he'll be hard 
 on those who tried to keep it from him." 
 
 " There's something in that," Ward admitted. He 
 yawned heavily. 
 
 " Let's go to bed," he suggested. 
 
 4 
 
 Next morning after breakfast Ward went off on some 
 farm business, leaving Christopher in the garden to enjoy the 
 cool freshness of the air. Bye and bye Stephen approached 
 and without any preliminary asked : 
 
 "Is it a sweet and proper thing to die for your coun- 
 try?" 
 
 " Yes, and more." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well, to answer that I'd have to be sure that you know 
 what your country is." 
 
 " I don't." 
 
 "Your country, or your fatherland (which is a better 
 translation for ' patria'} is the land where you and your 
 fathers were born." 
 
 "Yes. But why is it proper to die for it? Does it do 
 the land any good ? And why should you do the land any 
 good ? "
 
 36 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " All the children of the same fatherland are in a sense 
 brothers, and for the good of all they must stick together. 
 And if any one attacks them they must unite and help each 
 other, and if necessary be ready to die in the fight. So that 
 dying for fatherland really means dying for the sake of your 
 friends and brothers. You see, the safety of each one de- 
 pends on the safety of them all, and the safety of all depends 
 on the readiness of each man to sacrifice his own safety for 
 the rest." 
 
 " Then Horace was telling the truth ? " 
 
 " For once. But you needn't mind Horace. He was a 
 nasty little beast who only told the truth when it sounded 
 clever. And now, to turn to more interesting subjects, 
 how's your rabbiting? " 
 
 " I was just going to see to some snares I set. Would 
 you like to come? " 
 
 " Sure thing. Lead on and I'll follow." 
 
 They went up the slope behind the cottage, crossing some 
 of Ward's fields, and emerged on some waste land which 
 was a veritable rabbit warren. They went to each snare in 
 turn, Stephen pocketing the prey. Some of the rabbits were 
 still living, and these Stephen killed in spite of Christopher's 
 appeal to let them go free. 
 
 " I couldn't bear to kill a thing like that," said Chris- 
 topher. 
 
 " They rob us and they're good to eat," replied Stephen 
 in matter-of-fact tones. 
 
 " I know. I might reason that way myself, but their 
 screams and the look in their eyes would be too much for 
 me." 
 
 " You wouldn't bother much about the look in their eyes 
 if you saw them eating your cabbage patch." 
 
 "Duke et decorum est pro patchia mori" said Chris- 
 topher, and Stephen grinned. 
 
 " Young barbarian," thought Christopher. " Puts his 
 head before his heart every time. He'll be a great man 
 some day. Wonder will he and Bernard ever meet."
 
 GLENCOOLE 37 
 
 Stephen having dispatched the last of his victims, they 
 turned homewards. 
 
 In the early afternoon Christopher got ready to return to 
 town. 
 
 " Good-bye, old man," said Ward, standing at the gate. 
 " Good-bye, and the best of luck." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Christopher, and they shook hands 
 warmly. 
 
 " I'll see you to the top of the glen," said Stephen. 
 
 They set off together, Christopher wheeling his bicycle 
 and Stephen by his side. They said very little. Chris- 
 topher joked about the size of the bridge and Stephen told 
 him disjointed stories about the other people in the valley. 
 At length they reached the top of the rise and looked down 
 on the city in the distance. 
 
 " I've never been in Dublin," said Stephen. 
 
 " You'll go there soon enough," replied Christopher. 
 
 " Why do you say that? Won't I like it? " 
 
 " Glencoole's a better place." 
 
 " It's a lonely place then." 
 
 " There are worse things than loneliness." 
 
 " You know better than me. Are you ever coming back 
 here again ? " 
 
 " If I have luck," said Christopher. " Good-bye, 
 Stephen." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 They shook hands. Christopher mounted his bicycle and 
 slid down the road towards the city. 
 
 5 
 
 Michael Ward was profoundly moved by his last talk 
 with Christopher. He had been leading a self centred and 
 monotonous life for years, a perpetual Achillean sulk which 
 he had considered rather fine and which was really an emo- 
 tional luxury. The preservation of his son's ignorance also 
 it had pleased him to regard as a heaven-appointed task. 
 Now he began to see things in a new light. He saw how
 
 3 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 much of personal pride and selfishness had been in his whole 
 attitude, and though he could not bring himself to change 
 his own mode of life and thought he began to be ashamed of 
 the restrictions he had imposed on Stephen. Pride yields 
 slowly, and this self revelation occupied some time. Mean- 
 while life at Glencoole went on much the same as ever save 
 that Ward became gradually more communicative on sub- 
 jects he had formerly shirked. 
 
 Ward was very much mistaken when he told Christopher 
 that his son's mind worked slowly. The boy's intelligence 
 was if anything quicker than the average, but it was a 
 singularly cool one. He was gifted with a detachment be- 
 yond his years, and he never received any information with- 
 out asking himself whether the speaker was telling the truth 
 and, if he was, whether his opinion would be of value. This 
 was the cause of the long hard look which his father had 
 imagined to be a sign of slowness. 
 
 This attitude of perpetual doubt and detachment was only 
 a part of the general hardness of Stephen's character. No 
 extraneous emotion ever seemed to deter him from anything 
 he wanted to do. Christopher had noticed this in connec- 
 tion with the rabbit-trapping incident and hastily concluded 
 that the boy was callous. But Stephen would as soon have 
 thought of killing a song-bird as of sparing a rat. He was 
 pre-eminently logical and purposeful. 
 
 His father too found him lacking in affection: undemon- 
 strative he preferred to call it. Stephen's affections as a 
 matter of fact were not really shallow, but when the depend- 
 ent filial feeling of youth had begun to wear off he had 
 begun to question his father and later on to see through 
 him. Blood has strong ties, but as adolescence approached 
 he began to wonder why he should love this proud, selfish, 
 irritable old man. The mere fact that he had begotten him 
 did not seem sufficient explanation. 
 
 About nine months after Christopher's departure Michael 
 Ward quietly unlocked a cupboard underneath one of the 
 bookshelves. Some time before Stephen had at last come to
 
 GLENCOOLE 39 
 
 the end of his History of France and was now well started 
 on a History of Ancient Greece, so his father felt that the 
 risk of the contents of the cupboard being soon discovered 
 was but small. However, one day not long after Stephen 
 suddenly said at breakfast: 
 
 " Father, you never told me we'd been conquered by the 
 English." 
 
 " It happened a long time ago, Stephen." 
 
 "Well, oughtn't we do something to drive them out?" 
 
 Stephen was a disconcertingly logical child.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 END OF A STORY 
 
 THE Empire was at war . . . 
 When England goes to war she is not content like 
 other countries to claim that her quarrel is right. It is 
 always for Righteousness itself that she fights, so of course 
 her foes must naturally be for Evil. The Boers therefore, 
 being enemies to the Empire, were found to be dirty un- 
 civilized and unchristian and to have no respect for treaties, 
 while their leader was revealed as a criminal of the lowest 
 type. To conquer such a people and annex the gold and 
 diamond mines they were unfit to possess thus became for 
 England a Christian duty. 
 
 " That fellow Kruger," said Dr. Lascelles, full of virtu- 
 ous indignation brought on by a character sketch in the 
 Morning Post, " ought to be shot." 
 
 England's little colony in Dublin was not to be out-done 
 in fervour or fever by its mighty mother. Red-white-and- 
 blue bunting flaunted a gaudy farewell to the dust-coloured 
 troops when they marched away; Kipling's songs were on 
 every loyal lip; badges were sported in every loyal button- 
 hole. Fond mothers dressed their little boys in khaki, much 
 to the envy of Bernard, who, forgetful of purple-striped 
 shirts and silver-rimmed shields, tormented his mother into 
 getting the like for him. But by the time he had got it 
 the craze had died out, and finding himself alone and con- 
 spicuous he soon returned to his sailor suit. Later on his 
 father gave him a badge with a photograph of Queen Vic- 
 toria on one side and one of Lord Roberts on the other. 
 This he wore in his button-hole for a few days until he met 
 40
 
 END OF A STORY 41 
 
 Hektor O'Flaherty in Stephen's Green, who, with con- 
 temptuous words which greatly puzzled our hero, tore it 
 from its place and ground it under his heel. The children 
 also inserted a new invocation into their prayers : " God 
 bless the Queen and give her victory over her enemies," and 
 Bernard used to add under his breath : " And don't let the 
 Boers come and kill us." It was a thrilling and exciting 
 time. 
 
 "Why don't we always do these things?" he asked his 
 mother. 
 
 And the war went on. 
 
 Bernard used to steal the illustrated papers from his fa- 
 ther's waiting-room and make tableaux with his lead sol- 
 diers after the manner of the battle pictures. He feasted 
 full of glory and great deeds and longed to be a man and 
 out in the fighting. He used to picture himself holding the 
 pass alone like Cuchulain against tremendous odds, or slay- 
 ing Kruger in single combat while two armies looked on. 
 He wanted to talk to Uncle Christopher about it all, but 
 his godfather had mysteriously vanished, and when he asked 
 his mother was he gone to the war she only shook her head. 
 
 A year went by and still the war went on. 
 
 Doctor Lascelles was knighted and Bernard wondered 
 what dragon he had slain and was very disappointed when 
 he donned no shining armour to go out and fight the Boers. 
 But the war was forgotten in the excitement of moving to 
 the new house on Merrion Square, and exploring the new 
 nursery, and making new friends, and playing new games in 
 the secluded walks of the Square itself. And Bernard was 
 somewhat compensated for the loss of Hektor O'Flaherty 
 by his own attainment of an analogous position among his 
 new associates. 
 
 2 
 
 When Bernard was ten years of age he made his First 
 Communion. 
 
 His early religious training had been the work of his
 
 42 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 mother. She was what is generally called a good pious 
 Catholic: that is to say she went to Mass frequently, fasted 
 on Fridays, had numerous " devotions " and superstitions, 
 had no code of ethics, and was totally ignorant of the phi- 
 losophy of the Catholic religion. Destitute as she was of 
 reason and knowledge she nevertheless considered it her ma- 
 ternal duty to instruct her son in the fundamentals of both. 
 If her watch had gone out of order she would not have 
 dreamt of meddling with its mechanism herself, yet she felt 
 in no way incapable of revealing infinity to the subtle and 
 complicated mind of a child. So when Bernard was very 
 young she took him on her knee and told him pretty stories 
 about angels, and good little children who went to heaven, 
 and bad big children who went to hell. She told him that 
 if he was good he would sit on a jewelled throne in heaven 
 wearing a crown and a pair of O such lovely wings (which 
 last was what most appealed to Bernard in the prospect), 
 and that if he was bad he would be burnt to ashes with the 
 devils in hell. Later on she taught him his catechism and 
 was annoyed to find that Bernard was more interested in 
 finding out the meanings of the long words than in the doc- 
 trines they expressed. 
 
 Then he was sent to a preparatory school where the good 
 nuns (as they love to be called) prepared him for his first 
 confession in much the same ignorant way as his mother had 
 employed. He was eight years of age when he first pre- 
 sented his soul to be cleansed of its iniquities and after that 
 he was compelled to repeat the process monthly. Frequently 
 he was so ashamed of his cleanliness as to invent sins, and 
 once he even went so far as to accuse himself of Lust, not 
 knowing in the least what it meant, but because it was a 
 new sin, and a deadly one. 
 
 And no\v came the first Communion Day. " The great- 
 est day of your life," he was told, " and the happiest." 
 He bent his head and joined his hands as reverently as any, 
 and his mother thought he looked a little cherub in his 
 white sailor suit. Afterwards there was a magnificent
 
 END OF A STORY* 43 
 
 breakfast, and the good nuns went about saying pious things 
 to the First Communicants and presenting them with what 
 are called Holy Pictures. And towards the end of the day 
 Bernard dismayed his mother by saying in a disappointed 
 tone: 
 
 " Mother, when is the happiness going to begin 1 ? " 
 
 "Aren't you happy now, darling?" she remonstrated. 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right, but nothing extra." 
 
 " Oh, Bernard! what a thing to say! " 
 
 " Well, it's true." 
 
 His mother sighed. He was no longer the innocent 
 thoughtless boy she would have liked him to remain. She 
 had noticed his growing roughness and impatience of 
 caresses, and as his golden curls darkened into brown and 
 his chubby cheeks lengthened she felt that he was becoming 
 more and more independent of her. She almost resented 
 his growth to boyhood, and indeed wished him still an in- 
 fant. She remembered the days when he came with all his 
 questions to her as to the fount of wisdom and knowledge; 
 when her answers were taken for granted without hesita- 
 tion or demur. Now it was always to his father that he 
 went, or to a book, and she began to regret the " Don't 
 bother me; I'm busy" with which she had too frequently 
 fended off his inquiries. 
 
 3 
 
 The war still went on. 
 
 And one day Bernard came upon his mother in tears 
 with an open letter in her lap. He asked her what was 
 wrong, and she put her arms round him and told him that 
 Uncle Chris had been killed in the war, and the two of 
 them wept together for a little while. Then Bernard went 
 away to think of Uncle Chris by himself, and he fancied 
 him fighting his last fight like Cuchulain, driving his 
 chariot through the hosts of the enemy till they overwhelmed 
 him. 
 
 That night he slept with Cuchulain of Muirthemne
 
 44 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 against his cheek, and his father going up to the nursery 
 saw it and took it downstairs to read. Perceiving it to be 
 a dangerous book he put it away on a shelf in the dark. 
 
 4 
 
 It was through Mrs. Harvey, wife of Dr. Harvey the 
 fashionable oculist, and an old school friend of Lady Las- 
 celles, that the .news leaked out that Sir Eugene's brother- 
 in-law had been killed fighting for the Boers. The young 
 man was unknown in Dublin and the plausible physician 
 might have glossed things over but for this woman's med- 
 dling tongue. Where she learned the truth is not known, 
 but once it was in her possession she was as anxious as 
 Midas' barber to spread it abroad, and her weekly-at-home 
 gave her the opportunity. 
 
 " Isn't it sad about poor Lady Lascelles' brother? " said 
 her first visitor, Mrs. Moffat. 
 
 "Doubly sad, isn't it?" replied the hostess, significantly 
 enigmatic. 
 
 "Why doubly?" inquired Mrs. Moffat. 
 
 "Oh, don't you know? . . . Well, perhaps, I'd better 
 say nothing about it." This was Mrs. Harvey's usual pre- 
 liminary to telling everything. 
 
 " But I wouldn't let it go any further," said Mrs. Harvey 
 after the revelation. " Don't you think I'm right? " 
 
 " Perfectly right," said Mrs. Moffat. 
 
 But to make quite sure that she was right to keep the 
 matter secret each guest in turn had to be told the story 
 and her advice on the point requested, and one and all were 
 agreed that it should go no further. 
 
 When the truth came out in Merrion Square it caused 
 quite a flutter in that tranquil dovecot. Mrs. Gunby 
 Rourke openly proclaimed her intention of cutting Lady 
 Lascelles on the first opportunity and actually did so, but 
 the general feeling was one of sympathy for the sorrow and 
 disgrace that had befallen an unquestionably loyal family, 
 and condolences in very guarded phraseology began to trickle
 
 END OF A STORY 45 
 
 in. Mrs. Harvey's were among the first: eight pages of 
 conventional consolations and religious tags. 
 
 " I know, dear Alice " she wrote, " that your grief is 
 greater than that of others who have lost their dear ones, 
 for your sorrow for his death is increased by the knowledge 
 that he fought for the enemy. I pray that God may give 
 you grace to bear this doubly bitter trial," and a great deal 
 more in the same strain. 
 
 " Damned hard lines on Lascelles, this news about his 
 brother-in-law," said old Colonel Delamere in the Kildare 
 Street Club. 
 
 " Damned hard to know what to do in a case like this. 
 One can't feel sorry when a traitor meets his deserts, but 
 one can hardly be unfriendly to people one knows. I sup- 
 pose I'd better leave my card." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 Mrs. Heuston Harrington, who was intellectual and very 
 superior to the little island in which she deigned to live, 
 remarked : 
 
 " Fancy an intelligent man bothering like that over an- 
 cient grievances! I can't understand how a man with big 
 interests in a great country like America should worry his 
 head over a silly little place like this." 
 
 Mrs. Heuston Harrington did not leave her card, but that 
 was because she was too intellectual to possess such conven- 
 tional things. 
 
 -Among all the denizens of the Square not one was to be 
 found who would say that a brave man had died for the 
 cause he believed to be right. For among them it is not 
 considered the thing to die for a cause that is not " respect- 
 able." 
 
 5 
 
 The death of his god-father wrought a great change in 
 Bernard. Deprived of his one confidant he turned in on 
 himself more and more, reading and dreaming instead of 
 playing with his brothers and sisters. Wearied of the limi- 
 tations of toy states and toy wars he sought solider things
 
 46 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 in the wars and politics of English History, which he read 
 right through from the Roman Invasion to the accession of 
 George the First, where it became too complicated for his 
 understanding. Historical stories like those of G.- A. Henty 
 also attracted him and a little book called " Stories from 
 Roman History " set him hunting among his father's books 
 for a full history which when found he read from Anno 
 Urbis Conditae to the Battle of Actium. The Empire 
 somehow failed to attract him. 
 
 Then he got dissatisfied with the ways of real history, 
 where the countries and people he favoured nearly always 
 came off worst, and must needs construct an imaginary 
 history free from those blemishes in his own head. He 
 invented an island and divided it up into a number of states 
 each with its own laws and customs. One of these it 
 was a small state on the north-east coast was his favourite 
 and he made it the hero of his political drama. It was 
 inhabited by a brave and enlightened people who made up 
 in quality what they lacked in numbers. In the south-west 
 was the largest and most powerful state inhabited by a bully- 
 ing and treacherous population. This was the villain state 
 and between it and the hero state w r as a deadly feud. As 
 they were separated by neutrals the wars which perpetually 
 broke out between them were of necessity preceded by di- 
 plomacy and the making of alliances. Interests and prin- 
 ciples pulled the different states in varying directions and 
 were responsible for ever-changing enmities and friendships. 
 If Bernard could possibly manage to keep control over events 
 the weaker and better cause always won, but a train of 
 events once started he frequently found it impossible in the 
 interests of verisimilitude to thwart the unfavourable course 
 of fate, and then the triumph of might over right made of 
 his island another Europe. 
 
 Into this imaginary continent Bernard would frequently 
 retire, building up a history of war and intrigue sometimes 
 for hours at a time, while those who observed him thought 
 he was merely absent minded. This occupation lasted well
 
 END OF A STORY 47 
 
 on into his school days, but as he grew older the character 
 of his imagination changed. His mind became less political 
 and more constructive. He thought less of warfare and 
 more of building and law-making. He envisaged beautiful 
 cities, pleasant villages, roads, bridges, harbours and fortifi- 
 cations. Formerly he had drawn for himself maps, phys- 
 ical and political, of his island, colouring the different states 
 as in a map of Europe. Now he took to making plans of 
 cities and harbours, and even elaborated an imaginary census. 
 These documents he drew up in moments of privacy; he 
 would have died sooner than let anybody see them. 
 
 But before he had reached this stage a notable event 
 occurred. A History of France came into his hands, and 
 the tale of the French Revolution made him at eleven years 
 of age a red republican. Hitherto his affections had been 
 generally given to peoples rather than to causes. He backed 
 the Yorkists against the Lancastrians, the Carthaginians 
 against the Romans, because for no discoverable reason he 
 liked them better. Patriotism itself meant nothing to him, 
 for love of Ireland, that fruitful mother of rebels, could find 
 no place in his father's teaching, and a way has not yet been 
 found to inculcate love of the United Kingdom. An inde- 
 finable pride in Britain's glory was all Bernard possessed as 
 a substitute for the basis of citizenship. . . . But now he 
 had obtained a creed, and by degrees it became a passion. 
 The very name of king soon came to affect him as it had 
 affected the ancient Romans. Back to English history he 
 went with his new view point: no more partisanship for 
 this apostle of an idea. Gone his championship of York 
 against Lancaster: it was but a petty dynastic squabble in 
 the eyes of this young republican. Gone his enthusiasm for 
 the Cavaliers: all his favour was transferred to their op- 
 ponents, and the star of Prince Rupert paled before the 
 sun of Hampden. His imaginary island shared in the gen- 
 eral revolution, and his hero state became a republic of 
 extraordinary virtue in desperate contention with the villain 
 state, now a bigoted upholder of the ancien regime.
 
 48 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 His father knew nothing of all this mental activity, and it 
 was just as well that he did not, for the truth would have 
 frightened and annoyed him. He would indeed have been 
 rather ashamed of his son's precocity, of his imagination, 
 of his pre-occupation with ideas; all of which conflicted 
 with his own conception of what a boy should be, and was 
 associated in his mind with queer-mannered undesirable 
 people with strange collars and long hair. 
 
 (And as for you, madam, you are quite right in saying 
 that you would not have liked Bernard at all at this age. 
 So different from other little boys, isn't he? He thinks far 
 too much, which isn't right in one so young, and he's apt to 
 go into the moon when you are amiably questioning him 
 about school and other things that ought to interest a little 
 boy. How much nicer Eugene is: so quaint and thought- 
 less. He lets you pat him on the head too, and when you 
 kissed him he did not shrink from your lips as Bernard did. 
 And Eugene is quite ready to chatter with you and flatter 
 your age and wisdom by his own childishness, whereas Ber- 
 nard is obviously impatient to return to that book he was 
 reading when you interrupted him. . . . Yes, of course, it's 
 this' reading that does it. He reads far more than is good 
 for so young a child. Gives them ideas, doesn't it? . . . 
 Yes, madam, you are quite right. You would not have liked 
 Bernard at all.) 
 
 6 
 
 It remains to be recorded how the news of Christopher 
 Reilly's death was received at Glencoole. It came in a let- 
 ter from a comrade in arms who had been beside him when 
 he died and heard his last words. Michael Ward read it 
 in the porch of his cottage on a grey morning in April. 
 
 " My God ! " he groaned. " What waste ! " 
 
 Entering the sitting-room he found Stephen lying on the 
 floor engrossed in a huge volume. The mysterious cupboard 
 was open, and the book was the History of the Four Mas- 
 ters.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 
 
 SIR EUGENE LASCELLES gave some fatherly advice 
 to his son on the eve of his departure for school. 
 
 " Don't push yourself forward too much at first," he said. 
 " And don't try to be too clever. If the boys question you, 
 answer them straight, unless it's about your sisters, in which 
 case I leave it to your own wit to find a way out. Don't 
 be too friendly with masters or you'll get a bad name 
 among the boys. Try and make friends with decent gen- 
 tlemanly fellows. Never funk anybody, but don't do any 
 more fighting than you can help ; I believe it's out of date at 
 Public Schools nowadays. I needn't tell you never to do 
 anything dishonourable, because you're my son. Good-bye, 
 my boy, and God bless you." 
 
 " A good, sound, manly talk," thought Sir Eugene, " and 
 no nonsense about it." 
 
 A cab was at the door bearing Bernard's luggage. He 
 said good-bye to Eugene, who was still at a preparatory 
 school, and to Sandy, who was too young to go to school at 
 all. Then he kissed Alice and the baby and entered the cab 
 with his mother. 
 
 " I've asked Mrs. MacBride to ask her boy to look after 
 you," said Lady Lascelles as they drew near to Kingstown. 
 " So you'll have one friend to start with." 
 
 Bernard mumbled something. He dared not speak, being 
 on the verge of tears. He nearly broke down as she kissed 
 him good-bye on the deck of the steamer. 
 
 " Good-bye, darling." 
 
 A bell clanged and there was a cry of " All for the shore." 
 After a last kiss Lady Lascelles went down the gangway. 
 49
 
 5 o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 With tear-dimmed eyes Bernard watched her as they cast the 
 vessel off. The pier seemed to glide away. He waved his 
 handkerchief in reply to hers until it had become a flutter- 
 ing white speck indistinguishable among a multitude of 
 others. 
 
 Then he looked around for MacBride, but that youth was 
 too much occupied with his own friends to trouble himself 
 about " a kid my mater asked me to look after." So he 
 made the journey alone, miserable, and sea-sick. 
 
 He stood in the vast play ground of Ashbury College, a 
 forlorn little figure, very shy, very unhappy, and very cold. 
 His hands were thrust deep into his breeches' pockets, partly 
 to keep them warm and partly because he did not know what 
 else to do with them. Also, jingling his money gave him 
 some employment. 
 
 Interminable hour! He was too shy to stand still: too 
 shy to walk about. He shifted his weight from one foot to 
 another. He took out his watch and replaced it without 
 observing the time. He studied the pattern of the railings. 
 Looking out through them he felt like a caged animal in a 
 zoo. There were cows outside who looked at him stolidly 
 like spectators. 
 
 He turned back to view the scene in the play-ground. 
 Some of the boys were playing football; others were stroll- 
 ing about conversing. No one noticed the new boy. 
 
 Just then a chattering group passed by and suddenly 
 turned upon him. He seemed to be surrounded by gigantic 
 figures. 
 
 " Hello, new fellow. What's your name? " 
 
 " How old are you? " 
 
 " Where do you come from? " 
 
 "What's your father?" 
 
 " What class are you in ? " 
 
 Bernard answered as politely as he knew how. 
 
 " God ! You must be an awful stewpot to be put into
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 51 
 
 Rudiments at twelve," said one boy after Bernard's reply 
 to the last question. 
 
 "Awful cheek of a new kid to be put above you, Sex- 
 ton," said another: whereat all burst out laughing at Sexton 
 and took themselves off, much to Bernard's relief. 
 
 Soon afterwards a whistle sounded and the boys streamed 
 indoors. Amid the prevailing chatter Bernard changed his 
 boots in silence and made his way to the washroom. In the 
 lobby outside a big Higher Line boy beckoned to him. 
 
 " Here, kid! " he said. 
 
 Bernard approached bashfully. His summoner was a 
 greasy looking person with a nasty mouth whose isolated 
 teeth resembled lichenous tombstones in a neglected grave- 
 yard. He put a flabby hand on Bernard's shoulder, looking 
 at him in a queer way that puzzled and rather frightened 
 him. 
 
 " Be my tart," he said in an eager, rasping voice. 
 
 Bernard had no idea of his meaning, but the fellow's 
 touch sent a virginal shudder through his frame and wrench- 
 ing himself free he fled into the washroom. Like a hunted 
 animal he crept along the galleries to his class, glancing 
 around in every direction in a fearful search for the boy 
 with the nasty mouth. All through class he sat wondering 
 at his fear, puzzling after the big fellow's meaning and 
 thinking what a horrible mouth he had. 
 
 This, Bernard's third day at the school, was a half-holi- 
 day, but the ground was too bad for football owing to the 
 heavy rain of the previous day. Accordingly the school went 
 for walks in its customary way, class by class, each accom- 
 panied by its master. Bernard was the only new boy in his 
 class and was glumly anticipating the prospect of being left 
 to himself among the crowd when he was hailed by a cheery 
 voice. 
 
 " Hullo, new fellow! Have you no one to walk with? " 
 
 The speaker's pleasant smile broke sun-like through Ber- 
 nard's cloudy cogitations. Bernard had heard his name 
 Jack Willoughby.
 
 52 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " You can come with me if you like," said Willoughby, 
 without waiting for an answer to his question. 
 
 " It's awfully decent of you," stammered Bernard. 
 
 " Don't mention it," said Willoughby lightly. " Murray, 
 who I usually go with, has a cold. Let's come on." 
 
 The class, numbering some two dozen boys, passed out 
 of the gates and took the road to the hills. It was a soft 
 autumn afternoon and the air was fresh and sweet from 
 the recent rain. Through ragged gaps in the clouds the 
 sun glittered down on puddles in the road. The elms were 
 already stripped of their leaves but the beeches were still 
 resplendent in golden brown. The atmosphere was faintly 
 perfumed with the scent of fallen leaves. 
 
 " I like the feel of the air after rain," said Bernard con- 
 versationally. 
 
 " By Jove, yes, it is decent," replied Willoughby in the 
 tone of one to whom a revelation had been imparted. " I'd 
 never noticed that before. . . . Are you any use at footer? " 
 
 " Well, I've played/' said Bernard deprecatingly, and 
 added, " at a preparatory school, you know." 
 
 " Lmust keep an eye on you. You look like a good run- 
 ner, but you need weight." 
 
 " I generally won the hundred at my last school," said 
 Bernard, " but I'm not much at the half mile." 
 
 They were now ascending a stiff incline and were silent 
 for a moment. Bernard was the first to speak. 
 
 " I say," he blurted out. " What's a tart? " 
 
 Willoughby looked at him blankly. 
 
 " Why do you ask that? " he said. 
 
 Bernard related the morning's episode. 
 
 " That must have been Musgrave," said Willoughby 
 after Bernard had described his questioner. " He's an awful 
 sloppy idiot." 
 
 "Yes. But what did he want?" 
 
 Willoughby's explanation came as a horrible and discon- 
 certing surprise. Musgrave's nasty mouth recurred to Ber- 
 nard's memory.
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 53 
 
 " GooJ lord!" he said. "There are things in life I'd 
 never dreamt of." 
 
 " Nothing to wonder at in that, Methuselah," said Wil- 
 loughby, whereat Bernard laughed. 
 
 " Yes. That was a queer thing for me to say," he ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 " Don't let this turn you against Ashbury, now," said 
 Willoughby. " You'll run into a lot of this kind of slop, 
 but it's not the fault of the school, only the crowd that's in 
 it. My pater says this is a degenerate age. He was here, 
 you know, and so were my uncles, and so was my grand- 
 father. It's one of the oldest schools in England, and I 
 hope you'll come to be proud of it and not call it a hole 
 like some of the rotters here." 
 
 Bernard looked at Willoughby. His face, usually im- 
 passive, was lighted up now by enthusiasm. His general 
 air of cleanliness and health was very pleasing. Bernard 
 already had friendly feelings for him. 
 
 The class came to a halt in a little valley among the hills. 
 Some one suggested a game of Prisoner's Base, and sides 
 having been rapidly picked, play began. The game went 
 smoothly for a time. Then a question arising on some 
 knotty point in the rules the absence of an umpire resulted 
 in the break up of the game into a medley of arguing groups. 
 Bernard, forgetting discretion in his enthusiasm, found him- 
 self engaged in a heated altercation with the opposing cap- 
 tain. Suddenly he was conscious of a hush about him. 
 His was the only voice to be heard. He faltered in the 
 middle of a sentence and then came to a stop, his cheeks 
 burning, his skin pricking. It was probably one of the 
 most terrible moments of his life, but it was mercifully 
 ended by the sudden resumption of the argument round 
 about, and he thankfully sought oblivion. 
 
 " Are you Irish? " asked Willoughby on the way home. 
 
 " I suppose I am." 
 
 " Why do you say ' I suppose ' ? " 
 
 " Because it's not a thing that matters much, is it ? "
 
 54 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Don't let Mallow hear you say that." 
 
 "Who's Mallow?" 
 
 " That big, heavy-looking chap in front there." 
 
 " Why shouldn't I let him hear me? " 
 
 " He might cut up rough about it. He's the hell of a 
 rebel, you know." 
 
 This was all very obscure to Bernard, but he was not 
 sufficiently interested to push his inquiries any further. 
 
 When they reached home they found Murray in the 
 recreation room. He was a jovial person whose slight Irish 
 accent Bernard found very restful to the ear. 
 
 " Another Irishman," said Willoughby. " There's a good 
 crowd of your countrymen here, you know. Let's go thirds 
 in a cake for tea." 
 
 " I've already asked that ass Molloy to join us," said 
 Murray. 
 
 " Good lord ! " groaned Willoughby, " what did you do 
 that for? " 
 
 " Couldn't get any one else who wasn't booked." 
 
 " Any one worse, J suppose you mean." 
 
 " What's wrong with Molloy ? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " He's the biggest ass in the school," replied Willoughby. 
 " He's got a notion that it's a great thing to be pally with 
 lords and he's always jabbering about the dukes he meets in 
 the holidays. He's too much of an ass to know it doesn't 
 go down here, considering half the chaps in the school are 
 related to lords." 
 
 " The other day," put in Murray, " he handed over a 
 letter to his brother under my nose. ' Interesting that about 
 Lord Galway,' says he. He's a blithering ass." 
 
 " Then why on earth did you annex him ? Well, never 
 mind. Has he paid up yet? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then let him go to hell." 
 
 Molloy thus disposed of they went up to the refectory to- 
 gether. 
 
 " There's Molloy looking at us," said Murray, as they
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 55 
 
 sat at tea. " But don't worry. He'll be too proud to butt 
 in on us now." 
 
 " Most likely he'll apologize to us later for having for- 
 gotten us," said Willoughby. 
 
 Tea over, they adjourned to the recreation room, where 
 Willoughby and Murray played billiards while Bernard 
 marked. 
 
 Molloy approached, smiling apologetically. 
 
 " I say, you chaps," he began, " I'm frightfully sorry " 
 
 " All right, old chap. I forgive you," interrupted Mur- 
 ray. 
 
 " Sure you don't mind ? " 
 
 " Delighted," said Murray. " Anything to oblige." 
 
 And Molloy retired. 
 
 The day wore on; evening studies; supper; recreation; 
 night prayers. It was restful at the end to kneel in the half- 
 lit chapel knowing that the long day was done, and looking 
 at the Tabernacle to say the little homely prayers he had 
 learnt at his mother's knee. Then the official prayers began. 
 
 " Blessed be the holy and undivided Trinity now and for 
 ever more," said the mechanical voice of the prefect. 
 
 " Amen," faintly and sleepily from some of the congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 " Come O holy Spirit fill the hearts of thy faithful and 
 kindle in them the fire of thy love," ran out the meaningless 
 unpunctuated monotone. 
 
 For Bernard custom had not yet taken the significance 
 from the words. " Do people really mean prayers like 
 this? " he wondered. 
 
 " Enlighten me I beseech thee and give me an humble 
 and contrite heart." 
 
 " I don't feel very beseeching," thought Bernard. " Does 
 any one else, I wonder." He looked round at his fellows, 
 Their desire for humble and contrite hearts did not seem to 
 occasion them much uneasiness. The prayers went on and 
 came to an end, and bench by bench beginning with the big 
 boys at the top the chapel began to empty. In single file
 
 5 6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 they streamed out. Pad pad pad went their feet on the 
 parquet flooring, with an occasional squeak of new boots. 
 
 Pad, pad, pad, squeak. Pad, squeak. Pad. 
 
 First the tall Higher Line fellows, young men almost, 
 many of them, whom Bernard found it hard to picture sit- 
 ting at school desks. Here and there a small precocious 
 youth appeared among them, high-collared and self-conscious. 
 Bernard watched their faces as they passed along: ordinary 
 faces most of them under every shade of hair. Sunny faces 
 and sniggering faces. Heavy brutal faces. Broad good- 
 natured faces. Strong mature faces and weak chinless faces. 
 One went by with the careless fine-featured kind of face that 
 Bernard liked to look at. He had heard some one call to 
 another: "I say, Clarence!" A good name, Clarence. 
 This must be Clarence. (He turned out to be Smithers.) 
 A sinister and beastly face. More ordinary faces. Then 
 Musgrave's face loomed into sight, and gave a sidelong leer 
 at Bernard as it passed. He walked with quick short steps, 
 hunching his shoulders. What different walks there were. 
 Long paces, short paces, quick paces, slow paces. Heavy 
 steps, light steps, springy steps. Somebody went by who 
 bobbed up and down at each pace. Higher Line tailed 
 out into Lower Line, ranging from hulking adolescence to 
 graceful boyhood, long-legged, slim-hipped, and large- 
 headed like himself. Big anachronisms whose bodies had 
 outgrown their brains. Shapeless stunted creatures. Very 
 young monkey-like children. His own turn came at last. 
 
 " That's for staring at me, brat," said some one, kicking 
 him from behind. It was Clarence (or rather Smithers.) 
 
 Up the stairs and to bed, where he lay awake for an hour 
 or more thinking of things: Sexton, Musgrave, Willoughby, 
 Clarence. He remembered the game of Prisoner's Base and 
 suddenly blushed all over his body. 
 
 " What an ass I must have looked," he thought. " And, 
 father told me not to shove myself forward." 
 
 " Why shouldn't I shove myself forward ? " he asked him- 
 self a little later, and soon after fell asleep.
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 57 
 
 3 
 
 A boy's first few weeks at a public school are all mystery 
 and confusion. He is like a swimmer tossed helplessly about 
 on a stormy sea, thrown hither and thither with no volition 
 of his own, and never knowing what is going to happen 
 next. After a time, however, the mystery is dissipated; 
 what appeared to be chaos is recognized as insuperable order ; 
 the bewildering herd of boys analyses itself into individuals 
 with names of their own; and life settles down to the 
 monotony of a familiar and invariable time table. 
 
 The boys of Bernard's own class were the first to assume 
 their individuality. The studious head boy was found to be 
 White, and the gay and idle second boy (who would have 
 been first if he took the trouble to work) was Neville, 
 while in the back bench were the heavyweights, Sherring- 
 ham, Lashworthy, Roden, and others, who were never ex- 
 pected to work, and indeed could not by any known means 
 have been made to work, since Nature had so constructed 
 their frames that punishment was to them a thing of no 
 account. Between these extremes came the centre, ranging 
 from idle competence through solid mediocrity down to 
 studious incompetence. Here were to be found Mallow the 
 saturnine Irishman; Rumpworth the self-satisfied who 
 worked because his hands were soft; Beaton who was so 
 ashamed of the brains he possessed that he was put to end- 
 less shifts to avoid learning things; Ledbury the plausible 
 deviser of cribs and excuses; Sedgwick the athlete who 
 worked like a Trojan in the ambition to be an all-rounder; 
 and half a score others, among whom may be mentioned 
 Molloy the snob, the friend of Lord Galway, and de Valona 
 and Tolmeda the Dagoes. Willoughby was generally to 
 be found within the first eight places, whilst his friend 
 Murray might be first or fi^th, according as his mood was 
 studious or the reverse. 
 
 With Willoughby, Bernard's acquaintance soon developed 
 into friendship. They had not very much in common, but 
 for some reason or other they liked each other. These things
 
 5 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 are not easily explainable. Willoughby's friend Murray, 
 the mercurial Liverpool Irishman, would have seemed a 
 more suitable companion to Bernard, since he too was in- 
 terested in politics; but Murray was almost entirely pre- 
 occupied with Home Rule for Ireland, a subject in which 
 Bernard was profoundly ignorant, and in which Murray's 
 enthusiastic half-knowledge bored him intensely. 
 
 Games were compulsory at Ashbury, and on the Sunday 
 after the walk with Willoughby the whole school turned out 
 for football. Bernard being a new boy found himself picked 
 in Third Match, an institution which owed its existence to 
 the compulsory system. Here congregated all those who out 
 of distaste or slackness took no interest in football. The 
 physically unfit, the corporally clumsy, the intellectual, the 
 cricketer, the naturalist, the cyclist, the slacker, all were 
 collected together and compelled to spend the afternoon 
 making a farce of football. The main object of the players 
 was, of course, to play as little football as possible. Ac- 
 cordingly within ten minutes of the start some one suc- 
 ceeded in kicking the ball into the topmost branches of one 
 of the elms that bordered the field, where it stuck fast. 
 Quarter of an hour was consumed in pretending to try 
 to dislodge it, by which time the arrival of a prefect changed 
 the pretence to earnest and the game recommenced under 
 the prefect's watchful eye. Bernard was very disappointed 
 with these proceedings. He rather fancied himself as a 
 forward, having somewhat distinguished himself in that ca- 
 pacity at his preparatory school, and he had looked forward 
 to a similar career on the larger stage of Ashbury. He now 
 did his best to show off some of his skill under the eye of 
 the prefect with the result that the latter came up to him 
 afterwards and asked him why he was in Third Match. 
 Bernard explained, and the prefect went away, saying that 
 he would see what he could do about getting him promoted. 
 The following Tuesday and for the rest of the term Bernard 
 was picked in second match, where the game was played 
 properly, and where Bernard so distinguished himself that
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 59 
 
 Club Captains began to take notice of him with an eye 
 to the club matches played in the following term. 
 
 And while Bernard showed promise of becoming a very 
 fair athlete he made an immediate and unmistakable mark 
 in the school room. Lacking the patience and methodical 
 mind that makes the scholar he yet had the quickest wits in 
 the class, and being also gifted with a comprehensive mem- 
 ory, he assimilated knowledge rapidly and retained from a 
 cursory reading more than even the more intelligent of his 
 mates could master by conscientious memorizing. He topped 
 the lists at the first half-term examinations, displacing both 
 the studious White, who was much the better scholar, and 
 the careless Neville, who was the cleverest linguist. To a 
 certain extent he felt the hollowness of his triumph, but 
 youth, vanity, and gratified ambition will blind any eye to 
 what it has no wish to see. 
 
 And Ashbury began to charm him with her beauty and 
 stretched out the tentacles of her traditions to enfold him. 
 Beautiful she certainly is, and beautiful are her surroundings 
 from the wild majesty of her fells to the soft luxuriance of 
 her valleys and the trim neatness of her fields. The tawny 
 Avon gliding at her feet receives its laughing tributary the 
 Dawe under the shadow of her towers, and the sprawling 
 waste of the Pennine Range thrusts a finger-like process 
 down to her very gates. And as you approach her by the 
 rolling avenue lined by noble elms she reveals herself as a 
 grey stone mansion old and stately, battlemented and turret- 
 crowned, and you cannot help but love her. Then you hear 
 her story and her ancient legends; and old as the school is 
 its home is older. You hear how she gave hospitality to 
 Queen Elizabeth and Charles I ; how Cromwell battered 
 her gates down ; how Constable painted her; and how Tenny- 
 son wrote some beautiful lines under her inspiration. You 
 will also hear of the clandestine school kept in the harsh 
 old times by the good fathers in a neighbouring farm house 
 and attended by the sons of sturdy Catholic squires, and how 
 when better times came Sir James Osterley presented them
 
 60 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 with Ashbury Manor for their habitation. Then come tales 
 of the school life of last century, when all was hard Spartan 
 simplicity; when on winter mornings the boys had to break 
 the ice in the washing trough and did an hour's work before 
 breakfast ; when food was scarce and tough ; when discipline 
 was strict and punishments terrible; when Ashbury played 
 her own games, and rough games too, a tax on lungs and 
 limbs; when, in short, the world was a finer place and men 
 a finer race than in these degenerate days. 
 
 Old Ashbury! Bernard learned to love her with all the 
 sudden devotion of youth. Grey walls, bold mountains, 
 mingling rivers; well-sounding names, old customs, oft- 
 heard legends; he loved them all, and when, after the half- 
 term results had been read out and the medals distributed, 
 the great Hall rang with the melody of the Ashbury song, 
 his heart swelled with pride and joy in being part of it all. 
 In the emotion of the moments the unpleasant events of 
 earlier days were forgotten. He was an Ashburian, he told 
 himself, and to be an Ashburian seemed then to be all-suffi- 
 cient. The very name of Ashbury was robust and breezy, 
 bluff and honest; typical of all that was best in old Eng- 
 land . . . Ashbury. . . . The word was satisfying to pro- 
 nounce. Could meanness, beastliness, nastiness be associated 
 with such a name? No, he told himself. Such things were 
 only accidental blots, with no deeper roots than the lichen 
 on her old grey walls. 
 
 The song came to an end, and abruptly Bernard realized 
 that he had not been singing it. 
 
 " Absent minded idiot," said some one, jostling him as he 
 made for the door. 
 
 4 
 
 To Ashbury College a boy was a mass of crude metal to 
 be fused in the flame of her tradition, cast in the mould of 
 her curriculum, and finally exported to Oxford for the finish- 
 ing touches. 
 
 Her duty as she conceived it was to prepare her children's
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 61 
 
 souls for heaven and the rest of them for governing the 
 British Empire ; to which end she aimed at producing a type 
 of character which was a skilful blend of that of St. Aloysius 
 with that of Nelson and Squire Brown, and which could 
 be recognized at any time and in any corner of the world as 
 Old Ashburian. 
 
 The young Briton was preparing for his task of bearing the 
 White Man's Burden by stuffing his head full of Latin and 
 Greek Syntax and Prosody, and duly impressing upon him 
 the importance of Variae Lectiones. If he asked what was 
 the use of these dead languages to him he was told that they 
 formed the bases of other languages. (But as he never 
 learnt any other languages but French, which was taught by 
 a " Froggie " and treated with a truly British contempt 
 which would not condescend even to learn the pronunciation 
 correctly, the function of the basis is not very clear.) He 
 was also told that Latin and Greek gave him culture, but 
 his teachers were so busy impressing on him the correct use 
 of the Ablative Absolute and the Iota Subscript that if there 
 was anything of beauty in Euripides or wisdom in Plato he 
 had to find it out for himself. (Which he never did.) 
 
 In his own language he learned by heart large quantities 
 of selected lyrics and passages of predigested Shakespeare, 
 and carried away a general impression that Tennyson is the 
 greatest of all poets. History was a dull tale with England 
 as hero, the rest of Europe her vassals, and France the villain 
 of the piece. As for geography, he acquired a vague idea 
 that there were three or four powerful countries in Europe, 
 but Bulgaria, Servia, and Croatia were not even names to 
 him; while he had an intimate knowledge of what parts of 
 the British Empire exported indigo or imported jute, even 
 though his idea of what jute is was somewhat vague. A 
 little elementary science was thrown in at one stage of his 
 training, but it was a half-hearted business, which was but 
 natural in a school where the names of the great scientists 
 were constantly being held up as examples of unbelief and 
 infamy.
 
 62 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 It was unfortunate for the victims of this process that so 
 few of them had occasion to earn their own livings in after 
 life, for it fitted them for nothing better than the running of 
 third rate second-hand bookshops on inefficient lines. And as 
 for the Empire of which they were to be the props the 
 result was the Battle of Mons. (For the point of which 
 observation the reader is invited to consult some private sol- 
 dier who fought there.) 
 
 Religious training at Ashbury consisted in holding up St. 
 Aloysius as a model and Darwin as a devil to a lot of brats 
 who had no more intention of following the one than of 
 reading the other. And while the virtue of purity was 
 preached with almost indecent frequency, truth, charity, 
 humility and forgiveness received but cursory mention. But 
 truth to tell, Ashbury herself played but a small part in 
 framing the characters of her alumni. Far more important 
 was the unwritten law, the code built up by generations of 
 boys similar in every English Public School to break 
 which was ruination. 
 
 The code is difficult to summarize, but when thoroughly 
 dissected it is seen to consist mainly in this; that to differ 
 from the herd is the greatest evil, and the best man is he 
 who conforms best to type. And what is the type? The 
 ideal public schoolboy of Tom Brown's Schooldays does not 
 exist. The typical public school boy may be physically cour- 
 ageous; morally he is the reverse, as his very type-worship 
 shows. He may be honourable in his dealings with his 
 friends ; he is nothing of the kind in dealing with those who 
 are not his friends. And for the rest he is ignorant, narrow- 
 minded, arrogant, foul-mouthed and blasphemous. He has 
 no code of ethics, but he is by nature a conservative ever dis- 
 trustful of what is new, firmly believing that what is is best. 
 He is not religious, yet he would not dream of professing 
 Atheism (which is not " the thing "), but he may bully the 
 weak, cheat in exams, blaspheme, or talk filth, and think 
 none the worse of himself. 
 
 Ideas he looks upon with suspicion, as sand in the smooth-
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 63 
 
 running machinery of the Type. He hears vaguely of such 
 things as labour unrest and though he may look up a few 
 " points " on the subject for his speech in the Debating 
 Society, he puts it all down to " discontent " and " disloy- 
 alty," and worries no more about such unpleasant subjects. 
 Should any exceptional boy hold views running counter to 
 those generally accepted he comes under the imputation of 
 not being a gentleman, the penalty for which is ostentatious 
 ignoring or even ragging. At a public school it is better to 
 be immoral than a Socialist. 
 
 Another serious crime from the Ashburian view-point is 
 poverty. M. Moulin, the assistant French master, was poor. 
 It was whispered that he had but one suit of clothes: cer- 
 tainly he was never seen in any other. It was accordingly 
 decided that the miscreant must be punished, and six valiant 
 Rhetoricians penetrated to his room in his absence, where 
 they burnt his books and collars, smashed his pictures, cut 
 up the tyres of his bicycle, and poured ink into his chest of 
 drawers. If a boy was suspected of falling short of the 
 general standard of wealth, some one would question him 
 publicly about his pocket money; or a visit would be paid 
 to his wardrobe, when the screamingly funny information 
 would run through the school that so-and-so had but two 
 suits of clothes, or was deficient in underclothing. 
 
 Physical deformity was not so much a crime as a source of 
 amusement. Poor Stickelback, who had a cleft palate, heard 
 his attempts at speech mimicked at every turn, and Wilson, 
 who squinted, was invariably addressed as " Swivel Eye." 
 It was also a standing joke to say: " Wilson, look here. 
 Oh, I forgot. You can't." 
 
 Lowness of origin was yet another failing in Ashburian 
 opinion. Business people were considered outsiders, and pro- 
 fessional men were merely tolerated, the ideal being the 
 man who did nothing. Bolton, whose father kept a shop 
 in Warrington, was made to feel this. He led a lonely 
 existence outside the pale of good society, and none would 
 speak to him except the good-natured, like Willoughby,
 
 64 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 or the democratic, like Bernard. To hear a group of Ash- 
 burians discussing the origins of some of their questionable 
 school mates reminded one of a crowd of old maids talking 
 scandal over afternoon tea, and wonder whether the manly 
 healthy British boy existed outside the imagination of story- 
 tellers and Imperialistic journalists. 
 
 The English public school boy is a conservative from the 
 cradle to the grave. He is a conservative even at fifteen. 
 From the generous political emotions which rise in every 
 breast all the world over at the period of adolescence he 
 appears to be entirely exempt. He is quite satisfied with 
 himself and the world which is his setting, and he does not 
 wish to be disturbed. Perhaps it is part of this conserva- 
 tivism that he objects to enthusiasm of any kind. The 
 enthusiast on any subject he considers rather a fool, and bored 
 indifference is the fashionable pose. Like all boys he de- 
 spises the brainworker, but he alone prefers blase brilliancy 
 to keenness and hard training in football and athletics. 
 There is more than a suspicion of fear in this contempt, for 
 it is born of a hazy notion that enthusiasm is somewhat akin 
 to Restlessness, and as every one knows Restlessness is what 
 the public schoolman in after life has most to dread. 
 
 Imperialism is inborn in the public school boy. He will 
 verbally deny that Might is Right, but he always acts on the 
 assumption that it is. The big boy does what he likes; 
 he gets precedence everywhere; the weak must get out of 
 his way ; and no one questions his right to these prerogatives. 
 Nay, if he does not take full advantage of his strength the 
 weak despise him and do not hesitate to show it. This be- 
 lief in the right of the strong he shows in such crude politics 
 as he may give expression to in youth and act upon in later 
 life. " Of course it's right to conquer other countries," he 
 will tell you. " Nations must expand. It would be a queer 
 world if countries couldn't grow and get richer." The idea 
 that conquest might be wrong never even enters into his head. 
 Well, the child is father to the man, and any Englishman
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 65 
 
 will tell you that the public schools have made England 
 what she is. 
 
 This much of Ashbury and of all English Public 
 Schools, for Ashbury is but one of many and an improvement 
 on most of them is definite and tangible. It is living ; 
 harshly, narrowly, viciously living; but still understandably 
 and palpably living. But underneath the turbulent ever- 
 changing surface of that life flowed a perpetual poisonous 
 sluggish current of nasty sneering thought to which nothing 
 was sacred. It was offensive yet indefinable; all-pervading 
 and yet elusive ; and its noxious miasma tainted and vitiated 
 the whole atmosphere. Herein is the germ of death which 
 is slowly and surely killing the whole system. 
 
 Such was the life sheltered within the fine old walls of 
 Ashbury, cloaked by her beauty and bolstered up by self- 
 deception, self-contradiction, fine phrases and the glory of 
 tradition: a life of great possibility and mean achievement; 
 of plausible aspiration and damnable purpose; of noble pre- 
 tension and hideous reality. 
 
 5 
 
 Into this topsy-turvy world Bernard stepped full of zest 
 and hope. He had high standards of manliness, acquired 
 mainly from Tom Brown's Schooldays, which he fondly be- 
 lieved must hold sway in a great school like Ashbury. 
 Bullying and lying were, he felt sure, offences which would 
 be treated with the contempt they deserved and though 
 he felt a little disconcerted by Willoughby's casual attitude 
 towards the Musgrave episode, yet he told himself that Mus- 
 grave must after all be an exceptional person. It was not 
 long before Bernard discovered that his high hopes were 
 vain. 
 
 At Ashbury, if a boy is popular he can do nothing wrong, 
 if he is unpopular he can do nothing right. If Sugden, the 
 dull and boring, were to be found bullying a smaller boy, 
 some noble minded hero, or heroes, full of righteous indigna-
 
 66 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 tion would come to the victim's rescue and knock his per- 
 secutor down; but Smithers, the popular sport and hu- 
 mourist, could kick a small boy out of his way and be told : 
 " Quite right. He's a cheeky kid." Hence it was that 
 Tomkins and Tracy-Sidbotham, who took an instant dislike 
 to Bernard, could bully him with impunity. The cause of 
 this dislike Bernard never found out, and probably they were 
 unaware of it themselves; but so far as it was not causeless 
 it must have sprung from a feeling that this boy in his very 
 being violated the code. Tomkins and Tracy-Sidbotham 
 would not have been accused of this crime by their worst 
 enemies. They were, as a matter of fact, typical Ashburians. 
 Tomkins was gross and truculent; Tracy-Sidbotham slender 
 and sneering. They were in the class above Bernard's and 
 two years his senior in age. Tracy-Sidbotham's persecution 
 was occasional and mainly verbal, except when a retort from 
 Bernard called for suppression by violence. Tomkins' at- 
 tacks on the other hand were perpetual, and consisted in 
 smacking him on the head with a book or tripping him up 
 at every possible opportunity a procedure which infuriated 
 Bernard not so much by the pain or annoyance caused him 
 as by its utter uselessness. He soon came to hate Tomkins 
 with a murderous hate, the one personal hatred of his life. 
 
 One day as Bernard was going along a gallery Tomkins 
 came up behind him and for the fiftieth time banged him on 
 the head. 
 
 " You bloody fool! " said Bernard, turning on him. Some- 
 how his individualism had not saved him from adopting the 
 prevailing dialect. 
 
 "You dare give cheek to me?" demanded Tomkins, 
 striking him again. 
 
 " You were asking for it, you cursed ass." 
 
 This was too much for Tomkins. He seized Bernard's 
 arm and twisted it. Thereupon the pent up fury of months 
 instantaneously exploded, and Bernard's free fist shot out 
 and caught his tormentor under the eye.
 
 YOUNG ENGLANET 67 
 
 " Fight ! " shouted some one, and an eager crowd gathered 
 round. 
 
 There was no story-book hero to interpose and point to 
 the inequality of the combatants. Tomkins advanced con- 
 fidently on his victim, who put up his hands weakly in a 
 futile effort at defence. His rage was of the fierce short- 
 lived type, and without it he had little fighting spirit. Tom- 
 kins would have pulverized him in a minute but for the 
 timely arrival of a prefect. 
 
 " Nix ! " said a voice, and the crowd dispersed, the prin- 
 cipals mingling therein as inconspicuously as possible. 
 
 Bernard dreaded the vengeance of Tomkins, who, he no- 
 ticed with a certain amount of satisfaction, bore a black 
 bruise under his left eye. In this predicament he looked 
 about for Willoughby, but failed to find him before after- 
 noon class. 
 
 " I say," whispered Willoughby, " your ear's bleeding." 
 
 Bernard mopped it with his handkerchief and gave Wil- 
 loughby a whispered account of what had happened. 
 
 " Tomkins is a bleeding rotter," said Willoughby. " He 
 used to be the same to me once. Look here, you stick with 
 me and Murray next rec. and we'll see what'll happen." 
 
 " Right oh." 
 
 " Willoughby and Lascelles stop talking and get twelve 
 ferulas each." 
 
 Willoughby grinned, but Bernard's heart almost stopped 
 beating. It was his first punishment. 
 
 At tea Willoughby told Murray Bernard's story, and 
 Murray said: 
 
 " Look here, let's smash him up, the three of us." 
 
 This was agreed, and they descended to the recreation 
 room. Bernard had no fear here, for the enemy was in the 
 second line, and during the rest of that day by careful scout- 
 ing Bernard kept clear of him. But another ordeal awaited 
 him in the evening when he and Willoughby took their 
 places in the queue outside the prefect's room waiting for
 
 68 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 punishment. Three big boys and a small boy were there 
 already. The prefect came along, fumbling for his keys. 
 He opened the door, and the first boy followed him inside. 
 Twelve resounding cracks rang out, and the victim emerged, 
 looking deliberately careless. The second boy was less 
 stoical, blowing upon his swollen fingers as he walked away. 
 The third boy imitated the first. It was the small boy's 
 turn next, but he hesitated, looking at Willoughby. Im- 
 perialism, as we have said, is inborn in English boys. The 
 right of might is never disputed, and this little fellow as- 
 sumed that his right of priority would count for nothing 
 since he was not big enough to defend it. 
 
 " Go on, kid," said Willoughby. " Get it over," and the 
 youngster hurried in gratefully. . . v- 
 
 " Your turn now," said Willoughby, and Bernard entered 
 the lion's den. 
 
 " Stiff? " inquired Willoughby when all was over. 
 
 " Easy as hell," replied Bernard, clenching his teeth with 
 pain. 
 
 Next day Tomkins had to be faced. At first recreation 
 he strolled up to the three arm in arm with Tracy-Sid- 
 botham. 
 
 " Lascelles," commanded Tomkins, " come here and be 
 kicked for your bloody cheek." 
 
 " Go to hell," said Bernard. 
 
 " My God, wait till I get you." 
 
 " Go to blazes out of this, the pair of you," said Murray 
 fiercely. 
 
 " God, these blasted kids are too bloody cheeky for any- 
 thing," drawled Tracy-Sidbotham. " Come on, Tomkins, 
 and toe their fundaments." 
 
 At this point Willoughby took the offensive and kicked 
 Tomkins with all his might, and Bernard followed up with 
 a punch in the solar plexus. The languid Sidbotham be- 
 gan a scuffle for form's sake with Murray, and then the two 
 big boys beat a retreat, Tomkins vowing vengeance and Sid- 
 botham covering his cowardice with a sneer.
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 69 
 
 After this episode Tomkins discreetly ignored Bernard. 
 
 " I don't care what you say, Willoughby," remarked Ber- 
 nard, " what with Musgrave and Tomkins and Tracy-Sid- 
 botham, this place is the hell of a hole." 
 
 None the less school life still held many pleasures. At 
 the half-term examinations Bernard retained his medal, and 
 the club-matches which commenced during this term opened 
 up new interests. The club-matches are Ashbury's substi- 
 tute for the House matches of other public schools. In each 
 of the three Lines into which the whole school of four hun- 
 dred boys is divided a shield is offered for competition be- 
 tween clubs picked by six prominent players. The clubs 
 average about twenty-five members each, including every 
 type from members of the Line Eleven to Third Match men 
 and medical dispensationers, from among whom the cap- 
 tain selects his team. Bernard was picked by Sedgwick, 
 whose club was admittedly a favourite for the shield, in- 
 cluding as it did two Third Line Eleven men, Willoughby 
 and Lumsden, several First Match men, and some of the 
 cream of Second Match. Before selecting his team Sedg- 
 wick instituted a Possible v. Probables match between the 
 members of the club. Bernard played right half-back for 
 the Possibles, but failed to distinguish himself, his light 
 weight making him no obstacle to the opposing left outside. 
 After the match, however, Sedgwick came up to him and 
 said: 
 
 " I'm going to put you on the team." 
 
 " Afraid I wasn't much use today," said Bernard. 
 
 " You hadn't much chance. You can play all right. I'll 
 put you on the wing and then you can use your legs." 
 
 But Bernard's legs were destined to be of less service to 
 his team than his head. With the eye of a strategist he 
 watched the course of the game and thought out dispositions 
 and tactics whereby the players might be welded into a 
 coherent whole. These he laid before Sedgwick, who after 
 the preliminary hesitation that might be expected from a 
 veteran footballer, eventually put them into tentative prac-
 
 70 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 tice. Thereafter he had a brilliant run of successes and 
 ended by carrying off the shield. His own magnificent play 
 and the strength of his team were universally credited with 
 the achievement and all his attempts to secure recognition of 
 Bernard's services were put down to heroic modesty and 
 laughed to scorn. Football lost much of its interest for 
 Bernard after this. 
 
 6 
 
 They never made an Ashburian of Bernard. He despised 
 St. Aloysius ; he never forgave Nelson for " Kiss me, Hardy " ; 
 and he regarded Squire Brown as an old fool. He never 
 conformed to the code, and it was even whispered that he 
 approved of the French Revolution (which of course all 
 true Ashburians look upon with horror, as Catholics and 
 English gentlemen should). Moreover he refused to accept 
 the dogma that the battle of Waterloo was won on the play- 
 ing fields of Eton. His heterodox essay on this subject is 
 still remembered with dismay at Ashbury. 
 
 It was in his second year at the school and he was ap- 
 proaching his fourteenth birthday. His class-master, Mr. 
 Bumpleigh, was a dull, conscientious, overworked man who 
 feared Bernard more than all the rowdies of the class on 
 account of his cruelly obvious contempt for his intellect. 
 (Bernard's one intolerance was for stupidity, and from thir- 
 teen years of age to sixteen, Boy is at his cruellest.) It was 
 Mr. Bumpleigh's habit to set a weekly English essay, and to 
 read out and comment upon the themes sent in, hoping 
 thereby to impart instruction and guidance for the future, 
 but in reality giving the boys light amusement and a much- 
 appreciated respite from work. 
 
 " Osgood, your essay may be excellent for all I know, 
 but your handwriting is like the track of a beetle, wandering 
 over the page, so I couldn't read it. I'll have to get you a 
 headline copy book. Rumpworth, your ideas are good, but 
 your grammar would bear improvement, and you've spoilt 
 the effect of what would otherwise have been an excellent
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 71 
 
 final sentence by using slang. ' When all is taken into con- 
 sideration one thing stands out clear, that Waterloo was a 
 soldier's victory won by the men of England made tough 
 by games over the softies of France.' ' Degenerate sons ' 
 would sound better there; don't you think so, Rump- 
 worth ? " 
 
 " Yessir," said Rumpworth. 
 
 " Ledbury's essay is so good," went on Mr. Bumpleigh, 
 " that I shall read it to you in full." 
 
 There was suppressed excitement in the class at this, for 
 Ledbury had copied his essay word for word from a book on 
 essay-writing which he had picked up at home, containing 
 sample essays on stock subjects such as Hobbies, A Country 
 Walk, Friendship, and the like, and every one knew of the 
 trick. Suppressed laughter punctuated Mr. Bumpleigh's 
 reading of the platitudinous disquisition, which was about 
 as much in Ledbury's style as Paradise Lost. Mr. Bump- 
 leigh, in a tone he fondly imagined to be scathing, told them 
 that their minds must be deficient if a piece of beautiful writ- 
 ing roused them to ridicule, but almost simultaneously Led- 
 bury's self-control gave way and he exploded with laugh- 
 ter. 
 
 " What's the meaning of this? " thundered Mr. Bump- 
 leigh. 
 
 Ledbury, slow of wit, decided on the spur of the moment 
 to tell the truth. It frequently paid. 
 
 " Please, sir, I copied it out of a book." 
 
 "Dear me! I might have known. Why did you do that, 
 Ledbury ? " 
 
 " I couldn't think of anything to say myself, sir," said 
 Ledbury. 
 
 " Try and use the brains God gave you, Ledbury. Well, 
 you owned up, so I'll say no more about it," and Mr. Bump- 
 leigh turned to another essay. 
 
 " ' Three quarters of the British Army at Waterloo was 
 Irish and the other quarter Scotch.' Well, Mallow, I think 
 even you will agree that that's a little exaggerated."
 
 72 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 There was a grim look on Mr. Bumpleigh's face as he 
 picked up the next essay. 
 
 " Lascelles," he said gravely, " you may think this kind 
 of thing funny, but it isn't gentlemanly. An Ashbury boy 
 should be ashamed to write such stuff." 
 
 The gist of Bernard's essay was that the title was an 
 implication that the Battle of Waterloo had been won by 
 the skill of the British officers, whereas the victory was really 
 due to the stubbornness of the British rank and file and the 
 good marching of the Prussians. This paved the way for 
 a strongly Republican thesis which wound up the essay. 
 
 " I didn't mean it to be funny," said Bernard. " I meant 
 every word of it." 
 
 " So much the worse," said Mr. Bumpleigh, handing back 
 the theme book. Underneath the essay was a large blue 
 Nought. 
 
 After class Bernard was surrounded by the curious and 
 overwhelmed with questions. 
 
 " Why was Bumf ace so shirty? " 
 
 " What did you write ? " 
 
 "I said the battle was really won on the fields of York- 
 shire and in the slums of London." 
 
 " What bloody rubbish ! " exclaimed Rump worth. " I 
 suppose you thought that clever? " 
 
 " Damn sight truer than the subject anyway," said Ber- 
 nard. 
 
 " Rot," said Ledbury with tremendous scorn. 
 
 There was a general feeling that Bernard was not very 
 good form. 
 
 " If you think things like that you've no business coming to 
 Ashbury," some one remarked. 
 
 The last word had been said on the discussion. Every 
 one felt that his own opinion had been spoken. 
 
 Shortly after this altercation Bernard happened to come 
 across Mallow. 
 
 " I say, Mallow," he cried, " what was that awful rubbish 
 you stuck into your essay? "
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 73 
 
 " What awful rubbish ? " inquired Mallow surlily. 
 
 " That about the Irish at Waterloo." 
 
 "What of it?" 
 
 " Well, in the first place it wasn't true." 
 
 " I only exaggerated a bit. Nearly half the British Army 
 was Irish as a matter of fact." 
 
 " Well, I won't quarrel over that, since I don't know 
 enough about it. What I'm after is the reason why you 
 make such a fuss about it. What on earth does it matter 
 even if it is true? " 
 
 " Why wouldn't it matter? " 
 
 " What difference does it make whether they were Irish 
 or English? Aren't they all the same?" 
 
 Mallow seemed to collapse at this question. 
 
 " Great Scott! " he gasped. " Do you mean that? " 
 
 "Keep your hair on," said Bernard. "What's up?" 
 
 " Well," said Mallow, as if giving Bernard up entirely, 
 " I knew you were a West Briton, but I didn't think you 
 were as ignorant as that. You're no better than an Eng- 
 lishman, God help you." 
 
 He went away, leaving Bernard amused and puzzled. 
 
 7 
 
 " I tell you what, Willoughby, I can't stand St. Aloy- 
 sius." 
 
 Willoughby looked rather shocked. He liked Bernard, 
 but found him a trifle disconcerting at times, and when 
 Bernard came out with abrupt heresies like this he was at a 
 loss how to receive them. At the present announcement he 
 merely stared and said nothing. 
 
 " Yes," went on Bernard, " I'm fed up with having him 
 dinned into us morning, noon and night, and now that I've 
 read his life I'm more fed up than ever." 
 
 " You shouldn't talk like that about a Saint," said Wil- 
 loughby. 
 
 " Saint! What's a Saint? Is it saintly to go about the 
 world with your eyes stuck on the ground? Is it saintly
 
 74 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 to half -starve yourself so that you die young? I call that 
 slow-suicide. Is it saintly to be afraid to remain alone with 
 your own mother? I call that having a dirty mind." 
 
 " That's a rotten thing to say about a Saint, Bernard. I 
 don't like it." 
 
 " You've read his life yourself. Didn't you see every word 
 I've said there in black and white? " 
 
 " Well, yes." 
 
 " And you think these things are signs of goodness? " 
 
 " I suppose they must be." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you think a chap would be right to 
 think like that about his mother ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I don't worry about these things." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you can go on praying to a Saint 
 with a mind like that? " 
 
 " I don't do such a lot of praying, you know." 
 
 " That's not the point. Do you admire a chap who thinks 
 that way about his mother? " 
 
 " I tell you I don't bother about such things." 
 
 " But you should bother." 
 
 " Look here, Bernard, if you want to argue about theology 
 try it on a J. Come on to the playground." 
 
 Bernard saw that further discussion with his friend was 
 useless, but he seized an early opportunity of tackling Father 
 Bowman the Chaplain. He would have liked to continue 
 with the question of St. Aloysius' relations with his mother 
 but abstained from doing so from a feeling that this aspect 
 would not make much appeal to a celibate; moreover he 
 had a fear lest Father Bowman might decline discussion on 
 such a delicate matter altogether. Accordingly he com- 
 menced in a non-committal way. 
 
 " Tell me, father, why is St. Aloysius the patron of 
 youth ? " 
 
 Father Bowman was a saintly-looking man, white-haired, 
 and of serene manner and appearance. Doubt, one felt, had 
 never disturbed those placid features. He always professed
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 75 
 
 himself ready to answer questions; indeed, he invited them. 
 But never had any question been submitted to him that a 
 few words and an encouraging smile had failed to dispose 
 of. This he felt sure was one of them, and the kindly 
 tolerant smile and lambent voice were ready to be poured 
 like oil upon the seething waves of puerile doubt. 
 
 " Because he was young himself, my child, and was a 
 model of those virtues which youth should aim at." 
 
 " Then are we supposed to imitate him in our lives? " 
 
 " Certainly; at least so far as it is possible for us to do 
 so." 
 
 " Then should we keep our eyes always on the ground, 
 and scourge ourselves, and and never look at women?" 
 
 " Oh, no. That is not expected of everybody." 
 
 " Who is it expected of, then ? " 
 
 " It is only expected of those who feel called to a life of 
 perfection." 
 
 Father Bowman felt that the argument was finished and 
 made as if to move away, but Bernard was persistent. 
 
 " But shouldn't we all try for perfection? " he said. 
 
 " We all cannot," replied Father Bowman, a IHtle impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 Bernard felt the thread of the argument slipping from his 
 grasp, so he plunged headlong for facts. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if the prefect found me scourging my- 
 self in the dormitory, I know jolly well I'd get into a 
 row." 
 
 " Yes. It's a college rule that when you go to the dormi- 
 tory you must undress at once and get into bed. Obedience 
 to rules comes before voluntary austerities." 
 
 " But even if I wasn't breaking a rule I'd be told I was an 
 ass and made chuck it." 
 
 Father Bowman sighed impatiently. 
 
 " It all depends on your motive," he said. 
 
 " I don't feel that you've answered my question, Father/' 
 Bernard reproached him.
 
 7 6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Don't worry your head about speculations like that," 
 said Father Bowman with his complacent smile. " Run off 
 to the playground and kick a ball about." 
 
 Bernard moved off pensively. Doubt was hammering at 
 the gates of his soul. 
 
 " What sort of a church is it," he pondered, " that puts 
 St. Aloysius above Newton and George Washington? " 
 
 " Clever little chap that pupil of yours, Lascelles," said 
 Father Bowman to Mr. Bumpleigh. " But he thinks too 
 much about religious questions. Not good at his age. I'm 
 afraid for his faith." 
 
 " He has very revolutionary ideas," said Mr. Bumpleigh, 
 which, though he knew it not, meant that Bernard had the 
 faith that moves mountains. 
 
 There was a boy called Reppington in the class below 
 Bernard's who violated the code even more thoroughly than 
 our hero though less flagrantly. He was a quiet retiring 
 youth who spoke little and moved through life in a perpetual 
 dream. He had mousy hair, large ears, and ungainly feet, 
 and the natural ugliness of his face was enhanced by a pair 
 of huge glasses, over which he peered timidly at the tu- 
 multuous world. His was a hard lot, masters and boys 
 equally despising him, for he took no interest either in play 
 or, outside mathematics, in work. Mechanics was the one 
 thing he cared for, a taste little catered for at Public Schools. 
 However, Ashbury had a well-equipped carpenter's shop, 
 and here Reppington spent most of his time, dreaming, ex- 
 perimenting, and constructing. 
 
 Reppington even at fourteen showed signs of being a me- 
 chanical genius, and the fruit of months of toil and patience 
 was a working model of a steam engine. The presence of 
 this wonder in the carpenter's shop was soon known to the 
 school, and the little engine at first attracted a good deal of 
 honest admiration. Reppington became quite a celebrity, 
 and was often seen surrounded by admirers whose praise of
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 77 
 
 his handiwork made his eyes beam behind his spectacles with 
 happiness, like a young mother being congratulated on her 
 offspring. 
 
 But the Code had zealous defenders at Ashbury, and none 
 more zealous than in Bernard's class. When the news of 
 Reppington's achievement reached them Rumpworth and 
 Ledbury and Lashworthy and Sherringham and other de- 
 fenders of tradition held a council of war. 
 
 " This business can't go on," said Ledbury. 
 
 " It's a disgrace to the school," said Lashworthy. 
 
 " Playing trains ! " snorted Sherringham. " We'll have 
 kids coming here soon with dolls or teddy-bears." 
 
 " It's got to be stopped," said Rumpworth. 
 
 " How is it to be stopped ? " said Ledbury. 
 
 " Kick his bum and tell him to chuck being a kid," some 
 one suggested. 
 
 " Take the bloody engine from him," proposed Rump- 
 worth. 
 
 " Come on, boys, he's probably playing with it now," 
 cried Sherringham, and the half dozen of them made a rush 
 for the carpenter's shop. 
 
 In the carpenter's shop Reppington was eagerly and 
 proudly explaining the workings of his engine to Bernard, 
 who listened with great interest. 
 
 " He loves this thing," Bernard observed to himself. 
 
 He was about to go away when Sherringham entered at 
 the head of his retainers. Sherringham approached Rep- 
 pington with that smile half assertive half sheepish which 
 Bernard detested. The Ashbury smile he called it, for it 
 symbolized a great portion of the Ashbury mind. 
 s" Let's see the engine, Repp," said Sherringham. 
 
 Reppington indicated his treasure. Instantly with a 
 sweep of his hand Sherringham knocked it to the floor and 
 hacked at it with his heel. 
 
 " Sherringham ! " cried Reppington, making a vain at- 
 tempt to rescue his toy. 
 
 " Shut your mouth," said Rumpworth, shoving him away.
 
 7 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 The suddenness of Sherringham's action had taken Ber- 
 nard by surprise, and this vision of callous cruelty left him 
 for a moment paralysed with anger. Reppington was gaz- 
 ing helplessly with tear-blinded eyes at the wreckage of his 
 engine, which Sherringham kicked over to Lashworthy, who 
 kicked it into the fireplace. Suddenly Bernard stepped up 
 to Sherringham, breathing hard. 
 
 " You beastly swine," he said. 
 
 " Shut up and mind your own business," growled Sher- 
 ringham. 
 
 " Will you fight? " demanded Bernard. 
 
 " Not with a bloody outsider like you," sneered Sherring- 
 ham. 
 
 Bernard struck him across the face with his open palm. 
 Sherringham stepped back apace and clenched his fists, whilst 
 the blood flooded the injured cheek. 
 
 " Smash him, Sherry! " cried Lashworthy. 
 
 " Make a ring," shouted Rumpworth. 
 
 Immediately every one sprang into action. The furni- 
 ture was cleared away from one end of the shop, and a ring 
 was made, which, owing to the narrowness of the room, was 
 bounded on three sides by walls, whilst the fourth consisted 
 of the spectators sitting on tables and benches. In the 
 centre were the combatants: Sherringham, gross and un- 
 gainly; Bernard slim and graceful. Sherringham was by 
 a few months the elder; slightly taller; and a good deal 
 heavier; but Bernard as a compensation had science, being 
 a member of the boxing club. Well-grown healthy boys of 
 fifteen both of them they seemed fairly matched and the 
 spectators waited keenly for what must prove a hard battle. 
 Bernard glanced round at them once. He was fighting the 
 cause of the weak against the strong but save for the boy 
 he was defending all present were backing his opponent. 
 
 " Time," said Rumpworth, who had appointed himself 
 referee. 
 
 Bernard came rapidly into action and got in two blows at 
 Sherringham's jaw before the latter ha.4 time to decide on.
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 79 
 
 his guard. Sherringham, however, could take punishment 
 and owing to Bernard's own impetuosity and carelessness 
 countered heavily on his cheek. Bernard forthwith cooled 
 down and became more wary. 
 
 " I say, Lascelles, thanks awfully, you know," stam- 
 mered Reppington in the interval as he flapped his defender 
 with a handkerchief. 
 
 " Don't mensh," said Bernard. 
 
 He went into the second round determined to finish Sher- 
 ringham as quickly as possible. His anger was of the quickly 
 raised quickly cooled kind, and without it he had little 
 stomach for fighting. But confidence in his own skill made 
 him underrate his opponent's staying power. After some 
 brisk sparring he delivered a hasty and ill-conceived attack, 
 and before he could recover his guard Sherringham got in 
 a terrific blow behind the ear, and then followed up, driv- 
 ing Bernard into a corner, who, dazed and shaken, was only 
 saved from a cruel battering by the call of Time. 
 
 " Good man ! One more round will finish him," said 
 Sherringham's backers, crowding round him. 
 
 " For God's sake be more careful," whispered Reppington. 
 " He's no match for you if you keep your head." 
 
 In the third round it was Sherringham who was over- 
 confident, whilst Bernard remained on the defensive, content 
 to rest his lungs and legs. 
 
 " Go in, Sherry! " shouted his friends. 
 
 Sherry went in and came out rather mauled, and the round 
 ended uneventfully. In the next round Sherringham, 
 goaded on by the cries of his supporters, made a second 
 determined attempt to pulverize Bernard, who, having 
 warded it off successfully, began to drive his panting op- 
 ponent up against the wall. Crack! Bernard's left catch- 
 ing him on the chin drove his head back against the wain- 
 scotting, and his right following up beneath the jaw re- 
 peated the performance. 
 
 "Time ["called the referee. 
 
 Sherringham was no Spartan. He completely collapsed,
 
 8o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and his supporters clamorously assailed the referee. 
 
 " It wasn't fair to hit him against the wall," was the gen- 
 eral complaint. 
 
 Rumpworth smiled judicially. He did not care for Ber- 
 nard, but he realized that Sherringham was beaten, and 
 he enjoyed the feeling of being absolute dictator which 
 refereeing gave him. 
 
 " Sherringham should have had more sense than to go 
 near the wall," he said. 
 
 " He was driven there," protested Ledbury. 
 
 "Then he was beaten," replied Rumpworth imperturb- 
 ably. 
 
 " Well, it's not fair," grumbled Ledbury. 
 
 " That's my decision anyway," snapped Rumpworth. 
 "Time!" 
 
 " Stay where you are, Sherringham," counselled Lash- 
 worthy, his second. Sherringham nodded, but as a matter 
 of fact he had no intention of rising from his seat. 
 
 " I give you ten seconds," said Rumpworth, looking at his 
 watch. " Then it's Lascelles' fight," he added after a pause, 
 and walked off in a huff. 
 
 Bernard approached Sherringham. 
 
 " Look here, you swine," he said, " you've just destroyed 
 something you can't replace, like the clumsy ass that you 
 are. Don't think you'll get off without making some sort of 
 amends." 
 
 " That's a rotten thing to say to a chap after you've beaten 
 him," said Lashworthy. 
 
 " You've had your fight and that ought to be enough for 
 you. Can't you shake hands like a gentleman ? " Ledbury 
 was the speaker. 
 
 " Look here," said Bernard, " I didn't fight this rotter 
 for fun, and a fight is no excuse for dodging out of doing 
 the right thing." 
 
 " Sherringham was right to smash the engine," said Led- 
 bury. " We don't want Ashbury turned into a nursery."
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 81 
 
 " I don't care a damn what you want," retorted Bernard, 
 " but Sherringham's got to pay up." 
 
 " Look here, Lascelles," broke in a new speaker, " are you 
 going to shake hands or not? " 
 
 " I won't touch his dirty hand until he makes amends to 
 Reppington." 
 
 " Well, come on, Sherry. Leave him alone. He's hope- 
 less." 
 
 The crowd, full of virtuous scorn, moved off with the 
 battered Sherringham in their midst, leaving Bernard speech- 
 less with indignation. He had fought for Right against 
 Might and triumphed, but against the stone wall of the 
 Ashbury mind he might beat for ever in vain. 
 
 " What's to be done with people like that? " he demanded, 
 turning to Reppington. 
 
 " God only knows," said Reppington, and added, " I say, 
 you can box." 
 
 But the worst was yet to come. The story of the fight 
 spread round the school, and there was great speculation 
 as to the cause. The true cause, however, could not pos- 
 sibly occur to the Ashbury intelligence, and before long it 
 was hinted abroad that Bernard took a sensual interest in 
 Reppington. 
 
 " Have you heard the latest? " said Robinson to Fortescue. 
 " Lascelles is gone on Reppington." 
 
 " My God," said Fortescue. " Well, he's not hard to 
 please." 
 
 People took to coughing if ever Bernard and Reppington 
 were observed in the same vicinity, and occasionally a wag 
 would inquire of Bernard after Reppington 's health. 
 
 " Great Scott ! " thought Bernard. " If those idiots who 
 write school stories only knew " 
 
 9 
 
 Meanwhile Bernard was being educated. He learned how 
 to write Latin and Greek prose and verse by the help of
 
 82 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Gradus and Dictionary; how to translate sonorous Latin 
 and facile Greek into clumsy ponderous English; and how 
 to cram three centuries of ancient history into a page of 
 outline. One year his class had as master one who had a 
 real appreciation of the inner beauty of classical literature 
 which he tried to convey to the boys, instead of using the 
 classics as other masters did merely as examples of gram- 
 matical rules. From Bernard he drew a ready response. 
 Indeed our hero had already developed a certain critical 
 faculty. He had a qualified admiration for Homer and an 
 ardent one for Euripides (cultivated deliberately perhaps for 
 this apostle of new ideas). He was a little doubtful over 
 Aeschylus; was not much of this oft-praised "grandeur" 
 touched with banality, he queried. Vergil's Eclogues roused 
 him to enthusiasm which even the discovery that they were a 
 plagiarism never could kill. (He never read Theocritus.) 
 And yet after seven years of constant study during which he 
 acquired the reputation of being a brilliant classical scholar, 
 he never gained sufficient facility in these languages to make 
 him wish to read them for pleasure. 
 
 In -the chaos and pandemonium of M. Moulin's classes 
 he picked up a smattering of odiously pronounced French 
 and in the almost equally unacademic atmosphere of the 
 science laboratory he learned that if a candle is burned inside 
 a lamp chimney with a waist to it it increases in weight. 
 
 He learned the accepted version of English History and it 
 was here that Ashbury came nearest to success with him, for 
 his tendency to revolutionary ideas extended only to politics. 
 Economics were a closed book to him and in mere ignorance 
 he accepted all the economic doctrines laid down by the mil- 
 dewed minds of those curious creatures who write history 
 text books for schools. None the less he was a staunch up- 
 holder of all rebellions from Wat Tyler's to William Ill's. 
 " Rebels are always in the right," he used to say, " or what 
 would they rebel for ? " 
 
 But to this generalization he made one exception, and that 
 was in the case of Ireland. In the first place the accounts of
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 83 
 
 rebellions in that country were always of the most meagre 
 description, glossed over and distorted, and the masters never 
 cared to dwell upon them ; and in the second the rebels were 
 always upon what he considered the reactionary side, for 
 the King against the Parliament, for James against William. 
 His complete lack of any kind of national feeling was the 
 obvious reason for such an attitude. 
 
 Right through the Ashbury curriculum he and Willoughby 
 went, fast friends all the time. Willoughby took the whole 
 thing as an Ashbury boy should, and promised to emerge as 
 a fairly typical example of the public school product, albeit 
 that Bernard was responsible for flaws that would have been 
 looked at askance by Alma Mater. Also he conformed to 
 the better parts of the code and was on the whole a very 
 popular boy. The mould, however, had no effect on Ber- 
 nard. He was not fusible enough. 
 
 But while Ashbury was trying every device to cramp and 
 distort his growing mind, he was gradually half-uncon- 
 sciously, unsystematically educating himself. He was an 
 omnivorous reader and the school library was an excellent 
 one. By the time he was sixteen he had read extensively 
 Scott, Dickens, Thackeray and Stevenson ; he had read Tom 
 Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver's Travels, Mr. Mid- 
 shipman Easy, Westward Ho!, Max Pemberton's Iron Pirate 
 and Impregnable City, most of Mr. Wells' early scientific 
 romances, and Conan Doyle's mediaeval tales. With for- 
 eign literature, however, he was poorly acquainted: Don 
 Quixote and a few of Victor Hugo's novels, with Jules 
 Vernes' romances, made the total sum. In spite of his teach- 
 ers' attempts to make him hate Shakespeare by using him as 
 a class text he read and reread Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, Co- 
 riolanus, Julius Caesar and the Historical Plays. Beyond 
 this his acquaintance with poetry was slight: The Ancient 
 Mariner, The Masque of Anarchy, U Allegro, The Rubaiyat, 
 the Ballad of Reading Gaol, and, a little later, the Hymn to 
 Proserpine, were his favourites. But history and geography 
 were still his main delight. He read the articles on many
 
 84 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 strange lands in Chamber's Encyclopaedia, and he would 
 spend hours poring over maps. He read books of history 
 in every size and form. The ancient eastern empires; 
 Greece, Rome and Carthage; the Byzantine empire; France 
 and Mediaeval Italy : these he knew best, while he had 
 a fair knowledge of general European History from the 
 middle ages to the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 And of course it was but natural that he should have read 
 the Social Contract. He had some difficulty in procuring a 
 copy, for it was not in his father's library or, needless to say, 
 in that of Ashbury. Finally he ran it to earth in the Na- 
 tional Library during the holidays, and read it with tre- 
 mendous eagerness. The finely balanced opening sentence 
 gave promise of great things to come but he found the treatise 
 on the whole rather dull, though he would not have ad- 
 mitted this even to himself. After the opening chapters had 
 worn down his enthusiasm he read on to the end most con- 
 scientiously, accepting the doctrines of revolt without any 
 of that impatient questioning with which he would have 
 greeted a work of any other character. Willoughby was 
 somewhat shocked to hear that Bernard had read a book on 
 the Index. Although he had imbibed a certain democratic 
 outlook from his two Irish friends his whole mental tone 
 was conservative, reverence for anything established being 
 the keynote of his character. 
 
 " I've something to tell you that'll shock you more than 
 that, my friend," said Bernard. 
 
 " Spit it out," said Willoughby grimly. 
 
 " I've become a Socialist." 
 
 " Impossible, my dear man," said Willoughby very deci- 
 sively. " Unless, of course, you've given up your reli- 
 gion." 
 
 " And why not? " said Bernard. 
 
 10 
 
 It is necessary here to retrace our steps a little. 
 We left Bernard, at the time a mere child of fourteen,
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 85 
 
 struggling with the doubts born of an interview with Father 
 Bowman on the subject of Saint Aloysius. Now as a con- 
 viction of ignorance is the first step to knowledge, so doubt 
 is the first step to faith, provided that the doubt is answered 
 with wisdom. But wisdom Father Bowman had not. In 
 fact, beyond Piety and the Fear of the Lord he was in- 
 adequately provided with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and 
 he had felt quite conscience free in dismissing Bernard's 
 doubts with a command to play football. So Bernard from 
 doubting one thing began to doubt many. His disgust at 
 St. Aloysius' prudity made him question celibacy altogether 
 and ask himself whether voluntary abstention from pro- 
 creation could really be pleasing to the God who said 
 " Increase and Multiply." This was the starting point of 
 a bitter feeling of anti-clericalism, which was intensified by 
 the antagonistic attitude of the Church to his innate repub- 
 licanism. By the time he was fifteen he was definitely anti- 
 cleric, and before he was sixteen he was completely anti- 
 religious. All this time he sought advice or argument from 
 nobody. Father Bowman had finally repelled him from 
 that. 
 
 And then, before he was quite aware of it, he began to 
 doubt the existence of God. A certain strange harsh ma- 
 terialism that had found its way into his soul through the 
 wounds made by injustice and unpopularity, coming upon 
 him while he was drifting in the course we have described, 
 was responsible for this. 
 
 "Could there really be intangible spiritual things?" he 
 asked himself. 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 " And yet " 
 
 One of his cousins, a youth somewhat older than himself, 
 a Protestant in name but of no definite faith, said to him 
 in the holidays: 
 
 " You religious people say that God is infinitely just, in- 
 finitely merciful, and infinitely loving, and yet say that he 
 condemns people to eternal torture for offending him. Now
 
 86 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 I don't claim to be anything wonderful in the way of jus- 
 tice, kindness or mercy, but I wouldn't dream of doing that 
 to every one no matter how badly he offended me." 
 
 Bernard had no answer to this and his doubts increased 
 in intensity. 
 
 " God tells me I'm to believe the Church, and the Church 
 tells me that God treats sinners as even an ordinary decent 
 man wouldn't treat his enemies. Is there a God at all? " 
 
 So he reflected, and at last decided to test the matter by 
 going to confession. 
 
 " I'm always being tempted to sins against faith, Father," 
 he said. 
 
 " Against what articles of faith, my child ? " 
 
 " Against all religion altogether, Father." 
 
 " But, my child, when these temptations come to you 
 you must pray against them. Pray to our Blessed Lady and 
 our holy patron St. Aloysius to intercede for you. Pray to 
 the Holy Ghost to give you this precious gift of faith." 
 
 " But how can I pray to the Holy Ghost if I don't believe 
 he exists ? " asked Bernard desperately. 
 
 " Have you been reading irreligious books, my child ? " 
 
 " No, Father," he said. He would have liked to say that 
 it was religious books that were mainly responsible for his 
 downfall but dared not. 
 
 " I've only been thinking," he put in weakly. 
 
 " My child, you must put these thoughts away from you. 
 The mysteries of faith are beyond our mortal comprehen- 
 sion, but I would ask you to look around at the wonderful 
 world about you; at the stars, those gigantic bodies that 
 seem mere pin points lost in the immensity of space; at the 
 intricate workmanship of a simple daisy; and ask yourself 
 was there no designer of all this. Also, my child, read good 
 books, and above all things pray. Any other sins, my 
 child?" 
 
 Bernard went away but half satisfied. The wonderful 
 world was all very well, but how material it was. Could 
 there be immaterial things? Was his mind limited because
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 87 
 
 he could not conceive the immaterial? Could other fellows 
 conceive it? Could Willoughby? Yes. Could Lash- 
 worthy or Rumpworth? Well, they didn't care enough 
 about these things to bother about doubting them. . . . Then 
 there was this question of Hell. 
 
 His mind remained in a ferment for a time, but soon set- 
 tled down to a cold indifferent atheism. Such an attitude, 
 however, was incompatible with his whole temperament, and 
 gradually his atheism became positive and missionary. He 
 began to feel that it might be his duty to save others from 
 the slough of superstition from which he had dragged him- 
 self, and commenced operations by breathing doubts about 
 the scientific accuracy of the book of Genesis into the ears 
 of Eugene. The latter was a good Ashburian but also a 
 good boy and he staved off the tempter by showers of dog- 
 mata. He also told his mother about Bernard's delinquen- 
 cies, to the terrible dismay of the good lady, who had an 
 immediate vision of devouring flames searching the soul of 
 her darling boy. It was in the Christmas holidays of his 
 last year at school that Eugene made his revelation, and she 
 seized the first opportunity when she was alone with Bernard 
 to approach him about it. 
 
 She was amazed to find that he did not deny the charge. 
 Nay, to her grief and dismay, he appeared to take pride in 
 it. She tried tearful remonstrance, but in vain. She tried 
 argument but proved to be no theologian. Bernard himself 
 knew more about the religion she was defending than she 
 did herself. Then she said to him: 
 
 " I see you are quite hardened, and I've done all that my 
 conscience requires in trying to reclaim you. Well, go your 
 own way if you like, but one thing I insist on. Let Eugene 
 and Sandy alone. I won't have their faith undermined." 
 
 " But look here, mother," replied Bernard. " If I sin- 
 cerely believe Atheism right and Christianity a demoralizing 
 superstition haven't I as much right to preach my views as 
 you have? " 
 
 " No. I'm your mother."
 
 88 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " That has nothing to do with it." 
 
 " Now, Bernard, I don't want any argument. I can't 
 prevent you going wrong yourself, but I forbid you to lead 
 others astray." 
 
 " I'm not leading any one astray." 
 
 " I say you are." 
 
 " But, hang it all, mother, can't you understand that ? " 
 
 " No. And I don't want to. Now that's enough." 
 
 And so the conversation closed. 
 
 From his father he gained a more sympathetic hearing. 
 For the sake of his practice he was an orthodox Protestant, 
 but he was in reality an agnostic. He prided himself on his 
 broad-minded and tolerant attitude towards religious things : 
 " Priests and nuns ought to be shot," he used to say, and 
 Bernard quite agreed with him. 
 
 He was very pleased to find that Bernard was on this point 
 shaping according to his wishes. More than once he had 
 regretted his matrimonial promise in respect to his children, 
 but with all his faults he was on the whole an honourable 
 man and he had never broken it. 
 
 " You're quite right, my boy," he said. " There's too 
 much of this damned superstition. I wish I'd never allowed 
 your mind to be soiled by it, but a promise is a promise, 
 you know." 
 
 II 
 
 And while this spiritual development was in progress he 
 heard for the first time of Socialism. He heard it spoken 
 of invariably in accents of condemnation, which alone was 
 enough to make Bernard think favourably of it, and the fact 
 that its strongest enemies were the Church and the boys of 
 Ashbury made him ready to acquit it unheard. " This 
 leads to Socialism " was one of the accepted final arguments 
 in the debating society against any democratic principle 
 under discussion,. " Atheists, anarchists, and Socialists," 
 generalized the preacher in the pulpit. 
 
 So Bernard became a Socialist and bought books on the
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 89 
 
 subject. He read Shaw and Snowden and Wells' Modern 
 Utopia. He read Chesterton and wondered where was the 
 difference between that brilliant controversialist and the 
 principles he was attacking. 
 
 His economics of course were of the vaguest description, 
 but philosophically Socialism gripped him. It became his 
 creed, a creed as fixed and based on as much ignorance as 
 his mother's Catholicism, but ten times more ardent. He 
 set out to make converts but failed miserably. Willoughby 
 agreed with everything he said about the evils of the existing 
 order but considered remedial measures sufficient. Murray 
 said that competition was the soul of effort and that Socialism 
 would simply kill initiative. Rumpworth asked where would 
 England be without her aristocracy and Ledbury said: 
 
 " You wouldn't be a Socialist, Lascelles, if you owned a 
 jolly good bit of land for shooting." 
 
 Finally Mallow said that he was only a revolutionary 
 where Ireland was concerned. Otherwise he was a con- 
 servative like all decent Irishmen. The meaning of which 
 was obscure to Bernard. 
 
 Then the motion " that this house disapproves of the 
 principles of Socialism " was discussed in the Debating So- 
 ciety and Bernard undertook to lead the opposition. He 
 had much difficulty in collecting speakers. Willoughby 
 agreed to speak in favour of a " moderate " kind of Social- 
 ism and Murray gave his adherence because he hated to be on 
 the re-actionary side even when he disapproved of the other. 
 To his surprise Reppington, who was not a member of the 
 society, promised to join and make his maiden speech. One 
 other member volunteered his services as there was no room 
 for him on the ministerial list. He would speak, he said, 
 but not vote. 
 
 Rumpworth opened with the usual speech demanded on 
 such occasions. Political platitudes, economic fallacies, and 
 religious insincerities made up the bulk of an oration which 
 was warmly applauded. Then amid ironic cheers and en- 
 couraging remarks Bernard rose. He had decided to reserve
 
 90 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 his most crushing arguments for the closing speech which 
 was his privilege as leader, when he could pulverize the 
 arguments of his opponents who had concluded, and so 
 he now contented himself with a dispassionate definition of 
 what Socialism really was, and then sat down. The debate 
 then ran its course, differing in nowise from its predecessors 
 and contemporaries. Competition, initiative, and encourage- 
 ment of idleness were the main planks in the ministerial 
 program, with occasional appeals to religion and "our 
 glorious aristocracy." The opposition was half-hearted, but 
 Reppington astonished every one by his extraordinary knowl- 
 edge on the subject. He was the only person in the room 
 who understood a word of economics. Finally Bernard 
 returned to the charge. He attacked each of the main 
 ministerial arguments in turn. Socialism, said his op- 
 ponents, would abolish competition. All the better. Com- 
 petition, he held, was an evil. (Oh! oh!,) Yes. He would 
 substitute for it a better thing, Co-operation. Capitalism 
 made the world a waste of selfish striving, every man for 
 himself and the weakest to the wall. Why not look upon 
 mankind as a community in which every one strove to im- 
 prove the world in which all had to live ? Let their motto 
 be each for all and all for each. Poverty must be abol- 
 ished because it was as injurious to the rich as to the poor. 
 (This from Shaw.) Then as to the killing of initiative, 
 had they so low an opinion of themselves and of the rest of 
 mankind as to imagine that human initiative could be meas- 
 ured in terms of shillings and pence? Did they not know 
 that there was such a thing as love of a work for its own 
 sake? The ministry also claimed that Socialism would en- 
 courage people to be idle at the expense of the rest. Did not 
 Capitalism do the same? Were not the unemployed a per- 
 petual burden? And what about our pampered idle aris- 
 tocracy? (Voices: "Not idle!") Yes. Idle aristoc- 
 racy. Any one who lived on the work of others, be he rich 
 or poor, was an idler. Well, they knew what bees did to
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 91 
 
 drones. He would do the same to the aristocracy. (Booh !) 
 Some honourable members had said that Socialism was an 
 attack on property. That was not strictly true. Social- 
 ism attacked the superfluous and often illgotten wealth of 
 the rich. Capitalism, as Chesterton, an opponent of Social- 
 ism, pointed out, attacked the necessities of the poor. 
 
 " One word more," he said. " The religious argument 
 has been frequently brought up this evening. Too fre- 
 quently in my opinion. But I see no force in it. I see no 
 reason why all genuine Christians shouldn't become So- 
 cialists. The universal argument against Socialism, which 
 I have already refuted on other grounds, seems to be that 
 it rewards the undeserving as much as the deserving. Well, 
 I say, why not ? Christianity preaches ' Do as you would 
 be done by.' Which of you would object to being rewarded 
 undeserved ? Therefore I say : ' Practise your religion and 
 pay all equally regardless of their deserts of which, by 
 the way, you are not the judge.' " (Boohs and slight ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 The motion was carried by twenty-six votes to four. 
 
 " You're a great rebel except where your own country is 
 concerned," said Mallow after the meeting. 
 
 " Oh, go to Hell I " replied Bernard. 
 
 After this Bernard found himself frequently drawn into 
 argument about Socialism, and the utter inability of his 
 opponents to oppose to him anything but dogma and their 
 own stupidity confirmed his belief in the infallibility of his 
 principles. He was convinced that because arguments could 
 not be found against him they simply did not exist. 
 
 One of these conversations is worth recording because it 
 throws a further light on the Ashbury mind. It was Rump- 
 worth who set the question going between himself and Ber- 
 nard and Willoughby. Beaten in controversy he took refuge 
 behind Mother Church. Thereupon Bernard burst out: 
 
 "I'm fed up with the Church and all her ways. She's 
 been a re-actionary force from the beginning of her history
 
 92 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 till now. And I tell you this, what first made me think 
 Socialism right was the fact that the Church was against 
 it." 
 
 " Well, that's a bloody rotten thing to say," said Rump- 
 worth. " You go a damn sight too far." 
 
 And he walked off. Bernard, turning to Willoughby, 
 said: 
 
 "Fine moral indignation, eh? And he reads a novel in 
 church and goes to Communion every day because thanks- 
 giving gets him off a few minutes" of study." 
 
 "Rot!" 
 
 " It's true. He bragged of it to me the other day. And 
 he spends his spare time footling around with little boys, 
 what's more. Yet he can't stand plain speaking about the 
 Church." 
 
 " Still, that was a bit strong," remonstrated Willoughby. 
 " I mean, even if you think things like that about the Church 
 you shouldn't say them." 
 
 " To hell with suppression ! " said Bernard. " We 
 shouldn't be afraid of the truth." 
 
 " I 'don't mean you should hide the truth, but you ought 
 to think twice before you trot out a big statement like that. 
 It saves the trouble of taking it back afterwards, you know." 
 
 " I don't think I'll ever want to take that back," said 
 Bernard. 
 
 " You never know," replied Willoughby. 
 
 12 
 
 A discussion arose in the recreation room one evening 
 during Bernard's second last term at Ashbury. The par- 
 ticipants were Sedgwick, Mallow, Lashworthy, Bernard and 
 one or two others. A boy called Osgood had been reading 
 the Exploits of Brigadier Gerrard and, apropos of some 
 remark made by Sedgwick, related the incident where Ger- 
 rard commented upon the delusion common to all nations 
 that their soldiers are braver than those of any other nation. 
 
 " ,And then," Osgood said, " the Brigadier says that isn't
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 93 
 
 true. ' All nations are equally brave,' he says, ' except that 
 the French are slightly more courageous than the others.' " 
 
 Every one laughed, and then Mallow interjected in his 
 deep voice: 
 
 " I bet you English think you're the bravest nation in the 
 world." 
 
 "Yes. But it's true in our case," said Sedgwick. 
 
 " What price Gerrard now? " said Bernard. 
 
 " You needn't laugh," said Sedgwick. " Doesn't our his- 
 tory prove it ? " 
 
 Bernard shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. He 
 had grown tired of arguing with fools. But Mallow was 
 not so constituted. 
 
 " That's all my eye," he said. " The French or the 
 Spanish or anybody else could say the same. Give me a 
 decent proof." 
 
 " We all know it's true," said Sedgwick, calmly entrenched 
 in self-complacency. 
 
 " It's well known," put in Lashworthy. 
 
 " Rot! " said Mallow. 
 
 " Your opinion doesn't matter a damn," drawled Lash- 
 worthy. " You're only a dirty Irishman." 
 
 The light of battle leaped in Mallow's ordinarily dull eye 
 at this insult. He went for Lashworthy in a trice and they 
 had a tussle. It was no regular fight. They just bashed 
 each other for a while and then left off as if by mutual con- 
 sent. 
 
 But the incident left an impression on Bernard. 
 
 " There must be something in this Irish business," he 
 reflected. " Mallow's an awful ass, but he'd hardly fight 
 for nothing. And if Lashworthy did mean something in- 
 sulting, then . . ." endless vistas of speculation opened be- 
 fore him. 
 
 In his perplexity he thought of questioning Murray, but 
 the prospect of a lecture on Home Rule deterred him, so he 
 went to Mallow instead. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " don't waste time abusing me for
 
 94 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 being no better than an Englishman. Tell me straight out 
 what's at the bottom of this English-Irish business." 
 
 " God help you," said Mallow. " Don't you know that 
 the English conquered Ireland ? " 
 
 " No. When was it? " 
 
 " A good while ago. In the reign of Henry the Second." 
 
 " Of course. I remember reading something about it." 
 
 " Half a line in an English History, I suppose," said 
 Mallow scornfully. 
 
 "Yes. Well, is that all?" 
 
 " Isn't it enough ? " 
 
 " It doesn't affect me very much, I must say." 
 
 "Ah, get away," said Mallow. " I'm fed up with you." 
 And he strolled away. 
 
 Bernard's knowledge of his native land remained in this 
 state of development until the evening of Felim O'Dwyer's 
 speech on Home Rule in the Debating Society. 
 
 Felim O'Dwyer was another of Ashbury's failures. He 
 was a small, slight, fair haired boy two classes below Ber- 
 nard, and therefore a neophyte to the Debating Society. 
 Owing to that strange clannishness that keeps boys in 
 cliques and sets of their own, and also to the disparity in 
 their ages and position in the school he was known to Ber- 
 nard only by name and repute. From the viewpoint of the 
 average school boy he was a person of no account, being weak 
 in body, timid in character, and indifferent to athletics. 
 But he was at the top of his class without appearing to exert 
 himself unduly, and he was known to have a sharp and 
 witty tongue. Besides being a classical scholar he was the 
 best essayist in the school, and had beaten Bernard in the 
 contest for the Senior Essay Prize. In addition to this 
 literary distinction he acquired notoriety from a note book 
 he always carried in his pocket in which he scribbled satirical 
 verses and lampoons about his fellows. These he used to 
 recite to his companions and in consequence received many 
 kicks from big boys infuriated by hearing their rimed fail- 
 ings chanted in public. Ledbury nearly wrenched his arm
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 95 
 
 from its socket for a cutting Limerick, while Mallow on 
 the other hand was rather flattered by a little quatrain which 
 ran: 
 
 Brian Mallow 
 
 Will die on a gallow 
 
 By hook or by crook. 
 
 It's his favourite nook. 
 
 And Bernard himself was made to wince by a similar one: 
 
 Bernard Lascelles 
 
 In Spain has castles. 
 
 That's why 
 
 You never can catch his eye. 
 
 There was also a comic opera which introduced most of 
 Ashbury's celebrities. Bernard figured in a stage direction 
 which read: 
 
 Enter Lascelles on a high horse, very much in earnest. 
 
 It can be easily understood that O'Dwyer was unpopular. 
 His only friend was Bernard's brother Eugene, and he 
 seemed to take pleasure in his isolation. 
 
 A Home Rule debate at Ashbury always ran on certain 
 traditional lines. The Unionist side simply abused Ireland 
 and asserted that if. England had not conquered her some 
 ether country would. Occasionally some original genius 
 would proclaim that to be governed by England was freedom 
 enough for anybody, England being herself the " land of the 
 free." As for the Home Rulers, they were mainly amiable 
 people who advocated Home Rule on the ground that it 
 would make the Irish more " loyal." The Irish boys, what- 
 ever their politics at home, always came out with rebellious 
 speeches as a reaction. To this rule Bernard and Molloy 
 were exceptions. Molloy always spoke for England because 
 that was the respectable side, and Bernard did not speak at 
 all because he was uninstructed and uninterested. 
 
 When it came to O'Dwyer 's turn to speak he leaped to his
 
 96 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 feet flushed with anger and trembling with impatience. 
 Some one had said that the best Irish people did not want 
 Home Rule, and O'Dwyer seized upon this as the text for 
 his attack. 
 
 " The honourable member is quite right," he said. " The 
 best Irish people and I am quite aware that the honour- 
 able member and I hold different views as to who they are 
 don't want Home Rule. But what do they want ? They 
 want and I want separation. We want a republic. 
 (Hisses.) Yes. A Republic; But I don't intend to argue 
 the point here. It would be quite useless, and I don't con- 
 sider that it's any concern of this house. I only got up to 
 set your doubts at rest as to what Ireland really wants, and 
 having done so I'll sit down." (Groans.) 
 
 Bernard observed Lashworthy approach O'Dwyer after 
 the debate and say: 
 
 " You ought to keep that kind of thing for your pigstye 
 in Connemara. Remember you're in England now." 
 
 " I thought I was in a pigstye," replied O'Dwyer. " Silly 
 mistake, wasn't it?" 
 
 Lashworthy, nonplussed, turned away. 
 
 Bernard determined to make O'Dwyer's acquaintance. 
 The supreme contempt with which he had treated the so- 
 ciety rather appealed to him, and the fact that O'Dwyer was 
 like himself an outsider and a revolutionary was a further 
 recommendation. But their meeting, brought about by Eu- 
 gene, was a failure. Bernard sought eagerly for informa- 
 tion about Ireland, but O'Dwyer was one of those quick 
 impetuous people who are too impatient to give full explana- 
 tions, and too patently contemptuous of views they disagree 
 with to be successful propagandists. Moreover he failed to 
 realize that Bernard, owing to his origin and training, was 
 without both the intellectual and emotional fundamentals of 
 Nationalism essential to making the subject vital or even 
 important. To Bernard it was only a small problem of local 
 government that was under discussion and O'Dwyer's ex- 
 citability over the question irritated and annoyed him. At
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 97 
 
 the same time the force of his facts and logic went home 
 and made of him a dispassionate esoteric devolutionist. 
 
 " I don't see why Home Rule shouldn't satisfy you," he 
 said, and against this breakwater the torrent of O'Dwyer's 
 eloquence dashed in vain. " This republic business seems 
 to me a mere piece of narrow minded selfishness. It just 
 means cutting yourself off from your fellow men in England 
 and the world. It isn't progress at all. It's reaction." 
 
 They got more and more on each other's nerves. O'Dwyer 
 thought Bernard self-satisfied, and Bernard thought 
 O'Dwyer needlessly offensive, for the latter made difference 
 in argument a personal matter and always broke out sooner 
 or later into heated language. And with the egotism and 
 confidence of clever youth each felt that any one who dis- 
 agreed with him must be a knave or a fool. 
 
 One day Bernard wound up the controversy by saying: 
 
 " Anyway, the question isn't of tremendous importance. 
 The world is a big place and Ireland a very small part of it. 
 I think it's sheer waste of time to bother about such a piffling 
 little corner." 
 
 " I suppose you think that a bloody fine broadminded sort 
 of thing to say," sneered O'Dwyer. 
 
 " I think it's common sense." 
 
 " Common high falutin excuse for dodging what you don't 
 understand." 
 
 " Don't excite yourself over nothing." 
 
 " Is your intelligence nothing then? " 
 
 They descended to vulgar abuse after that and their ac- 
 quaintanceship terminated. 
 
 13 
 
 Bernard's school-days were drawing to a close, but he 
 was destined to have one more experience before the end. 
 On arriving at Dillingworth station for his last term he 
 found that he had mislaid his ticket. It took some time to 
 unearth it from a forgotten pocket and when he arrived at 
 the gates he found fhat all the brakes sent from the schooj
 
 9 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 were packed and ready to move off. One little boy was in a 
 similar predicament, and was also uncertain of the road, so 
 they walked up together in the summer evening. Next day 
 they passed each other in the corridor and Bernard nodded 
 to the youngster, who returned the salute with a smile: he 
 had a very pleasant smile. This happened once or twice 
 afterwards, and suddenly Bernard became aware that he 
 was taking too much interest in the boy. 
 
 No. He was not a degenerate. He was a victim of the 
 system that herds young children and craving adolescents 
 together in a harsh comfortless atmosphere. An unnatural 
 system, and " unnatural deeds do breed unnatural trouble." 
 . . . Love, in one form or another, is essential to all human 
 beings. It is the source of life, the nutriment of infancy, 
 the prop of youth, the end and the purpose of maturity, 
 and the gratification of parenthood. The very existence of 
 the uru'verse is due to the love of the Creator for creating 
 and the created thing, and the creative origin and purpose of 
 love is its most vital claimant and impelling fact. Hence 
 the evil of this harsh unwholesome herding of youth. You 
 take boyhood, passively loving, leaning on love for nourish- 
 ment, instruction, and protection, away from the love of its 
 natural fosterers and protectors; and you place it in a cold, 
 rough, loveless atmosphere along with adolescence, actively 
 loving, seeking in love self-expression and self-fulfilment, 
 exuberant as the spring, hungry for beauty, unschooled to 
 restraint, with the seeds of self -reproduction vividly ripening 
 and clamouring to be sown, and the naturally unnatural 
 result follows inevitably. Pedagogues may blind themselves 
 to facts and feel that they have done their duty in expelling 
 a flagrant case, but rare individual depravity spreads but 
 small contagion. Any mind free from self-interest in the 
 matter can see that it is the system that is at fault. 
 
 Bernard, being healthy and clean minded, fought the temp- 
 tation. He fought it with his own weapons: with his man- 
 liness, with his self-respect, with his hatred of softness and 
 uncleanness, with his love of order and restraint. For a
 
 YOUNG ENGLAND 99 
 
 time he was successful, but soon he found his defences in- 
 sufficient, and began to realize that alone he was but a weak 
 child. He discovered that he needed help. 
 
 And then all of a sudden he began to pray. \Varm 
 springs in his soul that he had imagined to be dried up 
 broke the dams he had built for them and gushed forth in 
 a comforting stream. Faith and hope and love came back 
 to him without any intellectual effort. He felt like a child 
 whose mother, flouted formerly, had come to its rescue in 
 distress and danger. God had come to him, it seemed, in 
 sheer pity to save his tottering manhood. 
 
 So he returned temporarily, at any rate, to the shelter 
 of the rock. 
 
 14 
 
 The last day arrived. 
 
 Willoughby had invited Bernard and Murray to spend a 
 week at his home in Warwickshire after the Public Schools 
 Camp, to which they were now going, was over. 
 
 " We'll have some sport," he said. " My brother will be 
 down from Oxford and he'll probably have a friend with 
 him." 
 
 The three were going up to Oxford next year, and had 
 decided on Magdalen College. 
 
 And now the O.T.C. was drawn up in the quadrangle for 
 the final inspection. Bernard in khaki with three stripes on 
 his arm cursed his section in truly military style. Then 
 came the inspection, followed by the command : 
 
 " Fall out. Into the brakes with you." 
 
 To the scream of bugles and the thud of drums the brakes 
 filled up. 
 
 " Mind you all join the Union," said the Prefect, as he 
 bid good-bye to those who were leaving for good. 
 
 Then the band ceased playing and packed itself into the 
 last brake. Some one in front struck up the Ashbury song. 
 Out dashed the horses through the gate way and the old grey 
 mansion receded in the distance.
 
 ioo THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 All the way to the station and afterwards in the train 
 Bernard sat in silent meditation. 
 
 " Old Ashbury ! " he said to himself. " What has she 
 done for me? Given me a smattering of culture and a lot 
 of other stuff that I'd have had to unlearn if I hadn't re- 
 jected it at the start. You're a failure, old Ashbury. You 
 tried to make me religious and you nearly made me an 
 atheist ; you tried to make me a celibate and you nearly made 
 me a rake; you tried to make me an English gentleman and 
 you've made me a cosmopolitan Socialist. ... I wonder 
 what you're making of Eugene." 
 
 Quite suddenly he realized that he and Eugene had been 
 strangers to one another all these years. 
 
 " Old Alma Mater, you're a fraud," he said to himself as 
 the train slid out of Dillingworth station. 
 
 Through a gap in the hills he caught a last glimpse of the 
 towers of Ashbury dim in the distance.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 
 
 A GREAT, silent, smooth-running motor car carried 
 three sunburnt, khaki-clad young men from Deeping 
 Station to Willoughby Towers. Along the broad highway 
 it sped, then wound through trim green-hedged byways to 
 emerge on a long straight road of a different complexion, 
 narrow and unfenced. 
 
 " The Roman road," said Willoughby. 
 
 " Queer how countries show their character in their 
 roads," said Murray. " Roman roads are hard and 
 straight like bands of steel: conqueror's roads to hold a land 
 in subjection. English roads show England's love for per- 
 sonal property-rights; they dodge and twist about, skirting 
 this man's meadow and avoiding that man's mill, and in- 
 sinuating themselves between the baron's demesne and the 
 cottager's kitchen garden. French roads combine efficiency 
 with beauty, running from place to place by the shortest and 
 most picturesque route; and if the way isn't naturally beau- 
 tiful they make it so artificially by means of shade trees. 
 I'm sure Russian roads are dreary and melancholy, and 
 German roads smooth and efficient; and I'd like to know if 
 Scottish roads are dour and Turkish roads sinuous. As for 
 Irish roads, they're chucked down anyhow, all over the 
 place. . . . Hello! We're coming out on to the high road 
 again." 
 
 " Half a mile more," said Willoughby. 
 
 They reached a lodge gate which was opened by an 
 obsequious gate keeper exactly like a thousand other gate 
 keepers. They drove up a serpentine avenue between rows 
 101
 
 102 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 of cedars, crunching the thickly laid gravel. The chauffeur 
 tootled his horn and as they emerged on a great circular sweep 
 of gravel before the house an old gentleman came down the 
 steps. Willoughby waved his service cap and the old gen- 
 tleman cried out: " Here we are again." The car 
 stopped, panting, and the three young men jumped out. 
 
 Willoughby introduced his friends to his father, who wel- 
 comed them in a bluff, breezy manner. After a moment 
 he said: 
 
 " You'll find your mother in the drawing-room, Jack," 
 whereat Willoughby sped off into the house. Then, to a 
 servitor standing impassively and unobtrusively in the back- 
 ground : 
 
 " Show these gentlemen to their rooms, Hawkins." 
 Murray and Bernard were conducted through the hall, 
 cumbrously adorned with suits of armour, stags' heads, skins 
 of wild beasts, and portraits of departed Willoughbys; up 
 a grand oak-balustraded stairway; and then by bewildering 
 corridors to two bedrooms side by side. Hawkins wanted 
 Bernard's keys to unpack for him, but Bernard detested the 
 flunkeyism with which the well-to-do English surround them- 
 selves and refused this service. After washing, shaving 
 and changing into civilian attire he went into Murray's room, 
 and a moment later Willoughby arrived and led them down 
 to the drawing-room to introduce them to his mother. She 
 was a tall, pale, delicate woman, who received them with a 
 cordiality that was transparently superficial. Her husband, 
 however, a fine type of the robust English country gentle- 
 man, did much to set them at their ease. They were en- 
 gaged in the delicate process of eating thin bread and butter 
 and drinking china tea out of eggshell balanced on their 
 knees when three other young men entered the room, who 
 were introduced as: 
 
 " Mr. Hastings, Mr. Moore, and my eldest son Frank." 
 
 Frank Willoughby was just an older version of Jack, 
 
 somewhat more polished and somewhat less ingenuous. 
 
 Hastings was a rather pompous young man, fair haired, not
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 103 
 
 over tidy in his dress, and obviously not in the best physical 
 training. Moore was tall, of dark complexion, with a 
 slightly bitter smile perpetually hovering over his lips. High 
 cheek bones, a long upper lip, and a shade of accent showing 
 through the Oxford varnish of his speech proclaimed the 
 Irishman. These three had just been served with tea when 
 every one rose at the entry of two girls. One, Maud Wil- 
 loughby, instantly attracted the gaze of every male stranger 
 in the room, for she was the typical English beauty of maga- 
 zine story writers and illustrators. She knew it, and she 
 carried herself accordingly. As for her friend, Janet More- 
 cambe, the minx must have chosen her for a foil. She was 
 small and shapeless, and save for a pair of piercing eyes, 
 totally undistinguished in appearance. 
 
 A light conversation began and rambled along pleasantly, 
 and Bernard, looking at Maud's profile, decided that destiny 
 had been kind to him. He almost hated Willoughby for 
 tearing him along with Murray away from the company, 
 in order, as he said, to show them round the place. 
 Throughout the process he was so absent minded and dis- 
 traught that Murray at any rate found little difficulty in 
 diagnosing the cause. 
 
 They met again at dinner, when Bernard to his delight 
 found himself placed next to her. At first the ceremonial 
 nature of the meal rather oppressed him. The great size of 
 the dining-room, hung with the usual manorial relics of the 
 chase and the glories of departed days; of the table itself, 
 and of the other appointments of the room; the formality 
 of everything, of the well-dressed company, of the statuesque 
 and attentive menials, of the whole ritual designed to com- 
 plicate rather than to comfort this everyday process of as- 
 similating nourishment; all this weighed upon him and made 
 him nervous and anxious. Also he was reflecting upon 
 the little parody of all this time honoured observation nightly 
 performed in Merrion Square. A glass of sherry restored 
 his confidence and he perceived that Maud was deliberately 
 trying to entertain and interest him.
 
 io 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I've heard a great deal about you from Jack," she said. 
 " He's always talking about you." 
 
 " He must have exhausted all the good he had to say very 
 early," said Bernard. " I hope he was discreet about the 
 rest." 
 
 " He tells me you're a terrible Socialist," said Maud. 
 
 " Nothing terrible about me, I assure you," said Bernard. 
 " But the rest is true enough." 
 
 They were drawn into the general conversation for a time. 
 Old Mr. Willoughby was quite the most talkative person in 
 the room and it was easy to set his hearty laugh going. 
 Bernard did it frequently. Hastings also talked a good deal, 
 very seriously and very egotistically. The projected insur- 
 ance act was the topic of the day and he was an ardent sup- 
 porter of the measure. It was on this subject that Mrs. 
 Willoughby made her sole contribution to the conversation 
 by remarking that for her part she would never lick stamps 
 for a vulgar little Welsh demagogue. 
 
 " Let him lick them himself if he likes," she added. 
 
 The two Willoughbys told their mother that this wasn't 
 practical politics and diverted the conversation to pleasanter 
 channels such as the prospects for the Twelfth. 
 
 Moore, the dark Irishman, took little part in the conversa- 
 tion, answering briefly when directly addressed and otherwise 
 remaining silent. The queer little bitter smile seldom left 
 his lips. 
 
 Bernard and Maud returned to their own conversation. 
 It was trifling enough, but with her eyes and with her smile 
 she enmeshed him in a tangle of enchantment. After the 
 ladies had withdrawn he moodily gnawed his cigar while the 
 other men chatted, and that night before going to bed he 
 walked among the cedars, dreaming about her under the 
 
 2 
 
 Life at Willoughby Towers passed very pleasantly. They 
 rode and fished and played tennis, and on one occasion they
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 105 
 
 watched a cricket match on the village green. They mo- 
 tored to Warwick and to Coventry and to Stratford-on- 
 Avon, where they were shown over Shakespeare's house by a 
 guide who recited by heart a guide-book description of the 
 place, ending up with : " And now, ladies and gentlemen, 
 here is the ingle nook in which no doubt the bard often sat. 
 Perhaps you would like to sit there and see if any of the 
 noble thoughts which inspired him might come to your- 
 selves." 
 
 Conversation flowed pleasantly in the evenings. Mr. 
 Willoughby was a man who treated youth with respect, 
 differing thus from Bernard's father, who seemed to consider 
 age and wisdom synonymous, and treated the opinions of 
 his juniors either with contempt if he disagreed with them 
 or with exasperating patronage if they coincided with his 
 own. Mr. Willoughby, however, was inclined to the hu- 
 morous view of life. Progressive opinions in young men 
 he received with a tolerant smile and the prophecy that 
 they would wear off in time. His contribution to a social 
 argument that sprang up one evening was to the effect that 
 industrialism itself was the cause of poverty, and that Eng- 
 land would not be herself again till she returned to the good 
 old days when the squire paternally ruled his tenants and 
 the tenants were respectful to the squire and all was agricul- 
 tural bliss and harmony. 
 
 " But your very socks and shirts are the products of in- 
 dustrialism," said Bernard. 
 
 " I'd cheerfully go back to homespuns," said the squire. 
 
 " And give up your motor? " queried Bernard. 
 
 " There are flaws in my theory, I know," said Mr. Wil- 
 loughby. " Well, there are mor^e in Socialism. But I can't 
 help thinking the world was a happier place before the in- 
 vention of machinery. 
 
 " Happy, but inconvenient," said Hastings. 
 
 " The world could be both happy and convenient," put in 
 Mrs. Willoughby, " if politicians wouldn't stir up the lower 
 classes and make them discontented."
 
 io6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 This put an end to the discussion, for nobody cared for 
 the futile task of arguing with Mrs. Willoughby. 
 
 But conversations among the younger members of the 
 party uninterfered with by their elders frequently took place 
 when, the weather being too hot for tennis, they lay basking 
 in the sun on the lawn. All aspired to be politicians, and two 
 of them, at any rate, were in close touch with existing poli- 
 tics; for Hastings was the son of a Radical M.P., and 
 Murray's father was prominent in the United Irish League 
 in Liverpool. Willoughby compromised between Ashbury 
 and Bernard by developing into a kind of Tory Democrat, 
 his brother Frank being a Tory pure and simple. Murray 
 was a democratic Imperialist and Hastings followed his 
 father's principles. Moore appeared to have no politics. He 
 sat apart from the discussions smoking endless cigarettes and 
 showing no sign of interest beyond an extra twitch occa- 
 sionally of that queer smile of his. As for Bernard he 
 intervened occasionally when some peculiarly irritating argu- 
 ment dragged him from dreams of Maud. Maud herself 
 was never present to stimulate him to eloquence, but her 
 friend Janet frequently joined the conclave and was always 
 decidedly on the progressive side. 
 
 The Liberal program of land legislation, reform of the 
 House of Lords, payment of members, national insurance, 
 and Home Rule furnished good ground for controversy. 
 Frank was against it in toto. The world was a fairly com- 
 fortable place, he said, for those who were even moderately 
 well off, and as for the poor they were an inevitable evil. 
 There had always been poverty and there always would be, 
 so it was no use trying to abolish it. Let them alleviate it 
 by organized Charity if they wished. As for the proposed 
 legislation it was an attempt to filch government from the 
 only class fitted to govern. Privileged classes were inevi- 
 table, and it was their privileges that fitted them for govern- 
 ment. Payment of members abolished the excellent principle 
 of gratuitous public service and opened parliament to needy 
 professional politicians. Home Rule, of course, was an
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 107 
 
 absurdity. They might as well restore the Heptarchy. 
 
 This line of argument produced violent opposition from 
 Hastings, who, typically English himself, made no attack 
 on the false premises and axioms and illogical deductions of 
 his opponent but simply put axiom against axiom and sub- 
 stituted rhetorical flourishes for reason. He was for gov- 
 ernment of the people by the people, the greatest good of 
 the greater number and democratic measures generally. 
 He talked of the anachronism of the House of Lords and the 
 anomaly of Dublin Castle Rule and proclaimed equality 
 of opportunity as his motto. 
 
 But Bernard had recently been reading Shaw. 
 
 " What's the use of equality of opportunity," he asked, 
 " if you don't go on with it? It's no use leaving things half 
 done. Equality of opportunity is no use when there isn't 
 equality of ability. I'm for pushing the thing to its logical 
 conclusion and establishing complete equality of income." 
 
 " Now, Bernard," said Willoughby, " you're not going to 
 get in a lecture on Socialism. We all know that it's an 
 infallible remedy in theory and would work admirably if 
 the whole world was populated by perfectly reasonable be- 
 ings like you and Bernard Shaw. But it isn't." 
 
 Bernard, his argumentative energy sapped by love-lorn 
 dreams, subsided into contemptuous silence. 
 
 " I take it," resumed Hastings, " that the British Empire 
 has a mission of freedom to preach to the world. How can 
 it fulfil that mission when it is governed by a worn out 
 feudal system, when a large percentage of its population lives 
 in poverty, ignorance and subjection, and when the Irish 
 question remains as a running sore at its very vitals? " 
 
 " Free Ireland," said Murray, " and she'll be the loyalest 
 spot where the British flag flies." 
 
 " I agree," said Willoughby. " But I think Hastings is 
 too sweeping in his notions. I grant that things are pretty 
 bad but I don't think our system itself is entirely respon- 
 sible. It has its virtue as well as its vices, and if you dis- 
 card the system you discard its virtues along with it, and
 
 io8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 merely let yourself in for a new system with all sorts of new 
 virtues but with a lot of new vices as well. A radical 
 change would simply put the Empire out of the running as a 
 civilizing force. It would turn all its energy in on itself." 
 
 " I'm all for reforming what you've got instead of taking 
 up new things," said Murray. " I take it, Willoughby, 
 that you and I are for putting a reformed British Empire 
 in the van of the world's progress." 
 
 Willoughby agreed. 
 
 " Set a streptococcus to cure sepsis," interjected Moore. 
 It was his first remark that afternoon, and it was unintelli- 
 gible to his hearers. 
 
 " What's that? " some one asked. 
 
 " Good lord ! " said Moore, " it makes me laugh to hear 
 you fellows gassing away like a lot of unsophisticated school- 
 girls about a world you know nothing about. Reform the 
 British Empire by a lot of priggish legislation! My hat! 
 You might as well preach vegetarianism to a pack of wolves. 
 Make the British Empire a civilizing force! You might as 
 well make burglars into policemen. You might as well 
 set out to evangelize Hell by converting the devil." 
 
 " I don't think that's a fair way to describe the British 
 Empire," objected Willoughby. 
 
 " Well, go into politics and you soon will." 
 
 " Great Scott, Fergus," said Frank, " you're the deuce of 
 a Rad. I never knew you thought that sort of thing before. 
 Why did you never come out like that at the Union? " 
 
 " Because I'm not interested in politics." 
 
 " So I thought once. But, good lord, you know, this 
 speech just now " He paused, wordless. 
 
 " Forget it," said Moore. " It was only an ebullition of 
 feeling." 
 
 " Don't tell me," said Bernard, " that you aren't interested 
 in politics." 
 
 " It's quite true." 
 
 "But why?"
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 109 
 
 " Politics are only one of the torments of this Hell we call 
 the world." 
 
 " This Hell? " asked several. 
 
 " Yes. I agree with Father Keegan in John Bull's Other 
 Island that this earth is Hell and that we are here being 
 punished for sins committed in a former existence. Why? 
 What's the worst of the torments of Hell? The perpetual 
 presence of devils, of course, and being governed and played 
 with by them. Well, isn't that the way the world is run? 
 The rottenest blackguards are the successful politicians and 
 it's they who rule us. It makes me fairly sick to think 
 that I can't take up a newspaper without seeing a eulogy 
 of some dirty grafter or an illustrated weekly without his 
 photograph. And these demons make our laws, take charge 
 of our money, educate us and deal out justice to us, and 
 when they quarrel with another set of equally infamous 
 scoundrels in another country they make us fight their quarrel 
 and pay for it, and when it's over they reap the reward in 
 collusion with the other scoundrels. These are the rulers. 
 And if a truly great and noble man appears and shows up 
 this tyranny and corruption the rulers persecute him as a 
 traitor and criminal, and the people scorn him as a crank. 
 Where else are we but in Hell, where the wrong always 
 triumphs over the right ; where the great men are the suc- 
 cessful robbers and the great nations the oppressors of the 
 small? And to crown everything, where there isn't a dirty 
 deed done by man or nation that won't find some sancti- 
 monious humbug of a journalist to justify or extenuate it. 
 Ruled by devils body and mind, where are we but in Hell ? " 
 
 " Moore's a pessimist," said Hastings. 
 
 " Pessimist ! " snorted Moore. " I wish you wouldn't use 
 cliches you don't know the meaning of. You English rad- 
 icals think in cliches." 
 
 " Your cynicism is appalling, Moore," said Willoughby. 
 " The world isn't one fraction as bad as you make out." 
 
 " More cliche. What's cynicism? "
 
 i io THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Willoughby seemed at a loss to explain. Moore went on: 
 
 " Cynicism, as I understand it, means scoffing at sacred 
 things, or taking a flippant view of serious things. British 
 politics is neither, and you've no more right to call me cynic 
 for my poor opinion of them than I have to call you senti- 
 mentalist for your exalted one. Labels and phrases are 
 ruinous to reasoning." 
 
 " Party politics," said Bernard, " have always seemed to 
 me to be a huge game. They can't be called government. 
 The successful politician is the man who gets his wishes 
 put into force by inducing the majority of the people to vote 
 for him on some other issue." 
 
 " Not a bad definition at all," said Moore approvingly. 
 
 " It only applies to the Tories," said Hastings stoutly. 
 
 " Rot ! " cried Frank Willoughby. " And anyway, if 
 England's to boss the world I'm all for a strong navy and 
 cutting out politics at the Admiralty." 
 
 Moore resumed his discourse as if heedless of this dia- 
 logue. 
 
 " Two mutually contradictory statements cannot both be 
 true,", he said. " Yet it is upon the denial of this self-evident 
 axiom that the system of party politics is based. Under the 
 circumstances government is carried on by making a case 
 for what may well be the worse cause. 
 
 " Take the case of Ireland. You English have no more 
 right there than you have in the moon. That's not an 
 opinion. That's truth based on abstract right and the facts 
 of the case. The only thing to consider then is whether 
 your presence is by Ireland's consent and whether it benefits 
 her. The former condition you know to be untrue, but you 
 don't even try to get at the truth of the latter. One party- 
 supports one view, the other supports the opposite, and either 
 party might support either view as it suited them. Then 
 the Unionist crowd finding the argument going against them 
 fall back on the line that whether it's good for Ireland or 
 not England must keep her; and the Liberals, beaten in 
 barefacedness, make a compromise and bring in a bill to give
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS in 
 
 her partial freedom. Meanwhile the two parties wrangle 
 over the case without using a single argument that is ap- 
 plicable or vital and without the smallest consideration of 
 truth or justice. That's British politics." 
 
 " But the Irish are such a disloyal crowd," said Frank, 
 whereat Moore burst out laughing and said : 
 
 " Look here. We've had enough politics. The sun's a 
 bit lower. Let's have a sett." 
 
 Janet drew Bernard aside as the others went over to the 
 tennis courts. He yielded to her, and they walked through 
 an arch of roses into the flower garden. 
 
 " That was an interesting talk," said Janet. " You Irish 
 are certainly our intellectual superiors. You and Mr. Moore 
 were the only people who got anywhere near to the depths 
 of the question today." 
 
 Bernard began to stammer some modest disclaimer, but 
 Janet impatiently resumed: 
 
 " Mr. Hastings and myself, and perhaps Jack Willoughby 
 are all democrats in a kind of way. But it's artificial in us. 
 Bring us in touch with working people and we show at once 
 that we feel we are a race apart. But democracy seems to 
 come naturally to you Irish. I can't imagine you or Mr. 
 Moore doing anything snobbish." 
 
 " To tell you the truth," said Bernard, " I've only just 
 begun to realize that there's any difference between Irish 
 and English. My father's a fierce old Tory and Unionist, 
 you know." 
 
 " I've a tremendous admiration for Ireland," said Janet. 
 " I think she's the finest nation in the world." 
 
 " That's strange," said Bernard. " I don't know any- 
 thing at all about her." 
 
 " You ought to read," said Janet. 
 
 Bernard watched her as she bent her graceless figure to 
 gather some sweet pea for her belt. He was thinking of 
 Maud. Lately she had seemed to take pleasure in his com- 
 pany, and that morning their hands had met momentarily 
 and he fancied that hers had been in no hurry to resign
 
 ii2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 contact. But her talk was a little vapid, he could not help 
 feeling in spite of his rapture that Janet was more interest- 
 ing and her voice was softer and pleasanter. If he could 
 only hear her without seeing. . . . There was something 
 about her eyes too, especially when she looked at him. . . . 
 Perhaps . . . 
 
 Life was a complex thing. 
 
 And then came Maud along the path, making the roses 
 fairer. 
 
 3 
 
 Moore's diatribe on politics roused intense interest and 
 curiosity in Bernard, and on the first occasion on which he 
 succeeded in finding him alone he began questioning him on 
 the subject. 
 
 " You don't really believe all that tosh about this being 
 hell, do you ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Well," said Moore, throwing away his cigjfrette and 
 lighting another, " I do and I don't." 
 
 It was a fine summer evening and they were standing in 
 the gravelled space before the house. Bernard drew his com- 
 panion towards the avenue as he spoke. 
 
 " Politics," said Moore, " mean different things to different 
 people. To some they're just a newspaper topic not to be 
 taken too seriously. To you they're among the important 
 things of life, and so they were to me once, though in 
 a different sense. I find it hard to explain things to you, 
 because for all your ability and honesty your upbringing has 
 left a gap in your mind and soul which I see no way of fill- 
 ing. You see, you belong to one of the strangest communi- 
 ties of men that ever existed. . . . The Cleruchs of the 
 Athenian Empire seem to be your only parallel in history, 
 for, like them, you live in a country for the purpose of hold- 
 ing it for another country, but, unlike them, you are natives 
 of the subject country. In that country you have no part. 
 You know little and care less for her traditions; you don't 
 observe her customs; you don't think as she does; your heroes
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 113 
 
 are not her heroes, and your flag is not her flag ; and instead 
 of that patriotism which is a natural feeling innate in every 
 normal man you have a bastard thing you call ' loyalty,' 
 which there is no defining and which is nothing more in 
 reality than the fealty which a garrison owes to its pay- 
 masters. To the bulk of your kind politics is merely the 
 method of keeping the natives in subjection. To you, who 
 are a thinker, and, I fancy, one of those people who are 
 born to be revolutionaries, they are the vital goal of your 
 reforming aspirations, but since your origin has made you a 
 man without a country you're developing into a sort of cosmo- 
 politan doctrinaire, and the whole basis and foundation of 
 my politics must seem to you small and feeble." 
 
 " Let's have it, anyway," said Bernard. 
 
 " Well, I'm one of the natives whom your crowd keeps in 
 subjection, and to us the question of ending that subjection 
 is the most important thing in our politics. To you Eng- 
 land and Ireland are more or less one and the same. You 
 have never read the history which would have told you 
 that the one is the implacable enemy of the other, has ruined 
 her and is continuing to ruin her. Irish politics to you, 
 supposing you to adopt Home Rule as part of your progres- 
 sive creed, is merely a question of methods of government. 
 To us it is a question of our existence. Now the passage 
 of time and the confusion of thought natural to ordinary 
 men have left this whole business very complicated and two- 
 sided to the superficial observer, but I found out very early 
 in life that the truth at the bottom of every question is 
 simple and easy to find if you disregard the side issues raised 
 by those interested in obscuring it. It was enough for me 
 to read, and when I was twelve I was an emotional sep- 
 aratist and by seventeen a logical one. 
 
 " You know nothing about ninety-eight and the United 
 Irishmen. These words bring no thrill to your spine, so 
 you'll find it hard to appreciate my feelings when I went 
 down to the local branch of the United Irish League ex- 
 pecting to be presented with a pike and a revolver, and
 
 ii4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 was offered instead a resolution of confidence to vote for. 
 
 " Well, I found in that league of professed patriots noth- 
 ing but cant and self deception. I won't go into that. One 
 example of the kind of thing is enough. They were going 
 to aqcept that emasculated measure called Home Rule as 
 a final settlement. Of course I objected to that, so they 
 consoled me by saying that this was a piece of deception 
 necessary to success. Well, I don't mind deceiving the 
 enemy, but that piece of deception deceived themselves and 
 deceived the Irish people, and it'll be the destruction of the 
 whole movement eventually. 
 
 " Of course I learnt sense in the League. An apprecia- 
 tion of relative values was enough to show me the futility of 
 force and the necessity of diplomacy, but soon I began to 
 realize the futility of diplomacy also. If you've followed 
 Irish politics at all you'd see how our party is beaten and 
 bamboozled at every turn. I've a symbol in my mind for 
 our present state of affairs: a dwarf with a sword fighting 
 a giant finds he can't win, so throws away his sword and 
 appeals to the giant's reason. Somewhat futile, eh? Well, 
 when I realized that force was useless and reasoning absurd 
 I began to despair, and it was then that this predestined and 
 perpetual triumph of might over right first made me in- 
 clined to agree with Father Keegan, not literally, you know, 
 but as a sort of gratification of a feeling of poetical futility. 
 So you see me at twenty-three quite convinced that Ireland 
 is a hopeless case, and while I refuse homage to England 
 I've no intention of wasting my time in a futile struggle 
 against her." 
 
 " There's a fellow I know at Ashbury," said Bernard, 
 " who holds all the principles that you do, but he hasn't 
 given up hope." 
 
 " He's young," said Moore. 
 
 " I think," said Bernard, " if I once had the truth and the 
 facts of the case and really felt that the cause was mine, I'd 
 go on until I found a way out." 
 
 " It would be sheer waste of time. I've come to the con-
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 115 
 
 elusion that the affairs of this world aren't really worth 
 bothering about at all. Look at that star. It's billions of 
 miles away. It's perhaps ten times the size of our sun, 
 yet how small it appears. Look at this whole universe of 
 stars, all immense, all infinitely far away. Now imagine 
 yourself withdrawn into space of billions of billions of miles 
 until all these stars that we see coalesce into a point of light 
 such as one star seems to us now. What insignificant specks 
 are men now, and how contemptible their affairs ! " 
 
 " I don't agree," said Bernard. " Size is an accident 
 and not frightfully impressive when you see enough of it. 
 Besides, everything has an intrinsic value which isn't altered 
 by its relative value to other things." 
 
 "Humph!" said Moore. "You're a better philosopher 
 than I am." 
 
 They had passed the gate and gone some distance down 
 the road. They now turned and retraced their steps. 
 
 " I'm an unfortunate man," Moore suddenly exclaimed. 
 " Everything I touch seems to go wrong. ... I fell in 
 love with Maud last year and she seemed to encourage me. 
 I came here this summer with the full intention of proposing 
 to her, and what must she do but fall in love with the first 
 sight of your handsome face." 
 
 Bernard's heart leaped. In his exultation the misery of 
 his companion was nothing to him. 
 
 " Do you do you really mean that? " he asked timidly. 
 
 " I'm afraid I do." 
 
 Up the avenue they went, the light hearted and the heavy 
 hearted side by side. 
 
 " She loves me, she loves me," Bernard kept saying to 
 himself, and could hardly sleep for joy. 
 
 4 
 
 But the lyrical exaltation of the night gave place to doubt 
 and hesitation in the cold light of day. 
 
 " Love me? What does Moore know about it? He's 
 not infallible. She encouraged him once."
 
 ii6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 He was abnormally sensitive, and feared a rebuff should 
 he presume too far on insufficient evidence. 
 
 Then in the morning he encountered Janet, and they had 
 an extremely interesting talk, political and philosophical. 
 The attraction exercised by her mind for his was undeniable, 
 but Bernard did not want to fall in love with this ungraceful 
 being. Why the devil did she obtrude upon his idyll? 
 
 And later on. 
 
 " She'd laugh at me," he said to himself. " She's lived 
 all her life in luxury. It'll be five years before I've a pro- 
 fession and five more before I could marry. What a ro- 
 mantic ass I am ! " 
 
 Abruptly he began to think of Moore. 
 
 " Bet he makes half his melancholy for himself," he mut- 
 tered. " I'm not going to get like that." 
 
 The Irish question thrust itself on his attention. 
 
 " Queer business," he said. " Doesn't seem to appeal to 
 me somehow. Haven't any grip of the essentials. Don't 
 know enough about it." 
 
 He resolved to seek information. 
 
 Wandering through the gardens in the fresh morning air 
 he came upon Moore and Murray arguing in a pseudo- 
 rustic bovver. 
 
 " Rubbish ! " Moore was saying. " This partnership stunt 
 simply won't work. Even if all the material points you 
 make were granted (and I don't grant them) there's the 
 spiritual objection. The two countries are incompatible, 
 and that's the long and the short of it. The tradition, spirit, 
 and purpose of the one are absolutely hostile to those of the 
 other. You couldn't find common ground for Tone and 
 Castlereagh, could you ? " 
 
 " I suppose not." 
 
 " Neither could you for the countries they served. Where 
 one man's patriot is another man's traitor what is their 
 common interest? " 
 
 " Those days are past." 
 
 " Yes. But not done with."
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 117 
 
 " The modern Liberal spirit has changed everything." 
 
 " Only the phrases. Not the realities." 
 
 " I don't agree with you." 
 
 " I don't care whether you do or not. Ten years hence, 
 when Home Rule is no nearer than it is today, you will." 
 
 Moore observed Bernard at the entrance to the bower. 
 Pointing to Murray he said: 
 
 " Here's a man who believes in the English." 
 
 "What's wrong with the English?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " Oh, nothing at all. Nothing at all, except that they're 
 the most selfish, self-satisfied, hypocritical, vulgar, material- 
 istic people on the face of the earth." 
 
 He went on in a kind of litany: 
 
 " The English have grabbed half the world, and yet they're 
 never done talking of freedom. They pretend to believe 
 that their empire was come by honestly and humanely. 
 
 " The English can never see any point of view but their 
 own. 
 
 " The English expect gratitude for injuries given. The 
 Russians have conquered Poland but they don't expect them 
 to be ' loyal.' The English are always preaching ' loyalty ' 
 to Ireland. 
 
 " The Englishman thinks that lapse of time can wipe out 
 any crime. They forgive and forget all their own offences. 
 
 " The English are more self opinionated than all the rest 
 of mankind put together. If some scandal in the govern- 
 ment of their Empire is revealed they talk of ' un-English ' 
 methods. We Irish, from our experience of them, know 
 better. We drop the ' un.' 
 
 " The English are so self-satisfied that satire doesn't hurt 
 them. 
 
 " Prove a case to an Englishman with the simplest, 
 straightest logic; prove it up to the hilt, and he'll only say: 
 ' Yes. I quite see your point. There's something in what 
 you say.' 
 
 " Oh, but they're damned fools. They think in phrases 
 and mixed metaphors and they never follow an idea as far as
 
 n8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 it'll go. Their philosophy is summed up in priggish proverbs 
 and their morality in tuppenny maxims. 
 
 " Complete summary of the English mind. Captain of 
 sinking ship : ' Now, men, be British.' " 
 
 " Oh, damn the English ! " he concluded, and lit another 
 cigarette. 
 
 " You're an irreconcilable," said Murray. 
 
 " You've lived too long in England," retorted Moore. 
 " That's just what I expected you to say." 
 
 " Chuck it, both of you," interrupted Bernard. " Come 
 out and enjoy the sunshine." 
 
 They found Willoughby and walked to Deeping and back 
 before lunch. The pleasant agricultural country-side seemed 
 to bask as much in its own prosperity as in the sun. Bernard 
 mentally compared the neat pretty village with those he had 
 seen in Ireland, but said nothing for fear of eliciting another 
 diatribe from Moore. They drank lemonade in the clean 
 cool parlour of a picturesque inn which suggested fresh com- 
 parisons. 
 
 On the way home Bernard found an opportunity to say 
 to Moore: 
 
 " You remember that symbol of yours about the dwarf 
 and the giant? How would it do if the dwarf took to per- 
 suasion without giving up his sword? Sort of drive home 
 his points, wouldn't it? " 
 
 " Especially when the giant is at heart a coward," added 
 Moore. . , 
 
 5 
 
 Mrs. Willoughby gave a small dance the night before her 
 guests' departure, and Maud, for reasons best known to 
 herself, put on her most ravishing frock for the occasion. 
 As a matter of fact she was slightly in love with Bernard, 
 and she felt that during the last couple of days he had not 
 been doing his duty. She had observed a certain slackening 
 in his attentions, and her preparations were made with the 
 object of revivifying them.
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 119 
 
 And Bernard failed to respond. Nay, he gave at least 
 four dances to her friend Janet. Could it be possible 
 that ? No. Absurd. 
 
 The truth was that the hard facts of life were too much 
 for Bernard. He dared not make the plunge, weighted as 
 he was with the prospect of those ten years. He asked for 
 three dances only, and she punished him by refusing to grant 
 the third, and by giving half a dozen to young Slitherly, a 
 neighbour. Bernard saw here an age-long romance and 
 sadly took it as his conge. 
 
 To all else the dance was a most enjoyable affair. To 
 Maud it was an exasperation ; to Bernard a torture. Their 
 second dance together was towards the end of the evening. 
 Maud pleaded fatigue so they retired to a conservatory to 
 sit it out. All the story-book accessories to romance were 
 present ; drooping palms, the scent of flowers ; the half-light ; 
 the music in the distance. Maud gazed with her wonderful 
 eyes into his; her elbow, on the arm of her chair, came in 
 contact with his; her hair fluttered in the faint breeze. 
 She gave him many conversational openings, but he was in a 
 mood of such blank pessimism that he gave no heed to the 
 most obvious, and at the beginning of the next dance they 
 parted in silence. 
 
 So ended his first romance. 
 
 Next day the house party broke us. Bernard got a stiff 
 farewell from Mrs. Willoughby and a genial one from her 
 husband. 
 
 " Come again soon," he said. 
 
 " Good-bye, old man. See you at Magdalen," said Wil- 
 loughby at the station. 
 
 6 
 
 But a disappointment awaited Bernard when he reached 
 home. 
 
 A fashionable physician's life is a vicious circle: he must 
 live expensively in order to have a big practice, and he must 
 have a big practice in order to live expensively. When in 
 addition he is lavishly hospitable, has extravagant tastes in
 
 120 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 wine and cigars, and has a reputation as an art connoisseur 
 to maintain, life ceases to be an economic proposition. In 
 order to keep the glitter and the luxury, necessities must go 
 by the board, and in many a Merrion Square mansion more 
 money is spent on cigars than on butter, on entertaining one's 
 friends than on educating one's children. Then a knight 
 has to pay heavier for everything than the simple and un- 
 adorned, so one day Sir Eugene realized that he must pull 
 in somewhere. Humming and hawing he approached his 
 son. 
 
 " I'm afraid, old chap," he said, " that money matters are 
 going a bit hard with me at present. I've been having a 
 lot of expenses lately and some investments I've made haven't 
 
 turned out too well. So you see Oxford's a damned 
 
 expensive place " (This he jerked out suddenly. Ber- 
 nard's eyes made humming and hawing impossible.) 
 " Damned expensive," he re-iterated. " I wouldn't like to 
 send my son there unless I could give him enough money 
 so as he could shine as well as any one else. No poor 
 hard-working scholars for me. How will Trinity suit 
 you? " 
 
 Bernard, bitterly disappointed, said it would have to do. 
 It was a hard blow to him. It meant losing all his hopes 
 and projects, all the grand talks and theorizings he had 
 promised himself, all his plans for galvanizing the academic 
 heart of the Empire with revolutionary ideas. Also it meant 
 losing Willoughby. 
 
 " There are worse Universities than Trinity," said his fa- 
 ther, observing his troubled face. 
 
 A few days afterwards Bernard met Geoffrey Manders on 
 the beach at Bundoran. Manders was a Clongownian but 
 they had been at the same preparatory school and had fre- 
 quently met afterwards when on holiday. They had many 
 tastes in common, both literary and artistic, and they both 
 held cosmopolitan and socialistic views. Bernard told him 
 of the change in his prospects and Manders said : 
 
 " Yes. Trinity's pretty small beer compared with Oxford.
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 121 
 
 Look here, why not strike out a new line entirely and come 
 to the National? I've just got my Matric there." 
 
 The National University, only just founded, was but a 
 name to Bernard. 
 
 " I'll think about it," he said. 
 
 " It's something new in Universities," said Manders. 
 " No traditions about it at all. Trinity's just a second rate 
 Oxford. Quite as musty and not half so magnificent. 
 You'd only stifle there. It's a mere Rathmines university, 
 if you know what I mean. The National's new. It may 
 be a bit shoddy, but we might make something of it." 
 
 " The notion rather appeals to me," said Bernard. 
 
 " You wouldn't half shine there, Mr. Public Schoolman," 
 said Manders. 
 
 " After all," said Bernard, " there's a good deal to be said 
 for a University that isn't a Varsity. 
 
 When he returned to town in September he announced 
 his intention of taking the National University Matricula- 
 tion. 
 
 " Good lord! " exclaimed Sir Eugene. "What on earth 
 for?" 
 
 " I don't much care for a tuppenny tin imitation of Ox- 
 ford. Besides, I'd like to be with chaps of my own reli- 
 gion." (This with his tongue very much in his cheek.) 
 
 " I suppose that settles it," said Sir Eugene. " Got re- 
 ligious again ? " 
 
 " Partially," said Bernard. 
 
 " And now," said Sir Eugene, " what have you decided to 
 do in life? " 
 
 " Well, I want to go into politics, so I suppose the best 
 opening is to go for the bar." 
 
 " Politics! " exclaimed Sir Eugene. " What do you want 
 to go in for politics for? " 
 
 " I have ideas . . . and plans." 
 
 " Oh ! Out to reform the world, eh ? The usual disease 
 at your age. . . . Well, why not try the Indian Civil Serv- 
 ice, eh?"
 
 122 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "Well ... no, thanks. That's not quite the sort of 
 politics I meant. Besides I'm not keen on living in the 
 tropics." 
 
 " But politics in this benighted country are no good. 
 You'd be a struggling, briefless barrister until you were mid- 
 dle aged, and I couldn't afford to keep you all that time. 
 ... As for England, it's out of the question. You'd find 
 the Irish bar difficult enough, but over there you'd be quite 
 unknown . . . might starve eventually. When my finan- 
 cial affairs were better I'd planned some such career for you, 
 but I'm afraid it's impossible now. You'd better put politics 
 out of your head, because, in addition to the other diffi- 
 culties, our party hasn't any seats outside Ulster and 
 Trinity, in neither of which you'd have a ghost of a 
 chance." 
 
 " You quite misunderstand me," said Bernard. " If you 
 say the bar is out of the question, I suppose it is. Let me 
 take out a course of economics in the University and then 
 let me try and make a living by journalism in London until 
 I can make my way into politics. ... I don't mean the 
 kind of politics you imagine, of course. The fact is, I'm a 
 sort of ... Socialist." 
 
 " A Socialist I " 
 
 There was as much scorn as anger in Sir Eugene's tone. 
 This was for him a totally unexpected development. 
 
 " Since when, may I ask? " he demanded. 
 
 " A long time," said Bernard. 
 
 " No politics for you, my boy," said Sir Eugene, in his 
 most determined manner. " It would be a nice thing for 
 me to have a Socialist M.P. for a son, wouldn't it? Where 
 would my practice go to then, do you think? And what 
 would become of your mother and sisters? You must think 
 of other people occasionally, you know. ... I never imag- 
 ined you could be so selfish." 
 
 The argument dragged on for twenty minutes or more, 
 and finally Bernard was bullied into acquiescing to his fa- 
 ther's point of view. As the least of numerous evils he
 
 WILLOUGHBY TOWERS 123 
 
 chose the medical profession. Sir Eugene having got his 
 way at once assumed a more conciliatory tone. 
 
 " It's a noble profession, my boy. You'll spend your life 
 in the service of suffering humanity, which I think is the 
 highest aim a man could have." 
 
 " That's to appease my wounded Socialism," thought Ber- 
 nard. 
 
 His hopes and ambitions had received a shattering blow. 
 He lay awake that night, tossing about and fretting under 
 his disappointments. 
 
 " A Merrion Square doctor ... me I ... After all my 
 dreams. ... I, who have ideas to give to the world, to 
 spend my life sitting by the bedside of hypochondriacal old 
 ladies! . . . Good lord! . . ." 
 
 There are those who will be inclined to smile at the idea 
 of this boy of eighteen confidently planning to reform the 
 world, but if it were not for the bold-thinking, arrogant, 
 broad-scheming young men who have dreamed through the 
 ages where would the world be now? Bernard's mind as a 
 matter of fact was of singularly fine quality. There were no 
 shams about him. He had no taboos. He never sought to 
 make thinking easier by the common method of fixing labels. 
 If he was hasty and intolerant in his ideas, at any rate his 
 ideas were on the generous side, and personal interest counted 
 with him not at all. He felt injustice in any quarter of the 
 world or at any period of time more acutely than any per- 
 sonal grievance: Thucydides' narratire of the massacre of 
 Melos roused as hot emotion in him as Bernard Shaw's ac- 
 count of the Denshawai atrocity. His thoughts and sympa- 
 thies and ambitions were world-wide, the sorrows of man- 
 kind were his sorrows, and the removal of those sorrows was 
 his ambition. He wanted to see the world clean and orderly 
 and busy: the city of his childish games grown large. And, 
 here entered his boyish vanity, he burned to be the principal 
 figure in making it so. 
 
 " A respectable G.P.," he muttered in his sleepless tum- 
 bling. " Lord save me from respectability anyhow,"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 AT five o'clock on an afternoon in October Bernard and 
 Geoffrey Manders sat sipping coffee in the smoking- 
 room of a Grafton Street tea-shop, amid a crowd consisting 
 of University students, business men, clerks and loiterers, 
 with here and there a girl under male escort. Attendants 
 bustled about. The air was full of the clatter of china, 
 the hum of conversation, and the fumes of cigarette smoke. 
 
 " Well, it's a great college," Bernard was saying. " I 
 found it a bit hard to get my bearings at first though. An 
 English public school is full of people you can't speak to, 
 either because they're infinitely far above you or abysmally 
 far beneath you. ... In U.C.D. a freshman can talk to 
 a final man without feeling he's condescended to. Then 
 there's such a general air of friendliness: no cliques that 
 snub you if you butt in on their conversation. Every one's 
 free to move and talk as he likes, and there are no damned 
 taboos and questions 6f Form. Good lord, it's such a change! 
 When I was at Ashbury I was a sort of herald of revolt; 
 almost the only fellow in the place that had an idea in his 
 skull. . . . Here it's all ideas. If I talk Socialism I'm 
 argued with. One man will attack me for an economic 
 fallacy, another for a lapse in logic, and another has an 
 economic theory of his own. At Ashbury they simply said, 
 ' If you're a Socialist you can't be a gentleman,' and that 
 closed the argument as far as they were concerned." 
 
 " I'm sure Ashbury had its points," said Manders. " And 
 I'll bet opposition like that did you good." 
 124
 
 DUBLIN 125 
 
 " No. It was merely exasperating." 
 
 A tall, lanky man with black hair and loose-lipped mouth 
 came over to their table and addressed Bernard. 
 
 " I say, what the blazes did you cut dissecting for this 
 morning? I had to do those deep pectorals by myself." 
 
 " Sorry, old chap," replied Bernard. " I simply couldn't 
 help it. I was dancing till three last night, at Lady Bart- 
 ley's." 
 
 " God bless our aristocracy! " said the other, raising his 
 hat reverently. 
 
 " That," said Bernard, lowering his voice, " was spoken 
 for the benefit of a young gentleman in the middle distance. 
 I want to attract him over here." 
 
 "Well, I'm off. Be down tomorrow, won't you?" 
 
 " Who's that ? " asked Manders, when the stranger had 
 gone. 
 
 " Chap called Crowley. My dissecting partner. . . . 
 Ah! How are you, Molloy? How's the world treating 
 you? Let me introduce my friend Mr. Manders. Mr. 
 Manders, Mr. Molloy." This to a smug young man who 
 had been hovering near-by during the conversation with 
 Crowley. 
 
 " Rottenly," said Molloy. " I say, did you ever hear such 
 luck as this? My pater made me go up for the entrance 
 exam to both Trinity and the National, and I got plucked by 
 Trinity, so I'm doing law in this damned awful cheap low 
 down hole on Stephen's Green." 
 
 " That's rotten luck," Bernard agreed. " Awful types 
 one does meet there, I'm sure." 
 
 " Awful," said Molloy. 
 
 " Types like Manders and me, for instance." 
 
 " I say," gasped Molloy, taken aback, " I'm awfully sorry, 
 you know. I didn't really mean anything." 
 
 " We'll pardon you," said Manders. 
 
 " I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings." 
 
 " Oh, they're used to it. Tol lol, old son." 
 
 Molloy took himself off, looking very foolish.
 
 126 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Fine type of manly Britisher," said Bernard to Manders. 
 " Made at Ashbury." 
 
 "Pooh! He might have been made anywhere. Geog- 
 raphy doesn't account for types." 
 
 At this moment Bernard saw Brian Mallow enter the 
 room along with a burly, jovial and untidy companion. As 
 they approached our friends' table the latter hailed Man- 
 ders in jocular fashion and Mallow came over to shake 
 hands with Bernard. 
 
 " Sit down with us," said Manders, and ordered more 
 coffee. 
 
 Mallow introduced the burly young man to Bernard as 
 McGurk, and Bernard introduced Manders to Mallow. 
 
 " Another Ashburian," said Manders. " Lord, but the 
 college swarms with them." 
 
 " None of your old Ashburian for me," growled Mallow. 
 " I'm done with the rotten hole." 
 
 " Mallow might just as well have been at Clongowes for 
 all the difference Ashbury 's made in him," said McGurk. 
 
 " You're talking through your hat, McGurk, as usual," 
 said Manders. " Since I came to college I've been studying 
 the products of the different schools and I've got them all 
 pretty well ticked off. Clongownians are consciously cocks 
 of the walk here. They're the Etonians of Ireland. Would 
 you like to hear the rest? " 
 
 There was a murmur of assent. 
 
 " Belviderians are genteel. They feel that they ought to 
 be the premier school but they know that's hopeless for a 
 day school, so what they lose in prestige they make up for in 
 gentility. Castleknock men are conscientiously rowdy 
 whether they feel like it or not because they've a reputation 
 for toughness to keep up. McGurk's a Castleknock man. 
 Mungretians are dark and mysterious, which is only natural, 
 for nobody knows where Mungret is. I wouldn't be sur- 
 prised, Lascelles, if your friend Crowley's from Mungret." 
 
 "Wrong. He's from Blackrock." 
 
 " I haven't analysed Blackrock yet. But, by the way, be-
 
 DUBLIN 127 
 
 tween clerics and national school men, this College is going 
 to the dogs." 
 
 " You're right about the Clerics," said McGurk. 
 
 " The National Schoolmen call the Professors ' Teacher ' 
 and always seem to be expecting a walloping." 
 
 " They need it," said McGurk. 
 
 " You're a bally snob, Manders," said Mallow. 
 
 " I'm not. I'm only stating facts. The problem for us 
 is to make this place a real University, and the sooner we 
 recognize the obstacles the better. One of the obstacles is 
 the type of mind produced by our beautiful National 
 Schools." 
 
 " We were at the Abbey last night," said McGurk. 
 
 "What was on?" 
 
 " The Playboy. Lord ! You should have seen Mallow 
 writhing in his seat." 
 
 " The play's a bloody insult to the country," said Mallow. 
 " It ought to be stopped." 
 
 " Who by? " asked Manders. 
 
 " The people," said Mallow. 
 
 " They tried to stop it once," said Manders. " They 
 kicked up unholy ructions the first time it was produced. 
 . . . Blasted idiots ! The Irish people make me sick. What 
 right have people to interfere with a play? If they don't 
 like it they needn't go to it." 
 
 " It was an insult to the country," repeated Mallow. 
 
 " And is any one who feels insulted by a play entitled to 
 kick up a row and prevent others enjoying it? What would 
 you say if the Unionists kicked up a row orer the Rising of 
 the Moon ? " 
 
 " That's different," said Mallow. 
 
 " And we call ourselves an intelligent people," said Man- 
 ders. " Look here, Lascelles. Here's a situation for you. 
 The Nationalist crowd considers a play insulting to Ire- 
 land. So they go down to the Theatre to break up the 
 performance. The Trinity men hear of it and go down to 
 make a counter-demonstration in favour of the play, also
 
 128 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 because they consider it insulting to Ireland. There's a 
 night of cheers, hisses and pandemonium. And all the time 
 the play is no more insulting to Ireland than Hamlet is to 
 Denmark." 
 
 " I think," said Bernard, " that the Nationalists were only 
 just a shade less contemptible than the Trinity asses." 
 
 " Lascelles," said Mallow, " I'd jusf like to know what 
 side you're on. I think you're a bally trimmer." 
 
 " You can think what you like. There's one thing I'm 
 sure of anyway. I wouldn't feel entitled to stop a play just 
 because I didn't agree with it." 
 
 " Ah, you're a bally West Briton," said Mallow. 
 
 " People like that fellow Mallow," said Manders after- 
 wards to Bernard, " are the curse of this country. We have 
 them on every side, and they've an invariable trade mark 
 whatever side they're on: if you argue from analogy they 
 always answer ' That's different.' Mallow and his kind 
 are always ranting about Irish freedom and yet they won't 
 allow people to produce a play they don't like. They can't 
 stand anything that conflicts with their rotten little notions 
 and prejudices. As for their politics ... It makes me ill 
 to listen to them. Thank heaven, Lascelles, that you and I 
 are neutral in that quarrel." 
 
 Normality has its claim on us all. Bernard had been 
 precocious as a child and had gripped on to ideas and abstract 
 things earlier, and more intensely than his contemporaries. 
 But three months after leaving school his interest in these 
 things had begun to wane. He began to read less and then 
 to think less, and at the same time his interest in games, 
 which had slackened during his last years at Ashbury, began 
 to revive. He found pleasure in ordinary students' society 
 and became a little bored by Manders and the intellectuals; 
 he came to enjoy the coarse pleasantries of the dissecting- 
 room; even the vapid chatter of Merrion Square drawing- 
 rooms ceased to arouse his contempt. He went to dances
 
 DUBLIN 129 
 
 and music halls; he " knocked about " with his fellow med- 
 icals round town; and he took girls he cared nothing about 
 to teas and picture houses. . . . The re-action to Ashburian 
 restraint and supervision may have been partly responsible 
 for this, but as a matter of fact his brain needed rest. It 
 had been worked and over-developed from his earliest child- 
 hood and now it clamoured for relaxation. So he gave him- 
 self up for the first time in his life to ease and enjoyment. 
 
 And there was nothing to interrupt his repose. In those 
 days Ireland as far as politics were concerned was a stagnant 
 pool. The national struggle was not at an end, but it had 
 ceased to be a struggle. The blight of Parliamentary success 
 had settled on the land. Everything was in the hands of the 
 party politicians and the people could attend to their private 
 affairs with a clear conscience, for when everything was 
 being done for them all they had to do was to keep peaceful 
 and grow prosperous. So the very right to think on politics 
 was surrendered. The Party was presumed to be both in- 
 fallible and impeccable and a word of criticism was the brand 
 of a traitor; it had ceased to be the servant of the people 
 and had taken to itself the airs of a master and Dictator. 
 
 Frequently one hears the remark made with that air of 
 profundity which characterizes all fatuous pronouncements 
 that there is too much politics in Irish life; an absurd state- 
 ment. Politics means the affairs of men, and men cannot 
 be too careful of their affairs. It is the neglect of their own 
 affairs by the men of other countries and the consequent 
 uprise of professional politicians that makes politics what 
 they are: the battle to the dirty and the devil take the clean- 
 est. The reason for the comparative cleanliness of Irish poli- 
 tics is that the people take, as our superior thinkers say, " too 
 much interest " in them. 
 
 But at this time the people slumbered or grubbed on their 
 farms and the Party played at politics in the Westminster 
 style. They assisted the Liberal Government to foist an 
 absurd Insurance Bill and a ruinous budget on their unsus- 
 pecting country, and were now engaged in supporting a
 
 i 3 o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 measure to limit the power of the House of Lords in oppos- 
 ing some future Home Rule Bill. With the national affairs 
 on so sound a footing what had the layman to do with 
 politics ? 
 
 Only in forgotten places and by unknown people were 
 Irish politics still taken seriously. In halls in the city and 
 deserted quarries in the country the physical force men 
 a few hundred in Dublin, a few thousand scattered over the 
 country drilled quietly and armed themselves and waited 
 patiently but none too hopefully for the day when their 
 countrymen should cease talking and do something. And, 
 struggling against abuse contempt and misrepresentation, 
 Arthur Griffith and his handful of Sinn Feiners strove to 
 teach Ireland to turn her back on the useless and dishonest 
 game of English politics and cultivate herself. But the 
 politicians and the vast compact majority of the people 
 ignored these disturbers of the peace, or when they noticed 
 them at all called them, in their superior way, cranks and 
 dreamers. 
 
 And Bernard and his fellows danced and played billiards. 
 
 3 
 
 The gas flared yellow in the dissecting room. The air 
 was hot and heavy with mingled odours; formalin, tobacco, 
 and the faint but recognizable halitus of cadavera. 
 
 Bernard, perched on a high stool, was working at the 
 superficial fascia of Scarpa's triangle under the direction of 
 Crowley who read out the instructions from a big anatomy 
 resting against the subject's knee. 
 
 " Let's chuck it," said Crowley suddenly, " we've done 
 enough for today." 
 
 Bernard ceased working and began to clean his instru- 
 ments, turning round on his stool at the same time to view 
 the crowded room. Only about half the population was 
 working. The rest stood about, chatting and smoking or 
 reading the evening paper. The atmosphere of this chamber 
 of death was distinctly hilarious.
 
 DUBLIN 131 
 
 The red-haired man at the left upper limb told his dark- 
 haired partner a dirty story. The dark-haired man capped it 
 with another. 
 
 " Those are as old as sin," said Crowley. " Did you ever 
 hear this one? " 
 
 Crowley 's effort was greeted with acclamation. 
 
 " You first-years do talk unadulterated filth," said the man 
 at the head-and-neck. " You'll be tired of it by the time you 
 get your second." 
 
 A man from a neighbouring table strolled over. 
 
 " Crowley got some new ones ? " he inquired. 
 
 Crowley obliged with another. His hearers roared with 
 laughter, thereby attracting others. The man at the head- 
 and-neck threw down his scalpel in disgust and went away 
 for a smoke. Bernard felt a little ashamed of himself for 
 not following, but then Crowley was his friend. 
 
 The dark-haired man at the upper limb recited a Limerick. 
 Bernard felt impelled to recite another, and then Crowley 
 dispersed the company with a perfectly outrageous one. 
 
 " Come and have a game of billiards," he said to Bernard 
 after that. 
 
 They washed their hands in a good lather of Carbolic 
 soap and went out from the school into the darkling streets. 
 
 " I feel like a drink after that atmosphere," said Crowley 
 as they passed a public house. 
 
 Bernard was no tee-totaller, but he had never yet entered 
 a public house. It felt like taking a new step in life to do 
 so now. 
 
 " Nothing like experience," he told himself as they sat at 
 the counter drinking whiskey and soda. 
 
 "Telegraph, Herrdled or Mayul! " shrieked a newsboy 
 through the spring door. 
 
 " Mail," said Crowley, producing a penny. He plunged 
 straight into the racing column. " Hurray," he cried, 
 " Salted Almond wins." 
 
 " Got something on him? " 
 
 " Drew him in a sweep at the Arcade last night. . . .
 
 132 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Four quid at least. . . . Come along and collect the dibs. 
 We'll make a night of it." 
 
 They went out into the street, Bernard feeling distinctly 
 exhilarated by his drink. There was a crowd of students 
 and others, McGurk amongst them, in the billiard saloon. 
 Crowley was greeted with a howl of " lucky dog! " and the 
 stake holder, a sporting-looking man smoking a cheroot, 
 handed him over his winnings. 
 
 " Come on, boys, drinks all around," said Crowley, and 
 half a score of them tumbled out to the nearest public house. 
 
 "What about a good dinner?" said Crowley, drawing 
 Bernard and McGurk aside from the throng. 
 
 " I'm on," said Bernard, draining his glass. 
 
 "Where'll we go?" 
 
 " Jammet's," suggested Bernard. 
 
 " None o' your bloody swank," said McGurk. " Becky's 
 for me." 
 
 " It's a dinner I'm inviting you to," said Crowley. " I 
 suggest the Green Bank." 
 
 " Right you are, old man," said McGurk whiskily genial. 
 
 The; drinkers returned in a noisy crowd to the billiard 
 saloon ; and Bernard, Crowley and McGurk, after a stroll 
 up and down Grafton Street " to get an appetite," went to 
 the Green Bank and ordered dinner. They had lentil soup, 
 turbot, roast mutton, and sweet omelette, with a bottle of 
 sparkling moselle, and they wound up with coffee, Benedic- 
 tine, and cigars. Crowley and McGurk were fairly sea- 
 soned drinkers, but Bernard in a couple of hours had taken 
 three times as much alcohol as he had ever taken in a day 
 before, so his head was swimming and his speech loud and 
 incoherent. Crowley now suggesting a Picture House they 
 made their way back to Grafton Street. Bernard by this 
 time was in that state of detachment from the world, that 
 condition of feeling almost as if one were looking out at life 
 from a concrete chamber through a thick glass window, so 
 muffled and confused were the sounds and so blurred the 
 sights to senses blunted by the beginnings of alcoholic intoxi-
 
 DUBLIN 133 
 
 cation. He seemed to walk by no volition of his own and 
 Crowley almost supported him to the crimson plush seat in 
 the picture house into which he sank with a sight of relief. 
 They had come in in the middle of a society drama which 
 dragged on a seemingly interminable course while Bernard 
 endeavoured by sheer mental concentration to recall his 
 sobriety. . . . The drama flickered to its close, and as the 
 lights went up McGurk drew Crowley's attention to Ber- 
 nard's flushed face. 
 
 " Damned hot in here," said Bernard to dispel their 
 suspicions. 
 
 An uproarious " comedy " followed, the principal situation 
 of which was the loss by the heroine of the principal part of 
 her attire in a public street. McGurk howled with laughter, 
 Crowley grinned appreciatively, but Bernard was still modest 
 enough to be rather disgusted. This was the end of the 
 program, for they had entered rather late, and Bernard's 
 still throbbing head was relieved by the cool air of the street. 
 
 " Bloody funny, that last film," said McGurk. 
 
 Crowley chuckled. 
 
 " Human dignity," he said, " is dependent on the nether 
 garments. Stripped of everything else you can still hold up 
 your head, but what a helpless and ridiculous figure is a 
 man without his trousers or a woman without her skirts." 
 
 McGurk exploded with laughter, and even Bernard smiled 
 reminiscently. 
 
 " I say, boys," said Crowley. " The night's still young. 
 Let's go down town." 
 
 " Right you are," said McGurk, and Bernard, not guess- 
 ing his meaning, and thinking that a walk would sober him, 
 also agreed. 
 
 They went down D'Olier Street and crossing the river by 
 Butt Bridge passed by Amiens Street into the disreputable 
 labyrinth of ways beyond. Bernard wondered at his friends' 
 choice, but said nothing. A brazen slatternly female hailed 
 them from a doorway but they took no notice and passed on. 
 Gaunt dark houses with grimy broken windows towered
 
 134 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 cliff-like over the narrow street. Here and there were 
 occasional rifts in the line where a house had collapsed into 
 a heap of rubbish. Through the upper windows of a 
 crumbling roofless framework the inscrutable face of the 
 moon could be seen. This street was silent and deserted, 
 but in an upper storey a child was wailing, and from the 
 distance drunken shouts could be heard. Their feet stum- 
 bling against broken bricks and tin cans the three young men 
 strode on. Turning a corner they came upon a small crowd 
 gathered round a brightly lit window and door. 
 
 " Here we are again I " said McGurk cheerfully. 
 
 "You're not going in there?" remonstrated Bernard 
 nervously. 
 
 "What do you think?" said McGurk. 
 
 " Non cuivis est adire Corinthum," said Crowley. 
 
 " So this ... ? " said Bernard, and paused inquiringly. 
 
 "... Is, if not a temple, at least a shrine of the Cyprian 
 goddess," said Crowley with perfect suavity. 
 
 A boldly handsome but untidy young woman approached 
 the young men. 
 
 " Well, duckies," she said. 
 
 " The pass word," said Crowley. " The mystic symbol 
 of the Corybantic priestesses of the Western World. . . . 
 It's a warm night," he added, turning to the girl. 
 
 " Good night, boys, I'm off," said Bernard to his friends. 
 
 " Hold on, ye bloody fool," said McGurk, starting after 
 him. He was restrained by Crowley. 
 
 " Let him alone," said the latter. " He's still virgo 
 intactus." 
 
 Bernard sped away on the wings of disgust. 
 
 " Hould that fella I " shrieked a voice from the door- 
 way. 
 
 Hot with shame he broke into a trot, heedless of his 
 direction. After a few minutes he suddenly realized that he 
 was losing his way. Tired and angry he prowled about the 
 ghostly monotonous ways searching for a landmark. All 
 inadvertently in the end he struck upon Earl Street, and
 
 DUBLIN 135 
 
 within half an hour he was resting his throbbing head on 
 the cool softness of his pillow at home. 
 
 4 
 
 "Are you anyway friendly with Jack Harvey?" Lady 
 Lascelles asked of her son one day. 
 
 " No. I just know him to nod to." 
 
 "That's a pity. His mother and I are very old friends, 
 and he's such a nice boy." 
 
 " That's exactly why he doesn't appeal to me." 
 
 " Such a thing to say." 
 
 " I mean it. Nice people always bore me." 
 
 " Now, Bernard, if you're going with boys who are not 
 nice it's my duty as your mother to warn you that bad com- 
 panions are the ruin of many a young man." 
 
 " I didn't mean what you think at all. ' Nice ' is a con- 
 fusing word. It might mean anything. I'll make friends 
 with him if you like." 
 
 " Do. I'm sure you'll like him." 
 
 " I'm quite sure I won't," thought Bernard. 
 
 Jack Harvey was a mother's son. His father had died 
 when he was quite a child and his whole upbringing had 
 been in the hands of his mother. Mrs. Harvey .was a very 
 positive and aggressive personality who left her mark upon 
 all with whom she associated. Consequently Jack grew 
 up as a very ladylike young man. Though manly at bot- 
 tom all his actions were feminine. His walk was mincing; 
 his smile was a simper; his voice was gentle. He could not 
 smoke a pipe and he smoked cigarettes in a ladylike manner. 
 All his ideas and methods of thought bore the impress of the 
 female hand that had implanted them. 
 
 He received Bernard's friendly advances with a lambent 
 smile and said he hoped they would soon be great chums 
 (a word Bernard never heard without a shudder running 
 down his spine). 
 
 " Our mothers have always been great old cronies, you 
 know," he added.
 
 1 36 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Drop in to see us some Tuesday evening," he said at a 
 later stage of their acquaintance. " We're always at home 
 then and we generally have a few friends in. Music and 
 that sort of thing, you know. Hymn books supplied." 
 (This last was his idea of a joke.) 
 
 The following Tuesday, having nothing else to do, Ber- 
 nard decided to " drop in " as invited, but he brought his 
 mother with him for protection. 
 
 Mrs. Harvey had fallen on evil days since we last saw her 
 disseminating scandal in Merrion Square. Her husband, 
 the fashionable oculist, had died within a year of that inci- 
 dent, leaving her, with her son and three daughters, almost 
 penniless. Many women would have succumbed to such a 
 strain, but Mrs. Harvey was cast in heroic mould. She 
 moved as much of her furniture and silver as she was not 
 compelled to sell into a little house on the North Circular 
 Road and kept hens and lodgers the while she gave her 
 children as good an education as possible and kept up as 
 much of her pristine state as her straitened fortunes would 
 allow. She kept her Tuesday at home just as in former 
 days and with jest and scandal entertained those of her old 
 friends who remained true to her. She had but one servant, 
 but her she trained to the duties of cook, parlourmaid, poul- 
 try keeper and lady's maid, and though she mercilessly over- 
 worked and underpaid her yet managed to convey to the 
 girl the conviction that she was her benefactress and to win 
 and keep her respect and affection. Through trouble and 
 poverty she smiled and flounced her way. There was some- 
 thing almost of nobility in this tenacious narrowminded old 
 snob. 
 
 Bernard and his mother were admitted by the maid of all 
 work, starched and self-conscious for the occasion. Bernard 
 hung up his hat and coat in the miniature hall, and then 
 the maid opened the drawing-room door, ceremoniously an- 
 nouncing: 
 
 " Lady Lascelles. Mr. Bernard Lascelles." 
 
 Mrs. Harvey was deliciously surprised to see her old
 
 DUBLIN 137 
 
 friend. (It would not do to admit that she had seen her 
 through the window mounting the steps.) She kissed Lady 
 Lascelles rapturously for the benefit of a couple of humble 
 North Circular Road acquaintances who were present, and 
 shook hands heartily with Bernard. Jack then came for- 
 ward and introduced Bernard to his sisters while their 
 mothers sat down to chat over old times. The eldest girl, 
 Susan, was tall, plain and pimply, and having said " how do 
 you do " remained silent. Molly, the second girl, was of 
 medium height, almost pretty, and plunged into conversation 
 at once, so that Bernard's introduction to the youngest sister 
 Mabel, a shy fair haired girl of sixteen, was of a perfunctory 
 nature. Molly was a jolly girl whose conversation con- 
 sisted almost entirely of a string of funny stories. Bernard 
 found them amusing at first but was beginning to feel bore- 
 dom approaching when Mrs. Harvey commanded Molly to 
 sing. Molly, nothing loath, obeyed at once and sang in the 
 conventional humorous way Are you right there, Michael? 
 and on being encored, an English music hall comic ditty. 
 While the songs were in progress Mabel slipped into the 
 chair beside Bernard vacated by her sister, and as the ap- 
 plause died away turned to talk to him. She was a pretty 
 child, with deep brown eyes and golden hair tied back by a 
 big blue bow at her neck. At the first word she uttered 
 she suddenly became shy and faltered while her cheeks be- 
 came flooded with pink blushes. Bernard tactfully took up 
 a commonplace topic. 
 
 " Your sister sings very well," he said. 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Mabel, still a little timid. 
 Then abruptly her shyness seemed to slip away from her. 
 " But you don't think so," she went on. " You only said 
 that to be polite." 
 
 " Well, perhaps I did," Bernard admitted. 
 
 " We've none of us got any talents really," said Mabel, 
 " but mother makes us perform whether we like it or not. 
 She'll probably call on me in a minute, and I daren't refuse. 
 Susan's the bravest of us. She used to have to play the
 
 i 3 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 piano but last year she struck and that's finished, thank 
 goodness." 
 
 " Mabel, won't you sing something now," came Mrs. 
 Harvey's voice across the room. 
 
 Mabel made a little face at Bernard and went to the 
 piano. She sang Robin Adatr with deep expression and a 
 thin voice, and gave Beauttful Garden of Roses as an encore. 
 After that a visitor played Dvorak's Humoreske jerkily on 
 the violin, and then Jack Harvey, in a fine bass voice that 
 contrasted strangely with his general manner, sang My Old 
 Shako, and Just before the Battle, Mother, which last 
 brought tears to Mrs. Harvey's eyes and necessitated the call- 
 ing in of Mary Ann and her dispatch to the upper regions 
 for a fresh pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 Then tea was served and Lady Lascelles came over to 
 Molly and said: 
 
 " Many happy returns. I've just heard it's your birth- 
 day," and a golden present found its way into Molly's hand. 
 
 Meanwhile Bernard was buttonholed by Mrs. Harvey and 
 compelled to sit beside her and listen to a genteel account of 
 herself ,and her family. He learned that his mother and 
 Mrs. Harvey had been O such friends at school and that 
 both ladies hoped their sons would be the same. Jack was 
 such a good boy. So kind to his mother and sisters. 
 
 " Be kind to your mother always, Bernard," Mrs. Harvey 
 admonished him. " If you knew what your mother had to 
 suffer to bring you into the world you'd think no sacrifice 
 too great to please her." 
 
 Bernard, as a medical student, thought he knew as much 
 on this subject as Mrs. Harvey, but made no comment. 
 
 " The girls are so good to me too," said Mrs. Harvey. 
 " They're all in good positions except Mabel of course 
 and they give me every penny they earn." (She omitted to 
 mention that they did so by duress.) " Susan has just ob- 
 tained a new position as lady companion to Lady Donegal." 
 (Susan was governess to that Lady's children.) "And 
 Molly has a Government appointment." (She was a typist
 
 DUBLIN 139 
 
 in the Custom House.) " Do you know Lady Donegal, 
 Bernard? I suppose not. She's a relative of ours." 
 
 So Mrs. Harvey rambled on serenely and graciously, 
 cloaking her shabbiness and striving to impress, while Ber- 
 nard listened with the ill-concealed contempt of youth. 
 
 Bernard breathed a sigh of relief as he and his mother 
 stepped into the open air, very refreshing after the close little 
 sitting-room of the Harveys. 
 
 " It's awfully funny," said Lady Lascelles as they drove 
 home. " But whenever I call on Mrs. Harvey it's the birth- 
 day of one or another of the family. It's a curious co- 
 incidence, isn't it? " 
 
 " Very curious," said Bernard. ; j 
 
 5 
 
 It was not long before Bernard took to falling in love with 
 that fervour and inconstancy characteristic of adolescence. 
 For a month or more he was faithful to the memory of 
 Maud, thinking of her frequently and dreaming of her 
 sometimes, but finally she glided into the gallery of things 
 half forgotten. And then he met Muriel. 
 
 He saw her first at a meeting of a college society and was 
 enraptured by her profile. He lay awake half that night 
 thinking of her, ate no breakfast, and haunted the college all 
 next morning to get a glimpse of her. By some artifice or 
 other he managed to secure an introduction a few days after, 
 and the clasp of the neat-gloved hand she gave him completed 
 his surrender. He wooed her timidly for a time, and she 
 encouraged him to be bolder. At last, greatly daring, he 
 invited her to tea and pictures, and she accepted graciously, 
 almost eagerly he fancied. At a dance a week later he met 
 her again, and she gave him ten dances, of which they sat 
 out six. Of course Bernard went through all the emotions 
 of first love. His feeling for Maud, he told himself, had 
 been a mere piece of boyish sentimentality. This was dif- 
 ferent. Muriel troubled the very depths of his soul. His 
 love for her was compounded of almost equal parts of pas-
 
 140 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 sion and worship. Her image disturbed his sleep and 
 truncated his meals. If he met her suddenly he trembled, 
 his heart seemed to stop beating, and all the blood in his 
 body rushed to the surface. When he talked to her his 
 knees shook and his veins pulsated at his temples. She was 
 the only girl in the world, he told himself, and marriage 
 with her would be an eternity of bliss. So for many weeks 
 he led a highly emotional existence. Yet it was only calf- 
 love after all, short and fluttering. A tea or two, a walk 
 or two, a dance or two, a kiss or two, and it was over. 
 
 Now Bernard felt tremendously experienced. He knew 
 woman. He had sounded her depths. He had tasted pas- 
 sion. He thought he had got to the end of these things 
 and found them insipid, and he posed (to himself) as a 
 slightly melancholy cynic. Tired of True Love he tried a 
 flirtation. The girl he chose was an accomplished flirt ; they 
 enjoyed each other's company for a while; and all ended 
 happily when they grew tired of each other and parted. 
 
 Not long after this he was at a dance. He was standing 
 rather glumly in a corner fiddling with his program which 
 was full of names of newly introduced partners quite 
 uninteresting people, when he became conscious that some 
 one was looking at him. He glanced round and saw a tall 
 dark girl with red flowers in her hair gazing at him intently. 
 He was not surprised, for he was quite aware of his own 
 good looks, but he blushed, and, the music of the first dance 
 striking up at that moment, he went to find his partner. 
 He was conscious of the dark girl's observation all through 
 the dance, and then, as if under a spell she had cast, began to 
 take notice of her. Then he perceived with a surprising 
 pang of disappointment that she had ceased to look round for 
 him. For a time he was miserable. Then, later on, he 
 caught her glancing in his direction once more. It was dur- 
 ing an interval and her partner had left her. She stood 
 beneath a palm, leaning alluringly against the wall. Stam- 
 mering some excuse to his partner he plucked up all his 
 courage and accosted her. They left their respective part-
 
 DUBLIN 141 
 
 ners in the lurch and danced the next dance together, and 
 when it was over they sought a retired spot to converse in. 
 They talked freely and naturally together as if they had 
 known each other for a long time, and the interval, usually 
 a long-drawn-out tedium of ball room commonplaces, flashed 
 by. Both made involuntary exclamations of disappointment 
 when the music recommenced. 
 
 " Need we? " said Bernard. 
 
 Her eyes answered him. They tore up their programs 
 and the rest of the evening was undiluted joy. 
 
 Bernard had cooled off considerably by the morning, and, 
 when in the afternoon he met her in Stephen's Green stripped 
 of the ball room's glamour, his ardour almost vanished. But 
 there was no backwardness about Rose. She made no pre- 
 tence to hide the attraction she felt towards him, and this 
 acted upon Bernard in two opposite ways. Partly the flat- 
 tery of it attracted him: partly the fear of it repelled him. 
 Altogether he was in a mixed state of mind. He wanted to 
 be loved, but this love seemed too easily won. In this un- 
 stable condition of mind a sudden appreciation of the beauty 
 of her hair turned the scale. So began a curious affair in 
 which Bernard perpetually vacillated between love and hate 
 until the day when a particularly affectionate demonstration 
 frightened him away for ever. . . . 
 
 For a fleeting instant, perplexing memories of Janet 
 Morecambe recurred to him, only to pass rapidly away . . . 
 
 Facial beauty had been the main attraction for Bernard 
 up to this, but now he was to discover new symptoms in 
 himself. In August he went with the family on its annual 
 trip to the seaside. At the bathing-place one day he casually 
 noticed a girl making her way down the strand to the water. 
 He recognized her at once. She was a Miss Heuston Har- 
 rington who was staying with her mother at the same hotel 
 as the Lascelles family. Their respective mothers were dis- 
 tantly acquainted, but Bernard had never met the daughter, 
 the plainness of whose features had deterred him from going 
 out of his way to seek an introduction. But now something
 
 i 4 2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 in the way she balanced herself as her bare feet trod the 
 shingle, something of sinuous grace in her figure, clad only 
 in a simple bathing costume, caught his attention and he had 
 his first appreciation of the beauty of the female form. Rose 
 had been rather angular, Muriel slightly dumpy, yet he had 
 not noticed it. Now Dora was a revelation. He found 
 himself thinking of her graceful shape on the way home to 
 lunch, and that afternoon as she sat on a bench in the hotel 
 garden (they wore tight skirts in those days with a slit 
 from hem to knee) he discovered new beauty in a well 
 formed calf and ankle. He determined to get to know her 
 by means of Alice. 
 
 Alice was much amused when Bernard ingenuously re- 
 quested her to make friends with Miss Heuston Harrington. 
 
 " Why, you silly boy," she exclaimed, " she's not even 
 pretty." 
 
 " Love doesn't depend on beauty," said Bernard senten- 
 tiously. (And all the time the hypocrite was dreaming of 
 the afternoon's vision.) 
 
 " Love !" laughed Alice. " This is quick work. Never 
 mind. I'll get her for you." 
 
 And she did. 
 
 The introduction produced a recrudescence of the symp- 
 toms Muriel had evoked in former days. Next day they 
 met by appointment on the golf links. A foursome was 
 arranged with Alice and Eugene ; and Bernard noticed with 
 joy that she showed signs of satisfaction when it was decided 
 that she should be his partner. His manoeuvres to secure 
 her in subsequent matches were pathetically ingenious and 
 transparently fraudulent, for Bernard was so much better a 
 player than Eugene, and Dora was so much better than Alice, 
 that the partnership between Bernard and his heart's desire 
 was manifestly unfair. When his diplomacy failed poor 
 Alice had to put up with a silent furious partner jealously 
 glaring across the links to where Eugene seemed to be having 
 extraordinarily intimate talks with the fair one. His golf 
 too seemed to go to pieces on these occasions, so that Alice
 
 DUBLIN 143 
 
 and he were usually beaten ten up and eight to play, when he 
 went through feverish manoeuvres to prevent the playing of 
 the bye. 
 
 He never succeeded in making love to Dora. She seldom 
 permitted him to be alone with her, but sometimes they 
 conversed together in the garden in full view of the residents 
 of the hotel. They talked about art and books and theatres 
 and intellectual things generally, coldly and impersonally, 
 and all the time Bernard was wishing he was rambling the 
 country with her and helping her over streams and stiles. 
 
 And August came to an end. 
 
 During his second and third years in University College 
 Bernard entered upon a new phase in his development. 
 His appetite for light pleasures was already less keen and 
 intellectual interests revived. The transition was slow 
 however; the enthusiasm which had filled him in earlier 
 days did not return, and a cold detached interest for a long 
 time took its place. The college was a vast incoherence of 
 half-expressed but stimulating thought; mental energy was 
 in the atmosphere; and if the professors and lecturers were 
 pedagogic and uninspiring the students were themselves a 
 university. In the draughty and uncomfortable common- 
 rooms, round the fireplace in the porter's lodge, on the front 
 steps of the College and of the National Library they talked 
 in groups. Everything in heaven and earth came up for 
 discussion: religion, politics, economics, philosophy, love, 
 art, interspersed with horse-racing, cards, tobacco, athletics 
 and dirty stories. And the debating societies were so dif- 
 ferent from that of Ashbury. Here there was no class creed 
 to drop its fatuous yet incontrovertible dogmata like heavy 
 weights upon the fine points of argument. There was no 
 foreordained verdict upon any subject of discussion however 
 revolutionary. Even theology was not secure from the in- 
 vestigations of these sons of the Church. Yet on the subject 
 of Ireland Bernard still found accurate information unob-
 
 i 4 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 tainable. The fiery optimism of Murray, the impatient 
 logic of O'Dwyer, the gloomy pessimism of Moore had rent 
 but small gaps in the veils of his ignorance, and now in Uni- 
 versity College the very fact that Nationalism was taken for 
 granted and all Irish questions approached on that basis was 
 a further bar to his advancement. His fellows put him 
 down as a West Briton and left him at that. 
 
 One day at the beginning of the October term Bernard 
 encountered Felim O'Dwyer in the hall of the medical 
 school. 
 
 " Hello! " he said. " You taking up medicine? " 
 
 " Looks like it, doesn't it ? " said O'Dwyer. " Coming up 
 Graf ton Street ? " 
 
 Bernard said he was and they set out together by Crow 
 Street, Dame Street, and Trinity Street. 
 
 " Yes. I'm starting medicine," said O'Dwyer, " and I 
 wish to the devil I wasn't." 
 
 " Then why do it ? " 
 
 " I've a Roman father," said O'Dwyer, " with whom 
 there's no disputing." 
 
 " Fathers are a curse," exclaimed Bernard. " They seem 
 to think their sons are their property." 
 
 " Yes. When they're young. And sort of old age pen- 
 sions later on. I hate my father." 
 
 " That's natural instinct in the young male," said Bernard. 
 " I don't care much for mine." 
 
 " This stunt of making every available man a doctor is 
 going to be the ruin of this unfortunate country," went on 
 O'Dwyer. " It's rotten economics. We can't live by cur- 
 ing one another's diseases. In Ireland every farmer and 
 business man puts one son into the Church, another into 
 medicine and hands the farm or the business over to the 
 third usually the fool of the family. Then the people 
 who are already doctors won't let their sons sink any lower 
 and make doctors or lawyers of them all. Result an 
 Irish doctor on every ship that sails the sea and in every
 
 DUBLIN 145 
 
 town in England, while Ireland goes steadily downhill for 
 lack of brains and business ability." 
 
 " I thought," said Bernard with a smile, " that it was 
 British government was Ireland's ruin." 
 
 " So it is. It's British government that creates the con- 
 ditions that lead to this." 
 
 " You're a monomaniac, O'Dwyer," said Bernard. 
 
 " Maybe so. But even a monomaniac may speak the 
 truth." 
 
 In Grafton Street Bernard was surprised to see Fergus 
 Moore, whom he had not met since their visit to Willoughby 
 Towers, coming towards them. He stopped Moore and 
 introduced him to O'Dwyer. The three immediately ad- 
 journed to the nearest tea-shop, where Bernard asked Moore 
 what he intended doing in Dublin. 
 
 " I've finished with Oxford," said Moore, and I'm going 
 to take a post graduate course in Philosophy in the Na- 
 tional." 
 
 " Good. We're Nationals too . . . Medicals . . . And 
 by the way, what's your present philosophy of life? " 
 
 " Much the same as ever. In theory I'm a revolutionary 
 but in practice I'm a hedonist." 
 
 "And what form does your hedonism take?" 
 
 " Free Love," said Moore. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Bernard and O'Dwyer in one breath. 
 
 " Don't be startled. I don't mean promiscuity. I said 
 Free Love." 
 
 "Where's the difference?" 
 
 " All the difference in the world, my dear boy. Free 
 Love is based on the doctrine that cohabitation without love 
 is immoral. In other words that most marriages auto- 
 matically become immoral after a few years. Free Lovers 
 cohabit as long as love lasts and not a minute longer." 
 
 " If I wasn't an orthodox Catholic," said Bernard, " I 
 might be disposed to favour that doctrine. It's most attrac- 
 tive. But what of the children? "
 
 146 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I hadn't considered that aspect yet," said Moore. " It's 
 certainly a difficulty. That is," he added, " under present 
 economic conditions." 
 
 " Present economic conditions," said Bernard, " are re- 
 sponsible for the whole of the modern sex problem. 
 Physiologically we ought to marry at twenty. Economically 
 we can't manage it till thirty. Is ten years of voluntary sup- 
 pression of a physiological function that's as natural as 
 eating and sleeping good for a man? Is it even possible? 
 Half the fellows I've met I know to be unchaste (pro- 
 miscuously too) and the other half I don't know about. 
 Well, suppression is an evil ; prostitution an abomination. 
 Early marriage is impossible owing to the present economic 
 system. Therefore the present economic system must be 
 abolished." 
 
 "Very well," said Moore, "and what happens then? 
 Hasty marriages of young people who fancy they're in love 
 ending in lives of unhappiness or conjugal infidelity. Those 
 conditions would be as bad as the present, if not worse." 
 
 " The majority of healthy minded people will always be 
 content with monogamy. You can't legislate for exceptions. 
 Besides, even an increase in conjugal infidelity is better than 
 prostitution. I've really only one fixed belief in this matter, 
 and that is that the purpose of sex is to produce children, 
 therefore man's personal comfort must come secondary to 
 the welfare of the children. Children require family life. 
 Therefore, to hell with Free Love." 
 
 " Family life," said Moore, " is all very well for creature 
 comforts, but it's ruinous to the mind." 
 
 " Ruin the mind in youth and it'll recover. Ruin the 
 body and it won't. Look at me. I was brought up to be a 
 Tory Imperialist and Capitalist, and you see before you a 
 Cosmopolitan Socialist." 
 
 " Here's to family life! " said O'Dwyer, finishing his tea. 
 
 " There was a young fellow called Lascel 
 Deserted the fold of the Castle, 
 While Fergus O'Moore
 
 DUBLIN 147 
 
 Succumbed to the lure 
 Of Omar, wine, women, and wassail. 
 
 "Why don't you clap?" he asked. "That was ex- 
 tempore." 
 
 " I hate the way you twist my name to suit your beastly 
 verses," said Bernard. 
 
 " Poetic licence," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Licence verging on obsession," retorted Bernard. 
 
 A cadaverous individual in the distance at this moment 
 waved a salutation to Moore who beckoned him over to their 
 table. Moore introduced him to his friends as Austin 
 Mallow. 
 
 " Had you a brother, called Brian, at Ashbury? " asked 
 Bernard. 
 
 "Yes. Did you know him?" 
 
 " Slightly." 
 
 Austin Mallow was a contrast to his burly brother. He 
 was very lean and his shoulders stooped. There was a 
 strange unnatural brightness in his sunken brown eyes. 
 
 " Mr. Mallow and Mr. O'Dwyer," said Moore, " you are 
 each meeting a fellow-poet." 
 
 The poets bowed to each other. 
 
 " If you can call O'Dwyer a poet at all," interjected 
 Bernard. 
 
 O'Dwyer cast a look of scorn at Bernard. 
 
 " Pooh ! You've no sense of humour," he said, " or 
 criticism either. You always resent the impertinence of my 
 verses, while you ought to be admiring the mind of the person 
 who made them." 
 
 " How old are you, O'Dwyer? " said Bernard. 
 
 " Eighteen." 
 
 "If you're not careful you'll develop the artistic tempera- 
 ment." 
 
 " Artistic temperament me neck ! I can express all I 
 think." 
 
 " A grave deficiency," said Austin.
 
 i 4 8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Not' if you think the things I think." 
 
 " Personally," said Austin, " I think a lot more than I 
 can express." 
 
 "That doesn't prove that your thoughts are anything 
 wonderful. It merely means that your powers of expression 
 are deficient." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," said Austin dogmatically. 
 " There are thoughts that cannot possibly be put into 
 words. Words are finite and thoughts infinite." 
 
 " If I ever thought anything I couldn't express I'd be 
 afraid," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Lunacy." 
 
 " To the common mind inspiration is often mistaken for 
 lunacy." 
 
 " Yes. And I've heard of lunacy being mistaken for in- 
 spiration." 
 
 " I don't see the point of that remark," said Austin, calm 
 but furious. 
 
 " Well, have some tea," said Moore, and so diverted the 
 conversation to safer courses. 
 
 When Austin after a hurried tea excused himself and 
 went away, O'Dwyer asked: 
 
 " Has that fellow a slate loose? " 
 
 " I often think so," said Moore. " He's one of these 
 mystics. And in politics he's a martyromaniac." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " Thinks that the only way to redeem Ireland from her 
 present slough of respectability is to get a half dozen heroes 
 to attack the Castle with their naked fists and get hanged. 
 Robert Emmet stunt, you know. ' One man must die for 
 the people.' " 
 
 " What infernal rubbish," said Bernard. 
 
 " Not so hasty! " said O'Dwyer. " It's not my line, but 
 there's something to be said for it all the same." 
 
 " Well," said Moore, " I must say I see very little sense 
 in dying for this tuppenny hapenny country. Her case is
 
 DUBLIN 149 
 
 hopeless. She's never made an effort that didn't fail, mainly 
 owing to her own stupidity. Her finest men have wasted 
 themselves in useless endeavour, and today after seven cen- 
 turies of bondage, she's as far from freedom as ever. The 
 fact is, the country's in a vicious circle of hopelessness. 
 She can't be free till she's educated, and she can't be educated 
 till she's free." 
 
 " I've eliminated the word ' can't ' from my vocabulary," 
 said O'Dwyer. " All things are possible." 
 
 " Ah, well," said Moore resignedly, " I waver perpetually 
 between two verses of Omar : the one about : 
 
 i'-l. ', '.;,: - t 
 
 But leave the wise to wrangle, and with me 
 The quarrel of the universe let be; 
 
 etcetera, and the one that ends: 
 
 #95&fj 
 
 Would we not shatter it to bits and then 
 Remould it nearer to the heart's desire. 
 
 Have a cigarette? " 
 
 A few days after this Bernard came upon Crowley hold- 
 ing forth in his half-serious, half-flippant way to O'Dwyer, 
 Manders and another man called Lynch on the steps of the 
 college. 
 
 " The Union," said Crowley, " made Ireland John Bull's 
 unwilling and downtrodden wife. Home Rule will merely 
 make her his fractious concubine. Sanity and decency re- 
 quire that Cathleen should seek a divorce." 
 
 " Metaphors don't mean anything," said Lynch. " Home 
 Rule, whatever you say, is common sense and practical 
 politics." 
 
 " Not this footling clumsy makeshift of a Home Rule bill 
 anyway," said O'Dwyer. " What on earth made the Party 
 accept such thrash ? " 
 
 " I think it's a damn good bill," said Lynch. 
 
 " Have you read it? " 
 
 " Well in a summary."
 
 i 5 o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Well go and read the damn thing through before you 
 have the assurance to support it. I'll bet ninety-nine people 
 out of a hundred who've accepted the bill with shrieks of 
 joy haven't taken the trouble to read it." 
 
 " Would you have the whole country read the bill right 
 through ? " 
 
 "Of course. What the hell else would they do? Isn't 
 it to decide their whole future? " 
 
 " What John Redmond takes is good enough for me. 
 You separatists are such unpractical dreamers." 
 
 "What cliche! What self-satisfied humbug! Unprac- 
 tical indeed ! Surely it's more practical to trust to your own 
 right arm, however weak it may be, than to the pledges of 
 English politicians? The kind of dreamer who does that 
 gets let down every time." 
 
 Here Crowley grinned. 
 
 " Like the man who trusts to the buttons on ready-made 
 trousers," he suggested. 
 
 " But look here," interposed Manders, " this theorizing's 
 all very well, but how does it work out in practice? An 
 odd fizzle of rebellion, and then an era of strong government. 
 Constitutionalism has got us some very tangible advantages." 
 
 " Perhaps. But Nationally it leaves us at a standstill," 
 said O'Dwyer. 
 
 "Oh, Nationality! Nationality!" said Manders impa- 
 tiently. " I hate the very sound of the word. What does 
 it mean anyway ? " 
 
 " Now, look here," said Crowley suddenly, " I know 
 you're relying on our making some sort of sentimental reply 
 to that. But we'll disappoint you. Independence means 
 that we won't have to spill our blood or spend our money 
 in England's wars. Isn't that a practical enough argument 
 for any one . . . especially for a pacifist like you ? " 
 
 " My dear Crowley," said Manders suavely, " small na- 
 tions are things of the past. European history is a history 
 of consolidation. Little states were found to be a nuisance 
 and got swallowed up, and the time is approaching when
 
 DUBLIN 151 
 
 the whole world will be federated and this nonsensical idea 
 of patriotism which has created all the wars that have 
 devastated the world will disappear. Well, in the British 
 Empire we have a great world federation already in being, 
 which will be the model for the federation of the rest of the 
 world. We're given the opportunity to be a free part of it, 
 and yet you'd separate us from it and add one more to the 
 muddle of flags and frontiers that makes the world so 
 confused and quarrelsome." 
 
 " Yes," interjected O'Dwyer hastily. " If we're ever to 
 join that confederation we must leave it first and then, if we 
 like, join it by negotiation as with an equal. We've always 
 denied England's right to legislate for us, so what right can 
 she have to settle our place and rights in the confederation? 
 You're a logical man, Manders. Can't you see that if we 
 once grant England's right to give us self-government we 
 also grant her right to take it away? Our whole case logic- 
 ally rests on our natural right to independence." 
 
 " Yes. But politics aren't logical." 
 
 " When your case is logical it's dangerous to use illogical 
 methods. They recoil on you in the end." 
 
 " There's a nice bit of goods," said Crowley suddenly as 
 a girl undergraduate passed by, leaning forward against the 
 wind, hat flapping and skirts fluttering. 
 
 " Queer how the eternal feminine will distract us from 
 any topic however interesting," said O'Dwyer, looking after 
 the girl's receding figure. 
 
 " Not in Crowley's case," put in Bernard. " I know what 
 you were hoping for," he said to Crowley. " You must be 
 one of Max Nordau's degenerates." 
 
 " Perhaps I am," said Crowley, not at all disturbed. 
 " But what harm ? We're a mixed lot, all of us. Bribery 
 couldn't lure me to serve England, and yet I can't resist the 
 lure of a petticoat. The kindest hearted man I ever knew 
 was a drunkard and a thief, and the most honourable was a 
 tyrannical bigot. We're all streaked and crossed. Look at 
 McGurk. He spends his days serving Cathleen ni Houlihan
 
 152 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 at 6, Harcourt Street, and his nights with Kitty Hoolahan 
 of Tyrone Street." 
 
 " Here, less o' that ! " said McGurk indignantly. " I 
 sometimes give Kitty a night off." 
 
 " I wonder, McGurk," said Bernard, " if in the exuber- 
 ance of your spirits on these occasions you ever consider the 
 other side of that question. Does it never occur to you that 
 you're merely taking advantage of conditions imposed by the 
 existing social system ? " 
 
 " Ah, galong with yer preaching? " said McGurk. 
 
 Here O'Dwyer, whose eyes had assumed the introspective 
 look of composition, began to recite: 
 
 " There was a young fellow called Crowley 
 Whose desires were not wholly unholy ..." 
 
 Thereat politics were by general consent dropped and they 
 set themselves to the serious task of completing the Limerick. 
 
 Those two years seemed to be punctuated by talks such as 
 these: crude wrangling arguments about generalities, de- 
 generating as often as not into ribaldry. Then came the 
 passage, of the Home Rule Bill through the British House 
 of Commons and its rejection a little later by the Lords. 
 Lynch and Manders and Home Rulers generally were in no 
 wise perturbed by this. Under the Parliament Act, they 
 pointed out, the Lords could no longer reject but only delay 
 a measure to which they objected. Then came that shock 
 of reality in politics, the foundation of the Ulster Volunteers. 
 Lynch foamed with rage at the event and groaned over this 
 " violation of constitutional principles." Less orthodox 
 Home Rulers felt afraid that this complication might give 
 the Liberals an excuse to violate their pledges, but 
 O'Dwyer, Crowley, and McGurk looked upon the move- 
 ment with unmixed joy. 
 
 " Who said Ulster was loyal? " asked O'Dwyer. " That's 
 the way to treat a British Government. . . . Bully it." 
 
 "What price physical force now? " said Crowley. " Let 
 the U.I.L. chaunt a quanta patimur."
 
 DUBLIN 153 
 
 " All I can say," said McGurk, " is that Carson must be 
 the hell of a bloody fine leader. Wish to God he was on 
 our side." 
 
 7 
 
 Bernard's coming of age was celebrated with venison and 
 pops of Sillery. Sir Eugene shone his brightest in the char- 
 acter of host, and Lady Lascelles chatted amiably at the 
 foot of the table. All the Harveys were present and the 
 Heuston Harringtons, and Bernard to his joy had Dora by 
 his side. Of his College friends he had invited only Crowley 
 and O'Dwyer, and their conversation was really the life of 
 the party. Crowley 's urbane wit, with its quaint spicing of 
 classical quotations and long-winded periphrasis, was no less 
 delightful for being expurgated; and O'Dwyer talked alter- 
 nate nonsense and philosophy until his hearers found dis- 
 tinction difficult. Fergus Moore, who was also present, 
 made little contribution to the conversation beyond an occa- 
 sional bitter interjection into O'Dwyer's philosophizing. 
 Teddy Conroy, a Trinity man and a friend of Eugene's, was 
 another guest. Near to him sat Eugene himself, jealously 
 eyeing Bernard's obvious happiness, and comparing his in- 
 numerable successful light love affairs with his own hopeless 
 devotion, now nearly two years old, to Conroy's sister. 
 Eugene's younger brother Sandy, just home from school, 
 seemed completely monopolized by Mabel, the youngest of 
 the Harveys. It was a brilliant and successful party. 
 
 Two days later Sir Eugene came to Bernard's room with 
 an opened letter in his hand. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Bernard," he said. " I opened this without 
 noticing the envelope." 
 
 " Don't mention it," said Bernard. His father's cor- 
 respondence was so large that the mistake was of common 
 occurrence. 
 
 In the envelope Bernard found a letter and an enclosure. 
 The letter was from a well-known Dublin solicitor asking 
 for an interview in connection with the contents of the
 
 i 54 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 enclosure, to which Bernard now turned his attention. It 
 was an envelope addressed simply: 
 
 Bernard Lascelles, Esq. 
 
 and in one corner was written: to be opened on his twenty- 
 first birthday. The writing was strange to Bernard and it 
 had evidently been written a long time ago, for the ink was 
 bleached and the envelope itself showed unmistakable signs 
 of age. Bernard opened it and took out the following let- 
 ter: 
 
 3rd January, 1899. 
 My dear Bernard: 
 
 If ever you read this letter you will be reading the words 
 of a dead man, for I am starting out on an enterprise which 
 may cost me my life. What little money I have I am leav- 
 ing by will to you, my godson. It will not be enough to 
 live on, for which I am glad, as I should not like to encour- 
 age you to live an idle life (not that I think you would ever 
 want to), but you will find it a help in the early struggling 
 years in whatever profession you take up. Mr. Murchison, 
 my friend and solicitor, will give you full particulars. 
 Pray for me. 
 
 Your affectionate Uncle, 
 
 CHRISTOPHER REILLY. 
 
 Bernard sat pondering over the letter for a long time. 
 Memories of his kind, clever, handsome uncle passed before 
 his mind's eye. A question suddenly sprang up within him: 
 
 " I wonder what became of Cuchulaint " 
 
 He returned to the letter again. It was written in a very 
 small hand, sloping backwards an unusual hand. 
 
 " Not the sort of writing I'd have expected from Uncle 
 Chris," he commented to himself. " Well, now for Mr. 
 Murchison." 
 
 8 
 
 Bernard's favourite sport was yachting. He was a mem- 
 ber of a small club at Kingstown and was one of the crew
 
 DUBLIN 155 
 
 of three who sailed Fergus Moore's yacht in the frequent 
 races and regattas of the summer. To possess a craft of his 
 own was his highest ambition, as it is of all true seamen, 
 and his uncle's beneficence gave him the opportunity to 
 gratify it. He expended the whole of his first quarter's 
 income on a little half-decked yacht, and in it he explored 
 by himself the whole of Dublin Bay, and sometimes sailed 
 down the coast to Wicklow and up to Malahide. Sailing is 
 a pastime that satisfies every mood. He rejoiced in the ex- 
 hilaration of a battle with stiff breezes that lashed him with 
 spray while the hard green water crunched under his lee 
 timbers: and again when the breeze was light and the sun 
 shining he would heave to and lie for hours in tranquil en- 
 joyment. 
 
 Meanwhile College life pursued its accustomed way. 
 Those of Bernard's friends who were taking courses shorter 
 than medicine qualified and passed out. The first to go was 
 Jack Harvey, who, having obtained his B.A., was given a 
 post as tutor to the son of the Russian consul. (His mother 
 never tired thereafter of talking of " my son in the Russian 
 Diplomatic Service.") Next year Manders was called to the 
 Bar, and Molloy set up as a solicitor. Mallow still re- 
 mained as a " chronic " engineer, and Moore never seemed 
 tired of taking out new courses. 
 
 If Bernard's politics still remained in a state of flux Moore 
 was to a large extent responsible. His pessimistic outlook 
 on life exercised a strange fascination over his younger friend. 
 A conversation in College would turn Bernard's opinions 
 definitely Nationalist, and then Moore would come out with 
 a torrent of obloquy and abuse for the Irish character 
 scarcely less vehement than his philippics against England 
 against which Bernard, destitute of O'Dwyer's knowledge 
 of facts and ultimate causes, could make no defence, and 
 came almost to consider that his country was not worth 
 saving. And if he expressed a desire to read Irish His- 
 tory and so form an opinion of his own, Moore always 
 said:
 
 156 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Don't. It's too horrible. It'll only embitter your life 
 as it did mine." 
 
 Many and varied were the conversations they held at this 
 time on the steps of the College on Stephen's Green. One 
 day Brian Mallow in his truculent way was inveighing 
 against a recent production of the Shadow of the Glen at the 
 Abbey and was supported by a man called Mullery, an en- 
 thusiastic member of the then discredited Sinn Fein follow- 
 ing. Moore had been listening in patience for a while and 
 then burst out with characteristic scorn and heat: 
 
 "What idiot ever called the Irish an intelligent people? 
 The Greek's didn't think Oedipus Tyrranus accused them 
 all of incest. The Scots didn't think Macbeth accused them 
 all of murder. The English didn't think Lear accused them 
 of lack of family feeling. Yet we Irish fly into a rage over a 
 play that contains an unchaste Irishwoman just as if it was 
 a reflection on the whole race. It's simply absurd ! " 
 
 " The play's a libel on Irishwomen," said Mullery. 
 
 " A hellish libel," reiterated Mallow. " Only a cynical 
 West Briton like Moore could put up with it." 
 
 " Have sense," said O'Dwyer. " I'm no West Briton, as 
 you ought to know, and I agree with Moore. It's quite 
 true that we Irish are an exceptionally chaste people, but 
 we've no business to jump to the conclusion that an unchaste 
 Irishwoman is an impossibility. . . . Statistics alone should 
 prevent that." 
 
 " What statistics? " said Mullery. 
 
 " The illegitimacy statistics." 
 
 " They're lower than in any other country." 
 
 " Yes. Because the priests make the people marry when 
 consequences become inevitable." 
 
 " Rot," said Mallow. " It's our chastity." 
 
 " That talk about the chastity of Irishwomen," said 
 Moore, " is the damnedest nonsense ever heard. Look at the 
 streets of Dublin." 
 
 " Cities are exceptional," said Mullery. 
 
 " And most of the women are foreigners," said Mallow.
 
 DUBLIN 157 
 
 " Prove it," said Moore. 
 
 " Irishwomen are chaste," repeated Mallow dogmatically. 
 
 Here McGurk, who had not yet spoken, burst into ribald 
 mirth. 
 
 "Chaste me neck!" he said. "I never had any diffi- 
 culty with them." 
 
 At this Mullery and Mallow walked off in disgust. 
 
 " The worst fault of us Irish," said Moore, " is our vanity 
 and objection to criticism or satire. The English on the 
 other hand are so self-satisfied that satire doesn't affect them 
 at all. I wonder which is the worse way to be." 
 
 " In our case," said O'Dwyer, " it isn't our own fault. 
 It's the re-action to England's calumny." 
 
 " But for sheer national truculence," said Moore, " Mal- 
 low and the Morning Post are at one." 
 
 The Labour troubles just then beginning were a frequent 
 subject of discussion among the students, and here Bernard 
 had definite views and was a prominent disputant. He was 
 amazed to find that the revolutionaries on the National issue, 
 Mallow, Mullery and others, were reactionaries on this 
 point. But there were differences amongst them. Mallow 
 held strongly ultramontane views and based his attacks on 
 labour on clerical arguments, whereas Mullery was rather 
 annoyed to find the priests, those determined enemies of 
 his adored Fenians, on his side, and confined his opposition 
 to the international doctrines of the leaders. Of the actual 
 economic conditions which were responsible for the trouble 
 all the young doctrinaires were comparatively ignorant, and 
 their arguments were generally on principles and general- 
 ities and as often as not went in a circle. " People don't 
 undergo the losses and hardships of a strike for nothing," 
 was Bernard's usual argument. " Strikers are not always 
 in the right, but you will generally be on the safe side in 
 assuming that they are." He was glad to find that O'Dwyer 
 was on the revolutionary side in this matter, and their former 
 friendship, so rudely broken at Ashbury, began to revive.
 
 158 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 9 
 
 It was through Eugene, who was now in Trinity College, 
 that Bernard became acquainted with Fred Heuston Har- 
 rington and through him with his mother. Bernard had 
 dropped in to Eugene's rooms in Trinity and found Har- 
 rington there. He was a nice young man, good-looking 
 and polished, but not particularly intelligent, and Bernard 
 cultivated his acquaintance at once in the hope of meeting 
 again his sister Dora whom he had not seen for several 
 months. 
 
 About this period Bernard began for the first time in his 
 life to know his brother. Since they had first gone to school 
 they had always been separated, and moreover Eugene's 
 mental development was not only actually but relatively 
 slower than Bernard's, which rendered companionship be- 
 tween them impossible. Now it was different. At twenty 
 years of age Eugene had a definite philosophy and definite 
 politics and was a capable, if not a brilliant, controversialist. 
 Friendship with O'Dwyer had, in his last years at Ashbury, 
 made him a Nationalist, but with inborn sentiments for the 
 British - connexion which O'Dwyer's sarcasms failed to 
 eradicate. The brothers bore little resemblance one to the 
 other. Eugene was pious, gentle and unobtrusive; Bernard 
 quite the reverse. Eugene's manner was courteous and dig- 
 nified; Bernard's good breeding barely concealed his natural 
 rudeness and impatience. Eugene's polished conversation 
 contrasted strongly with Bernard's jerky argumentative man- 
 ner, and his voice, calm and well-modulated, was more pleas- 
 ing to the ear than Bernard's, which in moments of excite- 
 ment became high-pitched and raucous. Eugene's dress was 
 inexpensive yet neat; Bernard's extravagant yet untidy. 
 Bernard was lean and sinewy with narrow loins, and broad 
 shoulders; his head was large, with brown hair straggling 
 over his fine broad brow; he had deep-set blue eyes and 
 strong cream coloured teeth irregularly set in his square hard 
 jaw. Eugene's limbs were almost feminine in their round-
 
 DUBLIN 159 
 
 ness; his face was al~nost chubby, his teeth white and even, 
 and his hair black, sleek, and carefully brushed. 
 
 When they had discovered each other's politics Eugene 
 said: 
 
 " What'll the governor say when he finds out? He hates 
 Socialists, but Nationalists are anathema." 
 
 " He'll never find out," replied Bernard. " It would 
 never occur to him that we could be such fools as to differ 
 from him." 
 
 "Still hankering after Dora?" inquired Eugene. 
 
 " More or less," Bernard admitted. 
 
 " I must wring an invitation out of Fred," said Eugene. 
 
 " Decent chap," said Bernard. 
 
 " Don't mention it. You'd do the same for me I'm sure." 
 
 It was not long before Bernard and Eugene were invited 
 by Fred to one of his mother's at-homes. Mrs. Heuston 
 Harrington was the widow of a well known literary and art 
 critic, and though her natural taste for these things was 
 small it had been highly cultivated by intercourse with her 
 husband. Her intellectual reputation was great and to her 
 at-homes foregathered hosts of unknown and rising people 
 in the artistic world. Here they chattered and sipped tea 
 and smoked cigarettes and posed and strutted and flattered 
 each other, and Mrs. Heuston Harrington moved about 
 among them feeling like a modern Aspasia or Madame de 
 Stael. 
 
 On Bernard's first visit the room was crowded with guests 
 and he had no opportunity of speaking to his hostess. How- 
 ever he made the acquaintance of one young man who in- 
 terested and amused him. He was a poet named Edwin 
 D'Arcy who had published one very slender volume and 
 neglected his hair and cultivated his tie on the strength of 
 it. He talked feelingly of art and his own temperament 
 most of the evening and presented Bernard with a copy of 
 his book Earth Songs which he happened to have in his 
 pocket. Bernard glanced through it at home that evening
 
 i6o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and found it full of Mist, Purple, Dreams, and Visions, and 
 of invocations to Love and My Soul. 
 
 Dora vouchsafed him only a word or two on this occasion 
 and made him very jealous by ostentatiously cultivating 
 D'Arcy. However on a subsequent visit she gave him her 
 undivided attention, and confided to him that she simply 
 hated D'Arcy, he was such a conceited young ass. Bernard 
 fondly imagined that she was trying to allay his jealousy and 
 made up for her former treatment, but Dora was really 
 speaking the literal truth and was seeking Bernard's society 
 simply because she found him interesting. While the other 
 guests walked about and chattered Bernard and Dora sat 
 in a corner deep in conversation. From the usual prelim- 
 inaries about books and plays they came at length to solider 
 subjects. Bernard confessed to unorthodox religious views 
 and Dora announced that she was an agnostic. 
 
 " I've never been baptized," she said. " You see, father 
 was always an agnostic and mother soon became one. Re- 
 ligion has its good points, I'm sure, but I'm glad I haven't 
 any. It leaves your mind so much freer." 
 
 " I'm not sure that it does," said Bernard. " Any more 
 than lawlessness would make your body freer." 
 
 " But all these religious dogmas are so narrowing. They 
 stop all freedom of thought." 
 
 " Freedom of thought isn't necessarily and intrinsically 
 a good thing. Suppose for a minute that some particular 
 thing is true. Take anything as an example: transubstan- 
 tiation, say. I know you don't believe in it, but grant it 
 true for the sake of argument." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " Then, if it's true, and your claim for freedom of thought 
 allows you to disbelieve it, and my bondage to religion makes 
 me believe it, surely I'm better off than you in possessing 
 the truth." 
 
 " But how are we to believe that religion itself is true? " 
 
 " Ah, there we come to the fundamentals, and it's in fun- 
 damentals that my own doubts exist. But on the whole, my
 
 DUBLIN 161 
 
 love of order, justice, and good government makes me accept 
 an omnipotent God expressing his will through an in- 
 fallible church." 
 
 " Well, I'm for freedom of thought. How can you hope 
 to attain to any comprehension of the universe if there are 
 things you must accept whether you like it or not? I don't 
 see myself being dictated to by clergymen as to what I'm to 
 think or not to think. I can't understand how a person like 
 you could submit to being forbidden to read anything you 
 like by these Index people." 
 
 " Well, I'm afraid I don't bother very much about the 
 Index." 
 
 A little later the topic of Home Rule cropped up. 
 
 " I think it's awful nonsense," said Dora. " This coun- 
 try simply couldn't govern itself. It would be on the rocks 
 in a month." 
 
 " How do you make that out? " 
 
 " Why, it's obvious." 
 
 " In what way? " 
 
 " I can't tell you much about it, because I'm no politi- 
 cian. I just know it. Every one with any sense knows 
 it." 
 
 " I thought you didn't like dogmas," said Bernard. 
 " And here you take for granted the opinions of politicians 
 and journalists who have far less claim to knowledge and 
 disinterestedness than priests have in religion. I can see it 
 didn't take any index to prevent you reading the opposite 
 side in the controversy." 
 
 " I don't take any interest in politics anyway," said Dora 
 huffily. 
 
 "Then why dogmatize about them?" 
 
 " Let's talk of something else," said Dora, and brought 
 back the conversation to literature again. 
 
 " Poor narrow little mind," thought Bernard, " that 
 thinks itself so big. Instead of stuffing your head with 
 ideas it was too small to hold you'd have been better em- 
 ployed in using that graceful figure of yours to secure a mate
 
 1 62 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and populate the world. Comprehend the universe, in- 
 deed! Why, you're too small even to wonder at it." 
 
 How hollow her intellectuality now appeared. To the 
 note of revolt that sounds through the major part of all great 
 literature she was absolutely deaf. She professed to admire 
 Shakespeare, but heard not his cry of universal charity and 
 brotherhood. She professed to admire Dickens, but re- 
 sponded not to his pleading for the poor and down trodden. 
 She professed to admire Dostoieffsky but was not moved to 
 any indignation against autocratic tyranny. She professed 
 an overwhelming admiration for Shaw but his plea for clarity 
 of thinking and ruthless reasoning, and the social philosophy 
 which was the very essence of the man meant nothing to her. 
 In Shakespeare she saw only a supreme dramatist and master 
 of poetic diction; in Dickens only a great creator of char- 
 acters; in Dostoieffsky only a grimly tragic story teller; in 
 Shaw only a clever comedian. It was all she had been told 
 to see. 
 
 She mentioned Keats' Isabella as a favourite poem, and 
 Bernard quoted the fierce attack on Capitalism in the stanza 
 beginning: 
 
 For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, 
 And went all naked to the hungry shark. 
 
 Her only comment was to the effect that " noisy factories " 
 was not a very poetic phrase. 
 
 They wound up with small-talk, and Bernard found that 
 this was what suited her best. She abused this person's hat 
 and that person's dress, some one else's manners and yet 
 another person's pedigree. In fine, she exposed in its en- 
 tirety the native conventionalism of her mind. To Bernard 
 it was a revelation. He obtained an insight into her soul, 
 for the smallness of which not even her body's grace could 
 compensate. 
 
 (I am afraid, ladies, that you are getting a little impatient 
 of the facility with which our hero falls in and out of love. 
 " Surely," you say, " that is not usual in a young man. Our
 
 DUBLIN 163 
 
 own sweethearts have told us they never loved before." 
 Mesdemoiselles, in loving-kindness they deceive you. They 
 would spare you the pangs of jealousy retrospective, which 
 is the worst kind of jealousy. We men are all alike, and 
 Bernard is one of us.) 
 
 On yet another visit he had a short colloquy with Dora's 
 mother. At first she talked, in her facile clever way, of 
 books and music, and Bernard could see whence came Dora's 
 opinions. He succeeded eventually in drawing her to poli- 
 tics, and the admirer of Shelley and Shaw spoke thus: 
 
 " These labour troubles are a frightful nuisance, don't 
 you think? Why on earth can't the workers be reasonable? 
 These people, like that awful man Larkin, coming along and 
 stirring up discontent, they ought to be shot. . . . But 
 don't let's talk politics In my opinion they're the real 
 curse of this country. How I wish we could get away from 
 them, but people drag them in everywhere. . . . Now, what 
 do you think of this? I'm trying to run some concerts in 
 the winter and we've got a mixed committee together to 
 manage them. . . . Well, the whole business is held up at 
 present because some of the Nationalists on it object to hav- 
 ing God Save the King played at the end." 
 
 " Well, isn't it a political act on your side to insist on 
 having it? " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense. The King is above politics." 
 
 " But the Nationalist point of view is that they won't 
 recognize the King until what they consider their rights are 
 restored to them." 
 
 " But that's disloyalty." 
 
 " Not from their point of view." 
 
 " They've no right to have such a point of view," said the 
 apostle of freedom of thought. 
 
 Then she passed on to other subjects. She gave her opin- 
 ions on various Dublin personalities, and her opinions were 
 almost invariably uncomplimentary. One person was a fool, 
 another a knave, another not a gentleman. Then she moved 
 on to another guest.
 
 164 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard found himself next to Edwin D'Arcy again and 
 tried to sound him on the subject of the strike. 
 
 " Oh ! " said the poet mellifluously, " I think these affairs 
 are beneath the artist's attention." 
 
 " I say, Eugene," said Bernard, as the brothers left the 
 house, " Mrs. Heuston Harrington is a treat. I'd like to 
 put her in a novel, only people would say she's too con- 
 tradictory to be true to life. Do you know that she believes 
 in palmistry, and yet she considers our religion superstition ? 
 I think she's the clearest vindication of Pope's rather ques- 
 tionable line about a little learning being a dangerous thing. 
 She fancies herself to be tremendously broadminded, so she 
 professes agnosticism as a revolt against the narrowness of 
 dogma, and at the same time her whole system of politics 
 is a collection of the silliest little old-fashioned dogmas you 
 ever heard. It's all ' Agitators ought to be hanged,' and 
 ' Socialism is nonsense,' and ' the present Social system is 
 inevitable and quite good enough,' and ' the Irish are so 
 disloyal,' and, God help her, ' England is a free country.' 
 Why, her very agnosticism is dogmatic. Christianity 
 preaches, on excellent grounds, the dogma of the Virgin 
 Birth of Christ, and Mrs. Agnostic, on no grounds at all, 
 simply trots out the dogma that it's impossible." 
 
 Eugene was never quick on the uptake. 
 
 " Your own faith isn't so good that you can complain of 
 other people," he said. 
 
 Bernard gasped with that helpless feeling that always 
 came over him when he failed to make himself clear to 
 slower witted people. It was the principal barrier between 
 him and his mother and Eugene. Time was when he had 
 made attempts to cross it, but he never succeeded in doing 
 anything but exasperate himself and earn a reputation for 
 rudeness and ill temper. Now he had learnt by experience 
 and always took refuge, as here, in silence. 
 
 At Fred's solicitation they visited the house frequently 
 again. 
 
 " I say, Eugene," said Bernard, after one such occasion,
 
 DUBLIN 165 
 
 " at one time I couldn't see much in Christianity's praise 
 of the virtue of humility, but I do now. Ten minutes of 
 conversation with Mrs. Heuston Harrington have done more 
 than a life time of Christian teaching to show me the real 
 beauty of Christ's words: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' 
 and ' Blessed are the meek.' Henceforth I'm a Christian." 
 
 "It's taken you a long time to get back to the faith you 
 were born in," said Eugene. 
 
 " I think it's better to have doubted and returned than 
 never to have doubted at all," was Bernard's reply, and 
 Eugene prayed for his faith in the night. 
 
 10 
 
 For all his re-awakening revolutionary ardour Bernard 
 consented to go to the Castle. Partly it was because his 
 father and mother desired it, partly it was because he en- 
 joyed any kind of festivity, and partly it was because he was 
 always glad to get new experiences. Moreover Alice was to 
 make her debut that season and she prettily implored him to 
 be a spectator of her glory. At any rate he went. 
 
 The Drawing-Room was a brilliant affair. The Lascelles 
 motor took its place in the queue of vehicles leading to the 
 Upper Castle Yard. It was a strange, motley queue. The 
 more prosperous courtiers came in private motors, from 
 gorgeous landaulettes to battered two-seaters, while the less 
 fortunate ones came in hired cabs, looking as they sat in their 
 finery in these dingy equipages for all the world like dia- 
 monds set in tarnished pewter. The queue moved at a snail's 
 pace and for the best part of an hour these seekers after 
 place and pleasure had to endure cramp and tedium. To 
 many, however, the wondering gaze of the poor women and 
 urchins of Cork Hill and the neighbourhood, and the salutes 
 of the white-gloved constables on duty were ample recom- 
 pense. 
 
 Dublin Castle is at once the most sinister and the most 
 ridiculous feature in Irish life. It is the centre and strong- 
 hold of foreign domination and the playhouse of native
 
 1 66 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 snobbery. In its dungeons Ireland's noblest children have 
 languished; in its drawing-rooms her meanest and pettiest 
 have simpered. And today it holds within its walls a sham, 
 meaningless, tawdry court attended by the silliest, narro\vest 
 and most servile people on the face of the earth. 
 
 There were knights in scores and would-be knights in 
 hundreds, with here and there an odd baronet or a stray 
 viscount. Among the throng you could distinguish Sir Perry 
 Tifflytis who had preserved a Viceroy's useless cousin to 
 cumber the earth, and Mr. Bonegraft who hoped for an 
 opportunity to do the same. Not far off was Sir Timkins 
 Tidbit who got knighted by mistake owing to a relative 
 having charge of the honours list. He was engaged in con- 
 versation with Sir Everard Backwood, better known as the 
 Lord Mayor of Ballygutter, who had had the good fortune 
 to be chairman of the council of that municipality during a 
 royal visit. Looking rather bashful and out of place was the 
 uncouth form of Sir Cornelius O'Tractor skulking behind a 
 pillar. He had been knighted as a reward for bringing a 
 " loyalist " motion before the Corporation and he found pres- 
 ent company just a little oppressive. In another corner was 
 Mr. Whitelead who hoped to get the contract for repainting 
 St. Patrick's Hall and was taking even now a mental esti- 
 mate of the cost. And then there were the knights who had 
 got their titles no one knew how, and those whose gallant 
 deeds were lost in the mist of legend. And among this bevy 
 of Sirs strolled the baronets and the viscounts serenely aloof 
 and contemptuous of the servility of their inferiors. 
 
 But we are forgetting the ladies. In plumes and lappets 
 and seven-foot trains, blazing with real and sham jewellery, 
 they were a glorious sight. There were Countesses and 
 Baronesses of course, but they are beyond our purview. 
 We shall content ourselves by recognizing the wives of the 
 knights and squires. There was Lady Mallaby Morchoe 
 who would not deign to notice Lady Lascelles whose hus- 
 band had been knighted a year later than her own. There
 
 DUBLIN 167 
 
 was aggressive Lady Liverlung, but three months titled and 
 still angry over her long wait for the distinction. There 
 was Lady Backwood, stately and silent, who was of aristo- 
 cratic blood and whose recently obtained title was but an 
 accessory. She looked around the gathering with an ex- 
 pression that plainly said: "Every one seems to come to 
 the Drawing-Room now." There was Lady This and Lady 
 That and Lady the Rest of It, and Lady Lascelles pointed 
 them all out to her son. 
 
 Then there were the commoners. There was Mrs. Gunby 
 Rourke plainly enjoying herself, and Mrs. Heuston Harring- 
 ton doing the bored intellectual pose, and Mrs. O'Driscoll 
 pushing forward her bashful husband, and Mrs. MacNiff 
 the iron monger's wife. They were all there, metaphor- 
 ically pushing and scrambling, their petty little minds 
 clashing, their vicious little tongues stabbing one another. 
 
 Quite definitely the gathering was split into two factions. 
 On the one hand were the Unionists, the regular Castle- 
 goers, very angry and disdainful of the crowd of National- 
 ists whom the Aberdeens had introduced into the stronghold. 
 On the other were the Nationalists, some aggressive, some 
 rather overwhelmed, many quite obviously trying hard to 
 reconcile their attendance with their principles. 
 
 A hush fell upon the assembly and the ceremony of pre- 
 senting the debutantes to their Excellencies began. For 
 them this was the threshold of life and much the finest part 
 of it. One by one, glittering with jewels and swamped in 
 silks and satins, they swept up the room and sank to the floor 
 before the vice-regal throne. In her turn came Alice, 
 proudly shy. 
 
 One by one they passed from the presence and mingled 
 in the crowd. In a short space they would be married and 
 would commence to urge their childr.cn along the road their 
 fathers had trod before them. 
 
 " How did I look, Bernard ? " inquired Alice. 
 
 " Splendid," said Bernard.
 
 1 68 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 When the ceremony was over the bejewelled throng 
 packed itself into its motors and its cabs and drove homeward 
 through the murky streets. 
 
 II 
 
 And while the garrison and its hangers-on played courtier, 
 and the Irish Party at Westminster played politics, out of 
 the slums of the city came a cry of agony: of agony long 
 endured and no longer tolerable. The great Transport 
 Strike had begun and before the eyes of men stalked Reality, 
 crude and grim and menacing.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 STEPHEN 
 
 WHILST all the resources of parental and scholastic 
 education were being employed to twist and distort 
 the mental growth of young Bernard Lascelles, away in 
 Glencoole Stephen Ward's mind was developing as freely 
 and naturally as the trees that surrounded him. His father 
 did little more than supervise the education which the boy 
 was giving himself. A suggestion here, an explanation there, 
 and now and then a helping hand in difficulties these were 
 all that was required of him. 
 
 Michael Ward was not pious, but he was fundamentally 
 religious, and he was firmly determined that his son should 
 learn his religion without the aid of the pietistic stories and 
 pretty religiosity by which clerics and nuns try to make the 
 divine revelation interesting and acceptable to the young. 
 Thus at the age at which Bernard had arrived by way of 
 Catechism, miraculous medals, " holy " pictures, lives of 
 saints, and ignorance of the Gospel to an indefinite kind of 
 atheism, Stephen was possessed of a synthetic and definite 
 religious philosophy. Quite early in life the conception of a 
 supreme spirit came to him without any very great difficulty 
 and unconfused by the usual preliminary notion of a grey- 
 bearded magician sitting on a cloud. He learned the theory 
 of creation without any Garden of Eden symbolism first 
 taught as fact to be afterwards unlearned when the first ap- 
 preciation of science renders continued deception impossible 
 and to be the starting point of general doubt. Straight from 
 this he was taken to the study of Christianity at its source in 
 the New Testament. He was taught to understand the 
 169
 
 170 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 divine wisdom and beauty of the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 only when he had fully grasped and appreciated this, the 
 foundation of the Christian religion, did he come to the 
 dogmata which the Church has erected upon that founda- 
 tion. 
 
 Then, when he was in his fifteenth year, he began the 
 study of Plato. With his father's help he construed the 
 Crito, the Apology, and the Phaedo, and (herein he was 
 more fortunate than Bernard) his teacher was more con- 
 cerned with the wisdom of the books than with their illus- 
 tration of grammatical rules. The analogy between the 
 Apology and the Passion of Christ struck Stephen at once 
 and he came to have an almost passionate love and admira- 
 tion for Socrates, so that, when his Greek became fluent 
 enough, the Apology ranked next in his estimation to the 
 Gospel of Saint Matthew. Other stray philosophical works 
 Aristotle, the Summum Theologicum, Thus Spake Zara- 
 thustra, A Modern Utopia he found in his father's li- 
 brary and read, but they had none of the influence of these 
 two. 
 
 On his own account Stephen took to the study of His- 
 tory. He read the histories of half the countries of the globe 
 and all the books of travel he could find, so that he became 
 acquainted with nearly every system of government, good 
 and bad, known to mankind. Works of this kind he read 
 with the same avidity with which most young men read 
 novels. For fiction made no appeal to him. Once he had 
 picked up David Copperfield but tired of it before the end 
 of the first chapter. The Talisman, being historical, pleased 
 him better, but the mixture of truths and fiction eventually 
 annoyed him so that he abandoned the tale unfinished. Pen- 
 dennis bored him before he reached page three, and a glance 
 at the first paragraph of Diana of the Crossways was more 
 than enough for him. After that he deserted fiction for 
 good and returned to his histories and philosophies. 
 
 As a result of the course of his education the universe of 
 wisdom and knowledge was to Stephen a great coherence:
 
 STEPHEN 171 
 
 Politics, Philosophy and Religion were interdependent; and 
 Truth and Justice (or, to use the Platonic word which ex- 
 presses both, to dikaion) absolute and universal. To one 
 trained in the usual way such a conception could only come 
 late if at all. He learns his religion first by means of dog- 
 mata in the shape of an almost un-understandable Catechism ; 
 then he comes to the New Testament in the form of the 
 fragment of gospel read at Sunday's Mass, which is usually 
 a parable or a narrative of a miracle (and as for the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, his knowledge of it is confined to the 
 opening sentences known as the Eight Beatitudes) ; and he 
 often attains to no conception of God as an all-permeating 
 spirit until almost adult. To him, therefore, Philosophy 
 and Religion are distinct: the one being "deep," a matter 
 of long words and no concern of his; the other a matter 
 of prayers and observance. Politics are on a lower plane 
 altogether, a matter of votes and speeches and newspapers, 
 which may or may not have an interest for him. Thus 
 he is capable of imagining that what is philosophically right 
 may be religiously wrong, and vice versa, and of acquiescing 
 in a social or political expediency that he knows to be philo- 
 sophically unreasonable without considering that it is thereby 
 morally wrong. In other words the existing system of men- 
 tal education produces the muddled head, the basis of nine- 
 tenths of the injustice of the world; where religion is mainly 
 a conflict between prejudice and prejudice, philosophy a con- 
 flict between speculation and speculation, and politics, where 
 it is not mere bullying and thieving, a conflict between opin- 
 ion and opinion, instead of all these things being a humble 
 search by the collective mind of man after truth and justice. 
 Two thousand years ago Socrates preached that the one 
 important thing for man was to find out what Justice is, 
 and today ninety-nine hundredths of civilized mankind do 
 not know that he preached it, and but few of the hundredth 
 part have engaged in the search. To Stephen, however, the 
 search was a necessity towards which his whole nature im- 
 pelled him. Absolute truth was so essential to his mind
 
 i 7 2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 that when he first came into contact with the actual thoughts 
 and affairs of men through the medium of newspapers (a 
 literature which he left severely alone until he was over 
 eighteen years of age), he was astounded to find what small 
 importance was attached to it. The actual controversy 
 which was agitating the Press at the time was the impending 
 assault by the Liberal Government of England on the House 
 of Lords. The battle of brains, viewed even in the Irish 
 Press where the skirmishes were only subsidiary, was so 
 interesting to Stephen that he sent for a number of English 
 papers to study the central conflict. As a spectacle it was 
 exciting, but as political philosophy it was a lamentable exhi- 
 bition. False premise pitted against false premise; wrong 
 deductions founded on true premises pitted against logical 
 deductions from false premises; meaningless side issues 
 thrashed to death ; petitio principii passing as unanswerable 
 argument : all these made Stephen, unused to the facts of 
 the game, imagine that the participants were battling in a 
 mist of stupidity. 
 
 " Hang it all! " he exclaimed one day sitting in the midst 
 of a heap of crumpled paper, " two mutually contradictory 
 theories cannot both be true. Why can't the two sides real- 
 ize this and instead of each trying to force its view on the 
 other co-operate in an effort to extract the truth? Modern 
 politics seems to consist entirely in bolstering up a point of 
 view, so that the worse system of government may be in 
 force because it happens to have the cleverer exponents. We 
 need another Socrates to walk amongst men and say to them : 
 ' Let us seek together for w r hat is justice and when we have 
 found it let us rule ourselves accordingly.' " 
 
 The suggestion set him pondering a long while in silence. 
 
 2 
 
 Stephen is not to be pictured as a pale, thought-worn stu- 
 dent. The free mountain air he breathed would be suffi- 
 cient guarantee against that, and moreover he worked hard 
 on their little farm and he was a tireless walker and swim-
 
 STEPHEN 173 
 
 mer. He grew up strong and active and of fine physique, 
 devoted to the open air life, and save for his preference for 
 philosophic reading and lack of desire for companionship his 
 boyhood was not abnormal. 
 
 When we last saw him he was just commencing to read 
 the History of the Four Masters, being then twelves years 
 of age. It took him four months in his methodical way to 
 digest that treatise, but though it increased his knowledge 
 of facts immensely it did not alter the simple political phi- 
 losophy he had acquired by his reading of one very small 
 book when first the mysterious cupboard was opened. " The 
 English have conquered us," he had said. " Therefore they 
 must be driven out." It was a simple, logical sequence and 
 there was no one to interpose subtle side issues. Not that 
 these would have had much effect. If any one had told him, 
 for instance, that British Rule was for Ireland's good he 
 would simply have answered that he didn't want to have 
 good things forced on him, thank you. And was it for Ire- 
 land's good, anyway? It would have been hard to prove 
 this thesis to him, for Stephen could not be impressed by 
 long words that he did not understand, and he would prob- 
 ably fall back on his instinctive feeling that servitude, even 
 if it were beneficial, was degrading. But as a matter of fact 
 such argument never came his way. 
 
 When he had finished the Four Masters he read more of 
 the books from the one-time mysterious cupboard. He dis- 
 covered early that his father was disinclined to talk with 
 him about these books as he did about others, but he failed 
 to elicit any explanation of the fact. Undeterred by this, 
 however, Stephen read all the books in the cupboard, and 
 thereby learned the whole history of his native land, with 
 the natural and logical result which his father dreaded but 
 did not seek to prevent. Had these books been kept per- 
 manently out of his hands Stephen might have remained all 
 his life a student of abstract philosophy. His first view of 
 modern politics, as we have seen, made him pity mankind 
 for its stupidity and contemplate the possibility of himself
 
 174 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 becoming an exponent of knowledge. Further exploration, 
 however, showed him that what he had taken for stupidity 
 was in reality dishonesty, and he had shrunk from participa- 
 tion in a conflict where truth was not merely unrecognized 
 but unsought. But here in Ireland he now saw a war of 
 reality: right struggling heroically against might; justice 
 fighting the eternal fight with injustice; thought wrestling 
 with the strangling grip of the material; the light of truth 
 stabbing eternally with its beams the overwhelming darkness 
 of deceit. His gaze, searching infinity for abstract justice, 
 suddenly focussed upon the moment of the eternal drama 
 being enacted in one insignificant corner of the universe. 
 Here was the birth in him of the desire to do. He ascended 
 the hill behind the house and looked down on the city slum- 
 bering, as it seemed, at the edge of the bay. Often in his 
 boyhood he had asked to be taken to the city, but his father, 
 on one excuse or another, had always refused. Gradually 
 the requests became less and less frequent, and finally ceased. 
 Now the desire was strong upon him to set forth at once 
 and walk among men. But in the end he retraced his steps 
 homeward. 
 
 " It can wait," he muttered. " There's still a lot to 
 learn." 
 
 And one day he and his father had reason to visit a village 
 down in the plain. When they arrived there they found it 
 crowded with people and very noisy. There were drums 
 beating and bugles and pipes playing and green flags flying, 
 and there were some men bustling around in dirty, flashy 
 uniforms and others reeling about in various stages of in- 
 toxication. They came to a platform from which a man, 
 a fat, prosperous, dishonest looking creature was address- 
 ing the crowd. 
 
 " The day of victory is approaching," he was saying. 
 " The dark clouds are being dispersed by the will of the 
 people constitutionally spoken." (Cheers.) " Let cranks 
 and faction mongers croak as they will, the dawn was never 
 more surely at hand. Let us stick by the old flag. The
 
 STEPHEN 175 
 
 flag of Hugh O'Neill, and Owen Roe, and Tone and 
 Mitchell; of Parnell and John Redmond." (Cheers.) 
 " Only let us remain firm and united and loyal to our 
 heaven-sent leader" (cheers), "and freedom will be ours 
 before three years are out." (Tremendous applause and 
 more music.) 
 
 "What's all this, father?" asked Stephen. 
 
 " Politics," said Michael Ward. 
 
 Which confirmed Stephen's intention of biding his time. 
 
 So you envisage Stephen's growth from boyhood to man- 
 hood in the lonely glen in the Dublin mountains, jealously 
 and fearfully watched by his broken father, yet developing 
 in his own way for all that. A quiet, regular life he led, 
 working and reading, one day much the same as another, 
 for twenty-four years. And you may picture him in the 
 full flower of his manhood thus: a form physically perfect, 
 of medium height, broad in the shoulders, narrow in the 
 loins, long in the limbs; the whple surmounted by a fine 
 square-shaped head, with a crop of thick black hair; the 
 face not handsome, but clear-skinned, with high cheek-bones, 
 good-sized nose, bright steel-blue eyes, and a long upper lip 
 covering a set of powerful white teeth. An aboriginal Celt, 
 ethnologists would call him, but ethnology is a discredited 
 pseudo-science. 
 
 3 
 
 The clatter of galloping hoofs rang out on the hard sun- 
 baked road. A cry of fear made Stephen halt. In the next 
 instant a pony and trap enveloped in a cloud of dust hurtled 
 into sight round the bend of the road. A girl, a picture of 
 frantic despair, clung with all the relics of her strength to 
 the reins. As the runaway dashed past him Stephen sprang 
 instantly into action. With a nimble leap he caught the 
 rein by the bit and ran alongside the pony, gradually check- 
 ing him. When he had brought him to a halt and soothed 
 him down he turned to assist the girl out of the trap. She 
 was breathing hard and trembling. He led her to the 
 grassy bank by the roadside, where she sat down, gave a
 
 176 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 sigh of relief, and then incontinently broke out into hys- 
 terical sobs. Stephen was at a loss what to do. He was the 
 incompetent male at a crisis like this. The decision and 
 promptitude of action that had controlled the runaway horse 
 were useless factors now, and he stood by, puzzled and 
 helpless, while the fit worked itself off. 
 
 " I'm a fool," she said, suddenly recovering herself. 
 " Thanks for your help." 
 
 He felt awkward, reddened, and stammered vaguely for 
 a reply. She looked up at him for a moment and then 
 quickly looked down again. Stephen returned to the pony 
 and stroked its damp neck. 
 
 "What made him run away?" he asked. 
 
 " He took fright at a motor char-a-banc full of tourists, 
 all shouting and waving flags." 
 
 A little later she said: 
 
 " Would you mind very much if I asked you to drive me 
 home. I'm still rather shaken. . . . It's only about a mile 
 away." 
 
 Stephen complied at once. He turned the trap round, 
 while 'she watched the manly strength and grace of his figure 
 with admiring eyes. They drove along the dusty road un- 
 der the July sun in silence, until at last they reached an 
 open gateway, on the pillars of which were the words: 
 " The Beeches." 
 
 " Here we are," said the girl. 
 
 Stephen drove up a short gravelled avenue that led to a 
 moderate sized country house. A boy of about sixteen years 
 of age who had been lounging in the shade of the verandah, 
 jumped up at sight of the trap, exclaiming: 
 
 " Hello ! Madge, you're back early . . ." He stopped 
 as he caught sight of Stephen. 
 
 " My brother Teddy," said Madge to Stephen. " Teddy, 
 this is Mr. . . .," she paused inquiringly, and Stephen 
 filled in the blank. 
 
 " Tony took fright at a char-a-banc and ran away with
 
 STEPHEN 177 
 
 me," explained Madge. " Only for Mr. Ward I'd have 
 had a spill." 
 
 " Come inside and have a drink," said Teddy. 
 
 " No, thanks. I won't trouble you. I was on my way 
 to Rathfarnham and this has really been a lift for me." 
 
 " Oh, come on ! " said Teddy. 
 
 " Please come in," said Madge. 
 
 Stephen yielded, and they went in to a handsome dining- 
 room. 
 
 " Whiskey or lemon-squash? " asked Teddy. 
 
 Stephen chose the latter. 
 
 " Father and mother are out today," said Madge to 
 Stephen. " Won't you call in another time and meet 
 them?" 
 
 Stephen said he would be delighted, and a few minutes 
 later announced that he must be off. Madge saw him to 
 the gate. 
 
 " Good-bye," she said, giving him her hand. " For the 
 present," she added. 
 
 He resumed his way to Rathfarnham and, as he did not 
 look back, he was unaware that Madge stood at the gate 
 looking after him until he was out of sight. He walked 
 pensively, with his head down, absorbed in meditation. 
 
 " What did that strange look in her eyes mean? " he was 
 asking himself. But he could obtain no answer, being un- 
 schooled in romantic fiction. 
 
 One afternoon a week later he set out again for Rathfarn- 
 ham. He passed the scene of the previous week's adven- 
 ture and came at last to the low wall that separated the 
 Conroy grounds (Conroy was Madge's surname) from the 
 road. 
 
 " Hello, Mr. Ward! " cried a voice. 
 
 Stephen looked up and saw Madge swinging in a ham- 
 mock slung between two cherry trees. He was hot and 
 dusty, and she was a picture of cool freshness in a frock of 
 summery white. There was a pink flush on her cheeks but
 
 178 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Stephen was not aware that he was the cause of it. He 
 came over to the wall and looked up at her, leaning his 
 elbows on it. 
 
 " How are you today? " he said. 
 
 " Quite recovered, thanks," she replied. 
 
 Stephen, having no more to say, fidgetted nervously with 
 the moss on the top of the wall. 
 
 "Won't you come inside and talk to me?" suggested 
 Madge. " There's another hammock over there," indicating 
 one hanging loose by one end from the bough near at hand. 
 
 " I'm afraid I haven't time," said Stephen. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, looking very disappointed. 
 
 " I live up in Glencoole, you know," he explained, " and 
 I'm going down to Rathfarnham to buy some things." 
 
 " That's a long way to walk." 
 
 " Eight miles. . . . Nothing at all." 
 
 " And eight back." 
 
 "I'm accustomed to it." 
 
 " But wouldn't you like a rest? " 
 
 " I haven't time for that." 
 
 She swallowed her disappointment and asked: 
 
 "When are you coming to see us? Mother and Father 
 are longing to thank you for saving me." 
 
 " It was nothing. But I'll come any time you like." 
 
 " Let's see. . . . Oh, yes. We're having a little garden 
 party on Thursday afternoon. Could you come? " 
 
 " Yes. Thanks very much." 
 
 " Don't forget now. Four o'clock." 
 
 " I'll remember. . . . Well, good-bye. I must go on." 
 
 He made his purchases in Rathfarnham and started back 
 for home at once. Madge was in the hammock again when 
 he passed, but he did not know that she had carefully cal- 
 culated the probable time of his arrival and that she had 
 been waiting for him for three quarters of an hour in the 
 chill of the dusk-fall. The conversation that ensued was 
 short and disappointing to her, and she was mortified to 
 observe that the young man showed no emotion in parting
 
 STEPHEN 179 
 
 from her at this magic flower-scented hour, and that he 
 made no attempt to retain the hand that would willingly 
 have lingered in his. 
 
 Thursday came, and Stephen was welcomed at the gate 
 by Madge. She led him over to the lawn where, under the 
 shade of a couple of hawthorns, Mrs. Conroy was dispensing 
 tea to her guests. Her husband lolled in a deck chair chat- 
 ting with three young ladies who laughed industriously at 
 regular intervals. Two young men in flannels were hand- 
 ing round tea and cake. A third, little more than a boy, 
 stood apart fidgetting and distraught, gazing at Stephen and 
 his conductress as they drew near. A game of tennis was 
 in progress on the court just beyond. 
 
 " Mother, this is Mr. Ward." 
 
 Madge's parents greeted Stephen effusively. Then he 
 was introduced all round and set in a deck chair with a cup 
 of tea and a slice of cake precariously balanced in his hand. 
 He felt like a dark spot on the prevailing whiteness, for, 
 though he had spent some time in making himself spruce 
 for the occasion, he was the only male present who was not 
 in white flannels, and all the ladies were in the daintiest 
 summer frocks. 
 
 " Madge told me all about the rescue," said the girl sit- 
 ting nearest to him. " How on earth were you so quick? 
 I can't understand it. I'm sure I'd have been out of my 
 wits." 
 
 " Romantic, wasn't it? " observed another girl, in a harsh 
 and rather scornful voice. 
 
 Madge brought over a chair and planted it down beside 
 Stephen's. The youth who had been standing apart there- 
 upon moved round unobtrusively and sat on the grass close 
 at hand. He kept looking anxiously at Stephen and Madge 
 as they talked. There was general conversation punc- 
 tuated by the musical clink of tea cups for a while. Then 
 the tennis players, Teddy among them, having finished their 
 game, strolled up. 
 
 " Our turn now," said one of the girls.
 
 i8o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Do you play tennis, Mr. Ward ? " Madge inquired. 
 Stephen shook his head. 
 
 " I've never had a racquet in my hand," he said. 
 
 Madge turned to the melancholy youth on the grass. 
 
 " Mr. Lascelles," she said, " will you and Miss Ridley 
 play Fanny and George? " 
 
 " I'm not in very good form today," the young man de- 
 murred. " I've got a stiff wrist." 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 " Fact." 
 
 " Well, will you make the fourth," she asked another 
 young man, who gladly accepted. The four moved off to 
 the tennis court. 
 
 " Let's go and look on," said Madge to Stephen a few 
 minutes later. 
 
 " Yes. I've never seen a game before," said Stephen, 
 and they set off after the players. 
 
 The young man called Lascelles stood looking after them 
 for a moment, longing and yet afraid to follow. 
 
 " He won't leave me for a minute," whispered Madge 
 to Stephen. " I hope we've shaken him off now." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " He's a school friend of Teddy's. They're in the same 
 class at Ashbury, you know. Teddy brought him to see us 
 last holidays and he had the impudence to fall in love with 
 me. He's been the plague of my life ever since." 
 
 " Love is a queer thing," said Stephen meditatively. 
 
 Madge looked at him sideways, seeking to divine a par- 
 ticular meaning, but Stephen's eyes were quite impersonal. 
 They had started in the direction of the tennis court but 
 somehow their course had got diverted towards a shrubbery 
 to one side of it. 
 
 " I wonder why you should dislike him for loving you," 
 said Stephen. " But I don't know much about these things. 
 I've lived practically alone all my life." 
 
 " You wouldn!f dislike some one for loving you, then ? "
 
 STEPHEN i$i 
 
 " I don't think so. But then I don't know. No one 
 does, anyhow." 
 
 " Somebody might, some day." 
 
 " I'll think about it then. What did you say that boy's 
 name was? " 
 
 " Lascelles . . . Eugene Lascelles. Rather a mouthful, 
 isn't it? Like the hero of a novel. . . . He won't be the 
 hero of mine though." 
 
 " I've never read any novels." 
 
 " Really? Well, I don't read much myself. Books are 
 such dull things. . . . But you're so clever looking I was 
 sure you'd be a tremendous reader. I declare, I'm quite 
 relieved to find you aren't." 
 
 " You mistake me. I do read. But not novels. History 
 and philosophy and that sort of thing, you know." 
 
 " I know. Of course that's what one really means by 
 reading. That's what I'd like to read if I could, but I'm 
 a wee bit afraid that perhaps I'm not clever enough." t ." 
 
 " Nonsense. If you've got enough intelligence to like that 
 sort of thing, you've enough to understand it." 
 
 " I do hope so. That's very encouraging." 
 
 After a pause Stephen said : " Will you and Teddy drive 
 over to Glencoole some day? It's a lonely spot, but it's 
 very beautiful. I could show you some of my books if you 
 like." 
 
 " I should love to," said Madge. 
 
 " Now, let's have a look at this tennis," said Stephen. 
 " I'd like to learn it." 
 
 The party came to an end. To Madge's feeling the 
 lengthening shadows of the evening were not colder than 
 Stephen's farewell. 
 
 4 
 
 On a pleasant afternoon a fortnight later Madge and 
 Teddy drove over to Glencoole. 
 
 " I suppose I'll have to be tactful and keep in the back- 
 ground," said Teddy as they neared the Wards' cottage.
 
 182 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Silly! " said Madge, with a blush. 
 
 Stephen and his father met them outside the gate and they 
 had a somewhat sedate tea in the cool of the sitting-cum- 
 dining-room. Teddy told inconsecutive anecdotes about 
 tennis and cricket and Ashbury and Lascelles and a terrible 
 ass called O'Dwyer, a friend of the latter; and Madge made 
 complimentary remarks about the weather and the road and 
 the garden and the tea. 
 
 " And oh! " she exclaimed, " your books! How lovely! " 
 
 She insisted on going round the shelves and reading out the 
 titles of the books, just as if she were well acquainted with 
 them. 
 
 " I never knew you were a book-worm, Madge," said 
 Teddy. 
 
 " Oh, Teddy ! How could you ! " said the deceiver re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 Stephen rose and followed her to the book case. He took 
 down some of his favourite volumes for her inspection, 
 fondling them while he did so as a book lover does. 
 
 "Lovely! . . . beautiful! . . . how interesting!" Madge 
 kept exclaiming. 
 
 " The Wisdom of the world is in this," said Stephen, tak- 
 ing down Plato's Republic. 
 
 " How nice," said Madge. 
 
 Stephen fetched down a fine edition of Shakespeare. 
 
 " The only poet I care about," he said. 
 
 " I don't like poetry either," said Madge. 
 
 " Most poets," went on Stephen, " seem to be so pre- 
 occupied with their own moods and emotions. Shake- 
 speare's so different. He's the essence of humanity and the 
 storehouse of wisdom. . . . Don't you think so?" he in- 
 quired, turning to where Teddy still lounged in his chair. 
 
 " Well, personally I think Shakespeare's an awful ass," 
 replied Teddy. 
 
 " Oh, Teddy," remonstrated Madge, " I think Shake- 
 speare's frightfully nice," she put in for Stephen's benefit. 
 
 " Have a cigarette? " said Teddy, offering his silver case.
 
 STEPHEN 183 
 
 " No, thanks. I don't smoke," said Stephen. 
 
 " Heart? " inquired Teddy. 
 
 " No. I want to have a minimum of things I can't do 
 without." 
 
 Teddy's face expressed pitying scorn. A person who 
 didn't play tennis or cricket, didn't smoke, and enjoyed 
 Shakespeare, was something less than half a man in his 
 estimation. 
 
 Stephen suggested a walk down the glen, and the three of 
 them set out. When he was not pointing out some view or 
 object of interest Stephen talked philosophy and theology 
 at Madge, which she punctuated with her ever-recurring 
 exclamations, while Teddy walked beside them in silent bore- 
 dom and disgust. 
 
 " I say, I think Ward's an awful ass," said Teddy, in the 
 trap on the way home. " I was fairly bored stiff." 
 
 " I wasn't," said Madge. 
 
 Teddy stared hard at her. 
 
 " I do believe you're gone on him," he said. 
 
 At the same time Michael Ward was saying to his son: 
 
 " Stephen, I'm afraid that girl is fond of you." 
 
 " Rubbish," said Stephen. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," declared his father. 
 
 " I'm not fond of her anyway," said Stephen. 
 
 " Well, take care what you do." 
 
 " I did. I talked philosophy at her the whole after- 
 noon." 
 
 " Not much use, I'm afraid. Women are queer crea- 
 tures." 
 
 "Fools," said Stephen. 
 
 " I'm afraid you're heartless," said his father. 
 
 " I hope so," said Stephen. 
 
 " That shows your ignorance then." 
 
 " Good-night," said Stephen.
 
 1 84 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 5 
 
 " So the leader of the Irish race at home and abroad has 
 agreed to accept a little emasculated parliament house as a 
 final settlement?" 
 
 It was Stephen who spoke. He and his father were just 
 finishing breakfast. 
 
 "What does it matter?" said Michael Ward carelessly. 
 
 "Matter!" exclaimed Stephen. "It's wrong! It's il- 
 logical! It's damnable! How can we logically or honestly 
 accept a Home Rule Bill framed by England? Isn't our 
 whole case based on the fact that England has no right to 
 legislate for us at all? " 
 
 " There's no logic in politics, Stephen. Logically we 
 shouldn't send members to London at all, but what do peo- 
 ple care about logic? I gave up all interest in politics years 
 ago and I'd advise you to do the same." 
 
 " And assist British rule by my acquiescence. No, 
 thanks." 
 
 " To try and overthrow British rule in this country is to 
 attempt the impossible." 
 
 " I. don't admit such an impossibility." 
 
 " I'm talking from experience. In my time I tried and 
 failed." 
 
 "You tried?" 
 
 " Yes. I never told you anything about it because I 
 hoped you'd never interest yourself in this unfortunate 
 country's affairs. Well, I'll tell you the whole story now, 
 and let it be a warning to you." 
 
 Michael Ward re-told the tale with which the reader is 
 already acquainted. When he had finished Stephen said: 
 
 " Very well. You tried and failed. I must find a better 
 way, that's all." 
 
 " Stephen," said the father, " do nothing hasty. For all 
 you know Home Rule may be better for Ireland than In- 
 dependence." 
 
 " That's a matter for discussion among Irishmen," replied 
 Stephen. " It's no concern of England's. All we want of
 
 STEPHEN 185 
 
 her is the simple requirement of justice withdrawal from 
 our country bag and baggage. Then we can decide for our- 
 selves whether we want a partnership with her or not." 
 
 " You needn't expect justice from England." 
 
 " I'm quite aware of that. It's no argument for accept- 
 ing half measures. By right and justice we claim independ- 
 ence. All that remains to be done is to devise a method of 
 securing it. Force has failed: compromise is illogical, dis- 
 honest, and I believe will also fail. There must be another 
 way and I'll find it if I have to spend my life in the search- 
 ing." 
 
 This prospect of a long wait reassured the father that his 
 son would do nothing rash. Indeed, so convinced was he 
 of the impossibility of solving the problem that he felt satis- 
 fied that " nothing rash " really meant " nothing." 
 
 " My dear boy," he said, filling his pipe as he spoke, " to 
 the truly philosophical mind the ephemeral affairs of men 
 are not worthy of prolonged consideration. Do you see 
 that apple on the plate there? Science tells us that it is 
 divided into an enormous number of infinitesimal molecules 
 all in perpetual motion, and that the very molecules are 
 divided into still tinier atoms. Yet we see nothing but a 
 quiet, rotund solidity. Now consider the universe in which 
 we live. Our earth is but an atom of the molecule called 
 the solar system, and that molecule is but one of the millions 
 that compose the universe. Look at that aipple again. 
 Wonderful happenings may be in progress in one of its 
 atoms but of what ultimate import are they? Similarly I 
 can imagine a gigantic being contemplating our universe 
 which he sees as small and as solid as we see the apple, and 
 amusing himself by wondering whether things could really 
 happen in one of its atoms. How small it all is really." 
 
 " That's a very pretty thesis," replied Stephen. " I'd 
 often thought of it myself. But, my dear father, you 
 mustn't let yourself be carried away by relativity of size. 
 To regard size and importance as synonymous is the most 
 revolting kind of snobbery. I've come to look at everything
 
 1 86 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 from the absolute point of view in regard to size and the 
 intrinsic point of view in regard to value. That match 
 you're going to light your pipe with is a small thing com- 
 pared with . . . say Jupiter ; but it has a definite size. And 
 if you compare both with the vastness of infinite space the 
 difference between them is very slight. Then the match 
 has an intrinsic value of its own. It's complete in itself and 
 perfect to its own end. . . . You couldn't light your pipe 
 with Jupiter. ... If, then, the match is absolutely im- 
 portant, how very much more so is man, who, small as he 
 is, has an immortal soul and carries the Kingdom of Heaven 
 within him." 
 
 " That's right, Stephen. Stick to philosophy and leave 
 politics alone." 
 
 " They're all one to me," said Stephen. " The battle be- 
 tween right and wrong, truth and falsehood is going on 
 everywhere: here in Ireland, billions of miles away in some 
 planet revolving round Alpha Centauri, and away in some 
 corner of space invisible from the most distant star we can 
 see. And I want to be on the right side." 
 
 " How are the potatoes doing? " asked Michael Ward. 
 
 Life pursued its even course at Glencoole for more than a 
 year. Then one morning at breakfast Stephen read out 
 from the newspaper the account of the formation of the 
 Ulster Volunteers. 
 
 " That settles it," he said. " There'll be no Home Rule 
 now, thank heaven. It's just the excuse England was look- 
 ing for." 
 
 He read silently for a few moments, then dropped the 
 paper and sat wrapped in thought for a while. 
 
 " I have an idea," he cried suddenly. 
 
 " What is it? " asked his father. 
 
 "I must 'think it out," replied Stephen, and became si- 
 lent.
 
 STEPHEN 187 
 
 7 
 
 " This strike," said Stephen some months later, " brings 
 us to realities at last." 
 
 Michael Ward grunted. Even in his youthful days he 
 had been a re-actionary on social questions, not so much 
 from conviction as from the old Fenian desire to demonstrate 
 a purely spiritual Nationalism uncontaminated by material 
 aspirations. 
 
 " And oh ! " said Stephen, " the mess they're making of 
 it! The hopeless muddle and mess! No controversy even, 
 much less any attempt to get at the truth. Mere vitupera- 
 tion and mud slinging. Why amn't I there? " 
 
 " You're better where you are," said his father, and there 
 was an anxious note in his voice. 
 
 " Shall I sit quiet while my fellow men fall? ... I 
 know what should be done ... I have things to say that 
 are worth saying. . . . The question is, is society to be a 
 chaos of righting animals, each getting what he can for him- 
 self, or is it to be a commonwealth of civilized beings where 
 all co-operate to make the world as fine a place as possible ? " 
 
 "You'll find that these labour people are just out for 
 themselves." 
 
 " No wonder, under existing conditions. In that they're 
 the same as every other class. But for all that the founda- 
 tions of the better system are in them. . . . I'm going to 
 Dublin, father." 
 
 " My boy . . ." exclaimed Ward. There was anguish 
 in his tone. 
 
 " I must," said Stephen. " I've things to say and do 
 ... in this question and others. . . . They're all one, re- 
 member." 
 
 " Stephen, if you really must go I suppose you must. 
 . . . You'-e a man now, and I've no right to stop you. 
 . . . But think first what you're going to do. ... You're 
 my only son. ... All I have to care for, and I've had a 
 hard life, laddie ... a lonely life. If anything happened 
 to you . . ,"
 
 1 88 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Nothing can happen, father. I'm not a hot headed 
 young fool. I've never done anything I didn't think out 
 first, and I never will." 
 
 " And how are you going to live, Stephen ? I can allow 
 you a little money, but it won't go far in a big city." 
 
 " We're told not to be over anxious as to what we shall 
 eat and wherewith we shall be clothed, aren't we? ... 
 Trust me to find enough to live on anyway." 
 
 The next couple of days were spent in preparation for 
 Stephen's departure. His more bulky luggage and even 
 that was but some clothing in a parcel was sent by post 
 to a small hotel on the north side of Dublin owned by one, 
 Doran, a friend of Ward's of days gone by ; and at last with 
 a satchel on his back and fifty pounds in his pocket Stephen 
 said good-bye to his father at the end of the glen. Michael 
 Ward looked older and more haggard than ever. 
 
 " I can hardly bring myself to let you go, Stephen," he 
 said. " You're going off full of hope and vigour ... to 
 waste yourself and break yourself in a useless struggle for an 
 ungrateful people. . . . My boy, when you're tired and 
 worn out won't you come back to your old father and rest? " 
 
 Stephen laughed lightly. 
 
 " I'll come back often," he said. " And pretty soon too. 
 There's no need to be tragic." 
 
 " Well, good-bye, my boy. Write soon." 
 
 " Of course. This very night." 
 
 They shook hands, and Stephen went down the road to- 
 wards the city. It was the afternoon of Saturday the 3Oth 
 of August, 1913. 
 
 An hour's walk brought him to " The Beeches," where, 
 over the low wall, he could see Madge and a young man 
 swinging in hammocks close together. 
 
 " How are you, Miss Conroy? " he called. 
 
 " Hello, Mr. Ward," she replied. " I haven't seen you 
 for ages. Where are you off to? " 
 
 " Dublin," said Stephen. " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye : . . and good luck."
 
 STEPHEN 189 
 
 " Who's that, dear ? " inquired the young man, after 
 Stephen's departure. 
 
 " Oh, a terrible bore who lives up the mountains. ... I 
 only know him slightly." 
 
 " He looks rather a rustic idiot," said the young man. 
 
 " He is," said Madge. 
 
 Stephen walked on to Rathfarnham, where he took the 
 tram to the city.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A DEAD HAND 
 
 MRS. GUNBY ROURKE gave a summer dance at her 
 house at Dundrum. The great drawing-room was 
 beautifully arranged for the occasion. Graceful palms and 
 green and white decorations gave a cool appearance to the 
 eye and electric fans kept the atmosphere pleasant. The 
 glass doors at one end of the room opened on to the garden, 
 where the dancers could come out and refresh themselves in 
 the balmy night air. At a table in a rose bower a couple 
 of bored but ever polite servitors dispensed drink and ices 
 to all who sought them. 
 
 Bernard and his pretty partner emerged from the ball- 
 room, the girl fanning herself vigorously. 
 
 "Will you have some refreshment?" inquired Bernard, 
 conventionally solicitous. 
 
 " Please ... I think I'll have an ice." 
 
 They approached the bower and Bernard asked for their 
 requirements. 
 
 " I'm sorry, sir," said the butler humbly. " No ices left, 
 sir ... Short, sir ... The Strike, sir ... Lemonade, 
 sir ? or claret cup ? " 
 
 " Those awful strikers ! " said the girl, sipping claret cup. 
 "Why can't they be sensible?" 
 
 " That's what they are," said Bernard. 
 
 " But they're so discontented. . . . Always wanting 
 something more. Give them all they ask now, and they'll 
 ask twice as much next year. . . . The world was such a 
 pleasant place until all this trouble arose. . . . I'm sure / 
 don't want to change a bit of it." 
 
 A year ago Bernard would have hated her for the 
 
 100
 
 A DEAD HAND 191 
 
 ness of her mind but he was growing more tolerant nowa- 
 days. Hers was but one of many types of mind, all hu- 
 man. Surely, he reflected, it had its own merits, merits 
 of which, perhaps, superior minds were destitute. 
 
 He brought her to a seat in a secluded corner of the gar- 
 den. She babbled on about " those horrid strikers " for a 
 while and then broke off to say : 
 
 " What a lovely night ! " 
 
 She was sane and stupid and kindly and pleasure-loving. 
 She was human. That love of humanity which is funda- 
 mental in every revolutionary thinker, even though he know 
 it not, suddenly welled up in Bernard's heart. He loved the 
 silly lovable humanity in her, and moved by a sudden im- 
 pulse he put his arms around her and kissed her. 
 
 She thought it was an ordinary ballroom kiss and said: 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Lascelles!" 
 
 " I'm sorry," he said, recovering himself. 
 
 " Oh, don't mind," she said. " You can do it again if 
 you like." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 After the sun had risen they were still dancing. 
 
 Through sordid lanes and decayed old streets Bernard and 
 Crowley followed their weary little guide. It was night, 
 but they were bent on a different errand from that which 
 we last described. Crowley carried a bag. They were 
 passing through slums that had been aristocratic quarters in 
 the days of Ireland's prosperity. Every doorway they passed 
 was a thing of battered beauty; the rusted and broken area 
 railings showed the craftsmanship of a bygone age; and one 
 might fancy that the thin wisp of smoke eddying round one 
 of those chimneys was the product of the combustion of 
 some carved oak panel. 
 
 " Epitome of our history," said Crowley. " My God, 
 what waste! " 
 
 .B.ejna^d looked at him, a .little surprised. at.his tone. Was
 
 i 9 2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 this the Crowley he knew, the Crowley of the Common 
 Rooms and the Billiard Saloons? 
 
 " The pity of it! " went on Crowley. " The wasted en- 
 deavour of the days of hope! It would have been better 
 if we had never succeeded at all. It would have meant less 
 wreckage." 
 
 Bernard made no answer, for he was not sure what Crow- 
 ley was talking about. 
 
 " Dublin," said Crowley, " is a city of blighted beginnings. 
 Look at the Bank of Ireland, built to house an independent 
 parliament, and not yet completed when the parliament 
 was taken from us. Look at our Custom House, built in 
 the days when we had control of our own revenue, and its 
 function taken from it within a few short years. Look at 
 Sackville Street, the commencement of a great town plan- 
 ning scheme that we haven't been allowed to continue. . . . 
 Rule, Britannia, and God save our noble King! " 
 
 The bitterness in his tone as he made this last exclama- 
 tion astonished Bernard. Could the Crowley who thought 
 like this, he asked himself, talk like the other Crowley? 
 They walked for a while in silence, and then Bernard 
 spoke. 
 
 " I'm afraid things are going hard with the strikers. It 
 looks as if the employers were going to win." 
 
 " I'm afraid you're right," said Crowley. " Damnation 
 on it ! What's wrong with the world at all that the right is 
 always beaten ? " 
 
 They turned down a narrow and filthy court through an 
 archway under one of the tumbledown mansions of the main 
 street. It was a hot summer night and the air here was 
 stifling and fetid. They trudged on past many open doors 
 each of which gave forth a new and viler stench. The road- 
 way was pitted and rutted, and littered with rubbish. Foul 
 heaps of sweepings occurred haphazard. Buckets of horror 
 stood on the pathway outside some of the doors; dirt was 
 piled on the steps of others. 
 
 " I was at a dance the other night," said Bernard, " and
 
 A DEAD HAND 193 
 
 one of my partners said she was quite satisfied with the 
 world as it is and wouldn't change a bit of it." 
 
 " ' Uncertain, coy and hard to please,' " said Crowley with 
 a sniff. 
 
 " Here y'are, docther," said the little boy who was their 
 guide, stopping before a crazy door held together with 
 packing-case battens. A dirty, towselled little girl with 
 nothing on but a tattered pinafore that had once been white 
 answered his knock. 
 
 " This way, docther," she whispered, preceding them up 
 a stairway, her bare feet pat-patting on the boards. This 
 was not a decayed mansion but a modern jerry built house, 
 and the stairs, as far as one could see in the darkness and 
 through their own grime, were of plain deal, warped and 
 ricketty. So were the banisters, which had been cut away 
 in places, probably for firewood. They passed a landing 
 and went up another flight of stairs even dirtier than the first. 
 On the next landing the little girl opened a door and beck- 
 oned to the two students to enter. 
 
 The room was twilit by the flicker of half an inch of 
 candle stuck in a porter bottle on the window ledge. The 
 first thing that caught Bernard's eye on entering was the fig- 
 ure of a man lying on the floor dead drunk and snoring in 
 the corner opposite the door. The walls of the room were 
 covered with a dirty wall paper of indeterminate pattern 
 which was peeling off everywhere in large patches. The 
 ceiling was black save where more recent flaking off of the 
 plaster had left white splotches. The bare floor was black 
 with dirt and littered with rubbish. Some half-washed tat- 
 tered garments hung across the room on a string, intercept- 
 ing what little air came through the window, one of whose 
 broken panes was stuffed with rags and another with a piece 
 of cardboard. About half the floor space was occupied by 
 the bed, where amid a heap of torn and filthy bedclothes 
 lay the prospective mother. Leaning over her and com- 
 forting her were four women of the neighbourhood. A 
 little boy and girl aged two and three sat up among the
 
 i 9 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 blankets at the foot of the bed, wide-eyed and expectant. 
 
 The entry of the two students was the signal for instant 
 commotion. The four women came bustling forward with 
 offers of assistance, but Crowley quickly sent them pack- 
 ing. 
 
 " One's enough," he said. Then to the cleanest, a fat 
 matron of about fifty, " You stay, ma'am. The rest of you 
 can clear out, every one of you." 
 
 He drove them expostulating to the door as one would a 
 flock of hens. 
 
 " Some hot water, please," he said to the woman who 
 remained, and she went away and presently fetched some in 
 a dirty chipped enamel basin. A petticoat was torn down 
 from the clothes line for him to wipe his hands on. 
 
 A ramshackle chair and two packing-cases were the sole 
 furniture of the room. The little girl came forward to offer 
 the chair to the doctor, dusting the broken seat of it with 
 the hem of her pinafore. Cats could be heard squalling 
 on the roofs. Somewhere a clock chimed the quarter. 
 The woman and the two young men sat down to await the 
 birth of one of the heirs of the ages. 
 
 3 
 
 " Look here, Eugene," said Bernard, " you've been moping 
 too much lately. It's bad for you. What's it all about ? " 
 
 Eugene smiled wanly. 
 
 " Nothing," he said. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you're still sighing for Madge? 
 . . . You are. ... I say, you know, this is absurd. ' If 
 of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her, The 
 Devil take her.' There are other fish in the sea." 
 
 " That's no consolation when you only want the one." 
 
 " Oh, this is insanity. What's a girl ? A human female. 
 None of them is very much better than any other. They 
 eat, drink, talk and think very much like ourselves not 
 quite so well as a matter of fact. . . , Shut your eyes, take
 
 A DEAD HAND 195 
 
 a deep breath, and forget her. I've often cured myself that 
 way." 
 
 "What do you know about love?" said Eugene. "A 
 fickle philanderer like you. . . . How is it that you can be 
 so constant to principles and so changeable towards women ? " 
 
 " As my friend Crowley says, we're all mixed and 
 streaked. What would life be without inconsistency? 
 You're a damned faithful lover, Eugene, but you're in- 
 fernally self-satisfied." 
 
 " I'm not ... I know quite well I'm unworthy of her." 
 
 " You're wrong there, my boy. . . . But you're self- 
 satisfied for all that. ... I know you'll deny it, for you 
 couldn't be self-satisfied knowingly. . . . Look here, this 
 love sickness is absurd. Love's too trivial a thing for a 
 man's total outlook. The world's before you, you know, so 
 shake it off. Get your togs and we'll buzz over to the 
 tennis club." 
 
 " Very well," said Eugene listlessly, but he complied with 
 the request. 
 
 They went on the top of a tram to the grounds of the 
 Baggotrath Tennis Club, and all the time Bernard lectured 
 his brother. 
 
 "Love," he said. "What's love? Poets rave about the 
 beauty and the wonder of it as they rave about the songs of 
 birds and the scent of flowers, and yet all of them are merely 
 physiological incidents in the phenomenon of procreation." 
 
 Eugene blushed. 
 
 " Bernard, you're almost Rabelaisian," he said. 
 
 "What? Have you read Rabelais?" 
 
 " Not likely." 
 
 " Then why take his name in vain? " 
 
 " I know what he's like." 
 
 " I suppose you were told by some one who hadn't read 
 him either." 
 
 " He's on the index as an immoral writer." 
 
 "That word 'immoral'!" exclaimed Bernard. "I'd
 
 ig6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 like to cut it out of the dictionary. It means too many 
 things for you people who think loosely. Rabelais may be 
 dirty, but he's a sight less demoralizing than hundreds of 
 books that aren't on the index. ... I suppose you wouldn't 
 dream of reading Ghosts or Widowers' Houses? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "Well, why would you read Macbeth or Coriolanus? 
 They deal with Murder and Treason. Isn't that just as 
 immoral as unchastity and harlotry?" 
 
 Eugene shuddered at the mention of the last two words. 
 
 " I don't like to discuss this kind of subject," he said. 
 
 " Funk! " said Bernard. " I'd just like to tell our theo- 
 logians what I think of their attitude to sins of the senses. 
 They aren't the worst sins by long chalks. I can always 
 find some excuse for an adulterer, but none for the oppressor 
 of the poor. Christ himself was lenient to the sinful woman, 
 but he had nothing but anger for the Pharisees and money- 
 changers." 
 
 " You do mix up religion and indecency ! " said Eugene. 
 " Let's talk of something else, for heaven's sake." 
 
 They played tennis throughout the afternoon, and there 
 was an interval at half-past five for tea in the club house. 
 The elegant Molloy was there, a picture of lounging pros- 
 perity. Naturally execration of the strikers formed a large 
 part of the conversation. 
 
 " Personally," said Molloy, " I'm doing rather well out 
 of the situation. You see, these fellows who have been ar- 
 rested aren't well off and can't afford to go to the big men 
 in the profession. That gives us beginners a chance. . . . 
 Of course they're rather a low type of client, but so long as 
 they pay I don't mind." 
 
 " By jove," said Bernard, " that's damn decent of you." 
 
 " My brother's a socialist," said Sandy, whom Bernard 
 had not noticed before. 
 
 "I say! . . . Not really?" exclaimed another young 
 man. 
 
 " Yes. Isn't that awful ? " said Bernard.
 
 A DEAD HAND 197 
 
 " Get away. You're joking," said the young man. 
 " Come and have another sett." 
 
 "Damn that smug, stupid, unprincipled snob Molloy!" 
 exclaimed Bernard on the way home. " Whatever happens, 
 good or bad, he'll be there to make money out of it. I 
 wonder does he know what a worm he is ? " 
 
 4 
 
 The industrial crisis was now at its height. Collisions 
 between strikers and police were frequent, and arrests were 
 increasing in number. The employers were determined to 
 break the labour movement for good, and relied on starva- 
 tion as their principal weapon. Already this was beginning 
 to have its effect. Infant mortality is high in Dublin at the 
 best of times: now it was becoming appalling. But at last 
 English labour woke up to the importance of the battle in 
 Dublin in regard to its possible effect on their own position. 
 So ships laden with food sailed into the port of Dublin and 
 enabled the wearied people to hold out a little longer. 
 
 One afternoon Bernard set out with O'Dwyer on a tour 
 of inspection. They met McGurk in Westmoreland Street 
 and stopped for a moment to talk, but two burly policemen 
 interrupted them. 
 
 " Move on now," said one. " No gathering are allowed." 
 
 The " gathering " broke up, McGurk continuing his way 
 towards Grafton Street, the other two making for the river. 
 A patrol of mounted police clattered by. 
 
 "Stimulating, isn't it?" said O'Dwyer. "I do love a 
 bit of coercion." 
 
 On the quay they came upon the end of a queue of women 
 and children waiting their turn to be served with rations 
 from one of the distributing stations. They carried sacks 
 and boxes and all kinds of queer, battered domestic utensils. 
 In their eyes was a uniform look of patient misery. Bernard 
 and O'Dwyer passed the whole length of the queue, which 
 was nearly two hundred yards long: two hundred yards of 
 human dirt, disease and wretchedness.
 
 198 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " My God ! " said Bernard, " how can men allow this 
 kind of thing to go on ? " 
 
 Just then Molloy emerged from the distributing office. 
 Evidently he had been there in connection with the affairs 
 of one of his unfortunate clients. 
 
 " Phew ! What a crew ! " he said, lighting a Turkish 
 cigarette, and went his way. 
 
 One of the food-ships had been sighted just before this 
 and was now making her way to the quay-side. Bernard 
 experienced a queer kind of thrill when he saw her. 
 
 " See! " he said to O'Dwyer. " She's from England, the 
 country you hate. How do you reconcile that with your 
 national quarrel theory ? This is a class war, and the work- 
 ing class is solid whatever flag flies over it." 
 
 "Rot!" said O'Dwyer. "The English labour crowd 
 want their battle fought out here. It saves them the trouble 
 and expense. What are a few tons of food to them ? " 
 
 Bernard shrugged his shoulders, feeling that O'Dwyer 
 was entrenched impregnably in prejudice. They turned 
 now into the wilderness of slums behind the quays. Here 
 they encountered sights which Bernard had often seen before, 
 but which were now stripped of the covering of night. 
 Tumble-down houses propped up with beams; roofless 
 wrecks still inhabited in their lower stories; skeleton walls; 
 heaps of rubble where a house had collapsed; windows 
 boarded up; windowpanes smashed and stuffed with rags 
 and paper; dirt and ugliness everywhere: all this made a 
 hideous picture of desolation in the middle of the capital of 
 a civilized country. 
 
 And the people; they were as repulsive a picture as their 
 houses. Men: slouching, emaciated, unkempt, yet healthy 
 and strong; tubercular wrecks; rickety children grown up; 
 men with the vacuous faces caused by adenoids; cripples; 
 degenerates. Girls: pasty-faced and slatternly; some pretty, 
 but with blackened, decayed teeth or none at all; hunch- 
 backs ; sore-encrusted faces ; grimy creatures all, clad in filthy 
 clothes put on anyhow. Children: some dirty, half-naked
 
 A DEAD HAND 199 
 
 yet healthy, happy little squallers; others rickety, scrofulous, 
 strumous or crippled. Infants: some crushingly wrapped 
 in the foul shawls of their sisters; others sprawling amid 
 the germ-laden dust of the roadway. Old women: the most 
 horrible of all; vermin-haunted bundles of rags with grime- 
 enseamed faces tottering to the grave. " Citizens of a 
 mighty Empire! " said Bernard to himself. 
 
 " Lord, how I wish I was in politics," he said aloud. 
 " I've got such schemes, you know. Our housing people 
 at present seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the 
 stick altogether. Look at that new model tenement house 
 over there. Already half the windows are smashed, the 
 usual dirty linen is hanging on that ridiculous balcony, and 
 the inside is as dirty as ever. What's the good of building 
 new houses without altering the people? In a few more 
 years that new model thing will be just as bad as the old 
 mansion that it replaced, and not half as picturesque. We 
 ought to smash the whole thing up. Strip the people of 
 their rags and camp them all by the side of a lake some- 
 where in the country. Then have a big conflagration 
 and burn up the houses, dirt, bacilli, and everything. Then 
 build a new city on my plan, or, better still, start building 
 first on a new site altogether. I've never seen a garden 
 city, but I think my plan is something altogether new. In 
 the first place I'd forbid high houses: they prevent proper 
 circulation of the air. Two stories high would be quite 
 enough. My houses would all be square with flat roofs, 
 perhaps with a central court yard, and of course they'd be 
 detached. They'd stand inside a garden, having a few 
 yards of ground in front and at the sides and a space of say 
 thirty yards or so at the back. Then the houses would 
 surround a square, so that there'd be a big common area 
 in the centre, into which the back garden of each house 
 would enter. I'd plant that with trees and have it all 
 grass. This plan gives every house plenty of free space and 
 a fair amount of private space as well. Then all the streets 
 would be as wide as Sackville Street, and I'd have them
 
 200 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 lined with trees and have fountains here and there. Oh, 
 and above all I'd abolish the possibility of slums, aristocratic 
 quarters, snobbery and class hatred by appropriating all 
 house-property to the state and having a low and universal 
 rental, so that scholars, commercial men, shopkeepers, 
 labourers, and marquises (unless I succeed in abolishing 
 them) shall live side by side and their children play in the 
 common square. . . . What do you think of that scheme? " 
 
 " It would require some acreage." 
 
 " That's obtainable. But what really stands in my way? 
 The natural conservatism of the human mind, and muddled, 
 stupid, irresponsible, inefficient government." 
 
 " British government," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Always the same old answer." 
 
 " To me it's such an obvious truism," said O'Dwyer. 
 " You take a country and you rob it of its government and 
 exchequer, transferring them to another country across the 
 sea. What must happen? The best brains and ability in 
 the plundered country either waste themselves in a futile 
 effort to regain their rights, or else go over to the foreign 
 capital to employ their capacities where there's an outlet and 
 a market for them. Their own country is thus left to the 
 mediocrities and the incapables. Keep that process up long 
 enough and you eventually get the state of things now exist- 
 ing in Ireland. . . . My dear chap, England won't let us 
 improve our position. If we were to prosper we'd soon 
 cease to be her kitchen-garden and dumping-ground, which 
 is what she wants us to be in the interests of her own 
 economic position." 
 
 " But Home Rule is coming, and that ought to settle that 
 difficulty." 
 
 " Well, I'll believe we're going to get Home Rule when 
 our Parliament is actually sitting; not before. But how a 
 glorified county council for local affairs, that hasn't even 
 got control of its own finances, post office, commerce or 
 police, is going to change everything beats me. . . . Be- 
 sides, we've a right to independence, confound it."
 
 A DEAD HAND 201 
 
 " Hang it all! " said Bernard. " I'll chuck Moore's ad- 
 vice overboard and go and read some Irish History." 
 
 " About time you thought of it," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 They had almost shaken off the slums by this and had 
 reached a more respectable locality. Bernard turned back 
 for a last look, and said: 
 
 " The dirt and disease and discomfort of all this are bad 
 enough, but I think the worst part of it all is its ugliness. 
 What sort of souls can you breed down there? " 
 
 " Dublin fusiliers," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 They walked on in silence for a while and then O'Dwyer 
 spoke again. 
 
 " What we've seen today is bad enough," he said, " but 
 it's only one of a thousand results of British rule. Why 
 are we cityless, harbourless, without industries, rottenly 
 educated, and declining in population? There's a rather 
 delightful article on Ireland in the old Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica written by some one quite obviously prejudiced against 
 us. In the year before the Union he says there were forty 
 silk mercers in Dublin; that fifteen years after the Union, 
 as well as I remember, only about half a dozen were left; 
 ten years after that there was only one, and what became of 
 him isn't recorded. Doesn't that speak for itself? Then, 
 apart from France which is committing race suicide, we're 
 the only country in Europe with a declining population: 
 also we're the only country in Europe under British rule. 
 Isn't that, to say the least of it, significant? The position 
 of Unionists is to me incomprehensible. If Ireland is just 
 a part of Britain as they hold, how is she poor, and without 
 industries and cities, and declining in population? Corn- 
 wall and Aberdeen share the prosperity of Britain. Why 
 doesn't Wexf ord ? Their own phrase ' British Government 
 in Ireland ' shows that they don't consider us part of Britain. 
 They don't talk of ' British Government in East Anglia.' 
 They must know quite well that England regards Ireland 
 as a conquered country, and how their Irish blood doesn't 
 boil at the indignity is a puzzle to me. But I find it hard
 
 202 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ever to convert any one, for I was born a Nationalist and 
 don't really understand the other side . . . don't know what 
 to grip on to in them. You must have seen that yourself. 
 I've longed to set Ireland free ever since I first heard she'd 
 been conquered . . . longer than I can remember in fact. 
 I dreamed of wars of liberation when I was a little boy in 
 knickerbockers, and later on I dreamed of great projects of 
 reconstruction. In my imagination I've built great cities 
 and harbours, roads, bridges, fleets and forts. I've made 
 laws and raised armies and founded industries. I've even 
 built a cathedral more splendid than Solomon's Temple. 
 These are the things that matter to me. It's torture to me 
 to see pictures of Parliament houses in Venezuela, or har- 
 bours in Canada, or cathedrals in Italy. They only remind 
 me of the might-have-beens of Ireland. Sometimes when 
 hope for Ireland seems dead I go back deliberately to my 
 imaginings and try to satisfy myself with them. But it's no 
 use. Actuality is only too obvious. Here is Ireland, a 
 land of tumble-down villages, wrecked cities, empty har- 
 bours, and tubercular people; the back garden from which 
 John Bull gets his bacon and butter and the roast beef of old 
 England. To say I hate England is to express a very small 
 part of my feeling for her. I loathe her, I detest her and I 
 curse her." 
 
 O'Dwyer stopped abruptly and seemed a little ashamed 
 of his emotional explosion. But Bernard had lent only half 
 an ear to the last part of his harangue. An earlier portion 
 had caught and held his attention. 
 
 " I dreamed of cities and things like you," he said. It 
 was the first time he had ever thought of making such a 
 confession. " But it wasn't for Ireland," he added. " The 
 world was my country then . . . but it's a big place." 
 
 " Why, we're kindred spirits," said O'Dwyer ; and they 
 started comparing notes.
 
 A DEAD HAND 203 
 
 5 
 
 The very next day the whole complexion of Bernard's 
 life was altered by a letter. 
 
 It came into his hands under peculiar circumstances. He 
 had just written a letter which had to be dispatched that 
 evening, and at the last minute found himself without a 
 stamp. He went the round of the house to borrow one but 
 it chanced that nobody had any. It was too late for a post 
 office to be open, so he decided, as his father was out, to 
 search the sacred and inviolate bureau in his consulting 
 room. In none of the drawers could be find what he 
 wanted, and finally he opened a rather obvious secret drawer 
 full of papers. Without really expecting to find a stamp he 
 turned these over and suddenly came upon an envelope ad- 
 dressed to himself in a strange hand. He pulled it out and 
 gave a gasp of astonishment, for in the top left hand corner 
 were the words : to be opened on his twenty-first birthday. 
 
 For a moment he sat still staring at his find. Then he 
 took out his pocket book, the kind of pocket book that 
 every young man keeps; a receptacle for notes, photographs, 
 postage stamps, souvenirs, letters, and odds and ends, and 
 took from it the letter he had received from Mr. Murchison 
 eighteen months ago. He laid it beside the other and quietly 
 compared them. The inscriptions on both were the same, 
 but in all else they were different: the paper was different, 
 the ink was different, the writing was different. The fine 
 bold lettering of the newly discovered envelope was a strong 
 contrast to the puny backhand of the old one. Turning over 
 the former he found that it had been sealed. The seal was 
 unbroken and the top of the envelope had been cut open with 
 a paper-knife. Bernard took out the enclosure and read as 
 follows : 
 
 3rd January, 1899. 
 My dear Bernard: 
 
 If ever you read this letter you will be reading the words 
 of a dead man, for if I survive the enterprise on which I am 
 about to set out I hope to be spared long enough to sty to
 
 204 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 you what I am now going to write. I find it difficult to 
 realize that my words are addressed not to the little boy I 
 parted from yesterday but to a young man of twenty-one. 
 However, I shall begin at once. 
 
 When I was a boy I dreamt like you of wars and states 
 and cities, and my games were very similar to yours. My 
 ambition was to make the world a fine well-ordered place 
 with good laws and good roads and beautiful well-built 
 cities and a strong healthy population to inhabit it. Yours, 
 I should think, would be the same. But I differed from you 
 in one thing. My parents taught me to know and love my 
 own country, Ireland. They taught me her history, her 
 glorious beginnings, her splendid struggle, her miserable 
 tragedy, so that the desire of my life has always been to 
 drive out her oppressor and make her once more peaceful 
 and prosperous like the land of my boyish dreams. As a 
 young man I took part in an ill-conceived attempt to achieve 
 this end. IV e jailed. My companions all lost their liberty 
 and I myself had a narrow escape. For years I have waited 
 for another opportunity to strike a blow at the enemy, and 
 now at last it has come. The British Empire is about to 
 deprive yet another little nation of liberty and in a few days 
 I sail from here to go to the help of the Boers. 
 
 So much for myself. I should be the last person ever to 
 try and influence the principles of another. These I think 
 should be the spontaneous outcome of the individual mind 
 and will. But you, Bernard, are going to be brought up in 
 ignorance of your country's history, in ignorance of her 
 needs, in ignorance almost of her name. That I do wish 
 to combat, and I earnestly implore you to break through that 
 ignorance by reading now, if, as I suppose, you have not 
 done so, the history of Ireland. What decision you may 
 take after you have done so I shall not presume to say, 
 but if you are the boy I take you for I am certain what it 
 will be. 
 
 And what history should you read? Of course I should 
 suggest an impartial one. But is there such a thing? Is
 
 A DEAD HAND 205 
 
 there such a thing for any country? Human nature is such 
 that the history one writes of one's own country is sure to 
 be prejudiced one way, and what one writes of another 
 country will be prejudiced the other way. The truth is not 
 in us. And the histories that profess to be impartial (for 
 most of them realize the futility of the pretence) are really 
 more misleading than any. They seem to think that im- 
 partiality consists in telling half the truth or in throwing 
 sops to both sides. Therefore I can only advise you to 
 read as many histories as you can and form your own judg- 
 ment as to where the truth lies. 
 
 Most of my fortune is embarked upon our present enter- 
 Prise, but the remainder I am leaving to you by will. It is 
 not enough for you to live on, which is just as well, as I 
 don't want you to become one of the idle rich. But it is at 
 least enough to enable you to take your own line in politics 
 by making you independent of the paternal purse. Call on 
 Mr. Murchison, my friend and solicitor, who will give you 
 full particulars. 
 
 And now, Bernard, I'll say good-bye. This letter may 
 never have to be delivered. I sincerely hope so myself. But 
 in case things go wrong, good-bye, and God bless you. 
 I remain, 
 
 Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 CHRISTOPHER REILLY. 
 
 The letter finished, Bernard sat back in his father's chair 
 and literally gasped. Here was a revelation! The last 
 shreds of political doubt were torn from his mind and the 
 last shreds of filial respect from his heart by the clutch of a 
 dead hand. The forgery was now quite obvious. That 
 back-hand script was so clearly a handwriting disguised; 
 the age of the envelope and paper so clearly faked; the ink 
 quite evidently bleached, probably with peroxide. What 
 damnable dishonesty and obscurantism! He sat for quarter 
 of an hour in meditation. What course should he now 
 pursue? Should he face his father with the evidence of his
 
 206 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 deception? What need after all? It had failed in its 
 object. Why raise unnecessary unpleasantness? Better put 
 the letter back and say nothing about it. But then, he 
 wanted Uncle Chris's letter; the letter of a hero; the letter 
 of a martyr to an idea. . . . He had a sudden inspiration. 
 He changed the envelopes of the letters, and replaced his 
 uncle's envelope containing his father's forgery in the 
 drawer, which he closed. Now if his father went to the 
 drawer he would think his treasure safe unless he opened 
 the letter, which was very unlikely. Chris's letter he placed 
 in his pocket-book. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened and Sir Eugene entered. He 
 was in evening dress. 
 
 " Hello! What are you doing here? " he said. 
 
 " I was looking for a stamp, father." 
 
 " Well, you've no business to go to my desk. Don't you 
 know that that's dishonourable?" 
 
 The blood rushed to Bernard's cheeks, and his heart 
 jumped violently. Before he could control himself he 
 blurted out: 
 
 " And don't you think it's dishonourable to lie and forge 
 letters? " 
 
 Sir Eugene's face became black with rage. 
 
 " You young brat," he shouted. " How dare you speak 
 to me like that ? " 
 
 Bernard was his father's son. His own anger boiled over 
 simultaneously. 
 
 " WTiat the devil did you mean by forging my uncle's 
 letter?" he demanded. 
 
 Sir Eugene controlled himself by a visible effort. 
 
 " I forged your uncle's letter, did I ? " he sneered. 
 " That's a nice accusation to make against your father." 
 
 " It's no use denying it, governor," said Bernard. " I 
 have the original in my pocket." 
 
 Sir Eugene evidently realized that further deception was 
 imposssible, for he said nothing and sat down. But Bernard 
 was not finished. His tone was bitter as he saicjl ; " You're
 
 A DEAD HAND 207 
 
 the fine moral teacher, aren't you ? ' I needn't tell you never 
 to do anything dishonourable, for you're my son.' Hm! " 
 
 Sir Eugene winced at the quotation, but he sprang up to 
 defend himself. 
 
 " I did my duty as your father in trying to keep from 
 you the insidious suggestions of a traitor to his King and 
 country. I wish to heaven I'd burnt the thing. I only 
 kept it so as to show it to you when you were old enough 
 to think for yourself." 
 
 "Ninety-nine?" suggested Bernard. 
 
 " Bernard, for God's sake tear the thing up now and don't 
 read it." 
 
 " I've read it already." 
 
 " Well, burn it and think no more about it." 
 
 " Look here, father. You must think very highly of a 
 cause if you're afraid that a few words in its favour will 
 make me take it up." 
 
 " Young men are easily led into romantic absurdity, 
 Bernard." 
 
 " Still, it would surely have been better to let me see the 
 letter and put your case against it instead of deceiving me." 
 
 " I acted for the best, laddie. I was hasty, I admit, but 
 I was so afraid for your future." 
 
 " Well," said Bernard, " I'll say no more. What's done 
 can't be undone, and things have come out all right in the 
 end. . . . Good night, father." 
 
 He made for the door but a sudden recollection made him 
 stop, and turning to his father he said: 
 
 "The beastliest part of all your treachery was sticking 
 that ' Pray for me ' into your forgery. I'll find it hard to 
 forgive that." 
 
 And without another word he left the room. 
 
 6 
 
 Two days later Bernard sailed out of Kingstown Harbour 
 with a book and a lunch basket. The weather was perfect. 
 A light breeze flicked the water into ripples that danced and
 
 208 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 glinted in the sun and swished and lapped under his clinker 
 planks. A heat haze was beginning to rise at the mouth of 
 the bay, promising a flat calm. He headed for the purple 
 lump of Howth and hove to a dozen cable lengths from her 
 shore. Already the wind was dropping and his reef-points 
 slap-slapped lazily against the slackened sail. In this idyllic 
 way he commenced to read Joyce's Concise History of Ire- 
 land. He read for two hours to the accompaniment of the 
 creak of his timbers, the plup-plup of the wavelets, and the 
 screams of sea gulls. Then he stopped ; lunched off ham 
 sandwiches, sultana cake, and bottled beer; and smoked his 
 pipe. That done, he resumed his reading until the chill of 
 the rising evening breeze suggested home. 
 
 During the following week Bernard ransacked the book- 
 sellers of Grafton Street and the quays and bought every 
 book about Ireland that he could find. They made a mis- 
 cellaneous collection: Lecky, Jonah Barrington, John 
 Mitchell, Standish O'Grady, O'Connor-Morris, A. M. 
 Sullivan, Mrs. Stopford Green, Joyce, Barry O'Brien; the 
 Autobiography of Wolfe Tone, The Jail Journal, The Spirit 
 of the Nation; recently published Nationalist and Unionist 
 brochures; and most instructive of all, the works of Fintan 
 Lalor. . . . Bernard was due for his final examination in 
 September, and had already been studying for it for a month 
 or more, but he resolved to postpone it till March in order 
 to fill what he now realized had been an enormous gap in 
 his education. It was now the sixth of August, and but for 
 his examination work he would have been away from Dublin 
 on holiday. His decision taken, he hired a tent, pitched it 
 in a convenient position near the sea at Malahide, stocked it 
 with his books, and sailed over to moorings in the estuary 
 three days later. Then he settled down to his task. 
 
 He read the History of Ireland. He read of her half- 
 legendary beginnings, of her semi-historical heroic period, 
 of her early arts and sciences. He read of her astounding 
 conversion to Christianity and of the glorious days when 
 she seemed to be entirely devoted, as no other country be-
 
 A DEAD HAND 209 
 
 fore or since has been devoted, to religion and learning: 
 of the days when she was a university to a dark and savage 
 Europe. Then he read of the desperate, long-drawn-out 
 struggle with the Norsemen when she seemed doomed to 
 destruction but won through by the valour of her sons and 
 the genius of Brian Borumha. Evil days followed on her 
 triumph and he read with dismay of the sickening dissensions 
 that broke up the nearly completed unity of the nation and 
 left it at the mercy of the organized invader from England. 
 Then he read of the seven hundred years' struggle against 
 the strangling grip of the conqueror: of Godfrey O'Donnell 
 and Edward Bruce and Art MacMur rough ; of the Ger- 
 aldines and Shane the Proud and Hugh O'Neill ; heroic 
 efforts, tragic failures that served only to rivet the chains 
 more firmly. He read on as generation after generation in 
 turn took up the sword only to fall beaten and exhausted: 
 Owen Roe O'Neill and the men of 1641 ; Sarsfield and the 
 men of the Williamite wars ; passed in a splendid and mourn- 
 ful pageant before his eyes. Then came the penal laws and 
 he saw his disarmed and broken countrymen clinging man- 
 fully to their persecuted religion. Then came the gleam of 
 temporary hope and fugitive success in 1782, followed by 
 the lurid catastrophe of 1798, and finally the sordid trans- 
 action of the Union with Great Britain came as a pitiful 
 anti-climax. Yet for this indomitable nation the struggle 
 was not yet over. Came the tithe war and then the battle 
 for religious emancipation, won eventually from the fear 
 of the conqueror for this disarmed and weary people. Then 
 the Repeal agitation, the trumpet call qf Young Ireland, the 
 hideous tragedy of the great famine, and the miserable col- 
 lapse of the '48 insurrection. With quarter of the popula- 
 tion dead and another quarter flying over the seas for life 
 was Ireland conquered yet? No. At the call of the Fenians 
 he saw her draw the sword again, 'and again fall beaten to 
 the ground. And then he came to Parnell and modern his- 
 tory and saw the survivors of that wonderful nation peace- 
 ably, reasonably, yet firmly for all that, asking for a tithe of
 
 210 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 their rights, and clinging to their demand in face of per- 
 petual rebuffs. The history of a wasted island. 
 
 "Good God! " groaned Bernard, "what we might have 
 done for the world had this heavy hand been lifted off us! 
 The wasted, wasted effort ! " 
 
 He thought of the mighty men who had worn themselves 
 ont in the futile struggle : of Hugh O'Neill, as great a mon- 
 arch as Louis XIV., beaten and broken to a miserable sur- 
 render; of Owen Roe, as great a general as Cromwell, 
 already with a European reputation, who threw up all to 
 serve his country and die in the attempt; of Wolfe Tone, 
 a statesman of the noblest type, who attempted a greater 
 task than Hannibal, and perished by his own hand in a 
 dungeon cell; of the brilliant constructive intellects of the 
 Young Irelanders wasted and smashed by the conqueror's 
 unrelenting hand; of Parnell, sacrificed to the hypocrisy of 
 pretended liberators. What might not the world have 
 gained from these had not duty called them to take up their 
 motherland's eternal cause? Burning hate entered into his 
 soul at the thought; righteous hate; hate such as he had 
 never felt before, save once. The same feelings surged up 
 in him, only more intensely, as on that distant day at Ash- 
 bury when he had seen Sherringham smash Reppington's 
 steam engine. " You've destroyed something you can't re- 
 place," he had said on that occasion and the same phrase 
 recurred to him now. 
 
 And then for the first time he realized fully the selfishness 
 and shallowness of the class he belonged to: of his father, 
 of the Heuston Harringtons, of the Harveys, and of hun- 
 dreds of others. The tragedy of their country was a closed 
 book to them, and if they knew anything of its contents they 
 took care not to think about it lest it should interfere with 
 their way of life. They call it " politics," he reflected, and 
 so banish it from polite conversation. A phrase of Mitch- 
 ell's occurred to him. 
 
 " Dastards! " he said. " Genteel dastards." 
 
 And again:
 
 A DEAD HAND 211 
 
 " / was to have been brought up that way. Thank God 
 I was saved from that." 
 
 " All our middle class is the same," he said later, " even 
 those who call themselves nationalists. And there's less 
 excuse for them, because they know the facts and disregard 
 them. They think aright, most of them, but won't act for 
 fear of injuring their damned respectability." 
 
 Later still he asked himself: 
 
 "And what now? What can I do? I must act, for he 
 that isn't with Ireland is against her. Every one who stands 
 by and does nothing acknowledges and assists British govern- 
 ment by his acquiescence." 
 
 The problem was a difficult one. Home Rule he knew to 
 be illogical, a delusion and a snare, and possibly a will-o'- 
 the-wisp. Yet the people had accepted it. His democratic 
 principles forced him to abide by the decision of the people, 
 but he resolved to set out to convert them. 
 
 Suddenly he began to laugh to himself. 
 
 "Convert them! I? A young medical student. Re- 
 cently a seoinin and a convert myself. . . . Well, stranger 
 things have happened." 
 
 He remembered the state-making dreams of his boyhood. 
 Surely, thought he, that was not all for nothing? 
 
 "Was I a statesman in embryo? Am I, too, with my 
 plans and projects wasting to nothing under the blight of 
 the conquest? Let's be up and doing. There are heads 
 and hands in Ireland still, and let mine be among them." 
 
 All night he lay awake in his tent listening to the wash of 
 the sea on the beach below, and through his mind passed 
 visions of stately cities and teeming commerce and fertile 
 fields and fine healthy men and women. 
 
 " How long, O Lord, how long? " he muttered, and fell 
 asleep just as the sun crept up out of the eastern sea.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 I 
 
 A YOUNG man in the middle twenties, not tall but 
 powerfully built, with a leathern satchel on his back 
 and a tough ash-plant in his hand, alighted from the Rath- 
 farnham tram at Nelson Pillar and stood looking about him 
 with mingled interest and astonishment. To a dweller in 
 the country, as everything about this young man from his 
 bronzed complexion to his rough-cut clothing proclaimed him 
 to be, his first impression of a city, even if he be prepared 
 for it by photographs and descriptions, is bound to be one of 
 stupefaction, for no description can adequately convey an 
 appreciation of the eternal roar and rattle of traffic, and no 
 photograph can impart the sensation of being alone in a 
 crowd of hurrying and unnoticing humanity. And on that 
 day Dublin must have been more than usually stupefying, 
 for the streets were more than ordinarily thronged with 
 people, many of whom stood about in little whispering 
 groups until the police came and moved them on. The 
 police were very much in evidence, the glittering metal work 
 of their helmets showing here and there above the heads of 
 the crowd, while others patrolled the street on horseback. 
 There was mental tension in the atmosphere, perceptible 
 even to the stranger. 
 
 He turned and addressed a dirty ill-clad figure lounging 
 against the railings round the pillar. 
 
 "There seems to x be some sort of expectation in the air," 
 he said. " What's going to happen? " 
 
 The lounger took from his mouth the short black clay 
 pipe he was smoking, spat voluminously into the street, and 
 replied contemptuously.
 
 A MEETING 213 
 
 " D'ye mean to say ye don't know that? " 
 
 " Obviously," returned Stephen, for it was he, " or I 
 shouldn't ask." 
 
 " Yer English, maybe? " said the lounger. 
 
 " Maybe I'm not," said Stephen. 
 
 " Then yer accent deceived me." 
 
 " Well, what's going to happen anyway? " 
 
 " Is it the counthry yev come from now ? " 
 
 " Yes. But ... " 
 
 " Ah, it's fine to be livin' in the country at this time o' 
 year. I do be mindin' the time I was livin' in the county 
 Wexford an' me a boy. Them was the gran' times entirely. 
 But musha 'twas another thing for the young men. Up 
 workin' before the sun an' maybe not gettin' to bed till a 
 long time afther. Sure the city's good enough for me." 
 
 He gave a sigh and began to pare chips off a plug of 
 greasy tobacco he took from his pocket. 
 
 " But will you tell me what's all the excitement about? " 
 said Stephen as patiently as he could. 
 
 " Yerra, what would it be about but Jim Laarkin? He 
 has the whole town turned upsydown this twelve months 
 maybe. . . . Him an' his ' To Hell with conthracts.' Why 
 can't he let well alone? That's what I say." 
 
 " But what has he done now? " 
 
 " It's going to hold a meetin' he is, as if we hadn't enough 
 and to spare this three months. ... I'd meetin' him begob 
 if I got me hands on um, so I would." 
 
 " And when is the meeting to be? " 
 
 " It's not goin' to be at all. ... It's ... what d'ye 
 call it? ... Proclaimed. Laarkin swears he'll hold it all 
 the same though. An' maybe he will, an' maybe he won't." 
 
 " And where and when is it to be? " 
 
 " Sure there won't be anny meetin' at all I'm tellin' ye. 
 Leastways there mightn't be." 
 
 " But supposing it's held where will it be? " 
 
 " It'll be here, o' course, afther twelve o'clock Mass." 
 
 " I see. Thank you."
 
 2i 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Have y' e'er a match ? " 
 
 " No. I'm sorry." 
 
 " Arra, what good are ye? Why, I mind the time. . . ." 
 
 But Stephen did not wait for any more reminiscences. 
 He went over to the sweet shop at the corner and asked the 
 way to the street where his hotel was. Dusk was falling as 
 he climbed up the slope of Cavendish Row. Five minutes' 
 walk took him to his destination, a shabby looking house 
 grandiosely labelled in large soot-grimed gilded letters: 
 
 HO EL NEPTU E 
 
 He waited in the tarnished hall wondering what could 
 have induced any one to buy the vases, mirrors, stands, 
 statues and pictures with which it was encumbered, while 
 the slovenly streeling maid went to fetch the proprietor. 
 The latter emerged eventually from dim regions at the back 
 of the house, a fat genially-smiling man clad in shiny grease- 
 spotted clothes. He held out a fat moist hand to Stephen, 
 saying : 
 
 "An! are you the son of oul' Mick W^ard? I'm right 
 glad to see you. Yer bag's here safe an' sound. An' how's 
 yer father? Come along up an' I'll show ye yer room. 
 Mind ye don't thrip there. I've been goin' to have that 
 carpet tacked down this three year, but I always forget, an' 
 sure what does it matter? Ye mus' be tired afther yer 
 thramp. I've toul' them to bring y'up some tay to the 
 coffee room, an' maybe ye'll thry a bit o' cold mate." 
 
 At this point they reached the room assigned to Stephen, 
 who was glad to see his bag lying in one corner. 
 
 " When yer done washin' ye can come down," said his 
 host, leaving him alone. 
 
 Stephen surveyed the room. Its seedy appearance and 
 musty atmosphere were very oppressive to eyes and lungs 
 accustomed to greenery and mountain air. But the room 
 was large and had a generous window, for the Hotel Nep- 
 tune was an Old Georgian Mansion in the second stage of
 
 A MEETING 215 
 
 the descent which Dublin houses of that kind inevitably 
 follow. When the Act of Union drove its original aristo- 
 cratic owner to London it had become the abode of comfort- 
 able people of the middle class. This was the first stage of 
 the descent. As the house grew shabbier and society de- 
 serted the north for the south side of the city such tenants 
 no longer sought it, and it descended to the second stage. 
 When its present proprietor smashed or died it would pass 
 into the third stage, becoming converted into offices for 
 obscure societies and struggling young solicitors. Finally it 
 would become a tenement house, and remain so until the 
 day of its ultimate collapse. 
 
 Stephen washed and went down to the coffee room where 
 on a table-cloth stained with gravy and mustard was laid a 
 meal consisting of tea, bread and butter, jam and nearly 
 cold beef. In the centre of the table was a dismal and 
 crooked cruet stand; one of whose bottles was missing, an- 
 other empty, while dried up mustard occupied the third, a 
 pinch of pepper the fourth, and quarter of an inch of vinegar 
 the fifth. The tea was served in a chipped earthen-ware pot 
 with a cover that did not match; the handles of the knives 
 were loose and the blades worn and battered; while the 
 prongs of the fork were bent, with traces of dried up egg 
 between them. In spite of these deterrents to appetite he 
 make a good meal, distracted a little by the chatter of his 
 host who sat with him for a while. Almost immediately 
 after he went upstairs to bed, and lulled by the gradually 
 decreasing sounds of traffic, fell asleep. 
 
 a 
 
 Mass was over at the Pro-Cathedral. The congregation 
 swept in a dense jostling stream along the narrow alley 
 leading into Sackville Street carrying Stephen along with it. 
 In the great thoroughfare there was an air of expectation 
 tenser than on the night before. There were small knots 
 of Transport Workers here and there, but most of the occu- 
 pants of the street were church-goers in their Sunday best
 
 216 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 who had paused on the way to and from their devotions in 
 anticipation of excitement. The police were even more 
 conspicuous than on the Saturday and there was a compact 
 force at the north side of the street. 
 
 " Jem'll keep his word, never you fear," Stephen heard 
 a working-man say to an inquiring clerk. 
 
 Suddenly there was a murmur and then a cry from the 
 crowd. Stephen, following the direction of the general gaze, 
 saw a bearded man in a frock coat step out on the balcony 
 of the great hotel before him and raise his hand. In a sec- 
 ond the beard and silk hat were cast aside revealing the well- 
 known features of the labour leader. A cheer went up from 
 the crowd, to be changed immediately into a cry of alarm. 
 The press grew denser to Stephen's left, swayed a moment, 
 and then broke up into stampeding units. Above the heads 
 of the people Stephen could see the helmets of the police, 
 who had formed into a close line and charged. Shouts and 
 the sound of blows could be heard. He was almost lifted 
 from his feet and borne away by the living avalanche. All 
 round him men, women and children fought and scrambled 
 their way to safety. After yielding at first Stephen managed 
 eventually to hold his ground. The line of police was 
 nearer to him now. He could see the rise and fall of their 
 batons striking indiscriminately at the crowd. Women and 
 old men seeking for nothing but escape were struck as sav- 
 agely as young men who had tried to resist. Stephen saw 
 one policeman deliberately strike on the head a middle-aged 
 man who had already been beaten to the ground. Suddenly 
 events took a new turn. The police thrust a wedge into the 
 heart of the crowd, and the portion in which Stephen was 
 included was driven back on the portico of the General Post 
 Office. Some of the unfortunate people descried a lane here 
 which offered some prospect of refuge and there was an im- 
 mediate rush in that direction. Stephen was swept along in 
 the general panic into the narrow alley, which, however, 
 proved to be a cul-de-sac, a veritable death-trap. The police 
 were now fighting mad and beyond control. A few of them
 
 A MEETING 217 
 
 followed the terrified crowd into the cul-de-sac plying their 
 batons with demon fury on their unresisting victims. Shouts 
 and shrieks hurtled through the air. In the main thorough- 
 fare the crowd had broken up in panic flight pursued by the 
 unrelenting forces of the law. In the blind alley the hud- 
 dled and paralysed mass of people was at the mercy of its 
 assailants. A young woman near Stephen shrank cowering 
 into the shelter of a doorway as an enormous policeman rag- 
 ing like a bull ploughed his way through the crowd towards 
 her as if he had singled her out for destruction. Stephen 
 hurriedly interposed with his ash-plant, but before he could 
 free his arm sufficiently to use it the policeman's heavy baton 
 had descended with crushing force on his head. Uttering 
 a sharp cry Stephen fell to the ground insensible. 
 
 3 
 
 When he regained consciousness he found himself lying 
 on the ground, his head, which was bound up with a hand- 
 kerchief, being supported by a young man who was kneeling 
 beside him. 
 
 " What's happened ? " said Stephen. 
 
 " You're all right," replied the young man. " You got 
 a nasty bat on the head, but I don't think it's done any real 
 damage. Let me shift you over so as you can rest against 
 the wall there." 
 
 With the young man's help he propped himself up in a 
 sitting position in a slight recess. Looking round him he 
 saw that the alley was like a battle field. Slightly injured 
 persons were moving away tying up their wounds with hand- 
 kerchiefs ; three or four prostrate figures were being attended 
 to by their friends; ten yards from where he sat lay the 
 senseless figure of the policeman who had assaulted him. 
 
 " Not a bad bit of work that," said Stephen's protector, 
 following the direction of his glance. " He bent down to 
 finish you off with a second tap, so I caught up your ash- 
 plant and laid him out. . . . Some stick! "
 
 2 i8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 He fingered the ash-plant affectionately. Then he said 
 suddenly : 
 
 " If you're anyway fit to walk let's get a move on. Good- 
 ness knows what's happening, but if that mass of viscous 
 adiposity," he indicated the policeman, " were to come to, 
 he'd identify us. . . . We might get a cab in Parnell Street. 
 Where do you live? " 
 
 Stephen told him. The young man assisted him to his 
 feet, and Stephen found that though his head was painful 
 and his limbs shaky he was well able to walk. They made 
 their way out of the alley into Sackville Street where the 
 likeness to a stricken field was even stronger. Turning to 
 the left they passed along Upper Sackville Street and by 
 good fortune secured a cab in Parnell Street. As they drove 
 towards his hotel Stephen said: 
 
 "My name's Stephen Ward. What's yours?" 
 
 " Lascelles," said the young man. " Bernard Lascelles. 
 . . . You're not a Dubliner, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I only arrived here last night." 
 
 " You've had rather a rough welcome, I'm afraid. But 
 we're used to that kind of thing here. This was really only 
 a culmination. . . . How's the head ? " 
 
 The ramshackle cab drawn by its decrepit old horse rum- 
 bled on. Stephen had time to observe his rescuer. He had 
 an interesting face: there was firmness in his finely modelled 
 lips, will and purpose in his powerful jaw, thought in his 
 broad brow, and laughter and sorrow in his light blue eyes. 
 The carriage of his head showed confidence and good breed- 
 ing, the latter not belied by a certain untidiness in his cloth- 
 ing, the untidiness of the student not of the sloven. 
 
 Bernard on his side was also making observations, less 
 openly perhaps by reason of the conventions in which he 
 had been educated. At first it was the physical perfection 
 of his protege that attracted his admiration. Then he 
 glanced at Stephen's eyes the cold steel-blue eyes of the 
 impersonal thinker.
 
 A MEETING 219 
 
 " A baton is an excellent means of driving home the logic 
 of a case, isn't it? " he said. 
 
 " It's an argument which can only be answered by a 
 reductio ad ashplant," replied Stephen . . . 
 
 " Holy God ! " exclaimed the paternal proprietor of the 
 Neptune as he and Bernard assisted Stephen to bed. " I'd 
 have the tripes out o' them peelers, so I would. Every 
 bloody mother's son o' them . . . them an' their batons. 
 . . . Ah, it's a quare world, glory be to God ! " 
 
 4 
 
 Wlien Bernard arrived at the Neptune next day he found 
 Stephen sitting in the smoke-room along with another man, 
 a dark-haired florid-complexioned man of about thirty, 
 whom Stephen introduced as Mr. McCall. 
 
 " Here's a man," said the latter, speaking with a slight 
 Northern accent, " who expects to appeal to the employers 
 by reason." 
 
 Bernard laughed. 
 
 "Why not?" said Stephen. "The arguments used on 
 both sides in this controversy have seemed to me stupid 
 rather than malicious. I thought there was room for a little 
 sound reasoning and that's whj I left the mountains and 
 came to Dublin." 
 
 " Well," said McCall, " as far as the stupidity of the argu- 
 ments is concerned you're right. But you needn't imagine 
 that the people who use them are stupid. They aren't. 
 They only use stupid arguments because the public is stupid, 
 and because, owing to the hypocrisy of modern society, 
 malicious arguments don't pay. I've been a journalist in 
 my time, so I ought to know." 
 
 " But surely if truth and reason were put before the 
 public ..." 
 
 " My dear sir, the public doesn't know the meaning of 
 the words. If truth and reason were of any avail the strike 
 would have been settled months ago by A.E's letter."
 
 220 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " The fact is," said Bernard, " that the employers mean 
 to smash the Transport Workers' Union once and for all, 
 and smash it they will. The strikers are half-starved 
 already and can't last much longer." 
 
 " A fight by an isolated section is bound to end that way," 
 said McCall, " and I'm not really sorry. The workers will 
 have to join in with the National fight now and make their 
 cause a part of it." 
 
 "You're an Ulsterman, aren't you?" said Bernard. 
 " Well there are a few questions I want to ask you. I'm a 
 recent convert to Nationalism and there are a few difficulties 
 I'm always running up against in controversy. One is the 
 question ' If Ireland's poverty is due to British government 
 why is Ulster so prosperous?' Can you explain that?" 
 
 " Well," said McCall, " the best answer to that is that it's 
 not true. Certain individuals in Ulster are prosperous but 
 the province itself isn't. There's worse sweated labour in 
 Belfast than in Dublin, and worse slums, too. You've heard 
 of the famous linen company of Addison and Monkhouse? 
 Addison himself is a millionaire and a political boss, but do 
 you know what he pays his workers? Take the poor old 
 women who work the initials on the handkerchiefs he sells 
 at fifteen and eighteen shillings the dozen. He pays them 
 twopence halfpenny the dozen, and it takes them a whole 
 day to earn it. When I was a boy I served my time in a 
 well known cardboard box factory that employed a couple 
 of hundred .girls. They were paid according to the amount 
 of work they got through, and the most efficient of them 
 could only manage to earn about nine shillings a week. Of 
 course the average was much lower than that. . . . Ulster 
 prosperous! Good heavens, Ulster's population is dropping 
 just as rapidly as Leinster's." 
 
 " So I've pointed out. But people said that was an ad- 
 vantage as it left more wealth to those who remained 
 behind." 
 
 " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
 
 A MEETING 221 
 
 quoted McCall. " But I wouldn't be surprised if the dead 
 hand of Whately had cut those lines out of the school 
 editions." 
 
 "Who was Whately?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " Whately was the Protestant Archbishop who dominated 
 the beautiful educational system of this Catholic country a 
 generation ago. His job was to knock the national spirit 
 out of the children and if he failed it wasn't his fault. First 
 he attacked the language. Irish was forbidden in the schools 
 even in the Irish speaking districts, and children who knew 
 nothing else were punished for using it. Then he took 
 hold of the reading-books and expurgated them. He 
 knocked out every reference not only to Irish patriotism, 
 mind you, but to patriotism of any kind. One of the poems 
 he cut out was Scott's ' Breathes there the man with soul 
 so dead ? ' Instead of it he inserted this touching verse : 
 
 I thank the goodness and the grace 
 
 That on my birth have smiled, 
 And made me in these Christian days 
 
 A happy English child. 
 
 Can you imagine the little barefooted Connacht children 
 reciting that drivel? . . . And mind you, that kind of 
 thing is going on still. Only five years ago a Protestant 
 member of the Board of Education insisted on cutting the 
 line ' Embrace the faithful Crucifix ' out of Mangan's 
 Lament for the Princes. Damn it, I'm a Protestant myself, 
 if I'm anything, but I'm ashamed of my Church." 
 
 " I've never been in Belfast," said Bernard, " but from 
 all I hear of them the people there must be a hard bigoted 
 lot." 
 
 " No," said McCall. " They're mad and ignorant on 
 politics and religion, but otherwise they're just the same as 
 the rest of the Irish, a decent, kind-hearted, hospitable 
 people. Of course their politics are absurd. I had to leave 
 Belfast on that account. I was never more than six months 
 in a job before they found out I was a Nationalist and gave
 
 222 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 me the sack. And the whole thing's just sheer downright 
 ignorance. In their schools they never learn a word about 
 their own country. They know they're Irish and not 
 English just as they know they're male and not female, or 
 vice versa, but it's a matter of no importance. The only 
 history they learn is English History and they think King 
 William founded the Orange Order." 
 
 " Didn't he ? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " Not he. It was founded in 1795 as a political ex- 
 pedient. I once told an Orangeman that and he wouldn't 
 believe me. I showed it to him in a book and he wouldn't 
 believe the book; and it was written by an Orangeman. 
 That's the Ulsterman all over. He knows what's so and 
 nothing will ever convince him he's wrong. . . . But don't 
 think the Ulsterman is loyal to England. He supports the 
 Union because he's under the delusion that it makes Ulster 
 prosperous. If he ever finds out his mistake and some 
 day he will he'll cut the cable quicker than any of you. 
 He's a business man, you know, and sentiment counts for 
 nothing with him." 
 
 " Th,e Ulster Volunteer movement shows how little he 
 cares for parliament," put in Bernard. 
 
 " Quite so. ... Lord, what a mess the Irish party have 
 made of things. Why on earth didn't they set out to con- 
 vert Ulster instead of the English? The good will of the 
 English doesn't matter a damn, whereas a united Ireland 
 could bully the British government into anything. Instead 
 of that they went abusing their possible friends, and con- 
 ciliating their historic enemy. It'll serve them right if they 
 get a kick up the backside for their trouble." 
 
 There was a momentary silence and then Stephen spoke. 
 
 " We've one thing to be grateful to Ulster for anyway," 
 he said. " They've demonstrated a possibility." 
 
 " What's that? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " Volunteering is a game that two can play at." 
 
 " Begad! " said McCall, " I wonder we never thought of 
 that before,"
 
 A MEETING 223 
 
 " I've thought for years," said Stephen, " over the solution 
 of our dilemma. Physical force has failed every time, and 
 its failure becomes more and more certain as year by year 
 makes England stronger and Ireland weaker. On the other 
 hand, Constitutionalism is illogical, demoralizing and futile. 
 Failure is written all over the present Party. A little more 
 stiffening on the part of the Volunteers and the Liberals 
 will climb down. . . . Well, what remains for us? Why 
 not a mixture of the two methods. Leave the Party to 
 blither at Westminster and raise an army of Volunteers 
 here to show we mean business." 
 
 " Great scheme ! " ejaculated McCall. 
 
 " Then," said Stephen, " Volunteers will come in useful 
 in the not very distant future, when ... I suppose you'll 
 agree that a European war is inevitable sooner or later? " 
 
 " I doubt it," said Bernard. " Civilization's got beyond 
 that." 
 
 "Has it?" sniffed McCall. "I give Europe five years 
 more of peace, and then " 
 
 " I give her less," said Stephen. " Well, if the war comes 
 before Home Rule, the Volunteers can extract some pretty 
 strong measure of self-government right at the start. And 
 if Home Rule comes first, the Volunteers will be there to 
 extract a few more of our rights, and perhaps to maintain 
 our neutrality." 
 
 "You're a statesman," said McCall. 
 
 "Pooh I That's common sense. I wonder no one else 
 thought of it. I came to Dublin in order to get hold of 
 people well enough known to father the scheme." 
 
 " The Party won't cotton on to it," said McCall. 
 " They're tied hand and foot to the Liberals. I wouldn't 
 be surprised if they even denounced it." 
 
 " I never even thought of the Party," said Stephen. 
 " The people I want to get in touch with are the Gaelic 
 Leaguers. They've more grip on reality than any poli- 
 ticians." 
 
 " Well, I can introduce you to some of them," said
 
 224 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 McCall, and they set to discussing ways and means. 
 
 Shortly after Bernard took his leave. 
 
 " I shan't see you again for a fortnight or so," he said. 
 " I'm running over to England on a visit to a friend of 
 mine. . . . He's a candidate in this Deeping Bye-Election, 
 and a damn decent fellow and very friendly to Ireland 
 though he's a Tory. I'll put him in touch with some of the 
 facts of the situation and see how they go down with the 
 English electorate." 
 
 " These honest amiable philo-Irish Englishmen," said 
 McCall, " are more dangerous enemies to us than the other 
 kind, for they don't really count in English politics and 
 we're apt to soften our attitude to suit them." 
 
 " I think Willoughby will count some day," said Bernard. 
 " Well, I'll be off. See you again in a fortnight. . . . Take 
 care of that head of yours, Ward." 
 
 5 
 
 On a mellow evening in September Bernard arrived at 
 Deeping. Willoughby met him at the station. Four years 
 had made little alteration in their appearances: if anything 
 Willoughby had aged rather more than Bernard, and he was 
 actually the elder by a year. They had much to talk about 
 on the drive to the Towers, for neither cared much about 
 letter writing. 
 
 " The first thing I've got to tell you," said Willoughby, 
 " is that I'm engaged to be married." 
 
 " My dear chap, I congratulate you. Why didn't you 
 tell me before? " 
 
 " It only happened a month ago, so I thought I'd keep 
 the news until you came. . . . Do you remember a Miss 
 Morecambe who was staying with us when you were here? 
 It's her sister. They're both on a visit at the Towers at 
 present." 
 
 " And how's Mrs. Slitherly? " 
 
 " Maud's very well. . . . Second son arrived six weeks 
 ago."
 
 A MEETING 225 
 
 " Have you heard anything of your old friend Murray? " 
 
 " Not a word for ages. He did brilliantly at Oxford, 
 but he only wrote to me once since he left, and that's nearly 
 a year ago. . . . We did miss you in our little set. Rotten 
 luck I call it." 
 
 They talked for a while about the careers of various 
 schoolfellows, but eventually Willoughby harked back to 
 the subject that is always uppermost in the minds of young 
 lovers. 
 
 " No," said Bernard in reply to a feeler, " I've been into 
 love, through it, and out at the other end dozens of times. 
 The woman doesn't live that I could be faithful to." 
 
 " Nonsense," objected Willoughby. " You'll meet your 
 fate some day, and be worse than any of us. That's what 
 always happens to your sort." 
 
 " I hope not," said Bernard. " I've more important 
 things to bother about. How's the election going? " 
 
 " I haven't the ghost of a chance, I'm afraid. You see, 
 the Tory push wouldn't have me as I wasn't true-blue on 
 the Irish question, and a couple of others as well; so I'm 
 going up as an Independent. It'll be a three-cornered fight. 
 Do you remember Frank's friend Hastings? He's the Lib- 
 eral candidate, and the Unionist is a crusty old soldier 
 Major Allardyce. It's between those two really. I'm too 
 young to catch votes and my views don't seem to go down 
 somehow." 
 
 " We must have a talk about that later on. I've heard 
 and read nothing but Irish politics for the last three years 
 and I haven't an idea what's been happening over here." 
 
 They swept along by highway, by-way, Roman Road and 
 cedar-bordered avenue to the well remembered entry to 
 Willoughby Towers. Everything was the same as on Ber- 
 nard's previous visit four years ago: a picture of unchang- 
 ing prosperity. The squire's welcome was as hearty, his 
 wife's as frigid as on the former occasion. The two Miss 
 Morecambes came down to the drawing-room dressed for 
 dinner. Bernard's attention was entirely occupied by Wil-
 
 226 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 loughby's fiancee, Dorothy, who was fair, graceful, and ex- 
 tremely pretty, that at the salutation with which he greeted 
 her sister was of the most perfunctory nature. Dorothy 
 though pretty, was no doll, and Bernard highly approved 
 his friend's choice, a fact which he communicated to him 
 in a whisper as they moved in to dinner. 
 
 " Have you ever been back to Ashbury? " Bernard asked 
 Willoughby during the course of the meal. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Willoughby. " I go there every year for 
 the Easter retreat. . . . You're not at all popular there, 
 you know, ever since that article of yours on the morals of 
 Public Schools." 
 
 " What did they object to in it? " 
 
 " They objected to it altogether. In the first place, they 
 said, even if it was a true statement you'd no business to 
 make it, and in the second place they said it wasn't true." 
 
 " Just what they would say. If a person who has first 
 hand experience isn't entitled to speak, who is?" 
 
 " They call it lack of esprit-de-corps ..." 
 
 " I suppose they'd prefer to leave the question to be 
 thrashed out in the mawkish pages of John Bull. Well, 
 if they don't like me they can lump me." 
 
 " Are things really as bad as you say? " asked the Squire. 
 
 " What things? " asked Dorothy innocently, whereat Mrs. 
 Willoughby cut into the conversation with some incisive re- 
 marks about the weather, giving the while an angry glance 
 at her son for having introduced so unfortunate a topic. 
 
 Then the squire began gently to chaff Jack about his po- 
 litical speeches and about Tory democracy in general. 
 
 " Jack thinks it a good compromise between Toryism and 
 democracy to take up both," he said to Bernard. 
 
 " You talk as if they were opposites," objected Willoughby. 
 
 " So they are, my boy. In my father's time all true Tories 
 held the very name of democrat in horror. You might as 
 well talk of a Christian Atheist as a Tory democrat. 
 
 " If I thought that," said Willoughby, " I should cease 
 to be a Tory."
 
 A MEETING 227 
 
 " So you have, except in name." 
 
 " Look here, father, can you not conceive a democracy of 
 gentlemen? That's what they have in Ireland." 
 
 "In Ireland!" interrupted Mrs. Willoughby. "What 
 nonsense you're talking, Jack. Ireland's a country of small 
 farmers, cattle drivers, and murderers." 
 
 "Mother!" exclaimed Willoughby. "Remember Mr. 
 Lascelles." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Lascelles knows what I mean. The Irish 
 upper classes are different. I don't really count them as 
 Irish. They're mostly of English descent, aren't they, Mr. 
 Lascelles? " 
 
 " I don't think we bother much about our descent," said 
 Bernard. " I'm Irish, and as for our being murderers, if 
 any one came to put you out of Willoughby Towers because 
 they wanted the site to graze cattle on, I think it wouldn't 
 be long before you took up a gun yourself." 
 
 " We're not tenants, you know," said Mrs. Willoughby, 
 looking haughtily along her beautiful nose. " Willoughby 
 Towers is our own." 
 
 " My dear madam," said Bernard, aggressive in his turn, 
 " before England was ever heard of the O'Neills were lords 
 in Tir Owen." 
 
 This retort produced silence, for the point of it was utterly 
 lost on its hearers. The altercation had introduced a cer- 
 tain embarrassment into the atmosphere, which Willoughby 
 hastened to allay. 
 
 " You've picked up the deuce of an Irish brogue, Bernard, 
 these last few years," he remarked. 
 
 " In Dublin," replied Bernard, " I'm perpetually chaffed 
 about my English accent. I wonder what sort of accent I 
 have in reality." 
 
 " The most charming brogue I ever heard," asserted 
 Dorothy. " What do you think, Janet? " 
 
 Janet regarded Bernard whimsically a moment. 
 
 " You've a distinctly Dublin accent," she said. 
 
 " You speak daggers to me," laughed Bernard.
 
 228 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Dorothy's never been in Ireland," said Janet. " She 
 thinks it's an island near Killarney where the people wear 
 red petticoats and caubeens and keep pigs as pets and shoot 
 each other with shillelaghs." 
 
 " Janet stayed in Connemara for a month once," said 
 Dorothy, " so she thinks she's a great authority. Have you 
 a shillelagh, Mr. Lascelles?" 
 
 " Yes. Five or six. I use them to drive the pigs to 
 market." 
 
 " How lovely! " exclaimed Dorothy. " I should so love 
 to have one." 
 
 " I'll send you one for a wedding present," said Bernard. 
 
 " Oh, do ! ... And, do you know, Jack wants to spend 
 the honeymoon in Ireland. Do you think I ought to 
 agree? " 
 
 " Certainly. But make him bring a revolver." 
 
 Dorothy gasped. But here Janet interposed. 
 
 " Don't mind him. He's only ' taking the cod of you,' as 
 they say in Ireland. You're a regular stage Irishman, Mr. 
 Lascelles." 
 
 " Can't help it, Miss Morecambe," Bernard sighed. 
 " You see, I'm on the Irishman's favourite stage." 
 
 "What's that?" asked Dorothy. 
 
 " England," said Bernard. 
 
 6 
 
 To leave the lovers alone together Janet took Bernard for 
 a stroll in the garden. 
 
 " It was a good deed," said Janet, " to answer Mrs. 
 Willoughby the way you did . . . even though she is our 
 hostess. What was the point of what you said about 
 Tyrone? " 
 
 " Irish landlordism only dates from the English conquest. 
 There were no owners of the soil in ancient Ireland. The 
 chieftains were just leaders of the people, who owned the 
 land in common. That was the only thing in the old Gaelic 
 system that appeals to me."
 
 A MEETING 229 
 
 " So you've been reading your history since we last met? 
 It's altered your outlook, I'm sure." 
 
 " Yes, I'm a convinced Nationalist now, and ruthless 
 logic has driven me to believe in the necessity of Separation. 
 . . . You English, I think, picture an Irish revolutionary 
 as a dreamy idealist sentimentalizing over a green flag. So 
 did I at one time. But nothing would be further from the 
 truth. Anything harder, colder, or more practical than the 
 young Nationalists who are responsible for any conversion 
 you couldn't imagine. The real sentimentalists are those 
 ardent Home Rulers like Murray do you remember him? 
 who believe in the goodwill of England and expect jus- 
 tice from her. ... I hope you don't mind such plain 
 speaking? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I know what our politicians are like, and it's 
 they who run our policy." 
 
 " Well, as I say, I'm logically convinced, but I can't help 
 a feeling that the cause is rather a small one. ... I wish I 
 could explain myself. . . . You see, all my enthusiasms 
 are for mankind as a whole. Since first I could think I've 
 thought in terms of the world, and I've a feeling that it's a 
 narrowing, strangling thing to get caught up in an obscure 
 local squabble. ... I've a sort of fear of losing sight of 
 the big human issue and getting stained in the muck of 
 party politics. For it is a muck in spite of all the fine ideals 
 of some of the fighters. ... If you could hear some of the 
 speeches I've heard. . . . Then the cause doesn't grip me 
 very vitally. I feel to it rather like a sympathetic out- 
 sider. 
 
 " When I first read Irish history the tragedy and in- 
 justice of it filled me with wild emotions and resolves. 
 But they had no roots. I feel that this is only one of a 
 thousand tragedies and it has no more motive power for me 
 than any of the others. ... It isn't vital to my being like 
 the great ideas, Republicanism or Socialism. . . . The Mar- 
 seillaise means more to me, if you understand, than A Na- 
 tion Once Again. A couple of bars of the Marseillaise is
 
 230 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 enough to set my heart throbbing and my nerves thrilling, 
 whereas the other it's just a song." 
 
 " Then you don't . . . love Ireland? " 
 
 " I confess I don't see much to love in her. I can't stand 
 my countrymen at all. . . . They're shiftless, inefficient, 
 not very honest, not very clean, very thin-skinned and down- 
 right intolerant of criticism. They never keep appoint- 
 ments, they talk a great deal too much, they're insincere, and 
 they're damnably shallowly clever. Why, their very virtues 
 are only the reverse side of their vices. People praise their 
 unworldliness and indifference to material gain: it's just 
 part of their shiftlessness. They've a reputation for cour- 
 tesy, but it's only part of their insincerity. And as for their 
 charm and hospitality, as soon as the stranger has turned his 
 back they're laughing at him and abusing him." 
 
 " They have the softest voices in the world," put in Janet. 
 " So different from our strident screeching." 
 
 " Maybe so," said Bernard. " I don't like them all the 
 same. ... So much for my people. As for the country 
 well, you can get beautiful scenery anywhere, and I don't 
 think ours very great shakes anyhow." 
 
 Janet laughed lightly. 
 
 " You don't understand the merest A.B.C. of patriotism," 
 she said. " Do you think I don't love England because I 
 hate her oppression of other countries? Because if you do, 
 you're wrong. 
 
 If England was what England seems, 
 And not the England of our dreams, 
 But only putty, brass and paint, 
 How quick we'd chuck 'er But she ain't. 
 
 The man who wrote that is a professional patriotic rhapso- 
 diser, but he's as ignorant of the first principles of patriotism 
 as you are." 
 
 " I'm still in the dark," said Bernard. " I may be de- 
 ficient in patriotism, but whatever the reason may be, while
 
 A MEETING 231 
 
 I'm firmly convinced of the righteousness of the cause I 
 feel no overwhelming desire for action." 
 
 " I'm afraid I must leave it to nature to help you out," 
 replied Janet. 
 
 They talked for a while on various topics. Janet's social 
 work, Bernard's August reading, and the labour crisis in 
 Dublin were the chief. 
 
 " That's what the papers called a riot," said Janet, when 
 Bernard had described the famous baton charge. " Good 
 heavens, it's . . ." she paused for words but failed to find 
 them, ". . . it's unspeakable," she added lamely. Her eyes 
 shone and her voice shook with indignation. For a mo- 
 ment she was almost beautiful. 
 
 There was silence between them for a while. This girl 
 troubled the very depths of Bernard's soul. His mind 
 leaped responsively to hers, and he was conscious of a re- 
 ciprocal movement of hers to his. And now he was aware 
 of an unfamiliar feeling of contentment in being with her, 
 and as they walked in the ever deepening darkness among 
 the cedars he gave himself up to the enjoyment of this sen- 
 sation. For many minutes the crunching of gravel beneath 
 their feet was all that disturbed the delicious silence . . . 
 
 Then he turned to look at her and the spell was broken. 
 The primitive savage in him hungered for physical beauty, 
 and while all that was fine and civilized and cultivated in 
 him cursed him for a shallow sensual fool the primitive 
 savage won the day. A hard, brutal desire to wound that 
 which troubled him thrust itself uppermost in his conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 "Jack and Dorothy seem very happy," said Janet: an 
 indication of the way her thoughts had run. 
 
 " I don't envy them," said Bernard. " I distrust and fear 
 happiness. ... I never see a happily married couple es- 
 pecially an elderly couple but I thank God I am not such 
 as they." 
 
 " Why? " asked Janet, a touch of alarm in her voice.
 
 232 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I think happiness is demoralizing. Also I think it's an 
 accident. We weren't put here to be happy but to work. 
 Happiness this side of the grave is a fraud and a snare, and 
 when you die your little smiling heaven dies with you. 
 Leave happiness to cats; man has for ever: that's my motto, 
 if I may misquote Browning." 
 
 " You don't know what you're talking about," said Janet. 
 Then, rather timidly, " Have you ever been in love? " 
 
 " Too often. That's the trouble. I've gathered roses 
 and they've turned to dandelions or nettles in my hand." 
 
 Janet laughed at his tragic tone, a pleasant, tinkling laugh 
 peculiar to herself, and said: 
 
 " You talk like a disillusioned old rascal of fifty, and I 
 don't suppose you're twenty-four yet." 
 
 " I've no use for love," said Bernard. " A man in love 
 is a pathetic idiot, and a girl in love is simply cloying." 
 
 "Mr. Lascelles!" Janet gasped. "I don't think you 
 realize what you're saying. . . . You're . . . Oh, you're . . ." 
 
 She turned away from him abruptly and fled. Bernard 
 stood staring stupidly after her for a moment, feeling a kind 
 of gloomy satisfaction. 
 
 " Lord! " he muttered. " I've done it now." 
 
 7 
 
 " Of course," said Willoughby, " I'll go on with it to the 
 end, but I haven't a dog's chance. My views don't go down 
 somehow. . . . You see, the British electorate are a lot of 
 children. They want their politics to be either amusing 
 or exciting. They certainly don't want them to be serious. 
 . . . Perhaps I'm a bit of a proser, but when I talk of an 
 enlightened British Democracy with a great destiny of con- 
 struction and education before it they simply yawn. That's 
 not their notion of politics. They don't care about con- 
 struction or education. They want a sort of Punch and 
 Judy show, with comic papers for programs. . . . And their 
 notion of a political speech is a string of humorous or bitter 
 attacks on one's opponent mixed up with gross flatteries of
 
 A MEETING 233 
 
 themselves. Hastings and Allardyce are what they like. 
 Hastings tells funny stories about the other side, paints Bonar 
 Law as a harmless ass, Balfour as a doting old villain, and 
 Allardyce as their tool. And he talks about Asquith and 
 Lloyd George as if they were compounds of Solomon and 
 Good King Wenceslaus with a touch of John Hampden 
 thrown in. As for Allardyce, he just calls Asquith a traitor, 
 Lloyd George a thief, and Redmond a rebel, and calls upon 
 Old England to remain always Old England. . . . You 
 should hear the cheers those two can raise . . ." 
 
 " My dear Willoughby," said Bernard, " all this simply 
 goes to prove that your ideas about England are sheer rub- 
 bish. How can you expect a democracy like that to lead the 
 world? What right have they to an Empire about whose 
 geography they know damn little and about the people less? 
 The only thing that seems to impress them in the whole 
 affair is its size, and they're not even sure of that. All they 
 know is that it's bigger than any other Empire." 
 
 But Willoughby's belief in his ideas and in their prac- 
 ticability was unshaken. Throughout the next few days he 
 pursued his canvassing and oratorical course as vigorously 
 as ever. 
 
 On the evening before polling day the squire motored his 
 guests in to Deeping " to see the fun." Threading their 
 way slowly and with great difficulty through the crowds 
 they passed close to the platform from which the Liberal 
 candidate was addressing his supporters. Hastings had al- 
 tered considerably in appearance since Bernard had seen him 
 last. His figure verged on the middle aged, and there was 
 a laughable suggestion of Broadbent about his attitude. 
 
 " There is a well-known story," he was saying, " which, 
 however well known, I feel justified in repeating because of 
 its remarkable aptness in the present political position. I 
 refer to the story of the gentleman who met one day on a 
 road a small party of workers followed at some distance by 
 a solitary man, very tired and anxious and having obvious 
 difficulty in keeping up the pace. ' Why,' asked the gentle-
 
 234 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 man, ' are you following these men? ' ' I must follow them/ 
 replied the other in plaintive accents, ' because I'm their 
 leader.' " (Loud laughter.) " Mr. Bonar Law," resumed 
 Hastings, "seems to be in a similar plight." (Laughter.) 
 " He is the leader of a party, but . . ." 
 
 Here the motor, being clear of the crowd, took a spurt 
 forward and the rest of the sentence was lost. Almost 
 immediately they ran into Allardyce's audience and caught 
 a few sentences as they passed. 
 
 ". . . In the House no doubt they profess loyalty, or 
 what they choose to call loyalty, but the motto of their 
 followers is ' Ireland for the Irish.' " (Groans.) 
 
 " There's Redmond's ' Great Heart of the British De- 
 mocracy ' for you," said Bernard to Janet. 
 
 She agreed with him listlessly. She spoke to him but 
 seldom now and never on her own initiative. He had long 
 wanted to recall the cruel words of that first evening but did 
 not know how to begin, and with the lapse of time the 
 difficulty increased. 
 
 They reached Willoughby's committee rooms and found 
 him inside with his dispirited agents and friends. 
 
 "Hello, Jack, why aren't you out speechifying?" asked 
 the squire. 
 
 Willoughby grinned helplessly. 
 
 " No good," he said. " Couldn't get a crowd. Let's go 
 home." 
 
 Polling day came and went, and in the evening Deeping 
 was a seething, shouting mass of people waiting for the re- 
 sult. It came at last. Hastings was in by over eight hun- 
 dred votes. Willoughby's total poll was seven hundred and 
 sixty-nine. 
 
 " Well," said Janet, " that's something. Seven hundred 
 enlightened people in a county division is a good deal." 
 
 " Not in the circumstances," said Willoughby grimly. 
 " At least half of them are villagers who voted for t' Squire's 
 son, and half the remainder are disgruntled Tories who 
 don't care for Bonar Law."
 
 A MEETING 235 
 
 Cheer upon cheer burst from the crowd as the results 
 were announced. Then there were cries of " Speech ! 
 Speech ! " and Hastings went out on to the balcony to ad- 
 dress his constituents. There was a crescendo of cheers and 
 boohs, and as they died down scattered female voices cried 
 " Votes for Women." Then there was a momentary silence. 
 
 " Gentlemen . . ." began Hastings. 
 
 " Votes for Women ! " 
 
 The persistent female voice was drowned by hoarse shouts 
 of hostility. "Put her out! G-r-r! " 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, from the bottom of my heart I 
 thank you for the honour you have done me. I am going 
 to Westminster to assist in furthering the great measures of 
 the Liberal Government for increasing our constitutional 
 liberties . . ." 
 
 " Votes for women ! " 
 
 " Practise what you preach ! " 
 
 So it went on, the meaningless speech and its meaningless 
 interruptions, and in the end the squire and his party drove 
 home through the mob that howled and sang and waved 
 torches late into the night. 
 
 " Never mind," said Bernard to Willoughby. " Politics 
 doesn't consist in sitting at Westminster in a silk hat. . . . 
 The pen may or may not be mightier than the sword, but 
 it's certainly mightier than the voice of a non-party back- 
 bencher." 
 
 " By Jove, I must think about that," said Willoughby. 
 
 Bernard returned to Dublin in October and at the first 
 opportunity called at the Hotel Neptune. Stephen, however, 
 was out, and McCall had gone the way of all commercial 
 travellers. Bernard called again twice, but each time 
 Stephen was away, and the proprietor informed him that he 
 was very busy and seldom appeared even at meal time. 
 
 The last occasion was a Saturday afternoon and Bernard 
 found himself with nothing to do. McGurk and Crowley
 
 236 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and Moore were out of town, and O'Dwyer when tele- 
 phoned for was not to be found. So Bernard took his bicycle 
 and rode out through Terenure and Rathfarnham along the 
 Glencree road. Reaching the stiff slope leading to Feather- 
 bed pass he was forced to dismount and walk. Half way 
 up the hill he halted and sat down by the roadside to 
 smoke. 
 
 He fell presently into a reverie, wondering at his strangely 
 inconsistent attitude towards the vital necessities of his coun- 
 try. Why this intense logical conviction unaccompanied by 
 any desire to act? This was the question that puzzled 
 and dismayed him. He knew many young men who as far 
 as conviction went held views as strong as his own and had 
 held them long before he had. These men also, able and 
 intelligent as they were, felt no impulse to act. Was he cast 
 in their mould? He hoped not, because with all their abili- 
 ties and good qualities he rather despised them. One in 
 particular occurred to his mind, a young barrister called 
 Kennedy, who protested himself a strong Separatist but 
 took no steps towards joining any Separatist organization, 
 and, though he could write admirably, never wrote a line 
 for any Separatist paper. Was he, Bernard, like Kennedy? 
 No. For Kennedy was one of those who would have re- 
 sented any suggestion of action being required of him, 
 whereas Bernard's inaction caused him acute uneasiness. . . . 
 Moore also thought right and took no action. But that was 
 because of his vile philosophy. . . . An echo of his first 
 conversation with Moore recurred to him. " A man without 
 a country. A cleruch." 
 
 "By Jove, yes! I'm a member of the garrison. A 
 seoinin. A West Briton. . . . Yet I feel no loyalty to 
 England. Loyalty! Already I hate her as much as 
 O'Dwyer does. What's wrong with me at all ? " 
 
 He gave up the problem and resumed the climb. He 
 emerged at last on an open space where the road divided 
 into two. One branch went winding back through rusting 
 woodland to the plain beneath. The other curved over
 
 A MEETING 237 
 
 heathery bog to disappear in the mist among the looming 
 purple mountains. Here on a shelf as it were between the 
 hills and the sea he paused to take breath leaning over his 
 bicycle. The fresh damp autumn breeze fanned his cheek; 
 autumn tints were in the landscape and autumn grey was 
 in the sky. Bernard looked around the scene with an admir- 
 ing eye. The panorama of mountain, waste land, wood 
 and farmland made an instant appeal to his sense of beauty. 
 He turned from the mist haze on the hills to the smoke haze 
 hanging over the city dim and distant in the plain, and then 
 out again to the grey mystery of the sea. . . . And sud- 
 denly the feeling inspired by sheer beauty gave place to a 
 new unnameable feeling that sprang into being with inex- 
 plicable suddenness, a feeling of ownership and yet of serv- 
 ice, of intimacy and yet of homage; and on that instant he 
 loved the hills and the forests and the plain and the city 
 itself and the whole wide horizon with a love incomparable 
 to any human love save perhaps that of a son for his mother. 
 It was the birth of patriotism. 
 
 In that moment all doubts were solved and he saw his 
 position as clear as day. A well-worn proverb which in 
 the arrogance of his cleverness he had long despised flashed 
 before him now pregnant with meaning. " Charity begins 
 at home." Slowly he began to realize the lonely ineptitude 
 of his philosophical position. He had feared to cut himself 
 off from the world by serving Ireland; now he saw that 
 only in her service could he come in contact with the world. 
 Alone he could achieve nothing, but with a liberated and 
 regenerated homeland for a model what precepts could he 
 not demonstrate to men? Ireland as Ireland might yet 
 have a place in the world's councils; might eventually lead 
 them: Ireland as West Britain could have none. The 
 great world-thinkers of other lands had not, after all, neg- 
 lected their own countries. They had not been less na- 
 tional for being international, less international for being 
 national. France by her Revolution had re-made the world, 
 but her revolutionists had arisen for France. Germany by
 
 238 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 her scientific work had become the school of Europe, but it 
 was in developing herself that she had become so. 
 
 And Ireland set free would have her mission too. Even 
 now in her subjection the germs of her genius could be seen. 
 Her polity would aim at combining the maximum of personal 
 liberty with the minimum of individual licence, the maximum 
 of public good with the minimum of private restraint. She 
 would be a land of courtesy and hospitality free from the 
 curse of commercialism, and she would show the nations how 
 to be strong without being aggressive, how to be free with- 
 out being arrogant, how to be rich without soul-killing in- 
 dustrialism, and how to be great without being large. 
 
 But first to set her free 
 
 To shake off this oppressive weight of English Govern- 
 ment under which Ireland was being steadily suffocated 
 that was the immediate task. If the world could but realize 
 its loss, thought Bernard, it would arise in its wrath and 
 end the tyranny. But the world is a collection of men who 
 attend to their own affairs ; the men of world-vision are few, 
 and insufficient to leaven the mass. Bernard could imagine 
 here and there in other oppressed countries : Poland, 
 Finland; in America; all over Europe too stray people 
 like himself, probably young like himself, who sympathized 
 with this distant oppressed island and amid scorn and indif- 
 ference yearned for the unity of mankind. But of what 
 avail were they? Ireland must work out her salvation alone 
 and self-reliant. The magnitude of the task both appalled 
 and braced him as he contemplated it. 
 
 " To work ! " he cried exultantly, and mounting his bicycle 
 whirled down through the pine forest to the city.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 
 
 THROUGH a powdery drizzle that danced and spar- 
 kled under the street lamps hundreds of men moved 
 in one direction along the main thoroughfares of Dublin. 
 Bernard coming down Nassau Street plunged into the 
 stream at the foot of Grafton Street and was carried along 
 in its course. This human river moved steadily and almost 
 silently. Here and there a laughing girl with a red-clad 
 soldier or a smart draper's assistant moved in the contrary 
 direction like foam against the current. 
 
 Near the Rotunda the press grew denser, and it took Ber- 
 nard twenty minutes to force his way into the great skating 
 rink. Through a door opposite to that by which he had 
 entered came a procession of young men four hundred 
 strong, the students of University College, among whom 
 Bernard could see McGurk and O'Dwyer. They were 
 followed almost immediately by another and somewhat 
 smaller procession of grim dirty men carrying sticks and 
 hurleys, members of the Transport Workers' Union still 
 on strike. 
 
 " There'll be trouble wid them fellas," said an ancient 
 sage next to Bernard. 
 
 The crowds still poured in. The seats were rilled, all 
 standing room was occupied, and still multitudes clamoured 
 for admittance. The atmosphere was stifling and already 
 thickening with tobacco fumes. . . . An outburst of ap- 
 plause welcomed the appearance of a little group of men 
 on the platform, amongst whom Bernard recognized the 
 stalwart figure of Stephen Ward. 
 239
 
 2 4 o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 When the applause had somewhat abated Eoin MacNeill 
 the Chairman, a bearded scholarly-looking Ulsterman, 
 stepped forward to speak. 
 
 " We are meeting in public," he said, " in order to pro- 
 ceed at once to the enrolment and organization of a National 
 Force of Volunteers. We invite all the able-bodied men of 
 Ireland to form themselves into a united and disciplined 
 body of freemen, prepared to secure and maintain the rights 
 and liberties common to all the people of Ireland." 
 
 He went on to point out that the Irish Volunteers would 
 be a non-partisan, non-sectarian movement whose sole object 
 was to maintain the elementary right of freemen to bear 
 arms for the preservation of their natural liberty. Their 
 liberties were now menaced by the armed force of a section 
 of their countrymen who were openly backed by one of the 
 great English political parties and winked at by the other, 
 and this line of action was calculated to diminish and mu- 
 tilate the form of Self-Government which was ready to be 
 put into force. 
 
 " If this is so it is plain to every man that even the modi- 
 cum of civil rights left to us by the Act of Union is taken 
 from us, our franchise becomes a mockery, and we ourselves 
 become the most degraded nation in Europe. This insolent 
 menace does not satisfy the hereditary enemies of our national 
 freedom. Within the past few days a political manifesto has 
 been issued, signed most fittingly by a Castlereagh and a 
 Beresford, calling for British Volunteers, and for money to 
 arm and equip them to be sent into Ireland to triumph over 
 the Irish people and to complete their disfranchisement and 
 enslavement." 
 
 The speaker concluded by pointing out that the proposed 
 Volunteer force was to be on a Territorial basis, the mem- 
 bers contributing to its funds and electing their own officers. 
 
 A savage yell burst from the Liberty Hall men as the next 
 speaker, a stern, black-bearded man, came forward. He 
 stood for a few moments waiting for the uproar to subside 
 but it only increased in volume. In vain MacNeill requested
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 241 
 
 a hearing for the speaker. He pointed out that those who 
 had come together that evening had done so in the cause of 
 their common country and that no sectional disputes should 
 intrude. This was too altruistic a philosophy for the Trans- 
 port Workers, and as soon as MacNeill had resumed his 
 seat the din broke out afresh. 
 
 " Who's the speaker? " Bernard asked of his neighbour. 
 
 " Larry Kettle, one o' th' employers." 
 
 " Put out them Liberty Hall men ! " yelled a voice. 
 
 In spite of the noise the dark man read out a long docu- 
 ment from beginning to end at the top of his voice. All the 
 time the Transport Workers kept up a deafening clamour, 
 shouting, boohing, stamping their feet and clattering their 
 sticks on the benches, so that not a syllable of the manifesto 
 could be heard. 
 
 " Well, to hell with the Larkinites," shouted a man near 
 Bernard. 
 
 " Come on, boys, and stop their row," cried another, and 
 a little knot of men began to make its way round the room 
 in the direction of the disturbers. Things looked ugly for 
 a moment, but opportunely the reading of the manifesto 
 came to an end, and when the next speaker arose the 
 clamour ceased and a collision was averted. 
 
 A succession of speakers, some constructive and passion- 
 less, some fiery and oratorical, addressed the meeting, and 
 then the chairman called for the National Anthem. A man 
 on the platform rose immediately and a hush fell on the 
 gathering. The song began: 
 
 " When boyhood's fire was in ray blood, 
 
 I read of ancient free men, 
 For Greece and Rome who bravely stood 
 Three hundred men and three men." 
 
 For the first time the crudity of the versification and the 
 banality of the tune failed to jar on Bernard. The vast size 
 of the room, the vivid human excitement in the air, the 
 emotions roused by ardent generous oratory, the portentous
 
 242 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 nature of the moment, all combined to invest both song and 
 singer with a certain dignity and symbolism. And as the 
 voice of the singer, weak in the beginning, gathered strength 
 and soared up to the girdered roof, he felt a pricking of the 
 skin and a thrill of the spine such as only the Marseillaise 
 had given him before. 
 
 " And then I dreamed I yet might see 
 
 Our fetters rent in twain, 
 And Ireland long a province be 
 A Nation once again." 
 
 A vision of all who had died for that dream passed before 
 Bernard's eyes and he knew he was one in thought and in 
 hope with the rebels of all the ages. As the cadence surged 
 up to the high note he felt himself swamped by waves of 
 emotion. A myriad projects formed themselves in his brain 
 and his soul made vows of service. 
 
 There was a pause, and the chorus came crashing from 
 five thousand throats, 
 
 " A Nation once again ! 
 A Nation once again ! " 
 
 magnificent, passionate reiteration of the love and hate, the 
 hope and despair, and the vengeful determination of seven 
 centuries of woe. 
 
 " And Ireland long a province be 
 A Nation once again." 
 
 Ere yet the echoes of the chorus had died away the singer 
 had started on the second verse. Bernard felt that some- 
 thing was wrong. It seemed almost an indecent profanity 
 to call forth again the emotions of a splendid moment. A 
 second verse was an anti-climax. As it sped on its way 
 Bernard became once more critical of the song (and in- 
 deed its later verses had better never have been written). 
 Then the chorus came and he gathered himself together 
 and joind his voice with the others.
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 243 
 
 And then 
 
 " No ! No ! No ! He'll never sing a third verse." 
 
 But he did, and a fourth as well, and each verse was worse 
 than the preceding, and even the stately reiteration of the 
 chorus became a tiresome redundance. It came to an end 
 at last and the stewards bustled about distributing enrolment 
 forms. 
 
 As Bernard signed his the two Mallows came up to him. 
 
 " Glad to see you're joining," said Austin. " This is the 
 beginning of a new era in Irish History. We're on the eve 
 of great things." 
 
 There was a feverish light in his eyes and his voice trem- 
 bled. 
 
 " So you're converted at last," said Brian. " All due to 
 me, you know." He laughed hoarsely, and turning to his 
 brother said : " You should have seen him at Ashbury. He 
 was the rottenest West Briton you ever struck." 
 
 " No matter," said Austin sharply. Then to Bernard, 
 " Won't you drop in and see us some evening? " 
 
 Bernard promised and hurried out into the street. He 
 heard McGurk's voice calling him from somewhere in the 
 crowd and making his way towards him with some difficulty 
 found him standing beside a tall, sandy-haired man whose 
 face was vaguely familiar to Bernard. 
 
 " Here you are, Lascelles," said McGurk. " Let me intro- 
 duce you. This is Mr. Hektor Hannibal O'Flaherty, all the 
 way from Minnesota." 
 
 " Perhaps you remember me," said Bernard. " We knew 
 each other as kids in Stephen's Green." 
 
 " Sure thing. So we did," said O'Flaherty. " Put it 
 there," and they shook hands heartily. 
 
 " Some crowd, this," remarked O'Flaherty. " Gee, we'll 
 waken this one-horse camp some before we're through. Yes, 
 sir." 
 
 They watched the dispersing crowds for a while and were 
 soon joined by Crowley and Moore. McGurk introduced 
 the latter to O'Flaherty, who then said,
 
 244 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Say, boys, I move that we all come up to my rooms for 
 a bit. I'm living in a sort of backwoods shanty called the 
 Neptune Hotel. Some hotel, take it from pop. But it'll 
 do to be going on with." 
 
 " I know a member of the committee who's staying there," 
 said Bernard, as they turned northwards. 
 
 "Stephen Ward?" inquired O'Flaherty. "Yes. I've 
 met him. Good stuff, he seems." 
 
 They overtook Doran, the benevolent proprietor of the 
 Neptune, on his way home. 
 
 "Well, Doran," said O'Flaherty. " Did you join up?" 
 
 "What else would I be doing? But sure what use am 
 I? Fifty years of age and twelve stone o' me, God help 
 me." 
 
 Arrived at the Neptune the whole crowd poured into the 
 coffee-room and O'Flaherty ordered drinks all round. A 
 few minutes later Stephen entered, bringing with him Lynch, 
 O'Dwyer, and Eugene. After the necessary introductions 
 had been made O'Flaherty called for a toast, and Fergus 
 Moore, raising his glass, gravely proposed, 
 
 "The Volunteers! Ireland, fed up with herself and the 
 world in general, decides to cut her throat." 
 
 " Moore, you're an ass," said Lynch. " Here's a proper 
 toast for you." He paused a moment and said: "To the 
 spontaneous rising of the Nation in arms in support of Mr. 
 Redmond and the Irish Party. Here's to the Irish National 
 Volunteers." 
 
 " Here, less o' that," said McGurk indignantly. " You 
 fellows never can think of anything but your bloody old 
 party." 
 
 " Well, well," said Lynch agreeably, " we'll leave the 
 party out. Here's to the Irish National Volunteers." 
 
 " Cut out the ' National,' " said O'Dwyer. " It stinks 
 too much of Westminster, and it's not the title anyhow. 
 Here's to the Irish Volunteers." 
 
 The toast was drunk with acclamation.
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 245 
 
 McCall now came in to join the revellers and took a seat 
 near to Bernard. 
 
 " Great meeting, wasn't it? " he said. " The movement's 
 sure to "catch on. The country's about sick of the Party's 
 weakness." 
 
 " Let's have a song, boys," said McGurk, sitting down to 
 the battered piano in a corner of the room and jangling the 
 keys. 
 
 Thereat every one who was not already seated seized a 
 convenient chair and made himself comfortable. Bernard 
 let his eye wander round the assembly, studying each face 
 and attitude in turn. There was Eugene, shy and uncom- 
 fortable, in the corner near the door, and beside him the 
 expansive figure of Lynch, quietly enjoying a small cheroot. 
 Then came the landlord, fat, vulgar and genial, smoking 
 cut plug in a blackened clay pipe; then Moore, handsome 
 and reckless, chewing a cigar ; and Crowley with his chair 
 tilted back against the wall blowing smoke rings up to the 
 ceiling; and McCall meditatively puffing at a huge calabash 
 pipe. On Bernard's left was O'Flaherty, square-jawed and 
 masterful, and beyond him could be seen the flushed and 
 excited face of O'Dwyer, whose teeth were clenched on an 
 empty briar pipe. At the end of the line sat Stephen Ward 
 with a smile of faint amusement on his features. 
 
 At McGurk's call Lynch rose and sang T. D. Sullivan's 
 famous song, beginning: 
 
 " Deep in Canadian Woods we've met 
 
 From one bright island flown. 
 Great is the land we tread, but yet 
 
 Our hearts are with our own. 
 And ere we leave this shanty small, 
 
 Ere fades the autumn day, 
 We'll toast old Ireland, dear old Ireland, 
 
 Ireland, boys, hurray ! " 
 
 The chorus rang out lustily, and Bernard thought of the 
 story he had heard lately of how an Irish regiment in the
 
 246 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Federal Army on the night before the battle of Chancellors- 
 ville had struck up that song round their bivouac fires, and 
 when they had finished heard it come back like an echo across 
 the Rapidan from the lips of another Irish regiment in the 
 opposing camp. 
 
 " Come on, O'Dwyer," said McGurk, when the song was 
 finished, " give us your parody of that." 
 
 O'Dwyer got up and sang to the same air: 
 
 " See bold Britannia greater grow 
 
 On her high imperial throne, 
 Small are the lands she loves, and so 
 
 She's added them to her own. 
 Then subjects all, both great and small, 
 
 Fill up your glass today 
 And toast old England, noble England, 
 
 England, boys, hurray!" 
 
 The company joined in the ironical chorus with a will, 
 and verse after verse full of sarcasm and invective followed. 
 
 " Damn good ! " cried McGurk enthusiastically at the fin- 
 ish, and then some one called to McGurk to sing the Stutter- 
 ing Lovers. The next hour passed merrily with song and 
 story, and then as people made preparations to depart, Crow- 
 ley sprang up and said : 
 
 " Another toast, boys ! Here's Sever the Ligature." 
 
 Those who had any dregs left in their glasses drank the 
 toast and the remainder cheered. 
 
 " I suppose you signed on? " said Bernard to Eugene on 
 the way home. 
 
 " Indeed I didn't," said Eugene. " I don't believe in vio- 
 lent methods. We have the law on our side and we ought 
 to keep it that way." 
 
 " Good lord ! " said Bernard. " You're not a Nationalist 
 at all. You're only a Whig." 
 
 " I was a Nationalist before you were," retorted Eugene. 
 
 "Hmph!" muttered Bernard. "Logic was never your 
 strong point."
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 247 
 
 2 
 
 Merrion Square and its environs was hostile to the new 
 movement. The Tories of course were furious, denounced 
 the Volunteers as blackguards and rebels, and plainly re- 
 garded the thing as an infringement of Ulster's copyright. 
 The Whigs, while feeling as strongly about it, did not ven- 
 ture on such unqualified vilification. " Unfortunate," " ill- 
 considered," " inopportune," were the epithets they applied to 
 it. They were in fact both annoyed and frightened by this 
 rattling of the sword of Ireland. It was but a few years 
 since Nationalism had begun to live down its association with 
 murder, dynamite, agrarian outrage, and pro-Boer-ism, and 
 to become a respectable creed for a gentleman ; and here was 
 a definite lapse back to those bad old days of violence and de- 
 fiance. So for a time the Whigs began to write letters to 
 the papers sincerely deprecating this attempt to force the 
 hand of the Government and substitute the out-of-date meth- 
 ods of violence for those of peaceful persuasion, or gravely 
 announcing that their Home Rule Faith was seriously shaken. 
 
 And then the Irish Times came out with a leading article 
 in praise of the vigorous and generous spirit of the young 
 generation of Nationalists. True, the Irish Times had an 
 ax to grind. It hoped that the Volunteers would overthrow 
 Mr. Redmond arid his party and wished to patronize and 
 flatter them into that course. But the net result was to 
 stabilize the wavering Whigs. 
 
 Then there were the neutrals, the people who claimed to 
 have no politics. Mrs. Heuston Harrington, for instance, 
 thought it rather absurd to arm and drill for the trifling and 
 unimportant cause of Ireland, and Sir Perry Tifflytis ex- 
 pressed a hope that the Government would be firm and sup- 
 press both forces of Volunteers, Ulster and Irish alike. 
 George, the only and darling son of Mrs. Gunby Rourke, 
 was another neutral. 
 
 " I've no politics," he said. " But this armed bullying 
 of parliament by both sides is a menace to order and govern- 
 ment."
 
 24& -THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I thought you said you'd no politics," said Bernard. 
 
 " Neither have I. I consider both sides equally in the 
 wrong." 
 
 " But if you deny the right of ourselves or the Ulstermen 
 to resist the Government you uphold the right of the Gov- 
 ernment to coerce us. Isn't that politics ? My dear chap, it 
 won't wash. You can't help being a politician if you live 
 in a conquered country." 
 
 It was at one of Mrs. Gunby Rourke's Tango Teas that 
 this conversation took place. Bernard was there as an escort 
 to Alice who was an enthusiast of the new craze. They 
 sat at tea in the front drawing-room watching through the 
 folding doors the evolutions of the professional exponents of 
 the dance. When these had finished Alice and George and 
 another couple took the floor. Bernard watched his sister, 
 looking, he thought, rather absurd in her outre frock, per- 
 form the movements of voluptuous symbolism with the non- 
 chalance of perfect innocence. 
 
 " Isn't it lovely? Your sister dances beautifully, Mr. 
 Lascelles." 
 
 It was Madge Conroy, Eugene's divinity, who spoke. 
 Turning to her brother, she continued: 
 
 " You'll have to learn it, Teddy, and dance it with me." 
 
 " Too much brain work about it for my taste," said 
 Teddy. " The jolly old One-Step's good enough for me." 
 
 " I say, you know," said Molloy, coming over, " this is 
 a backward town. The Tango's been the rage for ages in 
 London. Just about getting stale as a matter of fact, and 
 it's only beginning here. May I have the pleasure, Miss 
 Conroy?" 
 
 He took her away to the dancing-room, and Teddy began 
 to discuss critically with Bernard the musical comedy, a 
 " London success " of the year before last, then being per- 
 formed by a fifth rate company at the Gaiety. This interest- 
 ing topic exhausted, he searched about in his mind for more 
 to say. 
 
 " Awful rot this Nationalist Volunteer business," he said
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 249 
 
 at last. " But this Arms Proclamation ought to put the lid 
 on them, what! And the good old Ulstermen are armed 
 already." 
 
 " The Arms Proclamation doesn't matter a damn," said 
 Bernard. " We can get arms in spite of it." 
 
 "We? "queried' Teddy. 
 
 " Yes. I happen to be a member of the Irish Volun- 
 teers." 
 
 " Rot," said Teddy. 
 
 Bernard showed him his membership card. Teddy was 
 stupefied and stammered incoherently. 
 
 " Thinking of joining? " asked Bernard. 
 
 "Me!" 
 
 " Why not? Tell me, do you think it right for French- 
 men to arm themselves in defence of France? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " And for Italians to arm themselves in defence of Italy? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And for Englishmen to arm themselves in defence of 
 England? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " And for Irishmen to arm themselves in defence of Ire- 
 land?" 
 
 " Ah, that's different." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don't take any interest in politics, but I object to dis- 
 loyalty." 
 
 " Disloyalty to whom? " 
 
 " To the King, of course." 
 
 " Then you disapprove of the Ulster Volunteers? " 
 
 " Oh, no. They're loyal." 
 
 " They're resisting an Act of Parliament." 
 
 " An Act that puts them under a rule they hate." 
 
 " Then is it always right to resist being put under a rule 
 you hate ? " 
 
 " Well I suppose so." 
 
 "Then wasn't Robert Emmet right?"
 
 250 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Oh, no. He was a rebel." 
 
 Bernard felt like taking Teddy by the feet and battering 
 his head to pulp against the wall. But all he said was : 
 
 " Look here, Conroy, you're a fool. You'd better start 
 exercising your brain by learning the Tango." 
 
 He got up quickly and took his cup over to Mrs. Gunby 
 Rourke for more tea. 
 
 3 
 
 "And how are things shaping in your Company? " asked 
 O'Flaherty. He and Bernard were taking tea in the same 
 restaurant that had been the scene of so many conversa- 
 tions. 
 
 " We're pulling ourselves together gradually," said Ber- 
 nard. " After a couple of drills we had an election of tem- 
 porary officers. I'm first Lieutenant. Our captain's a pre- 
 posterous little fellow called Brohoon whose principal claim 
 to notoriety seems to be the letters he writes to the news- 
 papers. He's an ass of the first water." 
 
 " This system of electing officers is absurd," said O'Flah- 
 erty. 
 
 " It's the only system we can manage at present. And I 
 like the democratic idea of it." 
 
 " Sir, you take it from me, democracy's a cod. It's ridicu- 
 lous enough in civil affairs, but in military matters it's a 
 wash out, and I tell you, if we're to make this movement of 
 ours a success it's got to be cut right out of it. That's all 
 there's to it." 
 
 " You may be right as far as the military side is con- 
 cerned," replied Bernard, " but I'm a democrat heart and 
 soul in everything else." 
 
 " Well, I'm not," said O'Flaherty. " Democracy means 
 the rule of cods, because it puts the government of a country 
 into the hands of the men who can cod the people most. 
 If you want efficient government you must have the efficient 
 people on top, and they'll never be put there by the votes 
 of a democracy. No, sir. Monarchy for me. If you've
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 251 
 
 a fixed and stable head to the state he can nominate the right 
 people to the right place. . . . Look at Germany." 
 
 " I prefer freedom to efficiency," said Bernard. 
 
 " What do you know about it? I've tried both. You've 
 had neither. . . . Hello! There are Ward and Crowley 
 coming in." 
 
 He called them over and made room for them. 
 
 " Lascelles has been telling me he prefers freedom to effi- 
 ciency," he said when they were seated. 
 
 " Freedom for me," said Crowley. 
 
 " The two aren't necessarily contradictory," said Stephen. 
 
 " I know," said O'Flaherty. " What I was going to tell 
 him when you came in was that you can't be sure of keeping 
 your freedom unless you're efficient, and you can't be efficient 
 without giving up some of your freedom. I maintain that 
 the German system is better than the English. They've 
 good and efficient laws there that you're properly punished 
 for breaking. In England you can do practically anything 
 you like, especially if you're rich. So Germany's a safer 
 country for poor men like you and me. We couldn't be run 
 over there by rich men's motor cars with impunity. We 
 couldn't have our public beauty spots destroyed by the selfish- 
 ness of individuals. In Germany every one gives up some of 
 his personal liberty for the benefit of others. In England 
 every one does what he likes no matter how he inconven- 
 iences others. That's the distinction between freedom and 
 efficiency. . . . Well, as I was saying, give me a Monarchy, 
 where the King is a fixed institution that can pick and 
 choose among the people for the men best fitted to govern." 
 
 " Well," said Bernard, " just look at the Kings of modern 
 Europe. They're a nice lot. The only one worth his salt 
 is the Kaiser." 
 
 " The result of in-breeding," said Crowley. 
 
 " Well, one remedy for that," said O'Flaherty, " would 
 be, when a kingly line seems to be degenerating, pension 
 them off or put them in a lethal chamber, and choose a strong 
 healthy child of good, sound bourgeois parentage to educate
 
 252 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 for kingship and so start a new line. A king, you know, 
 doesn't need more than average mental qualities. His busi- 
 ness is to pick out the good stuff in other people." 
 
 " It's an interesting proposition," said Stephen, " but it 
 has obvious disadvantages." 
 
 " I daresay. But it saves us from the rule of cods any- 
 how. And that's what an Irish democracy would mean." 
 
 " The Irish people," said Crowley, " may be divided into 
 four parts: cods, bags's, lunatics and elite. Cods are people 
 who blither a great deal, mean nothing, are entrusted with 
 the doing of everything, and with the maximum of fuss get 
 through the minimum of work. Our friends Lynch and 
 Mullery are cods, so are about a quarter of the Irish people, 
 and about three quarters of the Irish Party. Bags's, on the 
 other hand, while they blither as much as cods, mean a great 
 deal and are very earnest and serious, but they never do any- 
 thing at all, and don't want to. The balance of the Irish 
 Party, mostly Sinn Feiners, all middle class Home Rulers, 
 and nine-tenths of the students of University College are 
 bags's. Geoffrey Manders is a typical bags. There's one 
 really perfect bags I know, a man called by the melodious 
 name of Cornelius Featherstonehaugh. He's a fat, prosper- 
 ous man who goes to every Nationalist meeting or celebration 
 he was at the Rotunda meeting and never does any- 
 thing. He's a jolly decent fellow, but he'll never grow thin 
 on his hard work for Ireland. . . . Where are we now? 
 Oh, yes. The next division are the lunatics. Most of them 
 are fervent physical force men. Physical force is their rem- 
 edy for everything. If they don't like a play they smash up 
 the theatre; if their dirty little minds consider a picture in- 
 decent they break up the shop it's on sale in. And as for 
 their politics! Some of them, like Brian Mallow, really be- 
 lieve they can free Ireland with pikes and green flags. 
 Others, like his brother Austin, think that if they get us 
 thrashed often enough we can win in the end." 
 
 "And the elite?" questioned Stephen. 
 
 " There are two divisions of the elite," said Crowley.
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 253 
 
 " First the fine, quiet, sturdy rank and file that fought in 
 Ninety-Eight and Sixty-Seven, and is pouring into the Volun- 
 teers at present, without waiting, like the cods and bags's, 
 for the Party leaders to give the word." 
 
 " And then ? " said Bernard. 
 
 " Then the intelligent politicians like MacNeill and our 
 humble selves. . . . There's my complete analysis of the 
 Irish people." 
 
 " Some people! " said O'Flaherty. 
 
 " It looks as if we shall have to do without the cods and 
 bags's for the present," said Stephen. " The Party hasn't 
 given us the seal of its approval yet. Quite the contrary in 
 fact." 
 
 " The longer they stay out the better," said O'Flaherty. 
 " But even the cods and bags's will begin to get fed up if 
 the Party goes on hauling down the flag long enough." 
 
 An attendant brought tea and cake for Stephen and 
 Crowley, and for a time the talk was on trivial subjects. 
 Presently Bernard said to O'Flaherty: 
 
 " You've knocked round the world a bit since I last saw 
 you. Tell us some of your adventures." 
 
 " I've had a few," O'Flaherty admitted. 
 
 " Well, spit 'em out, old chap," said Crowley. 
 
 " Where shall I begin," said O'Flaherty. 
 
 " At the beginning," said Stephen. 
 
 4 
 
 " Well," said O'Flaherty, " any one who took the trouble 
 to study my habits and inclinations from the time I was a 
 kid till I was seventeen, could tell I was cut out to be a sol- 
 dier or a diplomat, or both. Lascelles, here, remembers the 
 games we had in Stephen's Green when we were youngsters; 
 and when I was fifteen or so, when I wasn't reading military 
 books I was studying the diplomatic news in the papers and 
 trying to catch their drift, as far as a man could for the 
 flap-doodle and eyewash of the language it's written in. 
 Well, sir, fathers as a general rule have about as much no-
 
 254 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 tion of considering their sons' inclinations as a butcher has 
 for a sheep, and mine was no sort of exception. He was 
 bound I'd be a respectable sort of professional guy, but I 
 wasn't having any. But this unfortunate island hasn't more 
 opening for soldiers or diplomats than Maine has for saloon- 
 keepers, and I'd no intention of dirtying my soul or my skin 
 by putting on England's uniform. In fact, way down in 
 my heart I'd always had a kind of hankering to be up against 
 that same uniform. Well, one day just after I'd left school 
 and was preparing for matric, I got about fed up and de- 
 cided to skip off and join the French Foreign Legion. I 
 waited about a bit and saved up some money, and the day 
 I heard the examiners had stuck me I made a bolt for Lon- 
 don, and a week later I shipped as a stowaway for Algiers. 
 ... A stowaway's life isn't all romance and adventure, by 
 the way. It's mostly boredom and seasickness, but we won't 
 go into that. . . . We reached Algiers at last, and as soon 
 as I could escape from the ship, I struck out for the nearest 
 depot of the Foreign Legion and enlisted. 
 
 " Well, boys, I daresay you've a lot of romantic notions 
 about that Legion. I know 7 had. But they came out 
 pretty quick in the wash I can tell you. You take it from 
 me, boys, life in the Foreign Legion is no joke. It's a 
 dog's life and about as profitable as selling bootlaces on 
 O'Connell Bridge in wet weather. However, I'd joined up 
 at a pretty exciting time. Some months before a French 
 company had begun to build a railway from Casablanca in 
 Morocco, and right in their track was a very ancient Moorish 
 cemetery. With the characteristic tact of Christians in deal- 
 ing with people of another religion, and with the human- 
 ity and politeness which so distinguishes Europeans in deal- 
 ing with less civilized peoples, they decided to cut right 
 through this cemetery in spite of the objections of the na- 
 tives. Well, naturally there were ructions and some sacred 
 European lives were lost. In next to no time we had in- 
 vaded Morocco and marched on Casablanca. After some 
 stiff fighting in the neighbourhood we bombarded the city,
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 255 
 
 wrecked most of it, and killed several thousands of the in- 
 habitants. Gee, it was dirty work, and when it was over 
 we occupied the whole Shawiya district around it, not with- 
 out some stiff fighting, for the Moors are tough stuff. 
 
 " Now I hadn't read the diplomatic news of the last three 
 years for nothing, and I knew that this invasion of Morocco 
 was a flat violation of the Act of Algeciras, the treaty signed 
 by the Great Powers in 1906 guaranteeing the independence 
 and sovereignty of Morocco. France had already infringed 
 it in a minor way by occupying Udja in retaliation for the 
 murder of some damned idiot of a Frenchman who probably 
 deserved all he got. Of course she made the usual promises 
 of immediate withdrawal, but devil a one she kept, and as 
 every one knows she's in Udja and Shawiya to this day. 
 ... I can tell you I was pretty fed up. I hadn't joined 
 the Legion to help France with England's connivance to 
 put her yoke on a lot of unfortunate Moors : damn good 
 stuff those Moors, take it from Pop. I got this scar over my 
 eye taking a village in Shawiya : anyway, I was fed up 
 and took my first chance to desert. Getting away wasn't 
 so very hard, though I had to tap a sentry who got officious 
 on the head. Then I made my way southwards towards the 
 desert. I had a bundle of native clothes with me that I 
 stripped off a corpse (there were lots of corpses in Shawiya 
 in those days) and as soon as I could I chucked off my uni- 
 form and put them on. All through the day I lay in hid- 
 ing, thinking out a line of action. My only landmark was 
 a great range of mountains a hundred miles away in the 
 east. I knew Fez was behind them, and I decided to make 
 that way, travelling by night and hiding by day, and then 
 to pass myself off as a German and beat up the German 
 consulate. (You see the Germans are pretty popular in 
 Morocco because they're the only European nation that treats 
 the Moors any way decently.) . . . Well, I struck out fur- 
 ther south the next night so as to get clear of the French 
 lines of communication, and hid again all through the next 
 day.
 
 256 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Things had gone gaily up to this, but now I hit a bad 
 streak of luck. Lying in the sun all day must have been 
 bad for my head, for I don't know what I did or where I 
 went that night. I must have wandered miles off the track 
 and then dropped in a faint, for when I came to it was day- 
 light and a Moorish girl was looking down on me and my 
 head was in her lap. You won't guess what had happened 
 to me. I'd fallen into the hands of a band of marauding 
 Nomads and she was the chieftain's daughter. I started bab- 
 bling out at once that I wasn't French but German in 
 English too, like the sunstruck ass that I was. But it made 
 precious little difference to the damsel, for she didn't under- 
 stand a word. When my head got clearer I looked around 
 and saw the band, half a dozen of the dirtiest-looking black- 
 guards you ever struck, and a grey-bearded old patriarch, 
 their chief. Their horses were tethered near at hand. 
 (Arab steeds! Not on your life. A collection of the man- 
 giest cab horses you could pick up.) Well the gang seemed 
 to be holding a sort of consultation as to the best way of dis- 
 posing of me. One ruffian quite obviously wanted to prac- 
 tise his' markmanship on me, but he was outvoted. The 
 chief's daughter pleaded for me, and I was taken on as a 
 sort of man-of-all-work to the gang. It wasn't a very digni- 
 fied position for a white man, but it was that or starvation, 
 which was rather a poor choice. I was given the spare 
 horse. Some horse! I bet I'd seen him on a cabstand in 
 Dublin a few years before. Well, on that horse's back I 
 assisted in their marauding till we'd made the district too 
 hot to hold us, when we bolted for a season to the Sahara 
 and lay low. 
 
 " I stuck that life for nine solid months. I've practised 
 many professions in my time, but I think marauding is the 
 last one I'd go back to. It's a bit monotonous, you know, 
 with its perpetual alternations of riding, raiding and hiding. 
 And I did get sick of that desert, all sand and sunshine. 
 Don't you get taken in, boys, by any punk dope you may read 
 about the free, joyous life of the nomads. Not that I was
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 257 
 
 badly treated. The chief was a decent old skin with an out- 
 landish name I never quite got the hang of. I used to call 
 him Methuselah. He kind of took to me because I reminded 
 him of his son who had been captured way back in a raid on 
 Tamagrut and tortured to death for the amusement of the 
 Sultan. I got on all right with the gang too, all except the 
 man who w r anted to shoot me at the start. I never quite 
 got his name either, so I called him Cain. It was he who 
 rode after me and captured me the night I tried to escape, 
 and stood by fingering his trigger in the hope that the old 
 man would condemn me to death. Gee, you should have 
 seen his face when Methuselah gave me a free pardon. The 
 Sahara climate took a full week to warm my blood after- 
 wards. 
 
 " But the chief's daughter gee, she was a peach. Hair 
 black as night, and the blush of the rose under her tawny 
 skin. Eyes like two sloes with a flame in the depths of them 
 like you get in an opal. Teeth as white as Pentelic marble, 
 and a figure like the Winged Victory of Samothrace. She 
 sure was some girl, and though you mayn't believe it, she got 
 quite a mash on your humble servant. She'd a heathenish 
 name that I couldn't pronounce but I used to sail her Jenny, 
 which pleased her just as well and suited her a lot better. 
 . . . You boys won't like what I did next, but I believe in 
 taking what comes to you, and I was fair sick of the gang 
 and ready to do anything to get away. 
 
 " Yes. She tipped me the glad eye, and I responded so 
 as to get an ally. I hadn't learnt much of her language 
 but we fixed up a means of communication somehow. These 
 things come easy if you know how. I won't give you the 
 details, but the gist of the matter was that she arranged to 
 help me to escape if I'd promise to come back some day and 
 fetch her away with me. It wasn't a fair promise to make, 
 but necessity knows no decency, and I meant to keep the 
 promise at the time, and maybe I'll keep it yet. Anyhow, 
 she put some drug or other in their supper one night, and I 
 took the best of the horses and my leave. She came a bit of
 
 258 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the way to see me off, and there in the heart of the desert 
 by the sandy bank of the Wady Saoora we took a tender 
 farewell. The moon was up and the weird silence of the 
 desert was all around us, and she clung to me and we kissed 
 each other and she made me repeat my promise. Gee, it 
 was just like a romance by Robert Hichens. It only needed 
 a few bulbuls to complete the picture, but I guess there 
 weren't any in that locality. 
 
 " She went back to the camp and I crossed the Saoora 
 and followed the course of the Wady Susfana for several 
 days. Then about twenty miles south of Figuig I struck off 
 to the east into Algeria. This was the most dangerous part 
 of nay travels because I was on French Territory now and 
 liable to be shot as a deserter, if caught. However, I came 
 through all right. After four months of travelling by night 
 and hiding by day, and starving most of the time (not to 
 mention such details as sicknesses and fevers) I crossed the 
 frontier into Tripoli and joined on to a caravan making for 
 Egypt- Boys, I never thought I'd live to be glad to 
 see the Union Jack, but you'd be glad to see the devil him- 
 self if he marked the end of a journey you were sick of. 
 At length I landed in Cairo, dead beat and without a red 
 cent in my pocket. 
 
 " Well, I kept myself for a year in Cairo on all sorts of odd 
 jobs, and at the same time I looked up the back numbers, 
 so to speak, of the Moroccan situation. During the time 
 I'd spent in the desert things had been going from bad to 
 worse there. The French, you may remember, sent in an 
 indemnity bill to the Sultan for a couple of millions. Some- 
 thing like England charging the Union bribery on Ireland, 
 eh? By this time poor old Morocco was tied hand and foot 
 by European finance, and the Sultan was forced to torture 
 his people to raise enough money to make ends meet. Re- 
 sult, fresh chaos in Morocco and a demand for renewed 
 French intervention. . . . Useful sort of vicious circle, don't 
 you think? . . . Then Spain thought she ought to have a 
 finger in the pie, and answered France's occupation of Fez
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 259 
 
 by pouring troops into the Riff. When I left Cairo there 
 were a hundred thousand foreign troops in Morocco and the 
 Act of Algeciras had been virtually torn up. Fine object 
 lesson in Christianity and civilization for the Moors, what? 
 Well 
 
 " I shipped from Cairo as a greaser on a steamship for 
 Boston. A hundred miles south-west of Cape St. Vincent 
 we sighted a little German gunboat making south. It turned 
 out afterwards to be the Panther bound for Agadir. You 
 may remember the fuss kicked up in the English papers at 
 the time about what they called this ' display of German 
 brutality.' Well, the Germans hadn't more or less right in 
 Morocco than the rest of the powers, but they didn't shell 
 any city or occupy any territory anyhow. They didn't as 
 much as fire a gun or land a marine, and if they were out for 
 aggression don't you think they'd have sent more than a little 
 tin gunboat? The Germans don't do things by halves. 
 
 " But I'm wandering from my story. When I reached 
 Boston I got the nastiest shock of my life. I found I couldn't 
 join the American Army until I was a properly squared up 
 citizen. It was some jar, but I quickly decided I'd stay and 
 serve out my seven years for Rachel, so to speak. For six 
 months I loaded cargoes on the quays of Boston and was a 
 good deal more than sick of it when I knocked up against 
 Augustus X. Skinner. He was standing on the quay one 
 day and seemed to be interesting himself in the way I 
 manoeuvred the landing of a cargo of lions and camels. (I 
 didn't tell you I was foreman by this time.) 
 
 " ' Like a new job at four times what you're getting now? ' 
 says he. 
 
 ' ' Sure thing,' says I. 
 
 " ' Mind breaking the law? ' says he. 
 
 " ' Try me,' says I. 
 
 " And that settled it. He was organizing a gun-running 
 stunt on the Mexican frontier, and he'd spotted me as a 
 likely second-in-command. Well, I stayed in that line of 
 business for a good while, and when I'd put by a bit of cash
 
 260 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 I decided to increase it by blossoming out as a financier. 
 I went to New York, studied the markets for a bit, specu- 
 lated, and in a couple of days lost half the money I had. I 
 went careful after that and lost more. Then in despair I 
 put all my money to the last dollar into a gamble that would 
 bring me five hundred per cent, or ruination. For a marvel 
 it panned out all right and I made a pile. For the next 
 couple of months everything I touched turned to gold, and I 
 became a rich man. . . . Then one day along comes a man 
 I'd known at school, Sullivan, now on the Provisional 
 Committee. He was touring America to get support for 
 the new Irish government. The idea of the old country 
 arming herself and getting a buzz on things appealed to me 
 some, and in a few days I'd packed my traps and come right 
 over. . . . None too soon either, I think, because I tell you 
 what, boys when the Panther went to Agadir, I sized 
 things up pretty well. I guess there'll be a scrap in Europe 
 pretty soon, and Ireland will need every man if she's to keep 
 her end up. Do you get me? What price armed Neu- 
 trality?" 
 
 The waitress came along scribbling the bill. 
 
 As may be expected Bernard's action in joining the Irish 
 Volunteers did not long remain unnoticed by his family. 
 His mother called him to her room one day, having, as she 
 said, something very serious to say to him. He had not 
 a moment's doubt as to its nature. 
 
 " Have you joined the Nationalist Volunteers?" she be- 
 gan directly. 
 
 " The Irish Volunteers," corrected Bernard. 
 
 " What does the old name matter? " said Lady Lascelles, 
 irritably. " I hear they've made you an officer." 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 " You should have consulted your father before taking a 
 step like that."
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 261 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because he's your father." 
 
 " I don't see the force of the argument." 
 
 " O, Bernard, what a nasty thing to say! As if you didn't 
 owe everything to your father, even your very existence. 
 . . . And he's the best of fathers, too. You've always had 
 the best of everything food, clothes, everything. The 
 best of education and careers. . . . Everything," she ended, 
 weakly. 
 
 " Well, as to food and education and the rest of it, my 
 father could scarcely afford to let his children go about 
 starving or in rags or send them to Christian Brothers' 
 schools. It wouldn't look well for a man in his position, 
 would it ? As for my career, it was forced on me. I didn't- 
 want it. ... And as for my existence well, the less said 
 about that the better. He wasn't thinking of me when he 
 married you, anyhow." 
 
 " That's a very ungrateful way to speak, Bernard. Your 
 father loves you, and you know it, and it's your duty to try 
 and please him." 
 
 "Well, I've never done anything to disgrace him." 
 
 "These Volunteers, darling " 
 
 " Look here, mother, I have my own principles and opin- 
 ions in these matters. I don't want to interfere with his, 
 and I refuse to let him interfere with mine." 
 
 " But he's your father." 
 
 " I'd have my own opinions if I'd fifty fathers." 
 
 " But you don't know how annoyed he is, my darling 
 boy. I've had an unpleasant time of it these last few days, 
 I can tell you. . . . Now, do give this up, just to please 
 me. I don't want to have rows and unpleasantness in my 
 home. I want peace and quiet." 
 
 " Even peace with dishonour? " said Bernard. " My dear 
 mother, if father objects to anything I do he ought to come 
 to me himself and not send you to plead with me. . . . It's 
 no use anyway. I have a right to my own principles and to 
 think for myself."
 
 262 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Yes, darling boy. Think what you like. Nobody can 
 object to that. Only don't do anything." 
 
 Bernard fairly gasped at this piece of advice. What could 
 one say to this type of mind ? Where could it be grasped ? 
 And how? 
 
 " Mother! " he said at last; " can't you see you're asking 
 me to be a liar and a coward." 
 
 " No darling, I know my boy could be neither of those 
 things. I'm only asking you to be sensible." 
 
 " Mother, I do believe that if we'd lived in Judea in the 
 time of Christ, if I'd told you I believed in him and meant to 
 follow him you'd have tried to stop me." 
 
 " No, Bernard. What a thing to say! " 
 
 " O, yes, you would. And you'd have said, too, ' Believe 
 what you like, but don't do anything,' meaning, ' Be a Nico- 
 demus instead of a Peter.' Oh, yes. I can imagine it all" 
 
 " That's absolutely different, Bernard. Amn't I always 
 trying to keep you to your religion ? " 
 
 Bernard laughed and kissed her cheek. 
 
 " You're a darling, illogical, old mother," he said, and 
 after another embrace ran away, leaving her very much 
 puzzled. 
 
 Sir Eugene had, of course, been rendered perfectly furious 
 by Bernard's action, but he knew that Bernard with an in- 
 come of his own and within a few months of qualification, 
 could not be diverted from his course by any display of 
 parental wrath. He had, therefore, decided to play on Ber- 
 nard's love for his mother, and had driven her to action by 
 grumbles and threats to disinherit the boy. After her failure 
 he redoubled his threats and the poor lady had visions of her 
 home broken up and her favourite son a penniless wanderer 
 over the face of the earth. Diffident of her own con- 
 troversial abilities, she decided to secure allies, and went to 
 her old friend, Mrs. Harvey, for advice and consolation. 
 
 " Why not get Augustine Reilly to speak to him ? " said 
 Mrs. Harvey. 
 
 Augustine Reilly was a distant cousin to Lady Lascelles.
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 263 
 
 He was a pietistic old bachelor of fifty who consorted with 
 priests and old ladies and read the Bible, or rather the Old 
 Testament, more assiduously than is customary among Cath- 
 olics. From his rare knowledge of rubrics and ceremonial, 
 he was supposed to be a great theologian, and his solemn 
 platitude passed among his simple relatives for deep philos- 
 ophy and inspired wisdom. He was, as a matter of fact, a 
 pompous old fool, who knew as much about theology and 
 philosophy as he did about science (and the sum total of his 
 knowledge of this was that the theory of evolution was 
 wicked and not to be thought about). Lady Lascelles, how- 
 ever, was not in a position to know this, and like most of her 
 relatives looked up to Augustine Reilly with awful respect. 
 
 " Yes. Augustine is just the man," said Lady Lascelles. 
 " Bernard, I'm glad to say, is getting more religious. He 
 talked to me about Our Lord the other day, so I'm sure 
 Augustine should be able to manage him." 
 
 " That's splendid," said Mrs. Harvey. " I'll say a few 
 words to him myself, if you like. I know just how these 
 clever young men should be taken, you know." 
 
 " Do. That's awfully good of you. Why not come to 
 lunch next Saturday? " 
 
 " Delighted," said Mrs. Harvey. " I'll bring Mabel 
 along, too. It'll be a nice birthday treat for her." 
 
 In due course Saturday arrived and Mrs. Harvey with it. 
 Mabel was now twenty years of age, a slim, fair haired, 
 young woman nearly as tall as Bernard. Her pretty face 
 was somewhat pale and there was a tired look about her eyes 
 due to long hours of office work. She saw the sun only in 
 the evenings in summer and not at all in winter; the air she 
 breathed was mostly dust; the food she ate was not of the 
 best quality, nor did she get enough of it; her surroundings, 
 both at home and at work, were comfortless and unlovely; 
 her pay was small and her mother took most of it; and she 
 had but sixteen days' holiday in the year: yet she faced life 
 bravely and with a smile. Bernard liked what little he had 
 seen of her and he manoeuvred to have her beside him at
 
 264 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 lunch. Lady Lascelles, however, had arranged things other- 
 wise and took Mabel to herself. Bernard was at the foot of 
 the table and Mrs. Harvey deposited her bulky form in the 
 chair on his right. Alice sat on her mother's left and op- 
 posite to Mabel, and Eugene and Sandy were on Bernard's 
 left. These two were deeply absorbed in discussing the 
 route by which they intended cycling to Bohernabrena after 
 lunch, and Lady Lascelles and the girls at the far end of the 
 table formed a remote conversational group, so Mrs. Harvey 
 had Bernard quite at her mercy. She talked winningly and 
 sentimentally about Ireland, professing to hold moderate 
 political views. 
 
 " I don't like extremists," she said. " I don't think they're 
 practical. Mind you, I've no doubt the men who hold ex- 
 treme views are honest and self-sacrificing. But I think our 
 unfortunate country needs a little compromise and good- 
 will." 
 
 Bernard had no desire to argue and simply said, " Yes, 
 yes," to everything she said, so Mrs. Harvey was able to re- 
 assure Lady Lascelles and to inform her that her son was 
 a most reasonable and sensible young man. 
 
 " I'm sure he'll do well in his profession," she volunteered 
 at parting. Her visit had been a double success, for there 
 was a glittering birthday present in Mabel's purse. 
 
 A few days later Augustine Reilly called, as had been pre- 
 arranged, when Bernard and his mother were alone together 
 at afternoon tea. Bernard knew him but slightly, for he 
 was an infrequent visitor, and was rather surprised to see 
 him. When, a few minutes later, Lady Lascelles slipped 
 away on a transparent excuse he realized what was coming 
 and determined to make of Augustine a terrible warning to 
 future missioners. 
 
 Augustine was prematurely senile in appearance. The 
 bald and shiny crown of his head was bordered by snow- 
 white locks; his eyes were rheumy; and his gait was falter- 
 ing. His manner was preternatu rally solemn and his words 
 were weighted and spaced out with silences. He began, in
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 265 
 
 a way he thought diplomatic, to praise fulsomely the virtues 
 of youth: its courage, its vigor, its honesty, its idealism. 
 But youth, it appeared, needed the restraint of experience. 
 It needed the guidance of age. Bernard listened to this 
 homologue without any attempt to conceal his impatience 
 and contempt. Finally he took advantage of a pause to say: 
 
 " Look here, let's cut out the preamble. You've come 
 here to advise me to chuck out the Volunteers, haven't you? " 
 
 Augustine was a little disconcerted by this sudden rupture 
 of the veils of diplomacy, but he replied almost immediately: 
 
 " Well, frankly I have. Your dear mother, relying upon 
 our time-honoured friendship a friendship which began 
 before you, Bernard, was born has asked me to show you 
 the . . . rashness of the course you have recently under- 
 taken. . . . Personally, I think that your mother's express 
 disapproval should have been enough for you. It certainly 
 would have been for me. The love of a mother for the 
 child of her womb is the most wonderful sacred thing in 
 nature and entitles her to a corresponding obedience and 
 respect." 
 
 " I'm not a child," said Bernard. " I've a right to decide 
 my actions for myself." 
 
 " You are still a child to her. As I have said, the love of 
 a mother for the child of her womb is the most powerful 
 force in the universe. Did not even Our Blessed Lord give 
 obedience to his mother ? " 
 
 " She didn't try to interfere with his mission." 
 
 " My boy, don't let us quibble. A mother's love is an 
 ever-present love. It makes her always anxious for the safety 
 of her child. The thought that he may be in danger is a pain 
 to her. We are bound to consider this in any action we 
 contemplate. . . . Moreover, your action tends to disturb 
 the peace and harmony of the household over which she 
 rules." 
 
 " I can't help that," said Bernard. " I'm going to do 
 what I think right. If other people upset themselves about 
 it it's their own look out."
 
 266 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " My boy, it is never right to disturb the peace of a happy 
 home. ' My little children, let you love one another.' 
 Those are the words of Christ. Christ came to this earth 
 to preach the gospel of peace and love, and woe to those 
 who infringe God's peace ! " 
 
 " As well as I remember, Christ said : ' I come to bring, 
 not peace, but a sword," retorted Bernard. Augustine was 
 a little nonplussed by this, but his stock of cliches was in- 
 exhaustible. 
 
 " The devil can quote scripture to his purpose," he said. 
 
 " Why did you quote it then ? " said Bernard. 
 
 Augustine for a moment was at a loss how to continue. 
 At last he resumed with his eternal tag: 
 
 " The love of a mother for the child of ..." 
 
 But here Bernard interrupted him. 
 
 " I wish you'd drop that highly indecent phrase," he said. 
 
 " Very well, my boy, if you wish," said Augustine, blandly. 
 " But I wish I could get you to see how wrongly you are 
 acting in opposing the wishes of your parents those to 
 whom, after God, you owe your first duty." 
 
 " I deny that," said Bernard. " My first duty, after my 
 duty to God, is to myself, and my next is to my country." 
 
 " Yes. And you can best serve your country not by fol- 
 lowing the lead of rebels and anarchists, but by obeying the 
 law and your parents. He who sets himself against the law, 
 remember, sets himself against God." 
 
 " Look here," said Bernard, " I'm fed up with you. You 
 simply don't know what you're blithering about. You may 
 be a very good man in your way, but it's a rotten way. 
 Good people like you are the curse of the world. It was 
 good people like you who put Socrates to death, crucified 
 Christ, imprisoned Galileo, and burnt the library of Alex- 
 andria. You've been gassing a lot about Christ just now, 
 but what would you have said of Him if you'd been a re- 
 spectable Jew of His own time? You'd have said, 'What 
 a wicked man this Christ is! He attacks our established 
 customs, reviles our priests, breaks our laws, gives the poor
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 267 
 
 thoughts above their station. He's an anarchist, a socialist, 
 an anti-cleric. Kill the scoundrel.' That's what you'd have 
 said." 
 
 " I should have said nothing of the kind," said Augustine. 
 " I consider you a very impertinent young man." 
 
 "Impertinent!" said Bernard. "Well, I like that. 
 W^ho asked you to come and meddle with my affairs? The 
 insolence of old people is astounding. They -poke their 
 noses in where they aren't wanted and then stand on their 
 dignity if they get it in the neck." He suddenly rose, and, 
 changing his tone to one of earnest solicitude, said : " But 
 I'm forgetting my duties as host. I can recommend these 
 hot cakes ... or perhaps you'd prefer some of this chocolate 
 cake . . . No ? Then let me get you some more tea ? " 
 
 But his attempt to mitigate the cruelty of the blows he 
 had dealt was a failure. Augustine was implacable. From 
 Christian duty he blessed Bernard henceforward in his 
 prayers, but he never forgave him in his heart. 
 
 The consequences of Bernard's intransigeance fell heaviest 
 on his mother who was now deprived of what little conjugal 
 affection still remained to her. Bernard, himself, was 
 treated by his father with coldness and silence, but this 
 worried him little, if at all, for he passed his final examina- 
 tion in the following March and set about finding a house 
 for himself at once. 
 
 6 
 
 " The Lord has delivered them into our hands," said 
 O'Flaherty triumphantly, and crumpling the newspaper into 
 a ball addressed himself to his breakfast. 
 
 Mr. Asquith had announced a new solution of the problem 
 in Ireland a few days ago, namely the partition of the coun- 
 try. Mr. Redmond had accepted it and Sir Edward Carson 
 had contemptuously refused the concession, so a vital part 
 of the national claim had been abandoned without result. 
 
 " This ought to settle the Party's hash for good and all," 
 said O'Flaherty.
 
 268 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Stephen, on the other side of the table, looked gloomy. 
 
 " It's a pity," he said. " It sets up an issue between us at 
 once, and our one hope of achieving anything is in unity. 
 Why can't they be trusted to be strong even for a minute? 
 Why can't they use us to put pressure on that quaking, shift- 
 ing, bulliable government ? Why can't they learn something 
 from Carson ? " 
 
 " Because what little good was ever in them has been 
 sapped by Westminster air and ministerial breakfasts," said 
 O'Flaherty. " May it poison them outright," he added. 
 
 " Well, it'll give a stimulus to our recruiting anyhow," 
 said Stephen. " But what we want now is arms." 
 
 When they had finished their meal Stephen asked 
 O'Flaherty what he intended to do that day. 
 
 " Going to meet a girl," said O'Flaherty. 
 
 Stephen gave a snort of contempt. 
 
 " You're some ascetic, Ward," said O'Flaherty. " You 
 never smoke or drink or make love. Have you ever been 
 human, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Irishmen really haven't time for these things," replied 
 Stephen. " With our country in the state she is she requires 
 our undivided attention. I gave up all notion of enjoyment 
 long ago. There was a girl fell in love with me once, and I 
 took some sort of a fancy to her, too. But she was a fool, 
 and I frightened her off by talking philosophy at her. . . . 
 You can't be human and completely efficient, you know. 
 Take our little crowd for instance. Good stuff every one 
 of them, but not one but has his weakness to distract him. 
 W^ith Crowley and McGurk it's women, with O'Dwyer it's 
 verse-making, with Lascelles it's vanity and dancing, and so 
 on. ... I wish we could make that man Moore shake off 
 his confounded pessimism. He'd be a real acquisition." 
 
 " You've got very unsound dope," said O'Flaherty. " It 
 won't be supermen who'll set this country free, and I'd 
 rather have her free than sober, anyhow." 
 
 " The two hang together, I think," said Stephen. 
 
 " Well," said O'Flaherty, " I may be a man of low ideals,
 
 THE RUSTY SWORD 269 
 
 but I've a pretty good notion which task is easiest. . . . 
 Is anyone on the committee seeing about getting guns? " 
 
 7 
 
 So Ireland once more drew the sword that had been rust- 
 ing in its sheath for nearly fifty years, and brandished it in 
 the face of the enemy. For a moment she seemed astonished 
 at her own audacity. At the end of 1913 no more than ten 
 thousand men had enrolled in the Volunteers, but confidence 
 came gradually and in five months more their numbers had 
 increased sevenfold. Then came a sudden unexpected rush 
 of recruits. In two months the muster-rolls were doubled 
 and men were marching and drilling on hillside, plain, and 
 valley, in town and village, all over the face of Ireland. 
 
 To Bernard, recent adherent to the cause, it was a suf- 
 ficiently moving spectacle. To O'Dwyer it was well nigh 
 miraculous. 
 
 " I wish I could make you understand my feeling in all 
 this," he said to Bernard one day as they watched a company 
 manoeuvring in County Dublin. " When I was a boy, I 
 dreamed of nothing else but a day of arming and revenge, 
 and I thought everyone else was the same. As I grew up, I 
 met with nothing but disappointment. Those were the 
 deadest days in Irish History, when even Home Rule was 
 barely spoken of, and as Home Rule came to the front and 
 a tame bloodless winning of a fraction of our rights seemed 
 to be all the people wanted, I thought life a pretty humdrum 
 affair. . . . And now to see this. To see the spirit of the 
 people. To see armies rising out of the earth. To hear 
 Irish war-songs again. To see men drilling by moonlight, 
 as I did the other night. . . . Visions of Ninety-Eight, 
 Lascelles. . . . Who would have thought it? After seven 
 centuries of subjection. Lord, but we're a wonderful 
 people! . . . Poland is doing nothing like this or Fin- 
 land. . . . Thank God, that we're alive this day." 
 
 " And to be young ..." said Bernard.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WAITING 
 
 IT was some time before Bernard fulfilled his promise to 
 call on Austin Mallow. He had no liking for the dis- 
 ease-worn fanatic, and always experienced an odd uncanny 
 feeling of uneasiness in his presence. However, one evening 
 O'Dwyer induced both him and Stephen to pay the poet a 
 visit. 
 
 Austin lived with his mother, brother, and sister in a 
 small house on the Rathgar Road. Mrs. Mallow had a 
 small private income on which she supported her invalid 
 elder son, her incapable second son, and her unmarriageable 
 daughter. Austin's poetry never brought him in a farthing, 
 and Brian was still making futile efforts to pass his final 
 engineering examination. Theodosia, their sister, was an 
 ill-made, pasty-faced unhealthy girl who wore spectacles 
 and bedroom slippers and spent most of her day reading. 
 In a futile effort to assist their mother's finances they ran a 
 monthly (more strictly an occasional) review called Manan- 
 nan. Austin was editor and contributed his poems; Brian 
 was manager and contributed an occasional political polemic ; 
 Theodosia was office-boy and contributed stray verses and 
 stories as mystical as Austin's poems. The financial status 
 of the paper can easily be imagined. 
 
 \Vhen O'Dwyer and his friends arrived they were ad- 
 mitted by Brian who welcomed them with crushingly hearty 
 handclasps into a hall lighted by a small oil lamp. As he 
 hung up his hat and coat Bernard noticed a faint aromatic 
 odour in the air, which became suddenly intensified as Brian 
 threw open a door to the left. Bernard now saw into a room 
 tfjo
 
 WAITING 271 
 
 dimly lighted by two oriental lamps and cloudy with tobacco 
 smoke which evidently was the source of the aroma he had 
 observed. The mixed furnishing of the room produced a 
 very bizarre effect. There were a table and chairs of mahog- 
 any of very ordinary pattern, and numerous easy-chairs. 
 Along with them were a couple of Turkish divans, and in 
 places the floor was heaped with brilliantly coloured cushions. 
 There was no carpet, but its place was taken by rugs of vari- 
 ous shapes, colours and kinds, from Donegal, Axminster and 
 India. The windows were hung with curtains of Indian 
 stuff, very fine and flaming with colour. In one corner 
 stood a Ninety-Eight pike alongside a Japanese umbrella 
 and an old-fashioned rifle. The wall opposite to the win- 
 dows was adorned with three engravings and a tiger's skin, 
 and over the mantelpiece were an antelope's head and an 
 engraving of the trial of Robert Emmet. Most of the aro- 
 matic haze came from a hookah smoked by Austin, who sat 
 curled up in an enormous armchair close to the fireplace. 
 Opposite to him sat Theodosia smoking a cigarette, and on a 
 divan at his left sat a small and rather corpulent man smok- 
 ing a long churchwarden pipe, who was introduced as Mr. 
 Umpleby. Mrs. Mallow did not appear. 
 
 Brian bustled about getting chairs and cushions for the 
 visitors, and when all were comfortable he came round with 
 new churchwardens and a terra-cotta bowl containing a 
 spicy sandy tobacco. 
 
 " Well, as I was saying ..." said Mr. Umpleby, and 
 he resumed the stojy in which the entry of the visitors had 
 evidently interrupted him. 
 
 He was a little man with the beginnings of a paunch, fat 
 cheeks, and a moustache and prominent canine teeth that 
 gave him a comic resemblance to a walrus. O'Dwyer 
 already knew him slightly and by repute. He was a little 
 over thirty years of age and lived on a small private income. 
 He was known to be extremely vain, but his vanity took the 
 harmless and rather humble form of pluming himself on the 
 great people poets, artists, politicians, rather than aristo-
 
 272 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 crats with whom he scraped up acquaintance. After this 
 his principal characteristic was his habit of telling long, 
 tiresome stories full of parentheses, and of parentheses within 
 parentheses, such as could only be simplified by process of 
 Algebra, and in which he frequently became so involved as 
 to forget the main story altogether. He had taken no active 
 part in politics until the formation of the Volunteers, into 
 which movement he had flung himself with astonishing 
 vigour. His present story seemed to be an apologia for this 
 step. 
 
 " As I was saying, the whole world { or at any rate the 
 whole civilized world (which is what really counts in these 
 matters) } seemed to be about to perish of vanity and inani- 
 tion, when on an instant this new movement [a movement 
 which { in my opinion (and I give my opinion in all humil- 
 ity) } was -{with all its faults (and they were many 
 almost as many indeed as its virtues) } at any rate dis- 
 tinguished by sincerity and a wish for achievement] sprang 
 into being. Thereupon ..." 
 
 " You've let your pipe go out," said Theodosia. 
 
 " Dear me, so I have," said Mr. Umpleby, and in the 
 pause necessitated by remedying this misfortune Austin took 
 a sheet of paper from his pocket and said : 
 
 "Would you like to hear my latest?" 
 
 There was general polite assent from the company, and a 
 rapturous " Yes, please" from Theodosia, and Austin, clear- 
 ing his throat, began: 
 
 " IGNIS IMMORTALIS 
 " Seven spears in the day of light 
 
 Shall avenge with might our blood and tears, 
 Seven seers shall in death indict 
 
 The blasting blight of the bitter years." 
 
 There was a terrible energy in the voice issuing from so 
 frail a frame, and Bernard noticed a feverish gleam in the 
 eyes set so deep in their sockets. Austin went on to the sec- 
 ond stanza:
 
 WAITING 273 
 
 " Seven victims upon the altar 
 
 Shall sing a psalter of faith renewed. 
 The flame re-kindled no more shall falter 
 Nor word-wise palter the multitude." 
 
 " Magnificent ! " cried Umpleby, fulsomely. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " What it says, of course," said Austin, contemptuously. 
 
 Then seeing Bernard's lips twitch slightly, he added: 
 
 " You may smile. I'd expect it of you. But some poems 
 are prophecies, and perhaps you'll understand this one in a 
 few years' time." 
 
 " I say, Austin," broke in O'Dwyer, " I've discovered a 
 new poet who'd be exactly to your liking. He prefers to 
 remain anonymous, but he gave me a poem to submit to 
 your opinion." 
 
 " Read it to me," commanded Austin. 
 
 O'Dwyer took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, 
 and to Bernard's amazement read as follows: 
 
 " AISLING 
 "A Vision in the Void of Night! 
 
 The moon her face in fear did veil; 
 The stars did shudder at the sight: 
 The firmament did quail. 
 
 " And through earth's rent and rotting rocks 
 
 The boiling billows broke and burst, 
 Whereupon cold flames in feral flocks 
 Assuaged their thorny thirst. 
 
 " Black lightnings seared the sallow air, 
 The quaking sun dissolved in gloom. 
 Then oozed from out its loathsome lair 
 The pallid Worm of Doom! " 
 
 " By Jove ! " cried Austin in tremendous excitement, 
 " that's wonderful ! A true vision ! . . . That was written 
 by a great poet." 
 
 " Marvellous ! " echoed Umpleby. 
 
 " I confess I don't see anything in it," said O'Dwyer,
 
 274 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " but then mysticism isn't in my line. I suppose there must 
 be a deep meaning in it somewhere." 
 
 " The meaning is quite plain to any one who knows any- 
 thing of mysticism," said Austin. " You must ask that 
 young poet to come and see me." 
 
 " I remember once," began Umpleby, " a most extraor- 
 dinary experience occurred to me. I was ..." 
 
 But here Brian cut in with : 
 
 " Look here, everybody. What about drinkables? " 
 
 He wheeled forward a little table on which were a de- 
 canter of whiskey, a siphon of soda-water, bottles of stout, a 
 bottle of white wine, and glasses. The kettle on the fire 
 had just boiled, and Theodosia began to brew coffee in the 
 urn on the hearth. When every one was served with his 
 particular drink Umpleby had forgotten his story, and Austin 
 launched into a dissertation on politics. 
 
 " This generation needs blood," he said. " We alone 
 amongst all the generations of Irishmen have undergone no 
 sufferings in the cause of freedom. We have submitted 
 tamely to the yoke ; the mark of slavery is" upon us ; and only 
 by blood can it be wiped out." 
 
 " I don't see much sign of slavish acceptance in the Vol- 
 unteers," interrupted Bernard. 
 
 " A parade army," said Austin. " Until they have taken 
 and given blood they can be nothing but a political demon- 
 stration like the Orangemen. Until England strikes at 
 us we remain as we are : an army of flag-wavers." 
 
 " If England strikes we'll crumple," said Bernard. " I 
 regard the Volunteers as a defensive force, of more value to 
 stand up against political bullying than to take military 
 action." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Austin. "No bargaining for me! 
 Martyr's blood is of more value than rifles." 
 
 Bernard said no more. As he watched that emaciated 
 body eaten away by disease (Austin was suffering from a 
 slow internal cancer) jerk for the blood-lust of the restless 
 tortured spirit it harboured, he realized that he might as well
 
 WAITING 275 
 
 argue with a lunatic. There was something uncanny about 
 Austin's drawn yellow cheeks and great luminous eyes, and 
 Bernard was relieved by the interruption of Umpleby's 
 commonplace voice beginning a new parenthetic story. 
 
 At ten o'clock Stephen arose and said: 
 
 " I must go. Good-night." 
 
 It was the first time he had spoken that evening. Bernard 
 and O'Dwyer decided to accompany him, and in a few 
 minutes they found themselves in the street. 
 
 " Some entertainment! " said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " That poem of yours did some useful work tonight," 
 said Stephen. " It confirmed a suspicion of mine." 
 
 " Which? " asked O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Austin Mallow is a liar," said Stephen. 
 
 " Exactly what I wanted to prove," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Then that poem ... ? " questioned Bernard. 
 
 "... Was my own," said O'Dwyer. " Look here, 
 boys, the street's no place for metaphysical discussion. Let's 
 drop into my place for a while and I'll tell you about a dis- 
 covery I've made." 
 
 O'Dwyer's father lived at Stephen's Green, so they caught 
 a passing tram and arrived there in five minutes. O'Dwyer 
 let them in by latchkey and led them to his sanctum, a com- 
 fortable little room in the return part of the house. 
 
 " Draw up your chairs, boys," he said, lighting the gas 
 stove. "And what about a decent smoke? . . . I'm half 
 poisoned with that muck of Mallow's." He passed Bernard 
 the tobacco-jar from the mantel-piece. 
 
 " Now, what about this discovery? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " Well," said O'Dwyer, blowing forth a dense cloud of 
 tobacco smoke, " about a month ago I bought a splendid 
 book : Jean Christophe by Remain Rolland. It's an enor- 
 mous work ten volumes of it, all packed with psychology 
 and philosophy. But in the whole thing one sentence stood 
 out for me that seemed to be an entirely new discovery and 
 to be quite shatteringly true. It was this: ' Every nation 
 has its lie, which it calls its idealism,' and the hero of the
 
 276 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 novel exposes in turn the German lie and the French lie. I 
 found myself immediately wondering: 'What is the Irish 
 lie?' and thinking: 'If we can discover it and rid our- 
 selves of it we shall have taken a definite step on the road 
 to freedom.' Well, I set myself to the discovery. First, I 
 asked myself, what did we call our idealism. I found that 
 hard to answer, because the word has been so shockingly 
 misused. Then I remembered that Jean Christophe dis- 
 covered the French and German lies in their art, and I set 
 myself to look for the lie in ours. The question at once 
 arose: what is Irish art? In the first place, it is almost en- 
 tirely literary. Our music, painting, and architecture are 
 almost negligible. Then as to our literature, a further 
 question arose. We could not fairly be restricted to Gaelic 
 literature, but to how much of English literature might we 
 lay claim? Some of our greatest geniuses Sheridan, 
 Goldsmith, Wilde, Shaw, for example deliberately cut 
 themselves off from Ireland and wrote of England for Eng- 
 land. These I rejected. I felt we could only claim those 
 who had written of Ireland and for Ireland, or took their 
 inspiration from Ireland. I think we might go so far as to 
 claim Swift among these. Well, now I took a survey of 
 our whole literature. First, there was the old Gaelic stuff : 
 the Epic of the Tain, and the Fenian Legends, and some 
 minor things of the same period: that fine old saga, the 
 Wars of the Gael and Gall, too: and St. Patrick's Con- 
 fession: and St. Columba's Works these are just samples. 
 My knowledge is a little fragmentary, I'm afraid, for the 
 next thing that I can point to is the History of the Four 
 Masters. Then you come to the product of the worst times 
 in our history, the Penal times, and it's all full of fierce and 
 sorrowful songs like Jeremiads. After that, the next things 
 you hit on are in English : Tone's Autobiography, Carleton's 
 novels, and so on. Then you get the Young Irelanders: 
 Mitchel, and Davis and Mangan. Griffin and Kickham and 
 a few more follow them, and so we reach modern days. 
 " Now let's just glance back at the quality of all this stuff
 
 WAITING 277 
 
 of the past before we look too close at the moderns. The 
 early epics are the product of the great men of a great people. 
 They've all that bigness and spaciousness that you feel in 
 really great art. The Tain is equal to the Iliad and better 
 than the Aeneid. The Wars of the Gael and Gall is quite 
 up to Herodotus, and the Four Masters run Thucydides 
 pretty close. (Lord, what the world loses in not knowing 
 of these!) Some of the poetry of the Penal times is won- 
 derful stuff. Some of it is equal to Keats at his best, and 
 there are patches that smack of Browning: very little de- 
 scends to the level of Tennyson. Then look at Tone's Auto- 
 biography: it's the autobiography of one of the greatest 
 statesmen, finest men, and heartiest humourists that ever 
 lived : a really great work. I keep it on the same shelf with 
 Shakespeare, Rabelais, Plato, and Robinson Crusoe. Carle- 
 ton's a big man too, but Mitchel's bigger, and Ferguson and 
 Mangan are on a line with the great poets of any country. 
 Everything I've mentioned up to this is great stuff: the 
 kind of stuff that makes you catch your breath and say: 
 ' This is the thing.' The work of the great men of a great 
 people. 
 
 " Well, now I looked at the work of modern days, and 
 what did I see? Not badness, not clumsiness; no real fault 
 you could point to; but smallness. Apart from Russell and 
 Yeates, and including Synge, no one in Ireland of recent 
 years has produced a work of decent size. Our much- 
 boasted revival has produced hardly anything but short plays, 
 short stories, and a bewildering multitude of tiny booklets of 
 microscopic verses. You'd find it hard to point to a flaw in 
 any of them (they aren't big enough to make big mistakes), 
 but the smallness and mediocrity of the stuff is appalling. 
 That's the great Renaissance we hear so much about." 
 
 " Yes," said Stephen. " That may be all quite true, but 
 where's this lie you're talking about? " 
 
 " The lie," said O'Dwyer, " is not in the smallness of the 
 literature, but in the reason for it. I'm coming to that 
 presently. But there's one other thing I want you to notice,
 
 278 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and that is that half of the poetry turned out is what they 
 call ' mystic,' and half the remainder is what I call ' misty.' 
 As for the second kind, you know the sort of stuff I mean: 
 poems full of ' white mist on the brown bog,' and that kind 
 of tosh. The other's harder to deal with. You see it's 
 quite unintelligible, and if you say so you're told you're unfit 
 to criticize. However, after a careful examination into a 
 number of these poems, I came to this conclusion: that they 
 really mean nothing, and that anyone acquainted with the 
 laws of prosody and gifted with a muddled head could pro- 
 duce them automatically by self-hypnosis induced by rhyme 
 and alliteration. I immediately decided to try the experi- 
 ment on myself, and produced the monstrosity you heard to- 
 night. I had no idea in my head when I sat down. I 
 honestly assure you of that. I wrote down the first line that 
 came into my head and the rest were simply fitted in to suit 
 the rhyme, and I tacked on to every noun the first alliterative 
 adjective I could think of. Voila tout! Mallow thought 
 the result a great poem and thought he saw a meaning 
 in it." 
 
 " If you were dishonest enough," remarked Bernard, " you 
 could make a book of these things and pass as a mystic 
 poet." 
 
 " And I wouldn't be the first. . . . Now do you see the 
 lie ? When nine-tenths of a country's literature is character- 
 ized by mistiness, mystery and brevity, what conclusion do 
 you come to ? There's no ' imagination ' in mistiness ; it's 
 mere sentimentality. There's nothing in their mysticism but 
 muddled and slovenly thinking (Mallow, for instance, 
 couldn't think clearly if he tried). And as for their brevity 
 they're not men enough to produce work of any size. 
 That's the long and the short of it. Why do you think 
 there's so much poetry produced in Ireland? Because it's 
 the easiest form in which to say nothing impressively. 
 
 " Well, there's our lie. We've been posing as a nation of 
 poetical, unwordly idealists, and we're really a nation of
 
 WAITING 279 
 
 slackers. Our literature gives us away: it's the work of the 
 lazy men of a lazy nation." 
 
 " Our laziness is a bad sign," said Stephen, " but we're 
 getting over it. ... Your poem showed up something much 
 worse tonight. The man who could pretend to see a mean- 
 ing in that drivel is a liar, and a self-deceiver. . . . Did 
 you listen to his own poem ? " 
 
 " Not particularly," replied the others. 
 
 " He called it a prophecy. It's easy to prophesy what 
 one intends to carry out. . . . We'd better keep our eyes 
 open." 
 
 2 
 
 239, HARCOURT STREET, 
 DUBLIN, 
 2Oth May, 1914. 
 My dear Jack : 
 
 I read your article in the Twentieth Century on recent 
 events in Ireland with great interest, but you've been guilty 
 of one inaccuracy. The Irish Volunteers were not founded 
 to " protect the law and defend Parliament against those 
 who would overawe it by armed force" The protection of 
 your Parliament is none of our business, and Carson can 
 bully it as much as he likes for all we care. In fact, our 
 principal function is to do a little bullying of that same 
 august assembly on our own account. Your Press and the 
 Unionist Press over here has been preaching at us for the last 
 fifty years that we can only obtain our autonomy by resort- 
 ing to Constitutional methods. Well, we took them at their 
 word, and what's the result? As soon as these methods 
 begin to achieve anything, the law-and-order party flouts the 
 Constitution, starts a rebel army, sets up a Provisional Gov- 
 ernment, seduces the British army, and threatens to call in 
 the help of the German Emperor. No more Constitutional- 
 ism for us, thank you. The Curragh mutiny and the Larne 
 gun-running have killed it. 
 
 Would you like to have a glance at Ireland as she really
 
 a8o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 is? I'm going north in June with my brother Eugene and a 
 man called McGurk to Cloughaneely , an Irish-speaking dis- 
 trict, and we'll be delighted if you'll form one of the party. 
 
 You may notice I've changed my address. I've taken the 
 hall-flat of this house, consisting of consulting-room, dining- 
 room, sitting-room, and bed-room, with use of kitchen, and 
 I'm busy looking over my blind for patients. I've engaged a 
 servant, too, an Englishman, a perfectly priceless person 
 called Swathythe. Your " lower orders " make much bet- 
 ter servants than ours. They're more servile. 
 
 Hoping to see you in June, if you aren't married by then, 
 I remain, and the rest of it, 
 
 BERNARD LASCELLES. 
 
 This letter brought Willoughby over to Dublin at the end 
 of May. Bernard took him all over the city, showing him 
 the great public buildings, the treasures in the museum, the 
 harbour, the slums, and, by special request, a company of 
 Volunteers drilling at Kimmage, which impressed Wil- 
 loughby mightily. 
 
 Two days later the party, with the addition of O'Flaherty, 
 left Amiens Street by the nine o'clock train. They rattled 
 above mean streets and sped out on to the great grassy via- 
 duct that spans the inlet of the sea at Fairview. Over the 
 flat hedge-bounded fields of north County Dublin they 
 rushed, along the sandy coast of grassy Meath, and into the 
 historic town of Drogheda. 
 
 " The river Boyne," said McGurk to Willoughby. 
 
 Willoughby rushed eagerly to look out of the carriage 
 window, but he seemed disappointed somehow. 
 
 " I'd an idea from the newspapers," he said, " that all 
 Ireland was camped on opposite sides of the river." 
 
 " The Boyne is a Leinster river," Bernard explained. 
 " We're nowhere near Carsonland yet." 
 
 " Oh ? I thought it was the frontier," said Willoughby. 
 
 At Portadown they had to change trains, and Willoughby 
 was told he w r as now genuinely in the " North-East Corner."
 
 WAITING 281 
 
 He looked around eagerly for signs of Ulster Volunteers, 
 but none were forthcoming. 
 
 " This is very disappointing," he said. " I thought the 
 country was on the verge of civil war and I haven't seen as 
 much as a bayonet." 
 
 " Our military activities are carried on at night," said 
 Bernard. " During the day we have our work to do. If 
 you want to see what Ulster Volunteers are like, just look 
 round you. That porter there is probably one." 
 
 Willoughby became round-eyed with interest. 
 
 " Yes. He has a decidedly fanatical look," he said. 
 (The porter was as commonplace a porter as could be 
 found.) 
 
 " Say, Bernard," whispered McGurk, " this English 
 friend of yours is an awful eejit." 
 
 The next change was at Strabane, where they took advan- 
 tage of an hour's wait to have lunch, and Willoughby had 
 his first experience of an Irish country hotel. 
 
 " Do you long for the Inn at Deeping? " said Bernard, 
 as Willoughby picked a hair out of the butter. 
 
 " Oh, no," replied Willoughby, politely. " Everything's 
 very charming." 
 
 On the light railway they leaped the Bann and plunged 
 into the wildness of the Western World. The green 
 pastures of Leinster and southeast Ulster were far behind 
 them and they rattled through a land of bog and rocks. On 
 and on they clattered and jolted, winding along in a ser- 
 pentine track, now shrieking through rocky cuttings, now 
 puffing peacefully over the open bog. Station after station 
 fled past them, mere platforms of wood standing out of the 
 heathery waste. To their left Errigal, grim and menacing, 
 towered over his brother mountains. To their right 
 stretched the flat surface of the bog, weird and lifeless in the 
 gloaming. 
 
 " By the way, Jack," said Bernard, " you must remember 
 that you're entering a democratic country. The people don't 
 touch their hats to squire here. They reserve that for the
 
 282 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 priest. You must shake hands with them naturally and as 
 a matter of course: not in a patronizing way like a lord of 
 the manor visiting a faithful retainer, or like a parliamentary 
 candidate at an election, but as one gentleman with another. 
 If you go into a shop to buy a threepenny packet of cigarettes, 
 you must shake hands first and talk about the news or the 
 weather, and if they give you sixpence worth of chocolate 
 along with your cigarettes, remember it's a present and take 
 it as such." 
 
 " How delightfully Irish ! " said Willoughby. 
 
 A few minutes later they alighted on the wind-blown 
 platform of Cashelnagore, and, having deposited their bag- 
 gage in a donkey-cart, cycled the three or four miles to the 
 little village of Gortahork, at the principal hotel of which 
 they had engaged rooms. 
 
 3 
 
 Next morning after breakfast they sat in the sun on the 
 bench before the hotel smoking their pipes. An old woman 
 hobbled by. 
 
 " Maidin breagh! " she cried in a hearty voice, a smile 
 wrinkling all over her face. 
 
 "Ana bhreagh" replied Eugene and McGurk together. 
 
 " What was that? " asked Willoughby. 
 
 " Fine day," said Eugene. 
 
 A labourer going down the hill to his work shouted the 
 same salutation, and three or four others who passed in 
 succession did likewise. 
 
 " They seem mighty interested in the weather in this 
 locality," observed O'Flaherty. 
 
 " No wonder," said McGurk. " It's not often they get 
 the chance to say ' Id breagh ' up here. ' La bog ' is the 
 usual complaint." 
 
 " Say, boys," said O'Flaherty a little later, " Willoughby's 
 just itching to have a near view of the natives. What about 
 a tour of inspection ? " 
 
 All were agreed and they set out at once. They stopped
 
 WAITING 283 
 
 at a small but crowded shop in the village to buy cigarettes, 
 and Willoughby for the first time realized that he was in a 
 foreign country. Nothing was to be heard anywhere but 
 this strange Irish language of whose existence he had been 
 ignorant until quite recently. Dublin, save for some minor 
 local peculiarities, had seemed but a part of his own country, 
 where putting his watch back twenty-five minutes was the 
 greatest wrench in the scheme of things. Now he suddenly 
 felt himself a stranger isolated in a distant land. 
 
 On Bernard also this first continuous rush of the language 
 that should have been his own had a strange effect, but a 
 different one. The sound had a baffling enchantment for 
 him and he felt an extraordinary desire to join in the con- 
 versation, half-expecting that his native language would come 
 bubbling from his lips by some miracle of atmosphere and 
 will-power. . . . He registered an instantaneous resolve to 
 learn the language at once. 
 
 McGurk, who spoke Irish fairly fluently, made purchases 
 for the rest of the party and was presented with a parcel of 
 milk chocolate for his English friend. Emerging from the 
 shop they encountered O'Dwyer and two other young men 
 from Dublin. 
 
 "Hello!" cried O'Dwyer. "What? Is that Wil- 
 loughby? What brings you to Cloughaneely ? 'Old Ash- 
 bury, thy sons are found Beyond the Empire's furthest 
 bound,' eh? " ** 
 
 Greetings followed. O'Dwyer's companions were two 
 men in his own year, called Conachy and Leeds, and were a 
 striking contrast to one another. Conachy was a dark- 
 haired young man with a solemn face rather like a horse, 
 a depressingly polite manner and a tactful, tentative way of 
 speaking. He was neatly dressed in dark grey cloth. Leeds 
 on the other hand was loud-voiced and self-assertive. His 
 head was covered with a tangled mass of straw-coloured 
 hair, and he wore an untidy saffron kilt and green plaid. 
 With both of them Bernard and his friends were slightly 
 acquainted. Conachy was harmless and of little note, but
 
 284 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Leeds summed up in himself all that Bernard disliked in 
 Irish Nationalism. He was vulgar, stupid, ignorant and 
 bigotted and always talked dogmatically at the top of his 
 voice. He talked of nothing else but politics and always 
 in an aggressive manner. He maintained that the ancient 
 literature of Ireland, which he had not read, was the greatest 
 literature in the world; that Irish music was the greatest 
 music in the world ; that the Round Towers were the most 
 beautiful pieces of architecture in the world; and that the 
 Book of Kells was a greater work of art than all the pictures 
 ever painted. Those who differed from him in this opinion 
 he considered traitors to Ireland, in which category he also 
 placed everyone who had ever been in England, everyone who 
 admired English literature, everyone who spoke English 
 without a pronounced Irish accent, everyone who parted his 
 hair or brushed his clothes, and everyone who did not, like 
 himself, talk torrents of ungrammatical Irish on every un- 
 suitable occasion. 
 
 " How do you like Ireland ? " he asked Willoughby. 
 His tone was intentionally hostile. 
 
 " Immensely," said Willoughby. " I think it's a delight- 
 ful place." 
 
 " How very nice and patronizing of you ! " sneered Leeds. 
 
 " Oh, I mean it quite sincerely, I assure you," said Wil- 
 loughby, politely. 
 
 " Oh, do you?" said Leeds. " I say, do you know that 
 Ireland was Christian and civilized when your country was 
 full of painted savages? " 
 
 " So I believe," said Willoughby, mildly. " And I'm 
 sorry to see to what a state English rule has brought you." 
 
 Conachy insinuated himself into the conversation. 
 
 " You were asking for that," he said to the discomfited 
 Leeds. " Don't think we're all like him, Mr. Willoughby. 
 Most Irishmen are prepared to forgive and forget. You 
 seem to have run into a great crowd of extremists, but don't 
 forget the majority are moderate men like me." 
 
 Leeds turned all his wrath on Conachy, and the two began
 
 WAITING 285 
 
 to wrangle about extremes and moderation, becoming so 
 heated as to be oblivious to the rest of the company. 
 McGurk seized this opportunity to whisper to O'Dwyer: 
 
 " Slip off from these eejits and come for a walk with our 
 crowd." 
 
 O'Dwyer did so, and leaving th.e disputants behind the 
 party set out in the direction of Ardsmore. The road led 
 them up hill through a typical piece of Irish mountain 
 scenery. The whole outlook was bleak and spacious, the 
 land poor and unproductive, but dotted all over with ill- 
 made and often unhealthy-looking cottages, the inhabitants 
 of which maintained a meagre existence on potatoes grown 
 in patches painfully reclaimed from the bog or hacked out 
 of the stony hillsides. Here and there a man so labouring 
 shouted greetings to them in Irish. 
 
 " Everything is delightful," said Willoughby. " The 
 friendly hospitable atmosphere! And how delicious is that 
 faint smell of turf-smoke one gets everywhere." 
 
 " How did you pick up with that pair of asses? " O'Fla- 
 herty asked O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Staying in the same digs." 
 
 " Couldn't you shift over to the hotel with us? " 
 
 " Too dear," said O'Dwyer. He turned to Willoughby 
 and said, " That Leeds creature is what you friendly English 
 people generally imagine an Irish extremist to be like. He's 
 a lunatic of course, but he's not a bit more extreme in his 
 desire for independence than I am. It makes me furious 
 when English people won't believe I'm in earnest about 
 separation because I don't look like Leeds." 
 
 " We're not a bit more at fault 'than you are," said Wil- 
 loughby. " Your politics are based entirely on the assump- 
 tion that the English people are a lot of blood-thirsty 
 tyrants." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," said O'Dwyer. " Quite the con- 
 trary. That has nothing to do with my politics. Even if 
 England was populated entirely by decent civilized people 
 like you, I don't want to be governed by her, or even under
 
 286 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 her suzerainty: I've my pride, you know. I'm quite fit to 
 govern myself, foreign affairs and all." 
 
 " Felim," said Eugene, " you're a fanatic an unpractical 
 extremist. Nothing can be done without compromise." 
 
 " Compromise ! " snorted O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Yes. I'm a moderate man, and I believe that there 
 must be compromise and give and take on both sides." 
 
 " In my vocabulary," said O'Dwyer, " compromise is 
 another word for surrender, and moderation another word 
 for cowardice." 
 
 " Well, if you will descend to abuse, in my vocabulary 
 extremist is another word for lunatic." 
 
 " Here, you two," said Bernard. " Chuck it. Don't get ex- 
 cited. This is too nice a day for politics. Let's rest awhile." 
 
 They were now out on the mountain-side far above the 
 village. They left the road and lay down, sprawling lazily 
 in the heather on the turf hot with the sun. The irre- 
 pressible O'Dwyer at once returned to the attack on Eugene. 
 
 " You think I'm an extremist out of mere obstinacy," he 
 said. " You think I like the battle for its own sake. Well 
 I don't.. I wish it was over, because I'm all for peace. I'm 
 not a revolutionary like Bernard, who would never be con- 
 tent with things as they are. I want things settled quickly 
 and at once so as I can chuck politics and get at my writing. 
 I can't fiddle while my country falls, but I wish she'd stop 
 falling so that I might have a chance to do some fiddling." 
 
 " All the more reason for moderation," said Eugene. 
 " That's the way to peace and prosperity." He lay back 
 enjoying the sun. " How beautiful and peaceful nature is, 
 so different from the angry passions of men. Look! " 
 
 Sentimentally he gazed up at a skylark winging its way 
 aloft. " Hail to thee, blithe spirit," he spouted. 
 
 Suddenly a hawk swooped from nowhere on its prey. 
 
 "What price peaceful Nature now?" said O'Flaherty. 
 
 " Nature's an extremist all right," said Bernard. " Only 
 civilization saves your type from extinction, Eugene." 
 
 " Well, moderation is the civilized thing," said Eugene.
 
 WAITING 287 
 
 " I'm glad you admit it." He spoke triumphantly as having 
 gained a point. 
 
 "You say you like moderation in everything?" asked 
 McGurk. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, what about moderating the number of your fin- 
 gers? Lend us a knife, someone." 
 
 " Let me go! " cried Eugene as McGurk seized his wrist. 
 
 " Well, if you aren't the awful extremist ! Isn't half a 
 dozen fingers enough for you? Come on, Bernard. Let's 
 do a fmgerectomy on him." 
 
 " Chuck it, Hugo," said O'Dwyer, who had been scrib- 
 bling in his note-book for the last few minutes. " I'm writ- 
 ing a poem on Nature." 
 
 " Let's hear it," said O'Flaherty. 
 
 " It began seriously," said O'Dwyer, " but like all my 
 poems it took the bit between its teeth and bolted. 
 
 " I wish I could sing of the beauties of spring 
 When the lark's on the wing and the lambkins are bleating, 
 When every hour brings forth a new flower 
 And lessens our bills for lighting and heating. 
 
 And I wish I could write of the wonders of night, 
 The magical light of moon, star, and planet, 
 The shimmer and beam of the ocean, the gleam 
 Of the glow-worm: I would if I could but I cannot. 
 
 And if only the cloud of the mystic would shroud 
 
 And inspire me to ununderstandable language, 
 
 Ah, then you'd concede I'm a poet indeed, 
 
 But it doesn't. So pass me a hard-boiled-egg sangwich." 
 
 " Bloody good ! " cried McGurk. 
 
 " You've sound dope on poetry," said O'Flaherty. 
 " There's too much of this mystic rubbish going round 
 Ireland at present. Now that's got to be cut right out. 
 We haven't time for it. There was never a country in less 
 need of minor poets than this, and never a country so full 
 of them."
 
 288 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " There's too many of them on the Provisional Committee 
 anyhow," said McGurk. 
 
 " Quite right," said O'Flaherty. " We're supposed to be 
 a military movement and we're ruled by people like Austin 
 Mallow, who instead of reading up military stuff, scribbles 
 symbolical muck about swords and spears." 
 
 " You're wrong about Mallow," said Eugene. " I don't 
 agree with his politics, but his poetry is beautiful." 
 
 " Shows how well you understand it," said O'Flaherty, 
 contemptuously. " Isn't it all a symbolic appeal to Ireland 
 to rise and avenge her wrongs. . . . He's got spears on the 
 brain. . . . Precious lot of good an insurrection would do 
 us now." 
 
 " I thought you were all red-hot rebels," said Willoughby. 
 
 " Do I look very red-hot ? " demanded O'Flaherty. " No, 
 boys. The sooner this Provisional Committee's kicked out, 
 the better. I counted at least six poets on it, and I'm sure 
 there's as many more." 
 
 " You're right," said Bernard. 
 
 " It's hard-chaws we want," said McGurk. 
 
 " The one good thing about the movement is the poets 
 and idealists who govern it," said Eugene. " I look to them 
 to redeem it from its present narrow and selfish policy and 
 make it a means of reconciliation with England instead of a 
 weapon to stab her. Your policy of hate simply sickens me." 
 
 " Eugene, you're a soft-headed old donkey," said Bernard. 
 " You'll find precious little peace and good-will in Mallow's 
 poetry. It's hate sublimated. I hate England as much as 
 Mallow does, but there's some sense and coolness in my 
 hatred. I wouldn't have Ireland cut her own throat to 
 spite England, and Mallow would. He'd rush us into rebel- 
 lion tomorrow just to have the satisfaction of killing one 
 Englishman before he dies. He told me so himself a few 
 days ago. The man's a lunatic, and I wouldn't trust him 
 with a popgun, much less an army. . . . And I tell you this. 
 There are more men than he on the Committee of that frame 
 of mind, and I'm afraid of them."
 
 WAITING 289 
 
 " Well," said Eugene, " that only shows Redmond was 
 right in opposing Volunteering. You've only yourselves to 
 blame for joining them. I wish he'd never withdrawn his 
 opposition." 
 
 " He had to," said McGurk. 
 
 " Well, well," laughed Willoughby. "It's true after all, 
 Irishmen can never agree. What on earth can my poor 
 country do with you ? " 
 
 " Leave us alone," said O'Flaherty. 
 
 " I wish we could," said Willoughby. 
 
 " No more politics," cried Bernard. " Read us another 
 poem, Felim." 
 
 Felim looked through his note-book and said: 
 
 " Here's a triolet, supposed to be spoken by a fair and 
 inconstant maiden: 
 
 "Jack, give me a kiss: 
 
 I'm weary of Willy's. 
 What do you call this? 
 Jack, give me a kiss. 
 That's no better than his 
 
 Here he comes bringing lilies. 
 Jack, give me a kiss: 
 
 I'm weary of Willy's." 
 
 " You're a beastly cynic, Felim," said Eugene. 
 " Here are some personalities," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 "A. E. (George Russell) 
 Made the Celt bustle, 
 And turned his fairyland 
 Into a dairyland." 
 
 " Grand ! " said McGurk. " Any more of those? " 
 
 " W. B. Yeates, 
 Weary of bills and rates, 
 Took a hive for the honey bee 
 On the lake Isle of Innisfree." 
 
 The sun mounting to the zenith suggested dinner. As
 
 290 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 they commenced the return journey Willoughby said: 
 " You fellows aren't a bit like the champions of an op- 
 pressed people. Here you've spent the morning arguing, 
 abusing each other, telling stories and reciting comic verses, 
 while the battle for your liberties is being fought at West- 
 minster." 
 
 "Alas! me poor Cathleen! " sobbed McGurk, taking out 
 his handkerchief. "Is that the sort of thing ye want?" 
 he asked. 
 
 4 
 
 For a fortnight their sojourn at Cloughaneely was unin- 
 terrupted. It was a perfect place for a holiday, and every- 
 one did just as he pleased. Bernard, Eugene and O'Dwyer 
 attended lectures every morning at the Irish College ; 
 O'Flaherty studied guerilla strategy in the mountains ; Wil- 
 loughby conscientiously wandered about the country-side 
 studying the Irish Question and getting materials for articles 
 and letters to the Radical reviews; McGurk took his ease 
 about the hotel. In the afternoons they would assemble for 
 a collective walk or a bathe, and in the evenings they would 
 gather together in the hotel and tell each other endless anec- 
 dotes, compose Limericks about their friends, or listen to 
 extracts from O'Dwyer's notebook. Occasionally they went 
 to the ceilidhes at the college, and once even induced Wil- 
 loughby to come. He made no show at the dancing, but 
 came home in a very sentimental mood induced by certain 
 Irish songs of plaintive melody and banal wording. The 
 chorus : 
 
 " Ni'l si Id, ni'l go foil, 
 Ni'l si an oidhce, nd na mhaidin." 
 
 affected him almost to tears, and another song, " Cruacha na 
 h-Eireann," sung, though he knew it not, to a commonplace 
 English music-hall air, made him, as he said, " appreciate 
 what a wonderful people the Irish really are." 
 
 They decided to impress him as much as possible and took 
 him one day to see what they called " the last independent
 
 WAITING 291 
 
 portion of Ireland." This meant a journey by sea to Tory 
 Island, which has paid no taxes to the British Empire since 
 the day when a gunboat sent to collect them got wrecked on 
 its treacherous shores. But Willoughby was still more im- 
 pressed by the sight of the corps of Volunteers drilling every 
 evening in different parts of the country; for now all Ire- 
 land was organizing and two hundred thousand men were 
 clamouring for arms. 
 
 He thought the Sunday Mass a very edifying spectacle. 
 The church was a small one and it was crowded to the doors, 
 the congregation overflowing even into the churchyard and 
 the road outside. Round the Communion-rails the old 
 women remained prostrate, foreheads to the ground, shawls 
 drawn over their heads, all through the service. Bernard 
 found the atmosphere and the sermon in Irish rather trying, 
 but Willoughby was enthusiastic. 
 
 " I never knew what Catholicism was before," he said. 
 " We English haven't the true spirit at all." 
 
 "Hmph!" said McGurk, "these fervent Catholics 
 would cheat you in a business deal tomorrow." 
 
 " And maybe give you a present costing double what they'd 
 made out of you the day after," put in Eugene. 
 
 " And abuse you behind your back for taking it," added 
 O 'Flaherty. 
 
 " We're a queer people," Bernard explained. " We've 
 heaps of piety and no ethics; a craze for generosity, and no 
 notions of charity." 
 
 " I find you all very charming anyhow," said Willoughby. 
 
 " Do you see these people learning to think Imperially? " 
 asked Bernard, and Willoughby had to confess that he didn't. 
 
 " And this," said Bernard, " is the real Ireland. The 
 foundations on which the Ireland you think you know is 
 built. The edifice is superficially altered by climatic and 
 political conditions, but it's of the same stuff as the founda- 
 tions. . . . My dear Willoughby, we're a different people 
 from you entirely. We haven't an idea in common. We're 
 more different from you than the French from the Germans,
 
 292 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 or the Tibetans from yourselves. ... By force and fraud 
 you may succeed in governing us, but we can never be 
 partners." 
 
 " I love to hear Bernard spouting," said O'Dwyer. " He 
 was a Unionist a few months ago. 
 
 " There was a young man called Lascelles 
 Who read Marx, Norman Angel, and Wells ..." 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Bernard, but O'Dwyer had the rapt look 
 that told of further composition . . . 
 
 Willoughby had expressed himself " charmed " with 
 everything he had seen up to this, but he was less pleased by 
 a political meeting they happened to witness a few days later 
 at Letterkenny. They had gone there to try and obtain 
 some tobacco more suited to his taste than the brands obtain- 
 able in Gortahork. The moment they reached the station 
 it was obvious that something big was afoot. The streets 
 were full of hurrying crowds and the thump and rattle of 
 different bands could be heard in the distance. One band 
 swung past them in seedy uniforms, adorned with tarnished 
 gold braid; a tawdry banner borne in front; a terrible 
 blare bursting from its battered instruments. Behind 
 marched a company of half-disciplined Volunteers in fours, 
 armed with dummy rifles and commanded by an obvious ex- 
 Sergeant Major of the British Army. Our friends only 
 Bernard, Willoughby and O'Flaherty had come to Letter- 
 kenny followed in their wake to the focus on which all 
 were concentrating the market-place, one vast discordance 
 of sights, sounds, and smells. Men, organized and un- 
 organized, hurried here and there. Banners of motley kinds 
 flaunted the sky. Pipes, bugles, fifes, drums rent the air. 
 Shouts and bells added to the confusion. The atmosphere 
 was stifling; it barely stirred the great green flag over the 
 platform in the centre of the square. 
 
 Suddenly, a big, burly, red-faced man mounted the plat- 
 form, and as he raised his hand, silence gradually fell.
 
 WAITING 293 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," he said, " we have assembled 
 here today, we men and women of the land of the O'Don- 
 nells " (cheers) " to pledge once more our renewed faith 
 and loyalty " (cheers) " to the men who have fought for us 
 so long and so faithfully on the floor of the House of Com- 
 mons, and have brought the Home Rule ship to the mouth 
 of the harbour " (cheers) " to Mr. John Redmond and 
 the Irish Parliamentary Party " (loud and prolonged cheer- 
 ing). "And, ladies and gentlemen, we would associate 
 with them in our gratitude those young men " (cheers) 
 " who, inspired by them, called the people of Ireland to 
 arm themselves, lest the rights they had won by constitu- 
 tional means should be filched from them by the armed 
 bullying of the Orangemen " (groans). " But " 
 
 It was a long-drawn-out and ominous " But." It trans- 
 pired that the young men who had founded the Volunteer 
 movement were not the right people to carry it on. They 
 were rash, unskilled in politics. Their leaders must be 
 " tried and trusted men," for now " by a single false step the 
 cup might be dashed from the Nation's lips just as it was 
 about to bear fruit." In short, the speaker moved that this 
 meeting requested Mr. John Redmond and the Irish Party 
 to take over the leadership of the Volunteers. (Tremendous 
 cheering as the speaker made place for another.) 
 
 " Shows the way the wind's blowing," remarked Bernard 
 to Hektor. "\Vonder what's happening in Dublin?" 
 
 " Goodness knows," said Hektor, gloomily. They had 
 heard nothing from their friends in town since their arrival 
 in Cloughaneely, and though they had gathered from the 
 papers that there was trouble afoot between the Volunteer 
 Committee and the Party, they could only guess vaguely at 
 its extent. 
 
 They left the market-place and searched the tobacconists 
 of Letterkenny, but to Willoughby's dismay no Perique 
 was to be found, and he was forced to wire to Dublin 
 for it. 
 
 " Why the devil couldn't the Party be content with co-
 
 294 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 operation ? " demanded Hektor, savagely, in the train. 
 " Why must they dominate everything? " 
 
 Their news brought gloom to the jolly crowd gathered 
 that evening at the hotel. Eugene deprecated; O'Dwyer 
 raved; McGurk cursed ferociously; Willoughby looked on, 
 politely puzzled. 
 
 And the next evening Stephen Ward arrived at Gortahork. 
 
 5 
 
 He was pale and haggard, and his weary eyes told of sleep- 
 less nights. He said little and went to bed almost immedi- 
 ately on his arrival. By the time he came down to breakfast 
 the morning paper had told them that the Provisional Com- 
 mittee had yielded to Mr. Redmond's pressure and allowed 
 him to nominate twenty-five members to their body. 
 
 " I know you'll think it weak of us," he said as he took 
 his place late at the breakfast table. " But it was inevit- 
 able. We couldn't afford to split the country on the issue." 
 
 " Suppose not," was the unwilling agreeement. 
 
 " Such work as we've had this last week," said Stephen. 
 " All-night sittings, interviews, letters, negotiations I 
 need a holiday badly." 
 
 He attacked his breakfast almost greedily. 
 
 The following morning when the list of Redmond's 
 nominees was read out there was a storm of indignation. 
 
 "Holy murdher!" cried McGurk. "Half the crooks 
 and jobbers in the U.I.L. ! Is that what he calls his repre- 
 sentative men ? The bloody old cod ! " 
 
 " Half of them are Dublin men, too," observed Stephen. 
 " And one of the reasons he gave for wanting to enlarge the 
 committee was that Dublin was too well represented." 
 
 " A good indication of the Party's honesty," said Bernard 
 to Eugene. 
 
 " The question is," said O'Flaherty, " have they come in 
 to make the movement subservient to the Party, or to wreck 
 it?"
 
 WAITING 295 
 
 " To wreck it, of course," said McGurk. " That's what 
 they've been trying to do all along." 
 
 "And what's to be done now?" asked Bernard, despair- 
 ingly. 
 
 " We must hold together in spite of them," said Stephen. 
 
 He took Bernard and Hektor off for a walk away from the 
 others that afternoon. 
 
 " Don't suppose I came here for a holiday entirely," he 
 said. " There's work to be done still. While civil war 
 rages on the committee the men have got to be armed, and 
 our crowd will have to do it. There's a small committee 
 just formed, we're raising money, and we're just thinking 
 out the best way of bringing the guns into the country when 
 we've got them. I came up here partly to see you fellows 
 and partly to find out if there's a good landing-place on this 
 coast." 
 
 "This looks like business!" said Bernard, his drooping 
 spirits quickly reviving. 
 
 " What would be the good of landing guns in a place like 
 this at the back of god-speed ? " asked Hektor. 
 
 " Just what I said myself," said Stephen, " but our people 
 have got obsessed with a notion that things must be done in 
 a hole-and-corner way. I'd like them to take a leaf out of 
 Carson's book and do the thing with a splash." 
 
 " That's the right dope," said Hektor. " Land the guns 
 at Howth or Kingstown in full daylight; then you're near 
 your base ; everything is much easier ; you get a good political 
 effect ; and the risk of being interfered with isn't a bit greater 
 not worth reckoning, anyhow. . . . Take your holiday, 
 man, and waste no time speculating over Donegal." 
 
 " I think I'll take your advice," said Stephen. " And 
 now there's one thing more I want to ask you. The guns 
 will have to be bought on the continent, so we'll need men 
 to go for them who have leisure, who know their way about, 
 and who aren't too well known to the authorities. That 
 description seems to point to you two, I think. Will you 
 be ready when wanted ?"
 
 296 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Rather," said Bernard. 
 
 " Sure thing," said Hektor. 
 
 Stephen spent a week at Gortahork and then returned to 
 town. Next day Willoughby, who was to be married in 
 July, also took his departure. Bernard and Eugene saw 
 him as far as Letterkenny whence he was to travel by Belfast 
 and Fleetwood homeward. His last words to Bernard were 
 a promise to fight Ireland's cause in England to the end. 
 
 As soon as they reached Gortahork they encountered 
 Hektor who handed Bernard an opened telegram, which 
 
 Come to town at once. 
 
 Stephen. 
 
 6 
 
 " You two will have a colleague in this business," said 
 Stephen, as he, Bernard and Hektor set out from the Neptune 
 next day. " His name is Umpleby, Cyril Umpleby, and 
 unfortunately he's rather an ass. But he has the tremen- 
 dous advantage of being a good French speaker and he knows 
 his way about Antwerp. He's not very discreet, he's a fair 
 supply of brain, he's a sublime egoist and a snob of the first 
 water. You'll find him amusing on the whole, but you'll 
 have to keep him in order. I may add that he's quite 
 insuppressible." 
 
 " Some handful ! " said Hektor. 
 
 " In addition to him you're now going to meet two of the 
 finest men in the world. I say that without any hesitation. 
 The first is George Calverley. He's an Englishman, and 
 one of the best friends Ireland ever had. He's a sportsman 
 of the best type, and probable the best yachtsman in England. 
 He's offered to run the guns for us in his yacht the Cor- 
 morant, one of the speediest boats of her size, I believe, 
 and, by the way, that reminds me. Umpleby is such a 
 blitherer that we're telling him nothing he needn't know.
 
 WAITING 297 
 
 So he thinks the guns are going to be run home in a fleet of 
 fishing smacks, and if that rumour gets around it'll be all to 
 the good. Unfortunately the Cormorant won't hold all the 
 guns we intend to buy, so we've had to ask another yachtsman 
 to take half of them, an Irishman this time, a real jewel 
 of a man with an English accent that would knock you down. 
 Have you ever heard of Angus O'Connor? I suppose not. 
 He lives most of his time in London and he's well known 
 there I believe. Calverley's going to run his cargo into 
 Howth and O'Connor's taking his to Kilcool, to prevent 
 accidents. O'Connor of course isn't the other finest man 
 in the world I was telling you about. . . . He's . . . but 
 you can judge for yourselves, for here we are at our destina- 
 tion." 
 
 They turned into a hotel in Sackville Street and, ascend- 
 ing to the second floor, entered a small private sitting-room. 
 There were several men in the room, but one was of such 
 distinguished appearance that he caught Bernard's undivided 
 attention at once. He was standing with his back to the 
 fire, leaning against the mantelpiece, his arms folded across 
 his chest. He was very tall, well over six feet, and of mag- 
 nificent proportions. His face was one of singular beauty 
 and serenity, and his eyes were dark and kindly. The 
 strength and character of his well-modelled jaw were soft- 
 ened but not hidden by his curling black beard. In short, 
 this was a figure that in any assembly would be the first to 
 attract the attention of an onlooker. When our friends en- 
 tered he was talking with another man, Sullivan of the 
 Provisional Committee; but he now looked up with an eager 
 smile of welcome. 
 
 " This is my friend Mr. Lascelles," said Stephen. " Mr. 
 Lascelles, Sir Roger Casement." 
 
 " I've heard great things about you," said Sir Roger, with 
 a courtly smile. His accent was that of the educated and 
 travelled Irishman: that is to say it was colourless save for 
 the faintest indications of that native tint that Irishmen 
 give to certain vowels and consonants.
 
 298 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Any relation to Sir Eugene Lascelles? " asked Sir Roger. 
 
 " Son," said Bernard. 
 
 " I knew him slightly in days gone by. He's not one of 
 us, I'm afraid." 
 
 Bernard laughed. He was pleasantly flattered by the 
 " us " spoken by this magnificent man, the world-renowned 
 exposer of the Congo and Putomayo atrocities. Sir Roger 
 turned now to greet Hektor, and Bernard had an opportunity 
 of observing the other people present. They were three: 
 two stood conversing in a far corner of the room and the 
 third was bent over a table at the window with his back to 
 the door, so intent on the study of a map as not to have paid 
 any attention to the new arrivals. Of the other two, one 
 was a tall, dandified man with well-oiled hair and a neat 
 moustache: and the other he recognized at once as Cyril 
 Umpleby. He was talking rapidly to his companion and 
 did not cease at the entry of Stephen and his friends. How- 
 ever, Sir Roger now came forward and interrupted him by 
 quickly going through the necessary introductions. Umple- 
 by's companion turned out to be Angus O'Connor. The 
 man with the map who now relinquished his labours and 
 came up to be introduced was George Calverley, a sturdy, 
 clean-cut sailorly man of few words and brisk action. 
 
 "Were you followed?" Umpleby anxiously inquired of 
 Stephen. 
 
 "Who by?" 
 
 " G men, of course." 
 
 " I don't suppose so." 
 
 " Do you mean to say you didn't make sure? " 
 
 Stephen rudely turned his back on his questioner, as if 
 to dismiss his anxiety as trivial, and remarked to Sullivan : 
 
 " Umpleby has G men on the brain." 
 
 " W T e can't be too careful," said Umpleby. 
 
 " Just what we can be," said Hektor, much to the general 
 amusement. 
 
 " Let's get to business anyway," said Sullivan. " You 
 three are going to buy the guns for us, I take it. Very
 
 WAITING 299 
 
 well, then. In the first place here's the money, divided into 
 three packets for safety. Take one each." 
 
 He handed the three young men a packet each in his turn 
 and went on : 
 
 " We've decided that Antwerp is the most suitable place 
 for all our needs and your orders are simply to go there at 
 once and get as many rifles as the money can buy, with a 
 good supply of ammunition. You must then ship them down 
 the river and out to sea to a spot marked on this chart, 
 I'll entrust it to you, O'Flaherty." 
 
 He produced another packet and handed it over. 
 
 " You must be at that spot punctually at midday on the 
 fourteenth of July next, when you'll meet the er fleet 
 of trawlers commanded by Calverley and O'Connor, who 
 will take over all responsibility from then. This is the 
 twenty-seventh of June, which gives you exactly sixteen and 
 a half days for the job. Is everything quite clear? " 
 
 Hektor repeated these instructions correctly, and the three 
 gun-runners decided to start by next morning's mail-boat. 
 Umpleby immediately prepared to leave. 
 
 " I've a lot of arrangements to make," he said, " and then 
 I've my packing to do. We can plan out the rest of our 
 journey on board: I have a Bradshaw. Au revoir." And 
 he went out. 
 
 " Thank heaven for his packing," said Calverley. He 
 turned to Bernard. "You're Lascelles, aren't you?" he 
 said. Bernard nodded. " I hear you can sail a boat? " 
 
 " Pretty well," said Bernard. 
 
 " Well, I'll have to pay off several of my hands for this 
 trip as they aren't all trustworthy. Now I don't mind 
 sailing the Cormorant out shorthanded, but I wouldn't care 
 to risk it coming home with the cargo. So if you're willing 
 I'll take you on." 
 
 Bernard was perfectly willing. It appeared that to make 
 quite sure of punctuality the yacht was to remain longer at 
 sea than was necessary, the date for delivering the arms at 
 Howth being the twenty-sixth of July at 12:45 P. M., when
 
 300 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the harbour would be occupied by the Dublin Volunteers. 
 
 " I'll see you again off Antwerp on the fourteenth of 
 July," said Bernard, taking leave of Calverley. " And you 
 on the twenty-sixth at Howth," he said to Stephen. " Good- 
 bye, Sir Roger." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Casement, " and good luck." 
 
 Bernard never saw him again. 
 
 He and Hektor descended to the street. 
 
 " I like these short business-like interviews," said Hektor. 
 " They're rare in Ireland. . . . Well, we'll meet tomorrow." 
 
 They parted at that and Bernard turned towards home. 
 Arrived there he summoned before him the excellent serv- 
 itor Swathythe, mentioned in his letter to Willoughby. 
 Swathythe was a treasure. He did everything for Bernard 
 from tending his clothes and polishing his door plate to clean- 
 ing his motor. He was an impassive dark-haired man who 
 might have been any age from twenty to forty and was 
 actually twenty-six. 
 
 " Swathythe," said Bernard, " I'm going away again for a 
 month." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Swathythe. 
 
 " Tomorrow morning, Swathythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You show no surprise, Swathythe ? " 
 
 " I am not surprised, sir. No business to be, sir." 
 
 " I'll be back to dinner at seven sharp on the twenty-sixth 
 of July, Swathythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I'll have oysters, Swathythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And mutton broth, Swathythe." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And a sweetbread. And roast duck and green peas." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And a chocolate soufflee, Swathythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " At seven o'clock on the twenty-sixth prqx., Swathythe,"
 
 WAITING 301 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And now you might go and pack my bag, Swathythe." 
 
 7 
 
 All the world was at peace when Bernard and his friends 
 started on their mission. The most disturbed spot in all 
 Europe was Ireland, but even there the trouble did not 
 seriously affect ordinary life. There was no need to notice 
 it at all if one did not read the newspapers, and there was a 
 general feeling that things would soon settle down to their 
 normal state. Bloodshed and starvation seemed very impos- 
 sible occurrences in those days: the thought of them never 
 crossed the minds of ordinary men. The world sprawled 
 in blissful ignorance under the glorious sun of June. 
 
 " Thank God for a quiet life," murmured O'Dwyer to 
 McGurk, as they basked on the beach of Magheruarty. 
 " I wonder what fetched those fellows off in such a hurry." 
 
 At that very moment Gavrilo Prinzip in the streets of 
 Serajevo fired the first shot in the great European War. 
 The news was known over the whole world the following 
 morning, but nobody anticipated the drama to which it was 
 a prelude, or saw anything beyond the actual tragedy. 
 
 "The poor, poor Archduke! What a blow to the old 
 Emperor! " exclaimed Mrs. Harvey, who always felt the 
 misfortunes of royalty acutely and personally . . . 
 
 " Those savage Balkan states! " said Mrs. Gunby Rourke. 
 " They ought to be exterminated. I hope Austria will wipe 
 the Servians off the face of the earth . . ." 
 
 " What a lesson to our government," said Sir Eugene 
 Lascelles. " They've no excuse for not suppressing these 
 Volunteers now . . ." 
 
 "Dear me!" said Mrs. Heuston Harrington. "Fancy 
 any one taking another man's life and risking his own for 
 a wretched little country like Servia! " 
 
 And in a Hotel in Antwerp Hektor O'Flaherty said to 
 Bernard : 
 
 " We aren't arming a bit too soon. This means war,"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 GUNS 
 
 CYRIL UMPLEBY hurriedly drew Bernard and Hek- 
 tor into his cabin and shut the door. 
 
 "The less we're seen together," he said, "the better; 
 for fear of spies, you know. I'm afraid I've been noticed 
 already. . . . However, it can't be helped. . . . We'll just 
 settle on our plans and then separate until we reach Euston. 
 I consulted my Bradshaw last night and I find that if we 
 leave London at seven tomorrow we can get an afternoon 
 boat from Harwich that will land us at Antwerp in the small 
 hours of Thursday. What do you say to that? " 
 
 Bernard and Hektor had no objection to this course, so 
 they left Umpleby without any reluctance, and regardless 
 of his warnings paced the deck together. After a calm cross- 
 ing they reached Holyhead where they saw Umpleby, osten- 
 tatiously ignoring them, plunge into the first-class dining 
 saloon. The friends were glad to be without him, and the 
 journey passed uneventfully save for one incident. At 
 Crewe a porter brought Hektor a note which ran as follows : 
 
 Spi on ouf cfdc. tatr. in l>Uc Ceep fepA^co. 
 
 c.r, 
 
 " Spy on our track. Lady in black. Keep separate," 
 read Bernard. "What an ass of a cipher. He might as 
 well have written it in English. Need we bother, I won- 
 der? " 
 
 " Umpleby has spies on the brain," said Hektor. " Unless 
 he's been blithering himself no one could guess we're up to 
 anything." 
 
 302
 
 GUNS 303 
 
 They took no further notice of the communication, and 
 on arriving at the Euston Hotel waited so as to overhear 
 the number of Umpleby's bedroom and then followed him 
 thither. 
 
 " You got my note ? " asked Umpleby in great excitement. 
 " She got into the train at Chester, a tall, slender woman 
 in black, a typical adventuress. No doubt of it at all." 
 
 " That's too true to type altogether," said Bernard. " I'd 
 be much more inclined to suspect an innocent looking pussy- 
 like miss, or a friendly commercial traveller. Things aren't 
 done in this dramatic way." 
 
 " See if she doesn't follow us here," said Umpleby. 
 
 " She might come here without being after us." 
 
 " I know, but we must make certain. If she's downstairs 
 now, I'll go and order a reserved carriage for somewhere or 
 other to put her off the track. Come down now, but don't 
 keep together." 
 
 Sure enough a tall, slender woman in black was standing 
 near the bureau in the hall. Umpleby glanced triumphantly 
 at Bernard as much as to say: " I told you so," and going 
 to the telephone asked in a loud voice (unnecessarily loud, 
 thought Hektor the strategist) for a reserved carriage on the 
 2:15 train for Southampton next day. Then they returned 
 severally to Umpleby's room. 
 
 "Now, wasn't I right?" demanded Umpleby. "We 
 must separate at once. I'll start right out now for the 
 Cecil. Lascelles, you'd better make for the Metropole. 
 You can stay here, O'Flaherty, unless you've a preference. 
 We'll meet again at seven o'clock tomorrow at Liverpool 
 Street. Au revoir." 
 
 When he was gone Bernard said to Hektor: 
 
 " Leave him to the flesh-pots of the Cecil. Let's come 
 down to dinner." 
 
 The lady in black was already at the soup when Bernard 
 and Hektor entered the dining-room. She paid not the 
 smallest attention to their presence and left the room while 
 they were still lingering over coffee.
 
 304 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " That's no spy," said Bernard emphatically. 
 
 " I don't know so much," said Hektor. " She's a peach 
 anyhow." 
 
 They strolled out into the busy streets and, after consult- 
 ing an evening paper, made for an adjacent music hall. 
 
 Here, during an interval, they adjourned for a moment 
 to the bar, where, in " immaculate evening dress," the first 
 person they saw was Bernard's old school-fellow Molloy. 
 Bernard introduced him to Hektor after a whispered in- 
 junction to " mark him well." 
 
 "Dull show, isn't it?" said Molloy. "I came here to 
 kill time. Where are you fellows staying? I'm at the 
 Carlton." 
 
 " Euston," said Bernard. " But we're only passing 
 through. Surprised to see you . . . but one meets Dublin 
 people everywhere." 
 
 " One does," said Molloy. " Considering what a little 
 bit of a place it is its population scatters pretty well. Wher- 
 ever I go I knock up against Dubliners. Lord Donegal's 
 staying at the Carlton, and I met Sir Perry Tifflytis at the 
 Ritz the other night. . . . How are things with you? Pa- 
 tients rolling in ? " 
 
 " Slowly. However ... we won't keep you. So long." 
 
 Bernard and Hektor returned to the auditorium. 
 
 " It's true what he says," observed Hektor. " You meet 
 Dublin people wherever you go, from Oklahoma to St. 
 Petersburg. . . . Why did you tell me to mark him ? " 
 
 " Because he's the greatest snob I ever met, and his snob- 
 bery is of the very crudest kind. It's so crude that if you 
 put it in a book your character-drawing would be called 
 clumsy and obvious. . . . Did you notice how prosperous 
 he looks? That man has no brains, yet everything he 
 touches turns to gold. He's been two years in practice as 
 a solicitor, and already he's rich. Of course he had money 
 to start with, but he made heaps defending unfortunate 
 rioters in the great strike, and he knows how to toady the 
 wealthy. ... I tell you what, Hektor, when we two stand
 
 GUNS 305 
 
 on the gallows, as well we may, he'll be there to make money 
 out of us." 
 
 " No gallows for us, old son," said Hektor. " We're 
 going to win this time." 
 
 2 
 
 Umpleby was already on board the train and buried in 
 his newspaper when Bernard and Hektor arrived at Liver- 
 pool Street, so they did the journey to Harwich without him. 
 
 " No sign of the lady in black," said Bernard, as he 
 watched the crowds on the platform before departure. " We 
 must have given her the slip, or else she was never after us." 
 
 On the arrival platform at Harwich Umpleby, jostling 
 against them, said between his teeth: 
 
 " Different hotels. I'm for the Royal." 
 
 The railway hotel was good enough for the other two, 
 and there they took a hearty lunch, interrupted by occasional 
 glances round for the lady in black. 
 
 " We've shook her off for sure," said Hektor. " Well, 
 if she's a fair sample of the English secret service, God help 
 them." 
 
 The boat was to start at half-past two, but Bernard and 
 Hektor went on board half an hour beforehand to secure 
 berths. That done they took seats on deck and awaited 
 Umpleby 's arrival. 
 
 "Who'll arrive first?" said Bernard. "Umpleby or 
 the lady in black?" 
 
 " Ten to one on Umpleby," replied Hektor. " Black 
 Lady's scratched." 
 
 " I'll chance it," said Bernard. " Take you in sovereigns." 
 
 " It's taking your money," said Hektor. 
 
 " Just you wait," said Bernard. 
 
 Scattered passengers kept coming on board during the 
 next quarter of an hour, and they were beginning to feel 
 anxious lest Umpleby should be late, when suddenly Bernard 
 cried : 
 
 " You owe me a tenner, Hektor. Here's the lady! "
 
 306 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "Well, I'm jiggered! " said Hektor. 
 
 Down the gangway came the tall, slim figure of the lady 
 in black. She passed them without a sign of recognition 
 and went down the companion way. 
 
 " Well," said O'Flaherty, " if she isn't after us, coinci- 
 dence must have a jolly long reach. What'll Umpleby say? " 
 
 " That reminds me," said Bernard. " Where is Umpleby? 
 The boat starts in four minutes." 
 
 They waited anxiously. Non-passengers were being 
 cleared off the decks, steam was getting up, already one of 
 the gangways had been pulled in, and still there was no sign 
 of Umpleby. 
 
 " Twenty-eight minutes past," said Bernard, glancing at 
 his watch. 
 
 Another minute sped by and preparations were being made 
 to pull up the last gangway, when in an instant Umpleby 
 leaped into view and literally hurled himself on deck. 
 
 " You've cut it rather fine," said Hektor. 
 
 " Sensible thing to do," said Umpleby, panting for breath. 
 " Suppose you two . . . here this . . . hour or two. . . . 
 Lay low till last minute. . . . That's the way to dodge 
 spies." 
 
 " No luck this time then," said Hektor. " The lady in 
 black came on board five minutes ago." 
 
 " My God ! " said Umpleby. " And you two refused to 
 believe me." 
 
 " Never mind, old chap," said Bernard. " The question 
 is, What's to be done now? We ought to be able to give 
 her the slip in Antwerp." 
 
 " No use," said Hektor. " If she gets even an inkling 
 what we're up to there she'll wire back, and there'll be 
 cruisers patrolling the straits for a month to come. She's got 
 to be convinced that we're up to nothing." 
 
 " W^e'd better chuck her overboard when it's dark," said 
 Umpleby, trying to make his funny little face look stern and 
 relentless. 
 
 " No good," said Hektor. " You bet they know exactly
 
 GUNS 307 
 
 where she is and if she disappeared it would be just as good 
 as a telegram declaring us dangerous." 
 
 The boat was now standing out to sea, and the lady in 
 black emerging on deck went to the railings and gazed back 
 sentimentally at the land. She was just within earshot of 
 the three Irishmen. 
 
 " Isn't she like Milady in the Three Musketeers? " whis- 
 pered Bernard to Hektor. 
 
 " A little too like for my taste," returned Hektor. 
 
 "What on earth are we to do?" whispered Umpleby. 
 " Really the situation's desperate." 
 
 " I've an idea," said Hektor. " Just leave me a moment 
 to do a good think on it." 
 
 They relapsed into silence and the little steamer throbbed 
 its way over the water. . . . After about ten minutes of 
 cogitation Hektor spoke: 
 
 " We may take it that if we give Milady the faintest 
 cause for suspicion, in fact if we don't eradicate the suspi- 
 cions we've roused already, Antwerp will be watched by 
 British cruisers for months. That means that we must con- 
 vince Milady of our innocence before this sea trip is over. 
 And how are we to do that? One of us has just got to go 
 and make friends with her make love to her if necessary 
 and tell her what good little boys we all are and how 
 we're off for a summer spree over Belgium and Holland. 
 Probably he'll also have to occupy her attention, if she stays 
 in Antwerp, while the others do the work." 
 
 " Excellent," said Umpleby. " The question is, who's to 
 be the man. . . . I'm afraid I'm not a very romantic figure, 
 and I'm married anyway." 
 
 " It's your plan, Hektor," said Bernard, " so you'd better 
 carry it out." 
 
 " I haven't the required artistic imagination," said Hektor. 
 " Besides, you're the best looking." 
 
 " No, thank you," said Bernard. " I'm not used to ad- 
 venturesses." 
 
 " Don't be shy," said Umpleby. " If I had your advan-
 
 308 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 tages I'd do it like a shot. . . . Look at her profile." 
 
 " Come on, Bernard," said Hektor. " It's up to you. 
 What's the good of a handsome face if you won't put it to 
 your country's service ? " 
 
 " Oh, very well," assented Bernard, with a grimace. 
 " But I'm going below first for a bracer." 
 
 It happened that Milady had decided on Bernard, the 
 youngest and most guileless-looking of the party, as the one 
 for her to pump, so, both parties being anxious for an excuse 
 to meet, they were not long in making one. Bernard, hav- 
 ing emerged from the saloon well primed with whiskey and 
 soda, found his legs entangled by Milady's silk wrap which 
 the rough breeze had torn from her shoulders. To restore 
 it was but common courtesy; to remain, charmed by her 
 beauty and the limpid sweetness of her voice, for a few 
 moments' conversation was to be expected; the hint that she 
 was tired and would like a seat quite naturally suggested 
 deck-chairs for two in a sheltered spot. Friendship and 
 even love, come quickly on the decks of liners, and it need 
 occasion no surprise to find Bernard and Milady chatting 
 together like old friends two hours out from Harwich. At 
 first each was content merely to make a good impression and 
 create confidence in the mind of the other. But after a time 
 their ultimate purposes came into play. 
 
 Looking at her, Bernard found it hard to believe that she 
 could be a spy, for she was undeniably beautiful. She had 
 golden hair, a clear ivory complexion faintly tinged with 
 pink, and very red lips, which, on parting in a smile, revealed 
 a set of teeth as nearly resembling pearls as Bernard had ever 
 seen. But the most distinguished characteristic about her 
 was the colour of her eyes: they were a rich brown. Ber- 
 nard wondered for a moment where he had seen brown eyes 
 with fair hair before. In a moment he remembered. . . . 
 Mabel Harvey. But Mabel's hair was not of this metallic 
 sheen, but of the commonplace fluffy kind. 
 
 " I knew a girl just like you at home," declared Bernard 
 romantically. " She had just your hair and eyes."
 
 GUNS 309 
 
 " Had? " queried Milady. 
 
 " She's nothing to me, any more," said Bernard ruefully. 
 " She encouraged me and led me on, and then just threw 
 me aside. . . . That's why I'm here. I'm travelling so as 
 to forget." 
 
 " I must say you don't seem to find forgetting very diffi- 
 cult. You always seemed quite cheerful whenever I looked 
 at you." 
 
 " I was very fortunate in meeting those two men you saw 
 me with. ... Mr. Umpleby, the small man with the 
 moustache, is one of the wittiest people I've ever met. He 
 has sometimes almost made me forget my sorrow." 
 
 " Indeed. I should like to meet him." 
 
 " So you shall, if I can manage it. Unfortunately he's 
 extremely shy. One of the most unassuming and retiring 
 men I ever saw. With his friends he's delightful, but he 
 absolutely shrinks from strangers." 
 
 " Really? He doesn't look it." 
 
 " No. But it's a fact. However, I'll introduce him to 
 you if I get an opportunity. . . . You've no idea what a 
 kind-hearted soul he is too. He was going to France by 
 Southampton originally and had ordered himself a special 
 carriage (on account of his shyness, you know) but when 
 my friend Mr. O'Flaherty told him of my misfortune that 
 evening he changed all his plans and came with us, just to 
 cheer me up. ... You see, poor O 'Flaherty's a good fellow, 
 but very dull. I don't know why I chose him as a fellow 
 traveller, but it doesn't matter now that I've Umpleby. . . . 
 and you," he added shyly, ". . . that is, if I may venture 
 to hope for your continued friendship." 
 
 "Is the fair what is her name? forgotten so soon 
 then ? " 
 
 " Blanche? Alas, why do you remind me of her? " 
 
 " Poor boy! I'm sorry. . . . This Mr. Umpleby, won't 
 you introduce him to me soon ? " 
 
 " Yes. But not yet. Let me have you to myself awhile 
 first. . . . Almost you make me ... forget."
 
 3 io THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " The other gentleman then, Mr. O'Flaherty, I think 
 you called him has been with you from the start ? Where 
 did you meet Mr. Umpleby? " 
 
 " On the mail boat from Ireland." 
 
 " Ah ! You are from Ireland ? There's a great deal of 
 excitement going on over there now, isn't there ? " 
 
 " Yes. My friend O'Flaherty is a great politician. He's 
 one of these Nationalist Volunteers in fact. I caught his 
 enthusiasm for a time myself, and even drilled once or 
 twice. But I must confess politics interest me very little. 
 I think it would be a wise thing to have a sort of Council in 
 Dublin to decide purely local affairs too trifling to submit 
 to Westminster, but we are really unfit for full Home Rule. 
 My father, of course, is a strong Unionist and wouldn't 
 even agree to a Council, but I think that's so unreasonable. 
 . . . But perhaps I'm boring you. I must apologize for 
 talking politics." 
 
 " Thank heaven for the gift of the gab," said Bernard 
 to himself. He had never found his tongue so fluent. On 
 any subject that came up he talked gracefully and at great 
 length, giving her no opportunity of getting in her sidelong 
 tentative questions. He brought Milady tea on deck, sup- 
 plied her with cigarettes (the best Sullivans), and in the 
 evening took her down to dinner on his arm. She ceased 
 her probing and he ceased his inventions and they talked 
 agreeably about books and music and the pictures they in- 
 tended to visit at Antwerp, where they hoped to meet again, 
 and at Munich, whither Milady professed herself bound and 
 where she longed, so she said, for Mr. Lascelles to follow 
 her. 
 
 The steamer still throbbed its way over the water, and in 
 the evening they watched the moon rise, standing together 
 looking over the stern. Bernard had almost come to believe 
 as firmly in her innocence as Milady had in his, but he stuck 
 to his pose. 
 
 He became very romantic in the dusk and quoted Yeates' 
 poem beginning:
 
 GUNS 311 
 
 One that is ever kind said yesterday: 
 
 Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey. 
 
 And when he came to those last despairing lines: 
 
 O, Heart, O, Heart, if she'd but turn her head, 
 You'd know the folly of being comforted, 
 
 Milady put a kindly hand on his arm and consoled him so 
 gently for his loss that he felt quite ashamed of his decep- 
 tion. 
 
 As midnight approached most of the passengers went be- 
 low, and eventually they were alone on deck. And as they 
 reached the mouth of the Scheldt and saw the lights of 
 Flushing twinkling on the port bow Bernard and Milady 
 bade one another a tender good-night and went to their re- 
 spective cabins. Bernard gave Hektor a full report of his 
 doings, and Hektor chuckled with amusement. 
 
 " We've been consulting Baedeker's hotel list," said he. 
 " Where's Milady going to put up? " 
 
 " Hotel de 1'Europe," said Bernard. 
 
 " Then Umpleby and I will go to the Grand Laboureur 
 on the Place de Meir. Where would you fancy for your- 
 self?" 
 
 " An English hotel for me, if you please. My French 
 was made in Ashbury: damn little and pronounced wrong." 
 
 " Well, here's the thing for you." Turning over the 
 pages of Baedeker he read out: " Hotel d'Angleterre. 
 Quai Vandyck. Under English management . . ." 
 
 He broke off suddenly as Bernard, winking one eye hard, 
 began to spout thus: 
 
 " I tell you, my boy, she's perfect . . . adorable. Didn't 
 you see her hair, her eyes? . . . Oh, Hektor, the self same 
 hair and eyes. . . . My Blanche ! " 
 
 " Cheer up, old chap," said Hektor gruffly, " she seemed 
 to take to you all right." 
 
 " Do you think so? Really? Ah, no . . ." 
 
 " Get into bed anyhow, I'm sleepy," said Hektor.
 
 3i2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 A few seconds later Bernard, cautiously opening the door, 
 peered out and saw a black figure retreating down the pas- 
 sage. 
 
 " Milady," he said to Hektor. " I heard a slight rustle 
 at the door that time I started spouting. . . . We've no 
 doubt of her now, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Well," said Hektor, " go on as you've begun. May you 
 have a pleasant time at Antwerp." 
 
 3 
 
 Next morning Bernard insisted on escorting Milady to 
 her hotel. 
 
 " But your friends? " she said. 
 
 " I have no other friends when you are near," said Ber- 
 nard. 
 
 She invited him to breakfast with her. The Hotel de 
 1'Europe is run on English lines, so Bernard, whose hatred 
 of England did not extend to the national dish, feasted full 
 on bacon and eggs paid for by British secret service money. 
 After the meal he excused himself, saying that he really 
 must go to see his friends, and at the same time expressing 
 a timid hope that he might meet her again in the afternoon. 
 She graciously granted his request and asked where he and 
 his friends were staying. 
 
 " The Rose d'Or," he told her and, anticipating inquiries, 
 went there straightway and booked and paid for three rooms 
 on his way over to the Grand Laboureur. 
 
 Hektor and Umpleby were arranging their line of action. 
 Hektor was to purchase the guns and was already compiling 
 a list of gunsmiths from a big directory, while Umpleby was 
 to see about hiring some craft suitable for conveying the 
 cargo to the rendezvous, and was ready to set out. Bernard 
 was told to go and keep Milady quiet, so he left at once and 
 repaired to his own hotel to wait for the afternoon. Not 
 having anticipated the nature of his share in the expedition 
 he was poorly provided for gallantry in the matter of clothes, 
 so on his way home he went to a tailor and ordered a fashion-
 
 GUNS 313 
 
 able suit of clothes to be made for him at once. Then he 
 went to a barber and a florist, and, adorned by these minis- 
 ters of beauty, after a light lunch at the Angleterre, he went 
 to pay his respects to Milady. 
 
 She suggested a quiet afternoon's sight-seeing, so they went 
 out into the glowing sunshine o the Place Verte. Milady 
 was no longer in black. She wore a delicious-looking white 
 summer frock and carried a dainty parasol. Bernard be- 
 gan almost to fall genuinely a victim to her charms. What 
 a pity, he thought, that such a beautiful creature should have 
 to earn her living in so base a way. They duly admired the 
 statue of Rubens in the centre of the Place and then turned 
 to regard the magnificent facade of the Cathedral, whose 
 south transept rose above them. They entered and inspected 
 the interior of the building, and Bernard pondered long over 
 Rubens' great picture, " The Descent from the Cross," and, 
 scarcely inferior to it, his " Elevation of the Cross." 
 
 " I wonder why all these great painters love to put dogs 
 in their pictures," said Milady, and Bernard's mind trav- 
 elled back to the Ghirlandaio and Perugino chromolitho- 
 graphs at Ashbury before which he had so often asked him- 
 self the same question. Through the majestic nave and 
 aisles of the Cathedral they wandered for nearly an hour, 
 and then went out again to the Place. They strolled about 
 the busy streets, rested for a while at a cafe, visited some 
 shops, and altogether spent a very pleasant afternoon. 
 
 " How well their streets are named," thought Bernard. 
 " Avenue des Arts, Avenue Rubens, Rue Van Dyck." He 
 compared them with the Dublin streets, all called after de- 
 parted Lords Lieutenant. " When independence comes we 
 must change all that. . . . Wolfe Tone Street. . . . Srdid 
 Eoghain Ruaidh O'Neill . . . Yes. The Irish way sounds 
 better. . . . Srdid Seumuis Fiontdin Ldlor. . . . Rue Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau." 
 
 " Penny for your thoughts? " said Milady. 
 
 " I'm feeling hungry," said Bernard. " Where shall we 
 dine?"
 
 3H THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Milady suggested the Restaurant Bertrand, and thither 
 they went. Then, having wound up the evening at a music 
 hall, Bernard saw her to her hotel, and parted from her 
 after arranging to visit the picture galleries the following 
 day. 
 
 " Does she still suspect us? That's the question," said 
 Bernard to himself. " If she doesn't, she wouldn't go on 
 gadding about with me. On the other hand, if she does, 
 she wouldn't let me keep her off the track so easily. . . . 
 Perhaps she thinks I'm just an innocent red-herring dragged 
 after the others. She certainly did keep coming back to their 
 whereabouts very frequently. . . . Wonder did my jealousy 
 stunt work? . . . I'll have to convince her of the innocence 
 of the others. There's nothing else for it. They'll have to 
 meet her. . . . I'll go straight over and see them now 
 stop though. Home first. She might be following me." 
 
 He made for the Rose d'Or, and after spending half an 
 hour in one of the rooms there slipped out by a tradesmen's 
 entrance, thus escaping the observation of Milady, who, true 
 to his surmise, had followed him all the way. 
 
 Hektor was much perturbed by Bernard's suggestion. 
 
 " We haven't the time," he said. " We drew blank to- 
 day. I visited five gunsmiths and they were all too inquisi- 
 tive to deal with. Umpleby's story is the same." 
 
 " All the gunsmiths in the world won't help us if Milady 
 gets suspicious." 
 
 " Quite true," said Umpleby. " Lascelles is right. We'd 
 better see her." 
 
 " I believe you're smitten," said Hektor. 
 
 " Now, boys, this is serious," said Bernard. " When you 
 meet her remember to keep up your characters. Umpleby, 
 you're as shy as a schoolgirl with a witty sparkle about once 
 an hour, and you, Hektor, are the dullest bore in Europe. 
 . . . You'll hear from me tomorrow. Good-night." 
 
 Next day, after a couple of hours spent with Van Dyck, 
 Teniers, Memling, Holbein, Rubens and other masters,
 
 GUNS 315 
 
 enough altogether to stagger the mind, Milady asked the 
 usual question. 
 
 " I'm sure they'll be delighted at the honour," replied 
 Bernard, and they made arrangements for meeting which he 
 communicated that night to his friends. 
 
 The three presented themselves at her hotel next after- 
 noon and they then drove off to the Zoological Gardens, 
 where they strolled about and had tea. Milady afterwards 
 professed herself charmed by " that dull, droll Mr. O'Flah- 
 erty," but was thoroughly bored by poor Umpleby's stories. 
 Hektor had acted his part to perfection, but Umpleby in his 
 vanity had cast away all pretence at shyness at a very early 
 stage and striven to exhibit his wit. 
 
 " My poor Bernard," said Milady, " is that your taste in 
 humour? The man is far duller than Mr. O'Flaherty, and 
 unfortunately does not know it." 
 
 " He has been very kind to me," said Bernard. 
 
 "So I mustn't abuse him, eh?" said Milady. "Very 
 well. But don't bring him near me again." 
 
 " He'll be disappointed . . . distracted." 
 
 " No matter. I could not endure him." 
 
 " Your wishes shall be obeyed, Madam," said Bernard, 
 much relieved. 
 
 Milady's suspicions were now almost dispelled, but she 
 was enjoying herself so much at her employers' expense that 
 she decided to remain in Antwerp a little longer. More- 
 over, she had taken rather a fancy to Bernard and wanted to 
 see a little more of him, so for the next few days the two of 
 them went about together, flirting, picnicking, and sight- 
 seeing. 
 
 On the eighth day of their stay Hektor at length an- 
 nounced that he had found a suitable gunsmith, one who 
 was ready to give them two thousand rifles and fifty thou- 
 sand rounds of ammunition for their money, and who asked 
 no questions. Umpleby, however, had not yet found a boat- 
 man, and the two were going to continue the search next
 
 316 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 day. So Bernard continued his round of pleasure with 
 Milady and on the evening of the twelfth of July came 
 again to inquire after his friends' progress. 
 
 " I wish to heaven you'd hurry up," he said. " My virtue 
 won't stand the strain of perpetual temptation, you know." 
 
 " It's in your country's cause," said Hektor. " However, 
 it's all right now. WVve found our man, a sturdy Fleming 
 called Klapdorp. He was a bit inquisitive the Belgians 
 are the most inquisitive people I've ever struck so we told 
 him we were running the guns into Mexico for Villa. That 
 satisfied him." 
 
 " Two days to wait now," said Umpleby. 
 
 " I say," said Hektor. " You'd best arrange an all-night 
 entertainment for Milady tomorrow. We'll be loading up 
 then." 
 
 4 
 
 So to make quite sure that his friends should have a free 
 hand in the most arduous portion of their task Bernard took 
 Milady to a great public dance that night. It was a sum- 
 mer dance, and took place in a great hall that opened into 
 wonderful spacious gardens where the dancers could wander 
 to refresh themselves during the intervals. Bernard enjoyed 
 the whole thing tremendously. Always full of the zest of 
 life, now the importance of the moment and the anticipation 
 of a rush of events to come, increased the natural excitement 
 due to music, crowds and festivity. He and Milady were 
 quite the gayest of the gay throng. 
 
 He called for her at half-past six and they went to the 
 Queen's Hotel to dine. Milady looked adorable and Ber- 
 nard's admiration for her was immense. His emotions were 
 really beginning to be stirred and he was not a little proud to 
 have so brilliant a companion to show off. Mrs. Gunby 
 Rourke at a neighbouring table saw the sparkle in his eye 
 and whispered something to her husband. 
 
 " An adventuress, I suppose," replied the latter. " Young 
 fool." 
 
 " Mischief thou art afoot," thought Bernard, as he noticed
 
 GUNS 317 
 
 her presence and returned her distant bow. " Lord, this'll 
 be all over Dublin when she gets home. What'll my mother 
 say? " 
 
 They walked in the delicious evening air to the dance hall, 
 and arriving early had some good dances before the floor 
 filled up. 
 
 " I'm glad we had these dances," said Milady. " We can 
 sit out when the crush comes. . . . You dance beautifully." 
 
 She danced like a leaf herself and Bernard was intoxicated 
 with the charm of her. She thought he was hers as they 
 stood in the garden later, and remembering her almost for- 
 gotten duty, she laid a hand on his shoulder and putting her 
 face close to his said : 
 
 " You may as well admit it. You're here to plot with 
 Germany, aren't you ? " 
 
 But she was premature, and she had hit the wrong nail. 
 Had she mentioned guns, Bernard might have given himself 
 away, but she was sure that his mission, if mission he had, 
 was something bigger than that. 
 
 " Germany! Me! " said Bernard, with well feigned 
 astonishment. 
 
 " I believe you," she cried, and kissed him suddenly. He 
 returned the embrace with ardour and said, with all the 
 reproachfulness he could muster: 
 
 " Felice, you should never have doubted me." 
 
 " Forgive me," she pleaded, and he did so magnanimously. 
 
 The band was playing the familiar, sensuous strains of 
 Offenbach's Barcarolle. They retired to a secluded nook in 
 the garden and surrendered themselves to the enjoyment of 
 each other's society. Milady stretched out her legs in front 
 of her and looked admiringly at her graceful feet and ankles, 
 Bernard was tempted to quoth a favourite triolet of 
 O'Dwyer's: 
 
 " Why are ladies ashamed 
 
 To show us their ankles? 
 
 , i < - I have often exclaimed - '-\ - 
 
 'Why are ladies ashamed?'
 
 3 i8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 When I looked I was blamed 
 
 And the memory rankles. 
 Why are ladies ashamed 
 
 To show us their ankles ? " 
 
 " We aren't nowadays, anyway," laughed Milady. " Did 
 you write that ? " 
 
 " No. It's by a friend of mine." 
 
 " I'd give anything to be able to write poetry," said 
 Milady. 
 
 " So would I. Anything . . . with one exception." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " You," said Bernard. 
 
 " Fickle boy! " said Milady. " And what of Blanche? " 
 
 "She is nothing to me ... she is forgotten . . . she 
 never was." 
 
 And all night long while these gallantries were in progress 
 Hektor and Umpleby were assisting Klapdorp and his men 
 to load the tug Van Dyck from the quays of the Scheldt. 
 
 " Artistic nation this," observed Hektor during a resting 
 space. " This is the Quai Tenters, and the tug's called the 
 Van Dyck. . . . Better than Ormand Quay and the Mary 
 Ann, eh? " 
 
 They were in bed by four o'clock, but it was five before 
 Bernard left Milady at the Hotel de 1'Europe. 
 
 5 
 
 Later in the morning the tug stood with steam up at the 
 quay side. Hektor and Umpleby were already on board, 
 and at the stroke of eight Bernard, white-faced and weary, 
 alighted from a taxi at the head of the gangway. 
 
 " Gee, you've been making a night of it," said Hektor. 
 " You're a regular wash-out." 
 
 " My first need is something to eat," said Bernard. " I 
 hadn't time for breakfast." 
 
 As the Van Dyck's screw began to churn up the waters 
 of the Scheldt they took him below and rummaged out a 
 meal of ham, bread, cheese, and bottled beer. While Ber-
 
 GUNS 319 
 
 nard made hungry inroads into these he told them about the 
 night's adventures, and how before leaving he had left three 
 letters with the Commissionaire at his hotel to be posted on 
 three successive days. In the first he begged to be excused 
 from meeting Milady that day owing to a headache resulting 
 from the dance; in the second he pleaded continued indis- 
 position, but promised to call on her next day; the third let- 
 ter ran thus: 
 
 / die for love of Blanche. No flowers by request. 
 
 " I'd like to see her face when she reads that," said Um- 
 pleby, gleefully. 
 
 " I wouldn't," said Bernard. " I was beginning to like 
 her." 
 
 Down the busy commerce-filled Scheldt they sped, out 
 from the narrow river into the broad estuary. They passed 
 Walsoorden at half-past nine and Xerneuzen an hour later. 
 By twelve they had left Flushing behind and were speeding 
 to the rendezvous, a spot five miles out from the Zeeland 
 coast. Before they reached it they could see two widely 
 separated craft converging towards them. 
 
 " Those are our men," said Hektor, confidently. 
 
 As they watched eagerly the foremost yacht swiftly bore 
 down on them. Nearer she came and nearer, and they could 
 distinguish the figures on her deck. 
 
 " Is it dese are your Mexican friends? " inquired Klap- 
 dorp of Hektor. 
 
 " Oh, wee," said Hektor. " At least, je pense ainsi" 
 
 Someone standing in the bows of the yacht shouted some- 
 thing unintelligible through a megaphone, but in a few 
 minutes more the screws of the Van Dyck were reversed, 
 bringing her to, and the yacht came near enough for them to 
 see that the man with the megaphone was Angus O'Connor. 
 
 " Connis thah thu ? " came Angus's cultured voice across 
 the water. " Are you the tug with the guns for Ahre- 
 land?"
 
 320 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Qu'est-ce quil dit? " asked Klapdorp, suspiciously, turn- 
 ing to Umpleby. 
 
 " We're done," thought Bernard, but O'Connor's accent 
 would have baffled people more skilled in English than the 
 little Belgian skipper. 
 
 " Je ne sais pas," said Umpleby, blandly. " // park 
 Mexican peut-etre." Then he shouted over to O'Connor: 
 " Dun do bheal, dtuigeann tu. To. tu amaddn." 
 
 O'Connor grinned and called back: 
 
 " Dhia smirrah guth." 
 
 " Vous parlez done Mexican?" asked Klapdorp of 
 Umpleby. 
 
 " Un pen," said Umpleby. 
 
 The Spindrift now hove to about ten cables off, and the 
 Cormorant, which had come up in the meantime, did the 
 same. The transhipping of the cargo began at once, and 
 was carried out by means of a large boat carried by the Van 
 Dyck, assisted in a small way by the yachts' dinghies. It 
 was difficult and dangerous work, for there was a swell on, 
 and the ammunition cases in particular were extremely 
 heavy and awkward to handle, but by good luck it was ac- 
 complished without mishap. Bernard went on board the 
 Spindrift with the first boatload, and drawing O'Connor 
 aside, told him about the Mexican fiction. O'Connor was 
 delighted and thereupon set about giving the thing verisimili- 
 tude by shouting a fervent " Caramba! " at every hitch in 
 the lading. 
 
 The Spindrift, which was the smaller of the two yachts, 
 received half the rifles and twenty thousand rounds of am- 
 munition, and as soon as she was loaded sailed off amid a 
 salvo of cheers. The Cormorant was then loaded up in her 
 turn, and Bernard bid good-bye to his companions on the 
 deck of the Van Dyck. 
 
 " I'll have Umpleby all to myself now," said Hektor, rue- 
 fully. " He's just removing the twenty-first bracket from 
 the fiftieth sentence in his sixtieth story. . . . Well . . . 
 see you at Howth."
 
 GUNS 321 
 
 Bernard dropped into the dinghy and was carried over to 
 the Cormorant. The Van Dyck immediately got up steam 
 and pointed back for Antwerp. The Spindrift could be seen 
 as a speck on the horizon. 
 
 They were twelve days at sea, and it was a most uncom- 
 fortable time. Being heavily laden their progress was nec- 
 essarily slow, and in any case they dared not rouse suspicion 
 by appearing off the Irish coast too soon. The fifteen cases 
 of ammunition were stacked round the deck, and, in order to 
 ensure speed in unloading at Howth, when every second 
 might be of importance, the rifles were unpacked and laid in 
 rows on the floor of the cabin to a depth of four feet. It 
 was therefore impossible to stand up in the cabin, so meals 
 were a succession of scrappy picnics held in odd corners and 
 sleep was a process of little comfort. However, for all 
 this, everyone was very cheery and full of a spirit of ad- 
 venture an unfamiliar feeling in those civilized days, 
 when Europe had been at peace for years and danger and 
 strife had been banished to distant parts of the earth. Not 
 caring to trust a crew of paid hands, Calverley had enlisted 
 the help of a few personal friends who were excellent com- 
 pany. There was his own brother Frank, a youthful irre- 
 sponsible replica of himself ; and Morgan, a very sentimental 
 English Home Ruler a good sort but destitute of tact, 
 who was always talking of his sympathy for " poor Ire- 
 land"; and McCarthy, a cheery young London Irishman, 
 who talked a good deal and played a concertina. Calverley, 
 himself, was as good a host as he was a sailor and was the 
 life and soul of the party. 
 
 On the second day of the cruise as they sailed slowly up 
 the English Channel, the weather being fine and the sea 
 calm, they were all basking on deck, except Frank Calverley, 
 who was at the helm, while McCarthy played snatches on 
 his concertina. Suddenly, the later said: 
 
 " Give us a song, Morgan. I'll accompany you."
 
 322 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Morgan, who had a fair baritone voice, was quite ready to 
 oblige, and with the best intentions in the world, meaning 
 only to compliment, sang the following song: 
 
 " ' Don't be ashamed you're Irish,' 
 
 Said a mother to her son. 
 ' Wherever you roam, over the foam, 
 
 Or under the tropic sun. 
 Be true to the land of the Shamrock 
 
 Whatever the world may say, 
 
 And come back to Erin where the grass grows green 
 Next St Patrick's Day.'" 
 
 It was a terrible ordeal to endure, and it was a trying 
 business to frame suitable words of applause. Calverley 
 looked his sympathy at Bernard and tried to start a conversa- 
 tion that might prevent a resumption of Morgan's vocal 
 activity. But to no purpose. The dense young man in- 
 sisted on singing again and this time produced, to the air of 
 The Wearing of the Green, one of those monstrous " loyal " 
 parodies of rebel songs, composed by some well-meaning fool 
 of an Englishman like himself. It was called The Red 
 Entwined with Green. 
 
 Bernard was seething with disgust and irritation. He lay 
 back on deck with his eyes shut and longed for the genius 
 of O'Dwyer to inspire him with retaliatory measures. . . . 
 A line, born of pure rage, suddenly formed itself in his 
 brain. He twisted and turned it and strove to match it as 
 he lay there oblivious to Morgan's drone. Fresh ideas oc- 
 curred to him. As he wrought the lines into shape an odd 
 jingle of a tune he had heard somewhere fitted them to its 
 tempo and almost before he was aware of it he had com- 
 posed two short stanzas. He repeated them over to make 
 sure of them and then sat up. 
 
 " Anyone else got a song? " asked McCarthy. 
 
 " I picked up a little thing the other day," said Bernard, 
 modestly, and on being pressed to sing it, trolled out his new- 
 born ditty. " It's called Please Keep Off the Grass," he 
 explained, and began :
 
 GUNS 323 
 
 "You may slander, abuse us, and hate us; 
 
 You may curse and anathematize us; 
 You may plunder and exterminate us; 
 But, Englishman, don't patronize us. 
 
 Some day we'll forgive the Invasion 
 
 And the rest of our sorrows and wrongs 
 
 (If Freedom should grant the occasion), 
 But not if you edit our songs." 
 
 Morgan smiled fatuously, but failed to see the point, but 
 Bernard's feelings had been relieved by composition and 
 that was all he wanted. He could see Calverley's eyes 
 twinkling with amusement. 
 
 That afternoon they reached Spithead, and passed right 
 through the historic review of the British Fleet. As they 
 gazed upon line after line of those magnificent ships, Caver- 
 ley jestingly said to Bernard: 
 
 " Don't you wish you were an Englishman ? " 
 
 " All this makes our little cargo sing very small, doesn't 
 it? " said Bernard. " I can't believe we'll ever be free." 
 
 " I confidently hope that your freedom is very near," said 
 Calverley. " Perseverance does it." 
 
 The following day they passed by a fleet of trawlers which 
 was being held up and searched by a British cruiser. The 
 yacht passed by all unsuspected. 
 
 " By gad ! " exclaimed Bernard. " Umpleby must have 
 blithered. Just like him. It's well we spun him that yarn. 
 Luck seems to be with us for once." 
 
 "What did he say when he saw the yachts?" asked 
 Calverley. 
 
 " Nothing," said Bernard. 
 
 " That was wise of him. It was all he could say, of 
 course. He'd be too vain to ask an explanation." 
 
 " His face spoke volumes," said Bernard. 
 
 Hitherto the weather had been fine, but on the afternoon 
 of the fifth day, forty miles south of the Lizard, a darkening 
 of the surface of the sea and a cold nip in the breeze proph- 
 esied a change, and in a few hours the storm broke. The
 
 324 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 next two days were one long thundering drenching con- 
 fusion. Short-handed as they were, there was little time for 
 anyone to rest, and Bernard seemed to be working per- 
 petually in a ceaseless melee with wind and lashing spray. 
 The Cormorant was a yawl and she rode out the storm safely 
 on reefed mizzen and trysail. Calverley, himself, never left 
 the helm for more than a few moments at a time. Bernard 
 marvelled at the man's skill and endurance, and wondered 
 how O'Connor, without half his ability, would weather the 
 storm. On the second day, when the tempest was at its 
 height, a fresh danger manifested itself. Some of the am- 
 munition cases began to work loose from their fastenings, 
 and two of them, becoming detached, began to slide and roll 
 about the deck. It was an anxious moment. All hands im- 
 mediately hurried up to prevent disaster, and with much dif- 
 ficulty, and not without many falls and bruises, succeeded 
 in recapturing the cases, and, to lighten the labouring yawl, 
 cast them overboard. " Four thousand rounds gone west," 
 muttered Bernard. Then fresh fastenings were applied to 
 the, surviving cases, and the yawl began to ride across the 
 waves more buoyantly. 
 
 Next day the storm had somewhat abated, but it was still 
 blowing hard. They had been carried far out of their 
 course and were now driving in a southwesterly direction 
 out to the Atlantic. The weather-worn Cormorant, accord- 
 ingly, went about and began to beat up northward almost 
 in the teeth of the gale: a long and bitter struggle. Yet 
 another anxious night was spent, but in the morning the 
 sun came out and the breeze had considerably moderated 
 its violence. They were able to heave to off the Scilly Isles 
 in the afternoon and discuss the position. The principal 
 danger now was from British cruisers, for, though they 
 knew it not, the Irish sea was at the moment being actively 
 searched and all trawlers were being held up and boarded. 
 Four days had still to pass before the Cormorant was ex- 
 pected at Howth, and they spent three of them loitering 
 about the 1 lee side of the Isles as if for pleasure.
 
 GUNS 325 
 
 Meanwhile, those at home were rendered very anxious 
 by the arrival of His Majesty's Cruiser Forward, which 
 about this time took up her station just outside Dublin Bay 
 and so right in the track of the white yacht for which they 
 were eagerly watching. A rumour was accordingly spread 
 amongst the numerous people in Dublin whose indiscretion 
 could be relied on that gun-running on a large scale was to 
 be indulged in on the coast of \Vicklow. The result was 
 that on the twenty-fourth of July the Forward weighed 
 anchor and steamed south, leaving the*" way clear for the 
 Cormorant. 
 
 Running before a stiff breeze the White Yacht scudded 
 northward all through the night of Saturday the twenty- 
 fifth, and in the morning set her course northwest, heading 
 straight for Howth. At breakfast time the Dublin Moun- 
 tains rose from the sea. An hour later they sighted Howth, 
 and as the hot July sun mounted to the meridian they passed 
 obliquely across the mouth of Dublin Bay, all glittering in 
 his rays, rounded the Bailey, and came in full view of 
 Howth Harbour and Ireland's Eye. As these dear familiar 
 features, so reminiscent of childish days, slipped into Ber- 
 nard's view under such dramatic circumstances and after 
 such strange adventures, something seemed to clutch at his 
 heart and he was suddenly filled with a wild impatience to 
 leap ashore and embrace the earth. 
 
 Nearer and nearer they sailed. They reached the harbour 
 mouth, and Bernard, straining his eyes, could see the heads 
 of a marching column of men above the sea wall. At quar- 
 ter to one exactly, the yacht crossed the bar, and at the same 
 moment the column of Volunteers, one thousand strong, 
 came down the East Pier at the double. The yacht was 
 immediately brought alongside and the unloading began. 
 At first the sight of the cargo so astonished the Volunteers 
 that they broke all discipline in their eagerness. But only 
 for a moment. Hektor, Stephen, and the other officers soon 
 restored order. The men were formed up in two lines and 
 the rifles were passed along from hand to hand, while a
 
 326 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 number of motors came up and whirled off with the ammuni- 
 tion. Within forty minutes the work of unloading was 
 complete and Bernard, stepping ashore, was greeted by 
 Hektor and Stephen. 
 
 One of Bernard's first enquiries was for the Spindrift, 
 and he was told that O'Connor had sent home word that he 
 had been compelled by the storm to seek refuge in a Welsh 
 harbour and would be in Ireland next week. 
 
 Meanwhile, the alarm had been given, and the first sign of 
 opposition from the forces of the crown was the arrival 
 alongside the yacht of a boat containing three or four coast- 
 guards. They were easily disposed of. A firing party of 
 half a dozen men pointed empty rifles at them and they beat 
 a hasty retreat. At the same time a few police tried to force 
 an entrance to the pier, but were repelled by a rear guard, 
 armed with oak cudgells, who had been drawn across the 
 end of it. The most persistent enemy was the old Harbour 
 Master, who came up clamouring for his dues, but had to 
 go empty away. 
 
 Preparations were now being made for departure, and a 
 small guard was told off to remain behind and secure that 
 the Cormorant's retreat should be unmolested. Bernard 
 returned on board to bid farewell to Calverley and then 
 stepped ashore to rejoin Hektor and Stephen. 
 
 " I suppose I'd better go and join my company," he said, 
 as the commanding officer ordered the " Fall in." " Come 
 to my digs tonight, you two." 
 
 He went at once and reported to his Captain, the pre- 
 posterous Brohoon, an untidy little man with a brown beard 
 and a general air of self-satisfaction, but a welcome and 
 homely figure to the wanderer from Antwerp and the high 
 seas. Commands rang out: 
 
 "Battalion . . . Shun! Slope . . . Arms! Move to 
 the left in fours. . . . Form fours! . . . Left! By the 
 left . . . quick . . . march! " 
 
 An Irish army was marching on Dublin.
 
 GUNS 327 
 
 7 
 
 It was an historic moment; the beginning of a new act 
 in the national drama. So Bernard thought as, rifle on 
 shoulder, he marched by Brohoon's side at the head of the 
 column. (It happened that theirs was the leading com- 
 pany. ) The weapon he carried was a long, heavy, wide-bore 
 Mauser of an old-fashioned type, but strong and serviceable. 
 His spirits were high and he was fit and well after the sea 
 voyage. It was rather restful, contrasted with all he had 
 been through, to listen to Brohoon jabbering small talk. 
 It appeared that the Redmonite nominees had been behaving 
 very badly on the executive, obstructing at the meetings, and 
 preventing progress, and evidently trying hard to break up 
 the movement. This coup would come as a shock to them, 
 Brohoon said, and added: 
 
 " See if they don't try to get a holt of the guns for their 
 own crowd." 
 
 Meanwhile Bernard was wondering what lay ahead of 
 them. If the Government could collect their forces in 
 time they could easily hold the narrow neck of land joining 
 Howth to the mainland against the Volunteers. On the 
 other hand, if the Volunteers could once pass the isthmus, 
 they had a choice of many roads, and could, if necessary, 
 break up into small bands and so defy interception. The 
 whole success of the expedition depended, therefore, on 
 reaching Raheny at the far end of the isthmus in time, and 
 the weary column of men pressed forward at their best pace 
 in that direction. 
 
 " Can we do it? " was the anxious query in every heart. 
 
 For a breathless moment it looked as if they had failed. 
 A handful of constabulary, armed with rifles, awaited them 
 just outside Raheny, but, deeming it prudent not to interfere 
 with so large a force, opposed no obstacle to their advance. 
 Raheny was reached at last and a much needed halt was 
 called, the exhausted Volunteers lying down by the roadside 
 at once. Their weariness was understandable. They had 
 been mobilized at ten that morning and had already marched
 
 328 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 fifteen miles without refreshment, burdened during the last 
 five with their exceptionally heavy rifles. And the column 
 was made up of very uneven material. Many of the men 
 were sturdy labourers, but many were in sedentary employ- 
 ment and so in bad physical condition. Many were poor 
 and their footwear was unsound. Many were oldish men, 
 many mere boys ; none had imagined when starting that they 
 were out for anything more serious than a route-march. 
 Moreover, the day was hot, and to add to their discomfort 
 they had encountered a shower of rain just after leaving 
 Howth. 
 
 While they rested one of the advance cycle scouts rode 
 back with the report that a military force had marched out 
 to Clontarf, a mile and a half away, and seemed ready to 
 dispute the passage. At once the order to fall in was given 
 and, groaning and cursing, the dusty and footsore men tum- 
 bled into their ranks and resumed their march. Bernard 
 wondered whether the leaders intended to fight their passage, 
 but the truth was that the men were so tired that the staff 
 had decided that it would be useless to attempt any manoeu- 
 vres and were relying on bluff and good fortune to carry 
 them through. The prospect of a possible conflict made 
 Bernard ask himself what his sensations were. Was he ex- 
 hilarated or afraid? He was surprised to find that he was 
 neither, and wondered over his coolness. As a matter of 
 fact, his attitude was the same as that which dominated the 
 whole of Europe, prior to the outbreak of the great War. 
 He was so used to civilization, with its smoothness and 
 peacefulness, that he did not really believe that violence was 
 possible in this quietest of all possible worlds. His whole 
 habit of mind led him to believe that, by what chance or 
 miracle mattered not, at the last moment things would 
 straighten themselves out and all would be well. 
 
 Painfully, patiently, the leaden-footed men plodded on- 
 wards. Bernard could hear Brohoon muttering things about 
 " the bloody redcoats " absurd melodramatic phrase
 
 GUNS 329 
 
 under his breath. Stray complaints and curses could be 
 heard breaking from parched lips in the ranks. Heavier and 
 heavier grew his rifle. Sweat trickled down his face. . . . 
 Then, rounding a bend, he saw the line of soldiers drawn 
 right across the road a hundred yards in front of him. . . . 
 
 "Right wheel!" came an order from the rear, and the 
 column turned into a byway that led to the Malahide Road, 
 parallel with that on which they were marching. It was 
 evident that the Volunteer leaders wished to avoid a conflict, 
 but the military had other intentions. Doubling back along 
 the tram road they reformed their line at the foot of the 
 Malahide Road. The police were drawn up on the side- 
 walk in front of them. The Volunteers marched straight 
 on and halted within a short distance of the flashing bay- 
 onets. After a tense moment of expectation, the Volunteer 
 staff, amongst whom Bernard could see Umpleby looking 
 immensely important and pleased with himself, went for- 
 ward to negotiate with the officers of the Crown. There 
 were a few moments of argument and then an order rang 
 out. The police, drawing their batons, began to advance 
 on the Volunteers. Some seemed to be hanging back, but 
 the great majority, after a moment's hesitation, came on with 
 a rush. 
 
 Brohoon gave a shout. Bernard gripped his rifle and 
 swung it clubwise over his head. The foremost Volunteers 
 lined up to meet the shock, and the next few minutes were a 
 confused melee. A few stray revolver shots were fired and 
 there was the sound of blows and the clatter of baton on 
 rifle. Police and Volunteers became inextricably mixed up, 
 and Bernard found his heavy rifle a crushing though rather 
 unmanageable weapon. The dense mass of Volunteers in 
 rear, pressing forward, drove the comparatively few com- 
 batants down towards the line of bayonets. Brohoon, who 
 at the outset had been stupefied by what was happening, 
 now lost his head completely and rushed about raging hyster- 
 ically and shouting abuse at the soldiers. One of these,
 
 330 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 getting irritated, made a pass at him with his bayonet and 
 wounded him slightly, and about the same moment the 
 police withdrew from the fray. 
 
 " It's all up, boys. Give up the guns! " cried Brohoon, 
 and collapsed into Bernard's arms. Bernard lowered him 
 to the ground and opened his shirt, but found nothing but 
 a rather deep scratch. Dropping Brohoon's head with a 
 good bump on the road, he went to the help of other suf- 
 ferers who, now that the scrimmage was over, were sitting 
 or standing about bandaging their hurts with the help of the 
 first-aid sections. Fortunately, there were no serious cases. 
 
 Matters now seemed to have reached a deadlock, but the 
 situation was saved by Umpleby. Approaching the Com- 
 missioner of Police he imperiously demanded that he should 
 withdraw his forces. 
 
 " Not till you hand over those rifles," replied the Com- 
 missioner, stoutly. 
 
 " Now, look here," said Umpleby. " Let's thrash this 
 matter right out from the beginning. Diarmuid and 
 Devorgilla ..." 
 
 " Diarmid and what's-her-name be damned ! I want 
 those rifles." 
 
 " All in good time," replied Umpleby, suavely. " Mean- 
 while, we must thrash out the rights and wrongs of the affair 
 from beginning to end. Diarmuid and Devorgilla, I 
 say ... " 
 
 " Look here. I've no time for any nonsense of this sort," 
 said the officer, angrily. 
 
 " I insist on your hearing me," answered Umpleby. 
 " Nothing can be done satisfactorily without a clear knowl- 
 edge of the facts and theories governing the case. Diarmuid 
 and Devorgilla, I repeat, by their lax morality [not that I 
 am a puritan by any means, though indeed I have a sincere 
 respect for puritanism in moderation (for instance I approve 
 of Rabelais though I cannot say the same for Ghosts) but I 
 disapprove of open adultery (especially when attended by dis- 
 astrous sequels as in the case of Helen of Troy and this same
 
 GUNS 33i 
 
 Devorgilla)] Diarmuid and Devorgilla, I resume, are at the 
 root of this whole affair. Henry the Second's claim to Ire- 
 land, resting as it did upon the immorality of the said 
 Diarmuid and Devorgilla ..." 
 
 The Commissioner of Police tilted his cap over his eyes 
 and scratched the back of his head. He was stupefied by 
 the torrent of Umpleby's language. 
 
 " Just a minute," he began, feebly, but Umpleby put up 
 his hand. 
 
 " Allow me," he said. " If you interrupt, I shall have to 
 begin all over again." 
 
 This prospect so alarmed the unfortunate policeman that 
 he held his peace. 
 
 "Diarmuid and Devorgilla," resumed Umpleby but 
 we shall leave him to his task of holding the enemy's atten- 
 tion and return to the Volunteers. 
 
 As soon as it was observed that the Commissioner of 
 Police was completely occupied with Umpleby the Volunteer 
 officers ordered their men to disperse. Abandoning their 
 formation accordingly, the latter began to leave the road 
 and make their way across the fields and private demesnes in 
 the direction of the city, so that when, during a pause in 
 Umpleby's eloquence, the Commissioner of Police looked up 
 he found that the strategical and moral questions involved 
 had been settled by the disappearance of his opponents from 
 the field of operations. He turned angrily on Umpleby and 
 said: 
 
 " Well, I think, Mr. Umpleby, you've played me a very 
 dirty trick." 
 
 " Not half so dirty as the trick Diarmuid played on 
 O'Ruarc," retorted Umpleby. 
 
 The Battle of Clontarf was over. An hour later the 
 solemn Swathythe admitted a dusty, tattered master to the 
 trim flat in Harcourt Street.
 
 332 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 8 
 
 " That's an excellent soufflee, Swathythe," said Bernard. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Swathythe. 
 
 " You might run out and buy me that stop-press they're 
 calling, Swathythe. It'll contain an account of my exploits." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Swathythe and silently evaporated. 
 
 Bernard reflected what an excellent servant Swathythe 
 was. Here was he, Bernard, obscure and not very rich, 
 after journeying a thousand miles, perfumed and dinner- 
 jacketed, eating the very soufflee he had ordered a month 
 ago . . . without doubt an excellent soufflee. How im- 
 perturbable Swathythe was. He had made no comment 
 whatever on his master's strange return, but had respectfully 
 relieved him of the battered rifle as if it had been a walking- 
 stick, placed it in the umbrella stand, and said : " Dinner 
 will be ready in half-an-hour, sir," just as if Bernard had 
 been out for a short stroll And the dinner had been perfect : 
 the soufflee was not alone in its excellence. . . . Luxuriously 
 he revelled in the pleasure of being home again. 
 
 Swathythe returned and served coffee and the paper, 
 lighted Bernard's cigar, and vanished. Bernard opened the 
 paper and in an instant had read the terrible news of 
 Bachelor's Walk: how the soldiers from Clontarf on their 
 return to Dublin had been jeered and taunted by the crowd, 
 and had finally turned and fired a volley that killed four 
 and wounded forty people . . . 
 
 And then he came upon a letter to the editor, in which 
 Mr. Cyril Umpleby, bubbling with modesty, and slashed 
 with parentheses, told how, " ably assisted by Messrs. 
 O'Flaherty and Lascelles," he had conducted the Howth 
 run-gunning. 
 
 " The impudent little beast," said Bernard to himself. 
 Then he turned to Swathythe who had come in to clear the 
 table. 
 
 " Would you remove an enemy from my path, Swa- 
 thythe ? " he asked. 
 
 " In what way, sir? "
 
 GUNS 333 
 
 " O, by the dagger or by poison. I care not." 
 " No, sir," said Swathythe without a smile. 
 "Then you aren't quite such a perfect servant as I 
 thought, Swathythe. . . . However, that soufflee was ex- 
 cellent."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WAR 
 
 THEN began that slaughter of the world's sons which 
 is called the Great European War. It was a com- 
 monplace at the time, but none the less true, to call it a 
 war without parallel. Never before had the horrors and 
 sufferings of war been so tremendous ; never before had they 
 been faced with such daring and self-sacrifice. Never be- 
 fore had common men gone to war with nobler purpose in 
 their hearts ; never before had politicians and journalists lied 
 so meanly and so detestably. Never before had financiers 
 so callously raked in their blood-bought gains; never before 
 had those gains been so stupendous. On the plains of Flan- 
 ders and Northern France, among the wilds of the Car- 
 pathian Mountains, and in the marshes of the Russo-German 
 border the common men of Europe slaughtered each other 
 at the bidding of their masters and died gloriously for a lie. 
 For this orgy of destruction the nations organized them- 
 selves as they had never organized for any good or useful 
 purpose. Personal liberty, a delicate regard for which had 
 been so prominent in all opposition to mere Social reform, 
 was cast aside, held as nought. Everywhere person and 
 property were ruthlessly commandeered by the state. And 
 not only the liberty of the body, but the liberty of the mind 
 was assailed. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, cher- 
 ished fruits of bygone struggles, vanished of a sudden, and 
 none were found to protest. National resourced in blood 
 and wealth were drawn upon without stint. The reserves 
 of the past were exhausted in an instant ; the supplies of the 
 future were mortgaged lavishly, recklessly. The flower of 
 334
 
 WAR 335 
 
 the world's youth, the source potential of the coming gen- 
 erations, the life blood of mankind, was poured in an ever- 
 swelling stream into the insatiable gulf of destruction. Gay 
 and gallant and clean-minded young men: honest and unsus- 
 pecting souls: they went forth from the peace and comfort 
 of their homes, with a smile on their lips and love in their 
 hearts Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, English, Belgians, 
 Serbs ; smaller races innumerable to face hardship and toil 
 and sleeplessness and disease and danger; torture of the 
 senses; wounds most horrible; mutilations unspeakable; 
 death in a thousand ghastly forms. Kindly, quiet, gentle 
 boys many of them ; mothers' sons ; they left the women they 
 had kissed and embraced to slay and be slain. They slew 
 each other from a distance with shell and ball; they dis- 
 embowelled each other with the bayonet ; they poisoned each 
 other with gases; they rent each other asunder with ex- 
 plosives; in desperate combats in the night they stabbed and 
 battered each other to death. And there were other and 
 fearfuller deaths than these: drowning like rats trapped in 
 submarines ; living burials in mines ; sickening falls from 
 great heights ; burnings. . . . All these things and more men 
 faced because they were told and believed. In the blas- 
 phemed name of patriotism the German student was taken 
 from his studies and told that Shakespeare's countrymen 
 were his foes; the French workingman was taken from his 
 labour and told that the country of those whose cry for 
 universal emancipation and brotherhood still sounded in his 
 ears desired nothing but his enslavement; the dull English 
 yokel at his plough was told that civilization was in need of 
 his aid ; and the simple Russian moujik was herded to slaugh- 
 ter he knew not why. All over Europe boys of eighteen 
 and twenty, their generous emotions roused, were called to 
 the defence of treaties and the fulfilment of obligations which 
 the cynical politicians who summoned them would have been 
 the first to repudiate should their interests so require: and all 
 over Europe youth, ingenuous, trusting and obedient, an- 
 swered the call. But to these simple virtues alone the mas-
 
 336 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ters of men could not trust. More was needed. During 
 the long peace men had forgotten how to hate. The nations 
 had grown interdependent : you cannot hate those with whom 
 you buy and sell, or those with whom you share pleasures 
 and interests: trade and the arts had united mankind. 
 These ties must now be broken, so by tales of atrocities, 
 by lies and misrepresentations, hate was deliberately remanu- 
 factured and righteous anger raised on all sides by slander 
 and false accusations. 
 
 Until the storm had actually burst few among the masses 
 of Europe realized what was happening. All through those 
 sunny July days, while the diplomatists wrangled, the ordi- 
 nary man went about his ordinary business, prepared for his 
 holiday in August, and wondered how long the present spell 
 of glorious weather would last. In Ireland people's minds 
 were too much occupied with the course of events at home 
 with the Howth and Kilcool gun-runnings and the Bache- 
 lor's Walk atrocity to notice any signs of the impending 
 disaster, and even when, two days after these occurrences, 
 Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia (as we then called 
 her) not many realized the inevitable sequel. 
 
 "Can't you see, mother?" said Bernard. "Russia's 
 bound to defend Servia; that brings in Germany to back up 
 Austria; France must then come to help Russia, and that 
 brings England in, too." 
 
 Lady Lascelles was incapable of following a chain of 
 reasons. 
 
 " I can't believe it," she said . . . 
 
 And then event followed event with surprising rapidity. 
 Germany declared war almost simultaneously on Russia and 
 France. Belgium was invaded, and the British Govern- 
 ment having found the righteous excuse wherewith to delude 
 the people of England, Scotland and Ireland, plunged into 
 the fray. . . . There was a rushing about in the streets of 
 great cities; and a shouting and a bustle on the bourses; 
 and a buying of stop-press editions, and panic and chatter 
 everywhere. People stood about at street corners in ani-
 
 WAR 337 
 
 mated discussion of what they could not understand. 
 Chance acquaintances stopped you to say: "Awful business 
 this! Isn't it?" And you answered: "Yes, awful!" . . . 
 Wild rumours were circulated and implicity believed. 
 There were accounts of great naval battles, with convinc- 
 ingly detailed lists of losses. Wiseacres darkly hinted that 
 Paris had already fallen and the Government daren't ad- 
 mit it ... 
 
 " Where do we come in? " asked some. 
 
 Before the days of madness were the days of ignorance 
 when men waited to be told what they were going to fight 
 for. 
 
 2 
 
 But while all Europe in those first fatal weeks went mad ; 
 while ordinary men raved like lunatics, and philosophers 
 and thinkers babbled like angry children; while the wise 
 equally with the foolish believed all they were told and 
 hearkened to every rumour; in an obscure island in the 
 western sea one little band of men remained calm and 
 serene, unmoved by the passions of the war, undeceived by 
 its lies. Stephen Ward with his keen unemotional insight; 
 Bernard with his free comprehensive grasp of essentials; 
 O'Dwyer with his hard piercing logic; Hektor with his 
 downright common sense; McGurk with his bluff humorous 
 honesty; Crowley with his lucid wit, even Moore with his 
 morose cynicism: all saw through the mist of deceit and 
 credulous passion down to the naked and repulsive reality 
 below. The profession of the Allies that they were fighting 
 for Christianity and civilization, truth and justice and the 
 sanctity of treaties, the freedom of small nationalities and all 
 the rest of it left them quite cold. Stephen knew how small 
 a part truth and justice played in the councils of the world; 
 Bernard saw no world-vision in Imperial England and Rus- 
 sia and Chauvinist France ; O'Dwyer knew England's record 
 in the matter of treaties only too well ; Hektor was too well 
 versed in the tricks of European diplomacy; all felt that the 
 spectacle of the oppressor of Ireland coming forth as the
 
 338 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 champion of small nationalities was, to say the least of it, 
 humorous. 
 
 " The whole position's absurd on the face of it," said 
 Crowley. " The Czar of All the Russias and Hetman of 
 the Don Cossacks righting for democracy and civilization! 
 France fighting against militarism ! The Harlot of the Na- 
 tions fighting for Christianity and Justice! It couldn't take 
 a baby in." 
 
 " The world's been taken in for all that," Bernard pointed 
 out. 
 
 " The British Empire against world domination," ex- 
 claimed O'Dwyer. " Men must be a pack of fools." 
 
 " So I have ventured on previous occasions to remark," 
 said Moore. It was felt distinctly that Moore had scored 
 a point off the idealists. 
 
 " Well, Hell roast John Redmond anyhow," said 
 McGurk. 
 
 Redmond's famous declaration of the unconditional adher- 
 ence of Ireland to the British and Allied cause was already 
 two days old on the occasion of this conversation. 
 
 " The question is," said O'Dwyer, " is he a knave or a 
 fool? Could a man who's been as long in politics as John 
 Redmond be such a fool as to take European diplomacy at 
 its face value? " 
 
 " What I want to know," said Crowley, " is: has he got 
 so completely West Britonized as to forget that an English- 
 man is most to be feared when he's friendly." 
 
 " But the opportunity he's thrown away! " groaned Hek- 
 tor. " My God, he could have had Repeal of the Union 
 for the asking. He could have held back every reservist in 
 Ireland till he'd got it in force." 
 
 " We could have had Repeal working in a week and cut 
 the cable at the first British defeat," said McGurk. 
 
 " And the opportunity's gone for ever," said Crowley. 
 " Half the reservists are in England by this time." 
 
 "The question is: how will the country take it?" said 
 O'Dwyer.
 
 WAR 339 
 
 " Repudiate it ! " said Bernard, promptly. 
 
 " I doubt it," said Crowley. " They've shown no signs 
 of it yet, anyway." 
 
 " The Volunteers will repudiate it," said Hektor. 
 
 " They might," said McGurk. " But sure they're young 
 and they haven't votes most o' them." 
 
 " I'll tell you how the country'll take it," said Stephen. 
 " Volunteers and all," he added. 
 
 " How? " asked several. 
 
 " Lying down," said Stephen. 
 
 Bernard, full of the zeal of the convert, refused to believe 
 this. 
 
 " You'll see I'm right," said Stephen, in his quiet, dog- 
 matic way. " They're not ripe for bold action yet. Ire- 
 land's history has left her incapable of sound political think- 
 ing, so she'll just do what she's told. Perhaps things would 
 have been different if the Volunteer movement was a year or 
 two older, but as it is ... " He shrugged his shoulders. 
 Every one was unwillingly convinced that he was right. 
 
 " England's always had all the luck," said O'Dwyer. 
 "Oh, for a Parnell!" 
 
 " Or a Carson," said McGurk. 
 
 It was the war and the anticipation of exciting possibilities 
 that had brought our friends to the capital in August. 
 Moore had returned hurriedly from holidays in France. 
 Crowley had rushed up from Ballylangan in Ossory where 
 he was now dispensary doctor. O'Dwyer had left his family 
 down in Greystones. He was not yet qualified, nor was 
 McGurk. The latter, indeed, showed signs of development 
 into a " chronic " for he was due for his third attempt at his 
 Third Examination in September. Bernard's flat was the 
 scene of their assembly. 
 
 Events justified Stephen's prophecy. At first, indeed, 
 Ireland was a little taken aback by the new departure. 
 " That was a queer speech of Redmond's," was the general 
 comment heard in trams and trains and public places 
 generally. Mr. Redmond's step was unprecedented in the
 
 340 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 annals of nationalism. The majority of even the most 
 orthodox Home Rulers were at bottom' only Home Rulers 
 faute-de-mieux and regarded England as an enemy who, 
 being too strong to be fought, had to be cajoled; and the 
 traditional attitude of Ireland towards England's wars had 
 always been one of hope for her defeat. Various, therefore, 
 were the explanations put forward for the present policy. 
 Some considered it mere bluff. " Redmond's codding the 
 English so as to make sure of Home Rule," they said. 
 Others opined that he was genuinely convinced that a Ger- 
 man victory would merely mean a change of masters for 
 Ireland, and acted on the principle that " the devil you 
 know is better than the devil you don't know." 
 
 " But anyone is likely to be an improvement on the person 
 you know to be a devil," Bernard used to suggest to these, 
 but without effect. 
 
 Few people then had sufficient political imagination and 
 knowledge to see that it might be to Germany's interest to 
 create a free and friendly Ireland: indeed, a free Ireland 
 seemed to be beyond the purview of a generation suckled 
 on constitutionalism and accustomed to having its thinking 
 done for it. Very few also realized the completeness of 
 Mr. Redmond's surrender. They did not see the insult im- 
 plied in Sir Edward Grey's " One Bright Spot " oration. 
 Ireland was not a consideration that would have to be taken 
 into account, said Sir Edward, and Mr. Redmond had 
 crawled gratefully to pick up the bone thus contemptuously 
 flung at him, and found it marrowless. 
 
 " The slaves are content with their fetters and will fight 
 loyally for their masters like the good little slaves they are." 
 This was Crowley's paraphrase of Redmond's speech. The 
 papers, however, both Irish and English, called the thing a 
 " Statesmanlike declaration," a phrase bestowed hencefor- 
 ward almost automatically on each successive gracefully- 
 worded surrender. 
 
 And the Irish people, as Stephen had prophesied, took it 
 all lying down. Obedience to the Party had become a habit,
 
 WAR 341 
 
 yet it took some time before people got completely accus- 
 tomed to the new " Union of Hearts " as it was called. 
 Their " loyalty," like a strange garment, clove not to its 
 mould, needing the aid of use. This showed itself specially 
 in the Volunteers, many of whose companies were presented 
 with Union Jacks by enthusiastic Unionist ladies. This 
 was felt to be rather too much. Home Rule was on the 
 Statute Book all right, and there was peace between the 
 nations, but flags are thicker than paper and Irishmen could 
 not learn to love the symbol of their slavery in a day. So 
 the flag of the Empire was generally accepted bashfully, and 
 as soon as the innate politeness of the people allowed, rele- 
 gated to the dust bin. 
 
 But the new way of thinking began to take root. Re- 
 servists, going to join their units, were feted and escorted to 
 the railway stations by the town and village bands. Young 
 men flocked into the army. Soldiers were no longer looked 
 upon as janissaries and alien conquerors; while the stern 
 spirits who distrusted England and refused to acquiesce in 
 the new regime were regarded as unforgiving, mean-spirited 
 cranks. The Nationalists of the middle and upper classes 
 were of course the first to adapt themselves to circumstances. 
 They were in fact very much pleased with the whole course 
 of events. The last remaining taint of " lawlessness " had 
 now been removed from their party, and such of them (never 
 very many) who adhered to the principle of remaining 
 seated for the playing of God Save the King were relieved of 
 that unpleasant necessity. 
 
 Bernard did not realize how far things had gone until one 
 night at the beginning of September when he went to the 
 Hippodrome with Geoffrey Manders. This man in his 
 bloodless, muddled, and not very sincere cosmopolitanism, 
 professed a very detached point of view both towards the 
 war of controversy in Ireland and the war of steel in Europe. 
 His interest lay in watching the effects of these things on 
 others and he was rather amused at the heat and excitement 
 of Bernard the Bernard whose development he had quietly
 
 342 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 watched from the days when he had held views very similar 
 to his own (albeit he held them with a clarity, a sincerity 
 and a passion of which Manders was incapable) down to his 
 recent emerging as a " hillside " Nationalist. 
 
 The program that evening was a tiresome one. A war- 
 song or two roused little enthusiasm. A conjurer made the 
 audience frankly yawn. Then a screen was lowered, the 
 house was darkened, and a succession of war-pictures was 
 thrown upon the screen. The audience woke up. " War 
 Scenes from all Fronts" they read. A Belgian cavalry 
 patrol cantering across the screen was warmly applauded, 
 and the orchestra played the Brabanqonne , but nobody rec- 
 ognized it. French Troops on the March produced even 
 warmer applause, for Irishmen, with memories of Ninety- 
 Eight in their hearts, have always a soft spot for France; 
 and as the first familiar bars of the Marseillaise sounded 
 from the orchestra the song was taken up lustily in all parts 
 of the house. Bernard's pulse could not help responding to 
 the old song of the Revolution and he felt bitterly the hard 
 stroke of fate in placing him amid the ranks opposed to it. 
 There was a perceptible slackening in the popular enthusiasm 
 when a view of Russian soldiers resting on the march was 
 flashed forth, and Bernard wondered what was happening 
 in Poland and Finland. How would they take the war? 
 There would be less hypocrisy used with them anyway, he 
 reflected. They might even be dragooned into quiescence: 
 a more honourable fate than Ireland's. . . . And then came 
 the climax: British troops landing in France, said the 
 screen, and as the bustling scene was revealed, cheer after 
 cheer went up from the auditorium. 
 
 " This is great ! " chuckled Manders in much amusement. 
 ..." I wonder will they try them with God save the 
 King" 
 
 The picture flickered along, and no sign of the anthem. 
 
 " They don't like to risk it," said Manders. 
 
 " It'd make the worms turn," said the disgusted Bernard. 
 
 But a moment later the slow solemn anthem rolled forth,
 
 WAR 343 
 
 and Bernard was the only member of that vast audience who 
 did not spring to his feet and burst into song. 
 
 " Fickle, fickle people," he said to himself. 
 
 When it was all over Manders lay back in his chair laugh- 
 ing loudly; a jarring blatant laugh for which Bernard never 
 forgave him . . . 
 
 The Southern Unionists professed themselves delighted at 
 the Nationalist volte-face. Their young men flocked into 
 the Volunteers whom they now regarded almost as a part of 
 the forces of the Crown, and their newspapers glowed with 
 admiration for Mr. Redmond's statesmanship. " At last we 
 see what we have long wished to see," quoth the Irish Times. 
 11 Ireland a Nation, brave, united, and in arms." Strange 
 words from a paper whose policy was based on the denial of 
 Ireland's nationhood, bravery, unity, and right to arm. 
 For acting up to the ideal there mouthed so hypocritically 
 Robert Emmet had been hanged. The Ulstermen were 
 more honest, and changed not their attitude to the rest of 
 their countrymen one iota. They vowed that when the 
 war was over they would send Home Rule to the devil; and 
 their reservists marched to the stations to the tunes of 
 Boyne Water and Kick the Pope. 
 
 The fruit of Mr. Redmond's statesmanship, the return 
 for all this surrender of principle and tradition and national 
 advantage, was the passing of the Home Rule Bill followed 
 immediately by a Suspensory Bill, postponing it until it 
 should be modified as to be acceptable to the Orangemen, 
 or, as McGurk said, till Tibb's Eve: and at the very moment 
 that Mr. Redmond was foisting this " Treaty of Peace " 
 and " Charter of Liberty " upon his countrymen's accept- 
 ance, the English Tories were denouncing the passage of the 
 bill as treachery and openly promising to tear the " Charter " 
 in pieces, while the Orangemen no less openly promised to 
 put the " Treaty of Peace " in the fire. In a manifesto to 
 the Irish people, Mr. Redmond announced the opening of a 
 new era. The Democracy of Britain, he said, had kept faith 
 with Ireland: it was now a duty of honour for Ireland to
 
 344 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 keep faith with them. In other words, in return for a 
 promise by an English party Government to restore (at some 
 date unspecified) a tithe of her rights, and in spite of her 
 experience of British promises in the past, Ireland was to 
 give herself body and soul to assist her ancient enemy against 
 a nation from whom she had never suffered wrong of any 
 kind. 
 
 And Ireland, generous, sentimental, credulous Ireland, 
 only too ready to forgive and forget, hastened at his bidding 
 " to keep faith." And how did England receive it? Need- 
 less to say, England would not admit that Ireland had any- 
 thing to forgive, but in her condescending way she decided 
 that Ireland had come to beg forgiveness and atone for past 
 rebellions by present loyalty. And in that spirit the bulk of 
 the English people accepted the whole Irish situation as a 
 matter of course. Official England heaved a sigh of relief 
 at the trouble it had been saved. 
 
 " They've forgiving us for all the wrong they've done us," 
 said Crowley. 
 
 " Where is it all going to end? " Bernard asked Stephen. 
 
 " Goodness knows," said Stephen. " I confess the work- 
 ings of the Parliamentarian mind are beyond me. . . . Of 
 course, so long as Redmond speaks for his party and they 
 accept him, we've no right to complain, not being Parlia- 
 mentarians. But if he goes on pretending he speaks for the 
 Volunteers, he's got to be stopped. There's nothing about 
 Imperial Thinking in our constitution and Redmond's got 
 to realize it. He can do what he likes with his own party, 
 but hands off the Volunteers." 
 
 " That'll mean a split," said Bernard. 
 
 " Not necessarily," said Stephen. " Not if Redmond 
 leaves the Volunteers alone. But if he insists on a split, 
 he'll have it. Disunion is the devil, but there's one thing 
 worse, and that is acting a lie."
 
 WAR 345 
 
 3 
 
 Meanwhile, in a seemingly irresistible rush, the German 
 armies poured into Belgium and France, and the great 
 slaughter began. 
 
 Bernard and his friends regarded the war in totally dif- 
 ferent lights. Bernard had come to Nationalism as part of 
 a general revolutionary and Internationalist creed, whereas 
 his friends were Nationalists first and such Internationalism 
 as any of them possessed was but an expansion of their Na- 
 tionalism. To Bernard, therefore, the war was evil un- 
 mitigated, whilst to the others the evil was considerably 
 modified by the hope of freedom it gave to Ireland. 
 
 Bernard, however, was not a mere pacifist: he was per- 
 fectly ready to shed his own and any one else's blood in a 
 good cause : but he hated to see human life and achievement 
 wasted in the culmination of a mere game of capitalist 
 diplomacy. So with a heart full of anxiety for his fellow- 
 men he had watched all the manoeuvres that preceded the 
 outbreak. Even after the formal ruptures he hoped against 
 hope that the diplomatists would realize the horror of the 
 game they were playing and pull up before it was too late: 
 a perfectly disinterested hope, for he felt certain at the time 
 that Ireland's attitude would be one of neutrality. But 
 with the first news of bloodshed these hopes vanished, and 
 as the sun rose on the second day of hostilities he knew that 
 a thousand men who might have seen that dawn were dead. 
 He felt it as a personal grief, as was his habit. . . . And 
 then all Europe was ablaze with hatred. He saw quiet de- 
 cent men and elderly ladies rejoicing over the news that four 
 thousand German corpses had been counted on such-and- 
 such a front: he saw his own friends rejoicing over similar 
 heaps of British corpses. To him the slaughter gave a 
 sickening sense of personal loss: every death was a separate 
 tragedy: and every man cut off in the bloom of his youth 
 made him think of the children who would never be born. 
 . . . He hoped that the rulers, the organizers of slaughter, 
 would even now relent when they realized the magnitude of
 
 346 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the massacre; would shrink from piling up yet more and 
 more misery on the shoulders of men. But no. On went 
 the appalling butchery, day after day, week after week, 
 month after month, until hope died away, and he could only 
 look on helplessly and bemoan the pity of it. 
 
 Very different were the views of the others. Hektor was 
 not an Internationalist at all: in a free Ireland he would 
 have been inclined toward jingoism. McGurk was much 
 the same: he was no politician and merely wanted Ireland 
 free. O'Dwyer was an Internationalist of a sort: he felt 
 a benevolent neutrality towards all nations but England, 
 whom he hated with all the powers of his soul; not merely 
 British Government of Ireland, he would explain, but Eng- 
 land herself, the English people, the make of their minds, 
 their methods of thought, their alleged religion, the look in 
 their eyes, and the screeching of their damned voices. To 
 a virile hatred like this partisanship in the war was inevita- 
 ble. And as for Stephen, the ruthlessness of his purpose left 
 no room for vicarious sympathies. 
 
 All these, therefore, watched the German advance with 
 hope and feverish impatience. They pictured the German 
 army as a great relief force moving nearer and nearer to 
 Ireland's deliverance, and while Hektor, with a professional 
 eye, followed events on a large scale map and weighed and 
 discounted reports, McGurk danced in jubilation over every 
 fresh town occupied, and O'Dwyer prayed desperately at 
 every check. 
 
 On came the grey masses. Liege fell. Namur, it was 
 predicted, would hold out for months. Its fall was reported 
 the next morning. Back went the Belgian army fighting 
 manfully step by step. Back went the British: slowly, 
 stubbornly, hitting out heavily, but still going back. Back 
 went the French; grimly, desperately resisting; taking and 
 giving blood for every inch of the fatherland surrendered : 
 but still going back. 
 
 " Germans on the Road to Paris" screamed the newspaper 
 placards. The war seemed to be won. O'Dwyer was
 
 WAR 347 
 
 exultant; Hektor was calmly confident, full of soldierly 
 admiration ; even Stephen showed himself less impassive than 
 usual. 
 
 " Paris tomorrow," said the optimists, but tomorrow 
 showed no startling developments. 
 
 " Preparing to spring," said the optimists to console 
 themselves. 
 
 And then came the Marne and the disheartening days of 
 the retreat. The hope of a decisive German victory was 
 gone, and the great days of the war were over. Later, in- 
 deed, when the Germans were fighting their way, step by 
 step, toward Calais, hope for a time revived. 
 
 " When they've got Calais," said O'Dwyer, " they'll 
 plank down some of those big howitzers of theirs and hold 
 up the Channel. . . . Dover next. Then's our chance." 
 
 But the Germans never reached Calais. The fighting on 
 the Western Front, after an orgy of bloodshed, ended in 
 stalemate and settled down to the dull monotony of trench 
 warfare, and the young strategists turned their attention to 
 events nearer home. 
 
 4 
 
 " I suppose I'll be losing you one of these days, Swa- 
 thythe," said Bernard. 
 
 " I hope not, sir," said Swathythe. 
 
 "What? Aren't you going to fight for your King and 
 country, Swathythe ? " 
 
 " King and country never did nothing for me, sir." 
 
 " I'm afraid you're a materialist, Swathythe." 
 
 " No, sir. Primitive Methodist, sir." 
 
 " And your country's call means nothing to you, Swa- 
 thythe? " 
 
 " Never heard it, sir. Shouldn't recognize it if I did." 
 
 " Dear me. This is very disappointing. I met a man 
 down town this morning who asked me what I was doing in 
 the great war. I said I wasn't doing anything. He was 
 very shocked and said : ' I'v e given my son.' Now wouldn't
 
 348 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 it have been nice if I'd been able to say: ' I've given my 
 valet ' ? " 
 
 " Very nice, sir. For you." 
 
 " Exactly, Swathythe. That's what I said to the gentle- 
 man in question. . .' . By the way, Swathythe, you might 
 put the spare room in order. Mr. O'Dwyer is coming to 
 stay with me for a few days." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And Mr. Ward, Mr. O'Flaherty and Mr. McGurk are 
 dining here tonight. Mr. Ward may be late, but you may 
 serve dinner in any case at half-past seven." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Bernard had been rung up that morning by O'Dwyer, 
 who told him that he had been ordered out of the house by 
 his father on refusing to take a commission in the British 
 Army, and requested an asylum while looking for lodgings. 
 In the course of the afternoon O'Dwyer arrived, still seeth- 
 ing with indignation, not only against his own father, but 
 against paternity in general. 
 
 " New definition of ' father,' " he said. " An insolent 
 tyrant who thinks he owns you body and soul. One who, 
 on the strength of having begotten you, takes credit for all 
 your virtues and repudiates all your vices. . . . The in- 
 solence of fathers . . . talking about ' giving their 
 sons ' . . . " 
 
 Bernard remembered the father he had met that morning. 
 
 " Tell us all about it," he said. 
 
 " Oh, we had ructions," said O'Dwyer. " We'd only 
 just started breakfast when the Boss let me have it. ' I 
 met Bonegraft at the club last night,' says he, ' and he told 
 me he'd given his son to the war. I was wishing I could 
 say the same,' says he. ' In fact, I was quite ashamed of 
 myself,' says he. I sat tight and said nothing. Suddenly, 
 he raps out: 'Why don't you apply for a commission?' 
 ' You know my politics,' says I. ' Politcs be damned,' says 
 he. ' It's every man's duty to go to the front.' ' I beg to 
 differ,' says I. ' O, do you?' says he. 'Well, differ or
 
 WAR 349 
 
 no, you've got to do it,' says he. ' No, thank you,' says 
 I. ' Look here, my lad,' says he, flying into a rage, ' I've 
 never interfered with your holding what principles you like, 
 but in a time of crisis you've got to obey ME!' (Fierce 
 emphasis on the ME, Bernard.) 'There's a higher power 
 than you,' says I, diffidently. ' None of your cant,' he yells. 
 "What? Is there no one higher?' says I, innocently, and 
 with that he lets a screech out of him, and ' Out of my house 
 you go,' says he. So I went upstairs and packed my bag. 
 Then I telephoned to you, and after that I went off and had 
 a farewell lunch with the mother and sisters at Jammets, 
 . . . and here I am. ... I composed a Limerick about it 
 all, by the way. How does it go now? 
 
 That eminent man called O'Dwyer 
 Is with love of Old England on fire 
 
 Which flame sacrificial, 
 
 Howe'er he may wish, I'll 
 Not swallow the son of the sire. 
 
 Not bad that, eh? I composed it between the cheese and 
 the coffee." 
 
 " This damned notion of patria potestas ! " exclaimed 
 Bernard. " There's too much of it in this country in 
 every class. When I see the way the farmers slave-drive 
 their sons, I wonder parricide isn't commoner. And these 
 middle-class despots! ..." 
 
 He showed his guest to his room, and asked him about his 
 prospects. They were all right, it appeared. He was due 
 for his Final Examination at the end of the month and all 
 his fees were paid. Moreover, he had a little money, some 
 thirty pounds lying in a savings bank, which had been de- 
 posited there by a benevolent god-parent in his babyhood 
 and had never since been touched. This, eked out by what 
 his pen might earn, should keep him until he was qualified 
 and even after. He could borrow then. 
 
 "What did you think of the Woodenbridge Oration?" 
 asked Bernard.
 
 350 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 This was the topic of conversation over all Ireland that 
 day. On the previous afternoon Mr. Redmond had turned 
 up at a Volunteer parade at Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow, 
 and told the Volunteers that whereas this was a war in de- 
 fence of the " highest principles of religion and morality," 
 it was the duty of Irishmen to rush at once to the fighting 
 line. 
 
 " A split is inevitable now," said O'Dwyer. " Redmond 
 is entitled to think that sort of flapdoodle himself if he likes. 
 He can even dish it out to the U.I.L. if he thinks fit. But 
 he's no business to put out that policy from a Volunteer 
 platform. We're a non-party organization, formed to give 
 Ireland a defence force, not to give England recruits. . . . 
 Redmond and his party will just have to clear out of the 
 force." ' 
 
 " They're the majority," said Bernard. 
 
 " No matter. They've violated the constitution, so out 
 they'll have to go." 
 
 They went out for a stroll down Grafton Street, where 
 Bernard laid in a supply of cigarettes for the evening. Then 
 they returned to await the arrival of the guests. McGurk 
 was the first to arrive, jovial and hungry, and, as he said, 
 " Kilt with work." He was soon followed by Hektor, 
 heavy with bad news from the Aisne. Stephen, not appear- 
 ing when dinner was announced, Bernard explained that he 
 had expected to be late as there was a session of the Pro- 
 visional Committee to consider what steps were to be taken 
 in view of the Woodenbridge speech. 
 
 The mere mention of this oration produced a highly 
 censorable flow of language from McGurk, and Hektor pro- 
 nounced the event the greatest disaster in Irish history since 
 the Battle of the Marne. 
 
 Stephen arrived while they were still at the soup and was 
 at once eagerly questioned. He took from his pocket a sheet 
 of paper and read them the short pointed statement drawn 
 up by the Provisional Committee and sent forth that eve-
 
 WAR 351 
 
 ning to all the newspapers in the country. It said, in brief, 
 that whereas, Mr. Reymond and his nominees had pro- 
 pounded for the Volunteers a policy fundamentally at vari- 
 ance with their own professed objects and constitution, they 
 had ceased to hold any place in the administration of the 
 movement: that the object and policy of the Volunteers still 
 remained the same as on the day of its foundation : and that 
 Ireland could not with honour or safety take part in foreign 
 quarrels except through the free action of a national govern- 
 ment of her own. It concluded by demanding the imme- 
 diate establishment of that National Government. 
 
 "And what about Headquarters?" asked O'Flaherty, 
 promptly. 
 
 " We've an armed garrison in occupation already," said 
 Stephen. 
 
 " Good for you," said Hektor. " Dublin will stick to 
 us anyway." 
 
 " Dublin stuck to Parnell," said O'Dwyer. " I wonder 
 how will the country go? " 
 
 " To pieces," said Stephen. " We expect a backing in 
 Kerry, Athenry, Cork, and perhaps Wexford, but the rest of 
 the country will go with Redmond." 
 
 " Then," said Bernard, in slow realization, " we're in a 
 hopeless minority." 
 
 " Hopeless," said Stephen. " About ten thousand men 
 against the whole country." 
 
 These words came as a shock to Bernard. He had been 
 looking forward to a great national fight for liberty, and here 
 he found himself a member of an insignificant faction. 
 
 " ,Not only that," said Stephen, " but we'll have to go 
 through a storm of abuse and misrepresentation and per- 
 secution. Our own countrymen will denounce us and the 
 enemy will try to destroy us." 
 
 " Begob ! " said McGurk, " we're going to get it in the 
 neck. You take it from me, boys, all the dirty tongues in 
 the Hibernians and the U.I.L. will be let loose on us."
 
 352 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " We're at war from this moment," said Hektor. " Ire- 
 land joins the Central Powers. Hostilities will commence 
 at once." 
 
 " Well," said O'Dwyer, " it's a relief. The compromis- 
 ing of the last few days was getting to be a bore. I like a 
 clear issue." 
 
 The prospect of what was before them seemed to brace 
 his friends, but it had a depressing effect on Bernard. To 
 have to oppose the will of the country he had so lately 
 learned to love was a hard trial to him. He had none of 
 the habit of hatred and opposition to England which buoyed 
 up the determination of the others. They knew infallibly 
 that, however Ireland herself might be led into wrong 
 courses, the anti-English attitude was the only safe and 
 patriotic policy. They knew, too, that it was the only 
 policy to which, after the English treachery which would 
 inevitably manifest itself, Ireland must eventually return. 
 But Bernard had none of these consolations. He foresaw 
 no change in the situation. Hatred of England had not 
 been ground into his soul by circumstances, and love of Ire- 
 land was his predominant passion. To oppose her will, 
 therefore, was a very painful duty. 
 
 But the others were quite hilarious. McGurk was al- 
 ready looking forward to the reaction. 
 
 " They'll be sick of loyalty in a month," he said, " and 
 they'll be clamouring to come back to us. ' I told you so,' 
 we'll be saying to them and we'll just give them a toe in the 
 rump to teach them sense next time." 
 
 Hektor was less optimistic. 
 
 " They won't come back as quick as all that, Hugo," he 
 said. " At least, not unless the English are clumsier fools 
 than I think them. I give 'em two years." 
 
 " Sure the war'll be over by then," said McGurk. 
 
 " Not on your life," said Hektor. " The Marne's put the 
 kybosh on that." 
 
 " We're at war with the Empire . . . our little crowd,"
 
 WAR 353 
 
 suddenly interjected O'Dwyer. " Ten thousand men against 
 
 God knows how many ..." 
 
 The prospect of a struggle against odds mightier than 
 Xenophon's roused Bernard somewhat. And he remembered 
 his duties as host. 
 
 " Hektor, you aren't eating. Another slice of duck? 
 . . . Fill up Mr. McGurk's glass, Swathythe. . . . 
 O'Dwyer, that's a new sauce made to my own recipe, sauce 
 franc-tireure irlandaise." 
 
 " That was a nice little girl I saw you with in Grafton 
 Street, Bernard, the other day," said McGurk. 
 
 " I don't remember her," said Bernard. 
 
 " Galong now ! She was a neat little cailin with fair hair 
 and brown eyes." 
 
 " Oh," said Bernard, " I just me her by chance." 
 
 " Will ye listen to him," said McGurk, " and he eatin' 
 the face off her with his great hungry eyes." 
 
 " You're an ass, McGurk." 
 
 " Love's a queer thing," said O'Dwyer. " It makes shy 
 things of us all. Fancy Lascelles blushing." 
 
 " I'm not in love," said Bernard, " and if I were I 
 shouldn't be ashamed of it. I've been in love often, and I 
 don't think anything of it. It's just an exanthematous 
 fever we go through periodically. Like the flu, a previous 
 attack seems to confer no immunity, but each successive ill- 
 ness becomes less and less serious." 
 
 " Love isn't a disease," said Hektor. " It's a game." 
 
 " Love's all my eye," said McGurk scornfully. " We all 
 enjoy a bit of flirting round when we're young, but when I 
 want to marry which won't be for a long time yet, I hope 
 
 it'll be for something a little more solid and lasting than 
 love. . . . Sure all that gibberish and raimeis about love 
 is the invention of female novelists." 
 
 " Hugo puts things a bit crudely," said Bernard, " but I 
 agree with him in the main. We Irish seem to be a bit 
 saner about love than the English. . . . Lord, how they
 
 354 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 wallow in it, even the best of them. Wells's magnificent 
 novels are sticky with the slush of it. ... You don't find 
 the sentimental heroine of the English novel in Irish art, 
 thank heaven! And you don't find love the mainspring of 
 the plot in more than a fraction of our plays and novels. 
 We keep it in its place: the same place as it has in life." 
 
 " I wonder," said O'Dwyer, " if love has as big a place 
 in English life as it has in their novels." 
 
 " God forbid," said Hektor. 
 
 " Summary of an average English novel," said O'Dwyer: 
 
 " There was a young lady in love 
 With a hero, all heroes above. 
 Some strife, and some stress 
 Then a murmur of ' yes,' 
 And ' my darling,' ' my sweetheart,' 
 ' my dove ! ' " 
 
 " That's it to a T ! " cried McGurk. " Now I like an 
 author like Dumas. Tons of incident and hardly any love 
 and that without too many of the slushy details." 
 
 " Dickens and Scott answer to that description," said 
 Bernard, " and so do nearly all the really great authors. 
 It's our modern mediocrities that do the wallowing . . . 
 for lack of better material." 
 
 The conversation was all on modern literature for a while 
 and then reverted naturally to the original topic. 
 
 " To men," said Bernard, " love is a luxury. To women 
 it is the necessary anaesthetic to render the hardships of pro- 
 creation bearable." 
 
 " You're a cynic," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 Stephen, who had hitherto been silent, projected himself 
 suddenly into the conversation at this point. 
 
 " That word ' cynic,' " he said. " It annoys me. Look 
 here. You and I and all of our crowd know how this war's 
 going to end if the Allies win." 
 
 " They won't," said McGurk. 
 
 "// they do," said Stephen, " we know that though Eng-
 
 WAR 355 
 
 land declares she doesn't covet a yard of territory the peace 
 terms will give her several thousand square miles. We 
 know that this is no war to end war: we know that Allied 
 militarism at the end of it will be a far bigger thing than 
 German militarism today. We know it's no war for democ- 
 racy. We know that all the democratic safeguards now 
 given up won't be restored in a hurry. We know this is no 
 war for small nations: we know Ireland will be still under 
 the Act of Union and likely to stay there long after the Ger- 
 mans are cleared out of Belgium. We know that this is no 
 war for principle at all, but a commercial war resulting 
 from secret diplomacy. We know all this is so, and time 
 will prove us right; but meanwhile we're called cynics." 
 
 " And the sentimental drivellers who believe all they're 
 told about this freedom-and-justice stunt call us unpractical 
 dreamers because we hold the very practical policy of drilling 
 and arming to secure our own rights. And the very same 
 people who call this policy dreamy and unpractical also call 
 it selfish and narrow-minded. Lord ! " said O'Dwyer, 
 " the contradictory abuse that I've listened to these few 
 days. ' Look here ! ' I said to one man, ' we may be 
 dreamy idealists, or we may be selfish cynics, but we can't 
 possibly be both. Your case against us is too complete, so 
 the probability is we're neither.' But the average man isn't 
 logical." 
 
 " We should be highly flattered by being called dreamers," 
 said Bernard. " All the great things in life have been done 
 by people who were called that, for every fact is the material- 
 ization of a dream. There can be no birth without con- 
 ception." 
 
 " The fact is," said O'Dwyer, " that the only really prac- 
 tical people are the dreamers. The man who prides himself 
 on being practical is mentally blind." 
 
 " I quite agree," said Hektor. " But that's a dangerous 
 doctrine to let loose unqualified in this country. Our peo- 
 ple are only too ready to take people for dreamers who are 
 merely wool-gatherers."
 
 356 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Dinner being over, Hektor now arose, and in a mock 
 after-dinner manner proposed the toast of the Captain of 
 the Emden, then at the height of its career of destroying 
 British commerce. When this toast had been honoured Mc- 
 Gurk arose and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, we surely cannot allow this occasion to pass 
 without coupling with the name of the gay and gallant cap- 
 tain that of Madame Britannia, the cast-off mistress of the 
 seas." 
 
 They adjourned to the sitting-room to smoke, and amid 
 all the jokes and arguments that whiled away the evening, 
 one thought kept beating in Bernard's mind: 
 
 " We're at war with our own country, and with the 
 world." 
 
 5 
 
 The next morning the Volunteer manifesto appeared in 
 the newspapers, and, in fulfilment of expectation, the vast 
 majority of the Volunteers gave in their adherence to Mr. 
 Redmond, only about two thousand men in Dublin and 
 about ten thousand over the rest of the country standing by 
 the original Committee. 
 
 Then the flood gates of abuse were opened and the foun- 
 tains of decency were broken up. Reason and argument 
 were consigned to oblivion and it was attempted to swamp 
 the recalcitrant minority with a flood of obloquy. They 
 were called traitors to Ireland who stood for the very cause 
 for which Mitchel was jailed and Tone died. They were 
 called cowards who had thrown down the gauntlet to a 
 mighty Empire and had had the courage to stand out against 
 their own country when she took the wrong course. They 
 were called hirelings, many of whom went without a coat in 
 order to buy a gun. They were called selfish who submitted 
 to persecution and imprisonment for justice' sake. They 
 were called narrow-minded, who stood for the oldest and 
 greatest of causes the cause for which the whole war was 
 alleged to be fought the sacred cause of national freedom. 
 
 And they were called Sinn Feiners. . . . Years before
 
 WAR 357 
 
 Arthur Griffin had propounded a policy of economic de- 
 velopment and abstention from Westminster. His views not 
 meeting with the approval of the Party machine he was 
 crushed and driven out of public life by lies and obloquy. 
 The name of Sinn Fein, though the party had practically 
 ceased to exist, was still remembered by the electorate as 
 one of ignominy, and it was a simple matter for the Parlia- 
 mentary leaders to attach that name, along with the whole 
 load of calumny associated with it, to the Volunteers. So 
 Bernard and his friends, most of whom had never belonged 
 to Sinn Fein Bernard himself had barely heard of it 
 were labelled Sinn Feiners: traitors and outcasts. 
 
 All this abuse hurt Bernard acutely. Reading the news- 
 papers made him rage incoherently. Stephen, however, took 
 it all very philosophically; advised him to be calm and not 
 to read leading articles; and prophesied the inevitable re- 
 action. But in vain. Bernard argued high and low with 
 every one he met; broke with many friends; and wrote 
 furious letters to the papers which were never printed. 
 Still moving in the social cirales to which he was accustomed 
 he found himself perpetually involved in controversy. Mrs. 
 Gunby Rourke having heard that he did not intend to apply 
 for a commission, intimated that their acquaintanceship 
 should come to an end. (Her own darling boy, George, 
 developed a stiff ankle and served his country on " work 
 of national importance," to wit, a couple of hours' clerical 
 work per week in a recruiting office for the first few months, 
 to be dropped afterwards when people had ceased to enquire 
 were you " doing your bit.") Sir Perry Tifflytis and Mr. 
 Bonegraft were very contemptuous of " shirkers and slack- 
 ers," and laughed Bernard's politics to scorn. 
 
 " Wish I was your age, my lad," said Sir Perry. " I'd 
 be the first in the firing-line. By gad, what a chance for a 
 young man! " 
 
 Augustine Reilly said the war was for truth and justice 
 and religion and all that Ireland held dear. 
 
 " It isn't," said Bernard. " But even if it was Ireland
 
 358 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 couldn't fight in it unless she had a government of her own 
 to declare war." 
 
 " We ought to stand by England," said Augustine. " She 
 has given us Home Rule. It's our Christian duty to for- 
 give her. ' Love your enemies,' says Christ." 
 
 " He didn't tell us to show it by making new enemies," 
 replied Bernard. 
 
 " ' Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,' " quoted 
 Augustine. 
 
 ' ' No man can serve two masters," answered Bernard. 
 
 " I don't see the point," said Augustine. 
 
 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubic 
 inch to his brain? ' Oh, go and boil your head." 
 
 Mr. Bonegraft appealed to Ireland's historic friendship 
 for France, and Bernard responded by appealing to Eng- 
 land's historic friendship for Prussia. Mr. Bonegraft had 
 no answer to this and Bernard took advantage of his silence 
 to add : 
 
 " And talking about our French alliance in Ninety-Eight 
 you'd have been the first to denounce it if you'd been alive 
 then. You'd have called us pro-French and said that Ire- 
 land's duty was to help England in the fight against French 
 domination." 
 
 " But this is Ireland's war." 
 
 " I don't see it." 
 
 " Ireland will be disgraced for ever if she leaves civiliza- 
 tion in the lurch." 
 
 " She'll be disgraced in good company, then," said Ber- 
 nard. " She'll rank with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 
 Switzerland, Holland, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, and Italy, 
 to say nothing of Asia and America." 
 
 " Well, how will you like the Germans to come over 
 here?" said Mr. Bonegraft. 
 
 " They aren't coming." 
 
 " Look at Belgium." 
 
 " Look at Denmark. She's in much greater danger than 
 we are. If the Germans are so desperately keen on annex-
 
 WAR 359 
 
 ing small nations why don't they tackle these that are near 
 at hand ? " 
 
 Mr. Bonegraft was again at a loss for an answer, so he 
 fell back on his last line of defence. 
 
 " Ireland must do her duty as part of Britain," he said. 
 
 " Then," said Bernard, " why didn't you say so at once? 
 If you believe that, the other reasons don't arise; and I 
 deny that we're part of Britain." 
 
 This was Bernard's universal quarrel with the garrison 
 classes. They wanted to have the argument both ways: to 
 deny Ireland's nationhood, and yet to use arguments for 
 her entering the war that could only apply on the assump- 
 tion that she was a nation . . . 
 
 "What a narrow, selfish view you take!" said Mrs. 
 Heuston Harrington. "Sinn Fein: Ourselves alone: and 
 the whole of civilization in danger ! " 
 
 " England and France and Russia are all Sinn Fein," said 
 Bernard. 
 
 " How do you make that out? " sneered Mrs. Heuston 
 Harrington. 
 
 " Each governs itself alone, doesn't it? Aren't they all 
 fighting to establish Sinn Fein for Belgium." 
 
 " Yes, but they're all united for a common aim." 
 
 " So might we fight for the same aim if we were free to 
 do so." 
 
 " But you are free." 
 
 " I beg to differ." 
 
 " Home Rule is on the Statute Book. What more do 
 you want? " 
 
 "I'd like to see it in force before I went to war on the 
 strength of it." 
 
 " But that would be so mean! A piece of political bar- 
 gaining, with civilization hanging in the balance ! " 
 
 " So you call it mean to demand our own freedom before 
 we go to fight for the freedom of others." 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Lascelles, we are free." 
 
 " I'm afraid we're arguing in a circle," said Bernard.
 
 360 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Exactly ! That's always the way with you Sinn Feiners. 
 You always come back to your stale old hatred of England. 
 That's so narrow-minded of you. France and England have 
 made up their quarrel. Why can't Ireland? " 
 
 " Because our grievance is still unremedied." 
 
 " What grievance ? " 
 
 " We're still deprived of our parliament." 
 
 " Quite right. Why should England give up what she's 
 won ? " 
 
 " I thought you said we were free? If England's right to 
 conquer Ireland why is Germany wrong to conquer Bel- 
 gium ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's different." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " They did it in such a disgusting way." 
 
 " I suppose England conquered us in a decent way? " 
 
 " Now you needn't dig up old grievances from Ninety- 
 Eight. They're past and gone." 
 
 " So are the German atrocities in Belgium." 
 
 " They're things of yesterday." 
 
 " A small difference in the vastness of eternity." 
 
 " Well, it's no use arguing with me. I hate politics and 
 I hate disloyalty, and Ireland's a sink of both." 
 
 "Ah! So you dislike Ireland?" 
 
 " I should think so. Nasty, narrow little hole ! " 
 
 " Then why are you so keen on bringing it into the war? " 
 
 " I'd much rather it was sunk into the sea." 
 
 " So," said Bernard, " the whole of your broad-minded 
 attitude is this, that you simply prefer another and bigger 
 country to your own. You might as well consider yourself 
 broad-minded for preferring a fatter man to your husband." 
 
 This was very bad taste on Bernard's part, especially as 
 Mrs. Heuston Harrington was a widow. But he was thor- 
 oughly exasperated by her narrow, truculent, muddled little 
 mind. 
 
 Lady Mallaby Morchoe was very severe on Bernard's 
 hatred of England.
 
 WAR 361 
 
 " Madam," said Bernard, " I love the English people a 
 great deal better than you do. I should like to see them 
 paid decent wages and properly fed and housed and edu- 
 cated, and I should like to see their execrable social system 
 destroyed." 
 
 " Oh, you're a Socialist," said Lady Mallaby Morchoe . . . 
 
 Many a grave humbug lectured Bernard on this hatred of 
 his, and then went away to buy an evening paper and gloat 
 over the reports of German slaughter. Bernard, whose 
 heart bled for every man killed, Allied or German, used to 
 listen with a bitter smile. 
 
 Soon Bernard grew tired of arguing. The Whigs in their 
 fatuous belief in the English Liberals and the justice of the 
 war were scarcely less irritating than the Tories. With 
 these latter, however, he soon found it impossible to converse 
 without losing his temper. While the whole of Nationalist 
 Ireland in its generous foolishness surrendered freely to the 
 " Union of Hearts," these grim stalwarts, trenched in their 
 haughty stupidity, made no sign of softening their opposi- 
 tion to the national idea, and, as Bernard found, all their 
 arguments boiled down to a bitter sediment of hatred for 
 Ireland. . . . Moreover, his father, already treating him 
 with coldness as a result of recent events, now became com- 
 pletely estranged, and Bernard gradually ceased to associate 
 with the class in which he had been brought up, and began 
 to make a place for himself in the society of his political 
 brethren. 
 
 The very day after the split was his company's drill night. 
 The pompous little Brohoon looked almost majestic as he 
 put the simple issue to the men drawn up in company column 
 in the gas-lit hall. 
 
 " Those who consider that the only authority capable of 
 committing Ireland to a foreign war is an Irish Parliament 
 elected by the Irish people will remain in their ranks," he 
 said. " Those who accept the rule of the British Parlia- 
 ment will fall out. No doubt they will immediately go and 
 enlist in the British Army."
 
 362 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 With the issue put so clearly few men, however loyal to 
 Mr. Redmond, had the courage to step forward. Only 
 four, bashfully and with hesitation, fell out, and handed in 
 their rifles to Brohoon. A jeer from the remainder was in- 
 stantly suppressed by the officers. Bernard hoped for a 
 while that this was a sign that Stephen's prophecy would be 
 falsified, but next week only eighty men out of one hundred 
 and ten turned up for parade, and the following week only 
 sixty. Within a month their strength had been further re- 
 duced to less than fifty, but after that it decreased no more. 
 By that time the popularity of the Volunteers had reached 
 its lowest ebb and the inevitable flow had begun. 
 
 6 
 
 A few days after the Split, Mr. Asquith addressed a select 
 meeting in the Mansion House. He proclaimed the justice 
 of the Allied cause and appealed to Irishmen to join the 
 forces of the Crown. The contribution, he said, must be 
 the free gift of a free people, a pledge which, like all Eng- 
 lish pledges, was violated in little more than a year by the 
 introduction of a Conscription Bill. 
 
 Bernard went out into the street that night to observe the 
 temper of the people. It was quite clear that either the 
 authorities did not fully trust this new-born loyalty, or else 
 feared some desperate deed from the recalcitrant minority, 
 for the Irish public, to whom the Premier's words were ad- 
 dressed, was carefully excluded from the Mansion (admis- 
 sion being by ticket, and the tickets being reserved for trusted 
 members of the garrison who must have smiled at the amiable 
 sentiments expressed by Mr. Asquith) and the streets 
 swarmed with police, who formed a cordon round all ap- 
 proaches to the Mansion House, while a squadron of cavalry 
 was said to be waiting in the Castle Yard in preparation for 
 all eventualities. 
 
 The streets were crowded, and there was a general atmos- 
 phere of curiosity and excitement. Questions of policy 
 were freely discussed by groups of people meeting one an-
 
 WAR 363 
 
 other for the first time in their lives. The sentimental Eng- 
 lishman wandering amidst the crowds would have heard 
 little to flatter him from these people whose " loyalty " had 
 touched every soft heart in the Empire; for the great war 
 was looked upon entirely from an Irish point of view, and 
 Irish " loyalty " was quite obviously conditional. The uni- 
 versal argument that turned the scale everywhere was that 
 German rule would probably be worse than English rule, 
 and the fact that France was on England's side was the 
 only argument in favour of England's sincerity that car- 
 ried any weight whatever. The general belief in France 
 struck Bernard as rather pathetic. Many Irishmen who 
 would otherwise have been as anti-British as Bernard were 
 led to join the British Army out of a belief that Ireland 
 ought to repay France for the help she had given us in 
 Ninety-Eight. " France'll see us through all right," said 
 one man to whom Bernard expressed doubts of England's 
 good faith. Bernard had not the heart to tell him of the 
 ways of diplomats. 
 
 In the streets leading to the Mansion House the " free 
 people " surged fruitlessly against the rocky line of police. 
 Mounted constabulary clattered up and down the centre of 
 the streets. Men and women, white-faced under the arc 
 lamps, wandered aimlessly hither and thither. Sounds of 
 singing came from divers directions: rebel airs now deemed 
 harmless. 
 
 Resting on a seat outside Stephen's Green, Bernard found 
 Edwin D'Arcy the young poet who frequented Mrs. Heuston 
 Harrington's at homes. 
 
 "Well, what's your opinion of all this?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " I have none," said D'Arcy. " Opinions form no part of 
 the poet's equipment." 
 
 "What about Shelley?" said Bernard, promptly. 
 
 " His ideas, such as they were, merely spoiled his poetry. 
 I prefer to stand aloof from material happenings. Politics 
 are no concern of mine. They're a dirty game." 
 
 " Not essentially," snapped Bernard. " Only so far as
 
 364 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 men make them so. Man's a dirty creature. He dirties 
 everything he touches from Religion to literature. But you 
 wouldn't give up Religion on account of the Inquisition or 
 the Penal Laws, or literature on account of the Heptame- 
 ron. Then why Politics ?" 
 
 D'Arcy swept the hair back from his forehead and said 
 dreamily : 
 
 " They are too small and finite for the poet's attention." 
 
 " Ass ! " cried Bernard. " The life of man is in politics. 
 All his greatness and smallness, all his nobility and mean- 
 ness. You describe a man fully to me if you tell me his 
 religion and politics, and if you desert politics you desert 
 life. Great art can't be made out of the pathology of a 
 neurotic soul. Man is the only theme worth singing, and 
 man collectively should be the hero of great novels." 
 
 " Lascelles, you're a philistine," said D'Arcy. 
 
 " The hair of the human head," said Bernard, " is a hollow 
 tube growing from a follicle. If allowed to exceed a certain 
 length a hair is liable to split and dry up. You really ought 
 to get your hair cut, D'Arcy." 
 
 He left him, gaping prosaically. 
 
 And now the opposition element began to make itself felt 
 in the streets. Arriving at the top of Grafton Street Ber- 
 nard could see above the crowd a string of torches approach- 
 ing. In their midst was a waggonette. Arrived at the open 
 space the waggonette halted and was immediately sur- 
 rounded by the torch-bearers and a cordon of armed men, 
 whom Bernard recognized by their uniform as members of 
 the Citizen Army: dark, stern, dirty men, they stood at 
 attention, their fixed bayonets flashing in the dancing light of 
 the torches. In the waggonette Larkin arose and addressed 
 the crowd. 
 
 Bernard shook himself free from the press and walked 
 back towards Dawson Street. Behind him he could hear 
 an occasional cheer punctuating the Labour Leader's speech. 
 At the top of Dawson Street he encountered Mabel, Molly, 
 and Jack Harvey.
 
 WAR 365 
 
 "Hello, Lascelles! This is a pleasure, old chap," cried 
 Jack in his effusive way. " Magnificent display of loyalty, 
 what? Makes one proud to be Irish, doesn't it? " 
 
 " Does one need the compulsion?" asked Bernard, drily. 
 
 Mabel and Molly both laughed. 
 
 " Jack's a desperate loyalist," said Mabel. 
 
 " Well, I should think so," said Jack. " Even the most 
 extreme Fenians must realize that England's on the right 
 side this time." 
 
 " I don't know," said Bernard. " And even if she is, I 
 don't see that it's any reason why we should fight for her. 
 We're not called upon to fight in every war that happens 
 to be just unless we're a very exceptional nation." 
 
 " But we're British subjects," said the scandalized Jack. 
 
 " Oh, go to hell ! " exclaimed Bernard, impatiently. 
 
 He saw Mabel watching his impatience with eyes gleam- 
 ing with amusement. 
 
 " Let's have a stroll around," he suggested. 
 
 "Oh, let's!" cried Mabel, and, starting off by his side, 
 left Molly to follow with Jack. 
 
 " Are you a loyalist, too? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " I don't know what I am," replied Mabel. " You see 
 I've never taken much interest in politics up to this. . . . 
 I only want what's best for Ireland, and it's so hard to know 
 ... It seems a shame to throw Redmond over . . . after 
 all he's done ..." 
 
 She spoke tentatively and with hesitation, blushing a little, 
 and Bernard listened patiently. 
 
 " From my knowledge of Irish history," said he, " I'm 
 convinced that the only safe course is never to trust England. 
 We've never trusted her yet without being let down, and I 
 don't believe she's mended her ways." 
 
 " I have the same feeling myself," said Mabel, " but Jack 
 says women have no business meddling in politics. He says 
 they follow their hearts rather than their heads." 
 
 Bernard laughed loudly at this. 
 
 " Really," he said, " even though he is your brother, I
 
 366 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 must say Jack's a donkey. Is he thinking of joining the 
 army, by the way? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. He's applied for a commission already." 
 
 Bernard found Mabel an interesting companion. They 
 walked on, discussing a variety of subjects, quite oblivious 
 of the crowd. At the remote end of the Green they came 
 upon a little knot of people gathered round a tiny motor car 
 from which Brian Mallow was delivering a passionate 
 harangue. 
 
 " Let's listen to him," said Mabel, and they pressed for- 
 ward towards the car. 
 
 " They may talk about German atrocities," Mallow was 
 saying, " but we know of atrocities nearer home. What 
 about the pitch-caps and half -hangings of Ninety-Eight? 
 What about Bachelor's Walk only the other day? Victims 
 of that atrocity are lying in the Dublin hospitals at this very 
 minute. They may talk about small nationalities, but let 
 us tell them that kindness to small nations might begin at 
 home. They can set Ireland free without plunging into 
 any European war. And as for broken treaties, what right 
 have they to complain of broken treaties who have the Treaty 
 of Limerick, and the Renunciation Act of '82, and the Home 
 Rule Act of the day before yesterday to their credit? . . . 
 Oh, Irishmen, don't be blind, trusting fools yet again after 
 your long history of broken faith. England is a liar, Eng- 
 land is a tyrant, England is a hypocrite, England is your 
 enemy! ..." 
 
 At this moment a squad of police came pushing its way 
 through the crowd. Mallow, seeing that escape was hope- 
 less, cried out: 
 
 " Oh, you can seize and imprison and murder me if you 
 like. But the truth you can never kill. . . . Irishmen are 
 used to persecution ..." 
 
 There was a murmur from the crowd as the orator was 
 dragged roughly from his place. True, Ireland had de- 
 cided to join in the war, but the tradition of seven centuries 
 will not vanish in a month, and from the moment that Eng-
 
 WAR 367 
 
 land laid her hands upon an Irishman he ceased to be a 
 factionist and became a patriot and a martyr. As Bernard 
 saw the glittering helmets of the police recede in the distance 
 he felt that the tide had already turned. Brian Mallow, 
 pig-headed, stupid and sincere, had killed Imperialism. 
 
 " I jolly well hope he'll be shot," said the voice of Jack 
 from behind. " That kind of fellow almost makes one 
 ashamed to be Irish." 
 
 " Well, hurry up and get naturalized English," snapped 
 Bernard, and hurried away with Mabel. 
 
 " That shows how the English look on us," said Mabel. 
 
 Bernard looked at her, admiring her flushed cheeks and 
 flashing eyes. 
 
 " I'm glad you don't agree with Jack," he said. 
 
 A moment later Molly overtook them. 
 
 " It's nine o'clock," she said. " We must be getting 
 home." 
 
 " You can get a tram at the Pillar," said Bernard. " I'll 
 see you that far." 
 
 He covered the distance as slowly as he could, which was 
 not very slow owing to the necessity of keeping ahead of 
 the others. At the tram he held her hand in his for quite 
 three seconds. It made no resistance. 
 
 " By gad ! " he said, on the way home, " she's a great girl. 
 . . . Pretty . . . my word! . . . and she can talk, too." 
 
 He played with visionary possibilities and thought about 
 her all the time he was undressing. 
 
 7 
 
 "Well, if the English aren't the bloody limit!" said 
 McGurk. " What do you think of this? " 
 He took up his newspaper and read: 
 
 " O, the Irish love a fight, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht, 
 If the cause be wrong or right, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
 But their hearts most bravely glow
 
 368 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 And they deal their hardest blow 
 
 When their foe is freedom's foe, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
 
 That's out of an English Unionist paper," he said. " Hell 
 roast them ! " 
 
 " I could forgive Redmond almost everything else," said 
 Bernard, " but I can't forgive him for letting us in for that 
 kind of thing. The English papers seem to be crammed 
 with these ' loyalist ' parodies. I suppose it flatters some 
 people." 
 
 " Not it ! " said McGurk. " It'll sicken them. It's the 
 best thing that could happen. Listen to this now: 
 
 "God save our noble King! 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht, 
 Let dissensions all take wing, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht 
 Hibernia bends the knee, 
 To Britannia bold and free, 
 And hurrah for loyalty! 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht" 
 
 " No more, for heaven's sake," said Bernard. " Who the 
 blazes does the author think the Shan Van Vocht is? " 
 
 Enthusiastic Englishmen, with that stupidity, self-suf- 
 ficiency, and incapacity to see any point of view but their 
 own which distinguishes their race, were at this time indulg- 
 ing in the above kind of nauseating patronage of Ireland by 
 the ream and the volume. The true reason and nature of 
 Ireland's advocacy of the Allied cause they were incapable 
 of appreciating, and it would have offended them had they 
 discovered it. England's real feelings towards Ireland were 
 not long in manifesting themselves. 
 
 " Every man," said a Volunteer officer to his company on 
 the occasion of the Split, " who conscientiously believes that 
 this is Ireland's war and that he is fighting for Ireland in 
 fighting the Germans, should hasten to don the khaki. We, 
 however, who do not hold that view, will remain Irish Vol-
 
 WAR 369 
 
 unteers." He was sentenced to three months' imprisonment 
 for " prejudicing recruitment." 
 
 One day, Bernard and Stephen attended a recruiting 
 meeting in a village in the North County Dublin. There 
 was a platform decorated with green flags, Union Jacks, 
 and the French and Belgian flags, in the street, and a band 
 was playing Irish and British airs alternately. As the two 
 young men entered the village it had just finished The Felons 
 of Our Land and it began immediately on Rule Britannia. 
 
 11 Who called us a logical people? " said Stephen. 
 
 The speakers ascended the platform and the population 
 began to gather around. The chairman was a retired 
 Colonel (to judge from his appearance) and the principal 
 speakers were a young subaltern in uniform, a Member of 
 Parliament, and the President of the local branch of the 
 United Irish League. The subaltern led off with a few 
 formal remarks about the justice of the war and the duty of 
 every British citizen to fight for his King and country. He 
 was listened to with cold attention. Then came the M.P. 
 He ranted in the approved style about gallant little Belgium 
 and France, the friend of Ireland, and the rights of small 
 nationalities. He was lavishly applauded. Then arose the 
 local light. 
 
 " Since England has given us Home Rule," he declared, 
 " it's only fair we should help her in her own hour of 
 trouble. ..." 
 
 But the chairman quickly called him to order. 
 
 " I can't allow political speeches," he said with some 
 asperity. 
 
 The speaker scratched his head, clearly puzzled as to how 
 to proceed. The only valid reason for Irishmen to go to 
 the front being taken away, he could not think of any other. 
 He floundered for a minute, and then a mischevious look 
 came into his eyes. 
 
 " If the Germans come to Ireland," he said, " they'd treat 
 us like the English did in Ninety-Eight ... or worse, 
 maybe."
 
 370 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" yelled Bernard in delight. 
 
 Purple with rage the chairman bounded from his seat 
 and stalked off the platform. There was a cheer from the 
 crowd and the band struck up the tune of Who Fears to 
 Speak of Ninety-Eight? 
 
 Bernard laughed heartily as he and Stephen strolled away. 
 
 " That kind of thing is worth tons of our own propa- 
 ganda," he said. 
 
 He and Stephen and Hektor and O'Dwyer had spent the 
 last few weeks in a feverish rush of writing, each putting 
 the Volunteer case in his own characteristic way. Stephen, 
 in cold lucid language, appealed to pure reason; Bernard 
 wrote passionately about historic analogies ; Hektor revealed 
 the workings of European diplomacy; and O'Dwyer wrote 
 scathing verses. Stephen issued a handbill which ran as 
 follows : 
 
 TRUTH AND REASON 
 
 The truth at the bottom of any question is simple 
 and easy to find if honestly sought. The essence of 
 truth is simplicity, and if a case is complex it should 
 be looked upon with suspicion. One simple all- 
 sufficing reason is more cogent than a multiplicity of 
 arguments, for in multiplicity lies redundance and 
 contradiction. The Volunteer case is simple. In ac- 
 cordance with all the principles upon which National- 
 ism is based we deny the right of any body or party 
 to commit the Irish People to a foreign war save only 
 an Irish Parliament freely elected. This argument is 
 all-sufficient, and no plea of the justice of the war or 
 Ireland's interest therein or any other reason or excuse 
 can stand against it or need be discussed. On the 
 other hand the Parliamentary Party's case is too well 
 bolstered up with arguments to be essentially sound. 
 Suppose for the sake of argument we grant their con- 
 tention that Ireland's interests are at stake in this 
 war. How then does their second contention stand, 
 namely that we are bound to assist England out of 
 gratitude for Home Rule? For surely it is no return 
 to England to fight for our own interests? There is 
 not, in fact, a single argument of the Party's which
 
 WAR 371 
 
 is not open to question, whereas not even Mr. Red- 
 mond himself dare deny our basic principle. 
 
 Stand by the simple case and join the Irish volun- 
 teers. 
 
 Bernard harped a good deal on one point, namely, that 
 the Home Rule Act was not regarded in England as an in- 
 ternational treaty, but as a party measure, which another 
 English party might rescind without in any way tarnishing 
 England's honour in the eyes of the world, and that Nation- 
 alists need not count upon Home Rule as a reward for her 
 services, since the Unionists could with equal justice demand 
 its repeal as a reward for theirs. 
 
 O'Dwyer's verses were of a ribald kind. Phrases like Sir 
 Edward Grey's " One Bright Spot," Mr. Asquith's " Free 
 gift of a free people," and Redmond's " sharp curve in our 
 policy," he gleefully seized upon as refrains. One typical 
 example was sung by McGurk at a concert : 
 
 " O, the Bill is on the Book, 
 
 Says the John-John-Joe. 
 'Tis a comfortable nook; 
 
 Says the John-John-Joe. 
 And tho' the curve be sharp, 
 From the Bulldog to the Harp, 
 Sure 'tis only cranks will carp, 
 
 Says the John-John-Joe." 
 
 But all their wit and effort went for naught, for nobody 
 but those who already agreed with them ever read their 
 papers. 
 
 And it was not long before the enemy struck back. Irish 
 Volunteers were deported from one end of the country to 
 the other, or confined to certain districts. Thus, one promi- 
 nent local leader was banished from his home in Kerry and 
 assigned the northern half of County Wicklow for his future 
 habitat; Crowley was confined to a radius of fifty miles 
 around Ballylangan ; another man was forbidden to approach 
 to within ten miles of any coast; and finally Stephen re-
 
 372 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ceived an order confining him to the city and suburbs of 
 Dublin. 
 
 "Will you obey it?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " Until it becomes inconvenient," said Stephen. " I've no 
 desire for imprisonment, but I won't submit if I don't 
 want to." 
 
 Then their newspapers were attacked. There were three 
 of these: Sinn Fein, a long-established weekly, organ of the 
 relics of the political party of that name ; Irish Freedom, an 
 independent and very outspoken monthly; and Ireland, a 
 daily, a fearless supporter of the cause of the Volunteers. 
 One morning a force of police and military arrived at the 
 offices of each of these organs. An entry was forced; all 
 copies of the papers were seized upon and carried away ; the 
 printing machinery was dismantled, and, in one case, 
 smashed ; and further publication was prohibited. The only 
 paper to survive the storm was the Irish Volunteer, which, 
 being entirely devoted to technical military articles, furnished 
 no handle that its enemies could lay hold of as an excuse for 
 suppression. 
 
 " Opening of hostilities on the Irish front," announced 
 McGurk. " British troops occupied several Irish positions 
 this morning. There were no losses but honour." 
 
 There were two or three arrests for writings and speeches 
 at about the same time, and Brian Mallow, coming up for 
 trial, received three months' imprisonment. 
 
 " What will they say of this at Ashbury ? " thought Ber- 
 nard. He had recently received a copy of the Ashbury 
 Chronicle, which announced the deaths in action of several 
 Old Ashburians, among whom were Bernard's old enemies, 
 Sherringham and Tomkins. Tomkins was described as " a 
 gentle, good-humoured boy, with a deep devotion to St. 
 Aloysius," and Sherringham was " a model of all that an 
 English Catholic gentleman should be." 
 
 " He looks better in uniform than in my memory," said 
 Bernard, surveying the accompanying photograph.
 
 WAR 373 
 
 8 
 
 " This suit positively sings your praises as a valet, Swa- 
 thythe. How do I look? " 
 
 " Very genteel indeed, sir." 
 
 " There are only two kinds of people in the world, Swa- 
 thythe. Those who wear their best clothes on Sunday, and 
 those who wear their worst." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That was a very snobbish remark on my part, Swa- 
 thythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But very profound all the same, Swathythe." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I think, however, one may safely stretch a point when 
 taking a young lady out to tea for the first time." 
 
 " No doubt of ft, sir." 
 
 Exceptionally spruce and very pleased with himself, Ber- 
 nard set out for the rendezvous. It had not taken him long 
 to fall in quasi-love with Mabel, her prettiness, attractive 
 conversation, and evident liking for himself making him a 
 very willing victim. Of passion he had none as yet but 
 what young man will refuse the companionship of a pretty 
 girl when it can be had for the asking? We like the love 
 that comes easy, and laughing love runs smoother than grand 
 passion. 
 
 She ran smiling to meet him at the railway station and 
 they took tickets for Howth. At first they said little; just 
 sat in opposite corners and smiled at each other. They 
 could not look at each other without breaking out into 
 beaming smiles. It was a dull, cold day, and Bernard feel- 
 ing a nip even through his heavy frieze coat, wondered how 
 she kept from shivering in her thin tweed jacket, eked out 
 with a shabby and exiguous fur. He noticed a chilblain on 
 one finger that peeped through a hole in her glove, and he 
 thought of those chilly little hands busy typewriting in the 
 rawness of the early mornings when he was only just rising
 
 374 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 from bed. . . . He cursed the world's economic system 
 fiercely in his heart. 
 
 " If mother only knew what I was up to! " exclaimed 
 Mabel, happily. 
 
 " Is she very puritanical ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Selfish, merely. She thinks we ought to stay 
 at home to keep her company. We'd be always dancing 
 attendance on her if she had her way. Susan gives in to her 
 and never gets a breath of fresh air in consequence. I 
 always have to make up some unpleasant excuse if I want to 
 get away. If she thought I was going to enjoy myself 
 there'd be ructions." 
 
 " The appalling selfishness of parents ! " declaimed Ber- 
 nard. He told her about O'Dwyer's casting forth. 
 
 " Mother made Susan promise not to get married during 
 her lifetime. She was a fool to do it, I think, but then 
 . . . Susan ..." 
 
 Bernard laughed as she hesitated. 
 
 " Go on," he urged. 
 
 " O, nothing," she said. 
 
 At Howth station they took a tram to the summit, from 
 the top of which they had a fine view of the harbour, Ire- 
 land's Eye and Lambay, all seemingly asleep in the grey 
 light of the December afternoon. Bernard told her about 
 the gun-running, omitting, however, all reference to Milady 
 and to the part Mabel's own simulacrum had played in the 
 drama. He had not yet finished his narrative when they 
 came to a cottage with the inviting signboard: 
 
 TEA AND HOT SCONES 
 
 They went inside and over steaming hot cakes and toast and 
 black currant jam she listened eagerly to the conclusion of 
 the tale: the storm, the landing, and the battle of Clontarf. 
 Tea over, they sat talking over a hundred different subjects, 
 Bernard smoking his pipe, she with a cigarette balanced be- 
 tween her dainty lips. She could chatter interestingly
 
 WAR 375 
 
 enough, and she had an amusing gift of repartee, but Ber- 
 nard was a little disappointed at her attitude towards the 
 things of which he thought most highly. She cared nothing 
 for poetry, and laughed at any he quoted. Most of the great 
 novelists she thought " dry," yet her taste in literature was 
 neither cheap nor vicious. Her favourite writers were 
 mediocrities. She knew nothing about painting, but she 
 "liked" certain pictures: Landseer's work, and Hobbema's 
 Middleharnis Avenue, and The Fighting Temeraire. She 
 " liked " music, too, she said, and it happened that her taste 
 was good. She preferred Figaro to " any of those musical 
 comedies," and she was very " fond of " some of Beethoven's 
 work. But she did not know that music possessed a mean- 
 ing (she thought it was no more than a sound-pattern) ; 
 and she did not know that Beethoven was great and Verdi 
 second-rate ; she had no standards of merit and merely went 
 by her preferences. 
 
 It did not take Bernard long to find out all this, and then 
 he resigned himself to the inevitable and allowed her to 
 chatter in her own inimitable way: which was quite suf- 
 ficient to charm away his disappointment. She was quick to 
 see, too, where his main interest lay, and it was not long be- 
 fore she started to question him on politics. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " could Ireland really manage to 
 get on if she was independent? Everyone I know says we 
 couldn't do without England's money." 
 
 " Everyone is extraordinarily ignorant," said Bernard. 
 " Especially those who are most dogmatic. So far from 
 our getting any money from England, she gets it from us. 
 For the last fifty years the amount she's spent on us has 
 always been about three millions less than our annual rev- 
 enue. If we were free we'd have our whole revenue to our- 
 selves, and it would be quite sufficient for our needs. Nor- 
 way and Sweden and Denmark and Belgium and Bulgaria 
 and a few other small nations have all revenues in or about 
 the same as ours : some a little more, some a little less. And 
 on that they run Kings and courts and armies and navies
 
 376 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and diplomatic services and mercantile marines, and much 
 better educational and agricultural systems than ours. . . . 
 So far from not being able to manage without England, I 
 don't see how we're going to escape ruination unless we get 
 rid of her at once." 
 
 " I'm so glad to know that," said Mabel. " I shan't be 
 sat upon in argument again." 
 
 Evening fell, and wandering out under the stars, they 
 walked slowly down the hill. They spoke little, and when 
 they did their voices were strangely hushed. . . . She shiv- 
 ered slightly, and apprehensively he caught her arm. 
 
 " You're cold ? " he said. 
 
 " Only slightly," she assured him. With her upper arm 
 she imprisoned his hand against her side. He slipped his 
 arm right through and held hers close. United in warm 
 intimacy they strode down the hill keeping step together. 
 Her eyes shone in the darkness. . . . 
 
 Quite frankly their hands dwelt upon the farewell hand- 
 clasp as he left her at her door . . . 
 
 " She's mine ..." he said to himself that evening, and 
 not even a fleeting vision of a certain avenue of cedars could 
 disturb his satisfaction. 
 
 9 
 
 Within a week of the declaration of war Sandy applied 
 for a commission in the British Army, and Eugene was not 
 long in following his example. Sandy's action was only to 
 be expected, for he was a gay, thoughtless youth who took no 
 interest in politics and leaped at this chance of change and 
 adventure. But Bernard took it upon himself to remon- 
 strate with Eugene. 
 
 " It's no use, Bernard," replied Eugene. " Only your 
 biased frame of mind prevents you seeing the justice of this 
 war. Freedom, Civilization and Christianity are at stake, 
 and my conscience tells me I must go to their defence." 
 
 " I like your self -righteousness," said Bernard, angrily. 
 " You religious people seem to think no one has a conscience
 
 WAR 377 
 
 but yourselves. Biased frame of mind, indeed! I've as 
 much care for Freedom and Civilization as you have. 
 That's why I'm in the Irish Volunteers." 
 
 " Don't let us quarrel over it, anyway," said Eugene, and 
 Bernard, looking at his honest, good-humoured and per- 
 turbed countenance, and thinking of dreadful possibilities, 
 relented. He criticized no more, and said: 
 
 " Well, good luck, old man." 
 
 About the same time he received a letter from Wil- 
 loughby, who was in training at Salisbury Plain. 
 
 " / think even you will agree" it ran, " that England is 
 fighting for a just cause this time. Believe me, Bernard, we 
 didn't want this war. It is Germany's doing entirely, and 
 when that monstrous war-machine is smashed you will re- 
 joice with us that war has been banished from the earth . . . 
 
 " Religion, morality, all the amenities of civilization as 
 we know it, are at stake. The free man of the English and 
 French ideal is at issue with the trained machine of the Ger- 
 man system . . . 
 
 " I knew that in such a cause Ireland would not be back- 
 ward. Her action in this crisis has won her many friends. 
 Even my brother Frank has become a Home Ruler . . . 
 
 " I expect I'll meet you one of these days on a field in 
 France . . . " 
 
 " Moore was right," groaned Bernard. " What hellish 
 power rules us that can turn the honesty and bravery of 
 these fine young men to its own vile ends? . . . And what 
 can I say to Willoughby? " 
 
 10 
 
 Soldiers marching to battle. . . . Bernard stood at the 
 foot of Grafton Street to watch them. First came the band, 
 playing a stirring martial air that set the heart beating and 
 made the feet want to go a-marching. Next came the fight- 
 ingmen, khaki-clad figures carrying rifles, heavy laden with 
 packs, great-coats, trench tools, and mess-tins. A thousand
 
 378 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 men . . . two thousand. One day's casualty list. . . . 
 They'll bury as many tomorrow. Every day a mass of men 
 like these will be blotted out of life, ever to be replaced by 
 fresh drafts from home. 
 
 " Morituros vos saluto," muttered Bernard. 
 
 But these doomed faces are cheerful. Boyish faces most 
 of them . . . Irish faces. Sons of the soil of Ireland 
 marching to die for what ? Famine and war and emigra- 
 tion have drained her of her sons for centuries. The flower 
 of her manhood is gone beyond recall. She is a nation bled 
 almost white. . . . Yet forth they go as their kind have 
 ever gone, believing that the motherland requires it. 
 
 " Two thousand Irishmen lost to Ireland," says Bernard, 
 and bitterly curses those responsible for the wastage. 
 
 The column passes on : the band ceases : the men strike up 
 the well-known air of Tipperary. The common-place, 
 hackneyed melody, sung by voices, soon to be silenced for 
 ever, mingles with and is drowned by the hum of traffic. 
 Unexalted melancholy takes possession of the listener. 
 
 Christmas came: the first Christmas of the war, and the 
 last before the food-shortage. But it brought no peace or 
 good-will. In the trenches, attempts to fraternize on the 
 part of the men on both sides were sternly discountenanced 
 by the Allied Commanders. The last shred of humanity 
 was torn away from warfare. 
 
 Owing to the uncompromising attitude of his father, Ber- 
 nard was not invited to share the family Christmas dinner 
 and was looking forward to eating it in solitary state under 
 the servile patronage of Swathythe when he received an 
 invitation from Stephen to spend Christmas week with him 
 at Glencoole. Bernard accepted gladly, and it was arranged 
 that they should motor out on the night of Christmas Eve. 
 
 He spent the afternoon with Mabel. He met her at 
 three o'clock, and they strolled about the streets together in 
 the ever thickening crowd. There was no sign of war about
 
 WAR 379 
 
 the city that evening. The streets were brightly lit, the shop 
 windows gaily adorned and blazing with light; the res- 
 taurants were packed with chattering people, and the air of 
 universal cheerfulness associated with Christmas was in no 
 wis.e diminished. The war had not yet brought its hard- 
 ships. 
 
 Bernard and Mabel mingled with the crowd of shoppers, 
 parcel-laden, wrapped and muffled, breathing steam into the 
 frosty air. 
 
 " I love jostling with a good crowd," said Bernard. 
 
 " So do I," replied Mabel. 
 
 They went to a book-shop where he bought her a volume 
 of Mangan's poems and Mitchel's Last Conquest, and then 
 she shyly presented him with a tie-pin which she had kept 
 concealed in her hand-bag up to this. After that they went 
 to Mitchell's and after a long wait secured a rather scram- 
 bled tea. Bernard's every sense was acute to seize its own 
 particular pleasure. He enjoyed the crimson-shaded lights, 
 and the cheerful glow of the red berries amid the black 
 holly-leaves of the decorations. He enjoyed the stupefying 
 clamour of many voices with its accompaniment of clatter- 
 ing cups, mixed as it was with the alternate crescendo and 
 diminuendo of the street-noises as the doors swung open and 
 closed again. The sense of being at one with all humanity 
 that always seized upon him when in a crowd thrilled 
 through his being now. . . . The maid bustled up with the 
 tea: delicate fragrance of China: warmer of the hearts of 
 men. He watched Mabel pouring it out, holding the pot 
 gracefully as only a girl knows how. . . . Delicious creamy 
 cakes that seemed to melt in the mouth. . . . The world 
 seemed a good place in those few minutes. 
 
 " Hurrah for living! " he said, looking into Mabel's eyes, 
 and she responded with a laugh . . . 
 
 Stephen arrived at Harcourt Street that night at the time 
 appointed and they set out at once in Bernard's little car. 
 They rushed through the sleeping villages of Terenure and 
 Rathfarnham and out along the slushy roads through the
 
 380 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 cold night air towards the mountains. As they climbed 
 towards the high ground they felt the nip of frost, and the 
 surface of the road hardened, and glittered under the lamp- 
 light of the car. Up and up they panted, then slid down 
 the dark glenside, crossed the bottom, and up again. 
 
 " By the way," said Stephen, " don't talk politics to my 
 father. He's a bit queer on the subject. He's an old 
 Fenian and got badly let down by some of his friends, so 
 he's been sour about it ever since. . . . He looks on politics 
 much as your friend Fergus Moore does, but he's bitterer. 
 . . . Whoa! Here we are." 
 
 Bernard pulled up as they reached a cottage gate. 
 Stephen leaned across him and tootled the horn before dis- 
 mounting, whereupon an old man came rushing out of the 
 cottage and embraced Stephen with an effusiveness that 
 rather embarrassed Bernard. 
 
 "Come in! Come in!" cried Michael Ward, and as 
 Bernard came blinking into the light of the sitting-room the 
 first thing that caught his eye was a large photograph of his 
 dead Uncle Christopher over the mantelpiece. 
 
 Before he could make any comment, however, he was 
 bustled upstairs to a low-ceilinged, plainly-furnished bed- 
 room, while the old man ran off to hasten supper. As he 
 performed his ablutions Bernard shouted across to Stephen's 
 room that the photograph in the sitting-room was of an uncle 
 of his and asked for an explanation. Stephen was much 
 surprised. 
 
 " He was a great friend of my father's in days gone by," 
 he said. " They were mixed up in one of those Fenian 
 plots. . . . To think of his being your uncle ! " 
 
 " He was more. He was my godfather . . . and he had 
 a lot to do with making me a Nationalist." 
 
 " By Jove! . . . He did the same for me." 
 
 " How? " asked Bernard, all curiosity. 
 
 " I'll tell you later," said Stephen. " We'd best be going 
 down now. . . . Remember what I told you." 
 
 There was a steaming dish of bacon and eggs with tea
 
 WAR 381 
 
 and potato-cakes on the table when they came downstairs. 
 Michael Ward was keenly interested to learn that Bernard 
 was Chris Reilly's nephew. Shaking his hand with renewed 
 warmth, he said: 
 
 " Sure he was talking to me about you the last day he was 
 here ... it must be fifteen years ago." 
 
 Bernard and Stephen fell to on the appetizing supper, and 
 Michael Ward sat and watched them. 
 
 " Have you reformed the world yet, Stephen ? " he 
 grunted after some moments' silence. 
 
 " We've made a beginning," said Stephen, quietly. 
 " How's the farm going? " 
 
 " Well enough, Stephen. But I wish I had you back, 
 my boy." 
 
 When the meal was over they sat and talked for a couple 
 of hours. Bernard brought his uncle's name forward sev- 
 eral times in the hope of hearing some of his past history. 
 He had often questioned his mother on the subject, but she 
 knew nothing of the political side of Christopher's life, and 
 was disinclined to talk about what she considered the dis- 
 creditable end to it. But old Ward, though ready to speak 
 in terms of enthusiasm about his friend's qualities, was very 
 reticent about his history, and Bernard soon dropped the 
 subject. 
 
 As they went upstairs to bed that night Bernard said to 
 Stephen : 
 
 " I say. You know you've broken bounds? " 
 
 " I know," said Stephen. " And it's not the first time, 
 either. I risk it now and again." 
 
 12 
 
 Bernard began for the first time to know Stephen fully 
 during that visit. He had been inclined to underrate him 
 before, thinking that his intense occupation with the things 
 of the moment was a sign of narrowness. Now from close 
 acquaintance he could see that Stephen's outlook was as wide 
 as his own while he had a power of concentration on the
 
 382 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 matter in hand and a grip of detail in which Bernard was 
 woefully lacking. 
 
 "Going up the glen today?" asked Michael Ward one 
 morning as they set out from the cottage. " It isn't what 
 it used to be," he said, sadly. " Most of my woods have 
 been cut down . . . gone to make masts for British ships, 
 most likely. . . . Divil sink them." 
 
 " Father's crazy about trees," said Stephen, as they climbed 
 the far slope of the glen. " He's right, too. I'm afraid it 
 looks as if our children will be born into a treeless island. 
 Look at that." 
 
 They were passing a clearing: the site of the very wood 
 in which Michael Ward and Chris Reilly had walked fifteen 
 years ago. 
 
 " I think a clearing is one of the saddest sights there is," 
 said Bernard. " To think that this is going on all over the 
 country. And how irreparable it is. If we got a Republic 
 tomorrow the country wouldn't be fully afforested in our 
 life time. . . . Auri sacra fames! What soulless van- 
 dalism ! " 
 
 " It's rotten economics, anyway," said Stephen. 
 
 They turned back and surveyed the valley behind them. 
 
 " What a pretentious bridge that is," remarked Bernard. 
 " It would be big enough for the Shannon." 
 
 " Funny you noticed that," said Stephen. " Your uncle 
 made the same remark to me years ago when I was a boy." 
 And he told Bernard all about Chris's visit. 
 
 It was a typical Irish winter's day, soft and moist, with a 
 tinge of grey over everything. Heavy grey clouds hung in 
 the sky with a pearly shimmer on them in the region of the 
 sun. The bracken and frocken were dank and heavy and 
 the turf was black and sodden. They passed a cottage, an 
 ill-built miserable affair. The walls had not been white- 
 washed for months and they were splotched and mouldy. 
 The unhealthy looking roof of rotting thatch was caved in. 
 Ruinous out-houses had been dropped about it anyhow. 
 There was a large dunghill close to the doorway, whose
 
 WAR 383 
 
 brown, stinking drainage puddled the yard and the adjacent 
 roadway. 
 
 " Habitation of a citizen of the British Empire," saia 
 Stephen. " The son of the house has gone to fight for 
 civilization etcetera when he'd be much better employed in 
 making this little spot fit for a civilized man to live in. 
 . . . Good-morning, Mr. Dolan, how are things?" 
 
 This was addressed to an old man smoking a foul clay 
 pipe who appeared at the half door at this minute. 
 
 " Ah, sure they might be better, glory be to God. An' 
 how's yourself ? " 
 
 " Couldn't be better, thanks. Any news of Barney ? " 
 
 " He's not at the front yet, thank God. But he soon 
 will be. ... These is terrible times, Mr. Stephen." 
 
 " Terrible," said Stephen. 
 
 " Will we be seein' Home Rule soon at all, do ye think? " 
 
 " We will not, Mr. Dolan, and that's my honest opinion." 
 
 " Glory be to God, an' what are all the boys goin' to the 
 war for? " 
 
 " God knows, Mr. Dolan." 
 
 " 'Tis a terrible thing us to be losing our young men and 
 no showin' for it." 
 
 " It is that, Mr. Dolan, and you can thank your leaders 
 for it." 
 
 " Sure I felt that all along, but musha, what can you do? " 
 
 " You're a Sinn Feiner, Mr. Dolan," said Stephen. 
 
 " I am not," said the old man, angrily. 
 
 Stephen hastily changed the subject. 
 
 " What's wrong with your hens? " he asked. 
 
 " I think it's the cholera they've got." 
 
 " How did they manage to get that? " 
 
 " Faith, I dunno . . . unless it's from pickin' in the dung- 
 heap there." 
 
 " Why don't you rail it in then? " 
 
 " Sure it mightn't be that at all." 
 
 " Well, we'll be going on. Good-bye, Dolan," 
 
 " Good-bye, Misther Stephen,"
 
 384 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " See that," said Stephen to Bernard as they passed on. 
 " No Imperial thinking there. The heart or the people is 
 sound at bottom, even if loyalty to their leaders leads them 
 astray superficially." 
 
 " Rubbishy remark that of Juliet's about What's in a 
 Name," said Bernard. " That man obviously believes in 
 independence, yet he objects to being called a Sinn Feiner." 
 
 The road swung out on to the open bog. 
 
 " These bogs are playing the devil with out national char- 
 acter," said Stephen. " They enervate the whole atmos- 
 phere. That's why we're what we are: a lazy, inefficient 
 people. We think everything worth doing, and nothing 
 worth doing well. Look at that man with his hens. And 
 he's not the only fool like that in Ireland. Nearly every 
 cottage in the country has its dung-hill at the front door, 
 and its drainage going to waste and being a nuisance." 
 
 " How little sense of beauty they have," said Bernard. 
 " Those awful out-houses ! And the makeshifts they have 
 everywhere for gates: bits of old bedsteads and the like." 
 
 " Due to history," said Stephen. " In the old days your 
 rent was put up if you had a geranium in your window, so 
 the habit of the poor mouth grew up and sticks to them 
 still." 
 
 " How very uncouth in their habits our people are," said 
 Bernard. " What a pity they don't adopt the continental 
 habit of wearing blouses at their work. How gross their 
 family life is when you come to think of it, with the men 
 coming home in their dirty working clothes. We'll need to 
 restore civilization in this country when we've got our 
 freedom." 
 
 Stephen told Bernard about all his reconstructive projects: 
 the improvement of agriculture, the construction of a mer- 
 cantile marine, the development of fisheries; the completion 
 of the canal system begun by the Irish Parliament of 1782 
 and cut short by the Union ; afforestation ; industrial de- 
 velopment and utilization of mines and other natural re- 
 sources; and finally a complete reorganization of education.
 
 WAR 385 
 
 Bernard, if the truth must be told, did not listen very at- 
 tentively. The image of Mabel was disconcertingly promi- 
 nent in his thoughts; it hovered before him in the daytime 
 and came to him in his dreams at night. He dwelt upon 
 the image with pleasure when it came, and even conjured it 
 up deliberately in idle moments. 
 
 And she had written to him. In his pocket was a letter 
 he had received that morning. She was going to a dance at 
 the Gresham on New Year's Eve, she said. Would he be 
 back in time for it? Inly he swore that he would and was 
 even now casting about for excuses to shorten his stay at 
 Glencoole. 
 
 " Then the army in a free Ireland," went on Stephen, 
 " wouldn't be an unproductive service like in other countries. 
 I'd employ the soldiers on national work reclaiming of 
 bogs, afforestation, and what not. ... I wouldn't keep 
 them in barracks either: they'd live in specially built military 
 villages with their wives and children the villages to be 
 modelled, more or less, on ancient Sparta. . . . Suppose I 
 wanted to reclaim this bog here for example. I'd run up a 
 village quickly on that firm patch over there, and camp a 
 regiment there till the work was finished. ... By this 
 means we could keep up a far larger standing army than we 
 could otherwise afford. And we'd need it, too, with the 
 world the way it is." 
 
 They got on to the question of education for a while. 
 Stephen insisted upon the necessity of a philosophic basis for 
 education. 
 
 " Modern education," he said, " teaches too many facts 
 (and too many lies also) and makes no attempt to get people 
 to think . . . That's why men are so easily deceived and 
 imposed upon. . . . That's why this war's going on today. 
 . . . Lack of thought, incapacity for deduction, that's what 
 does it." 
 
 Bernard was more concerned with organization than with 
 the curriculum. He revealed to Stephen the horrors of the 
 Public School system as he had known it.
 
 386 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Let's have no big schools," he said. " Boys' schools 
 should be divided into three classes : Primary, for those under 
 ten, secondary 7 for those from eleven to fourteen, and tertiary 
 for those from fifteen to seventeen. Let there be plenty of 
 widely-distributed primary and secondary schools, and let 
 none of them be boarding-schools. The tertiary can be 
 boarding or day as you like, but young boys become savages 
 if they're separated from their mothers and sisters." 
 
 Thus disjointedly and at haphazard as they wandered 
 about the neighbourhood of Glencoole they discussed their 
 plans and projects. Sweeping projects they were: broad in 
 outline, but lacking in detail: rather absurd some of them: 
 but all honest and disinterested : young men's plans. . . . 
 And always at the very height of their enthusiasm they 
 would be pulled up by the melancholy reflection that the first 
 step, the very essential to making any attempt to realize their 
 dreams, was yet unaccomplished. The shadow of the occu- 
 pation still lay over everything; and their own countrymen 
 were still hostile to them and seemingly content to rest in 
 its obscurity. 
 
 New Year's Eve approached, and Bernard felt his longing 
 for Mabel growing irresistible. To dance with her would 
 be joy supreme. To spend a whole evening, perhaps, in her 
 company. ... His hopes were ecstatic. 
 
 " Look here, old chap," he said to Stephen, " I'm afraid 
 I must leave tomorrow. There's a patient I can't put 
 off ..." 
 
 And Stephen knew he was lying, and was thankful to be 
 exempted from the tender emotions. 
 
 13 
 
 The ball-room was ablaze with lights and garlands, the 
 air throbbed w r ith music, and the floor was slippery as ice. 
 Bernard had come early, and prowled about with impatience 
 gnawing at his heart, looking out for Mabel's arrival. Girls 
 he knew looked in his direction expecting to be asked for 
 dances, but he pretended not to see them. He had two
 
 WAR 387 
 
 empty programs in the pocket of his pique waistcoat. 
 
 Mabel was late. 
 
 " That cursed dawdling brother of hers! " muttered Ber- 
 nard, savagely, to himself. 
 
 The first dance was well under way when she appeared, 
 a dainty fairy-like figure clad in white net with a pink waist- 
 band, the light gleaming in her hair. 
 
 " I thought you were never coming," he said. " Here's 
 a program for you," and he handed her the fellow of his 
 own. 
 
 " Where are they to be had ? " asked Jack, whereat Ber- 
 nard gave him directions and they were rid of him. 
 
 "Well, how many may I have?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " How many do you want? " she replied. 
 
 " I daren't ask for that many," he said. 
 
 " They get nothing who don't dare," said she. 
 
 " God help me " said he. 
 
 " Be brave," said she. 
 
 " But I want such a lot. ..." 
 
 " Here's Jack coming back." 
 
 " I want them all," he said, desperately. 
 
 " That's a large order," she said, and his face fell. 
 
 " That's my maximum demand," he said. " You can 
 make your deductions from it." 
 
 " Well, I've promised Jack two, and I must keep six for 
 duty dances. . . . You can have the rest." 
 
 With trembling fingers he marked off the dances on both 
 programs. 
 
 " How am I to remember who X is? " she asked. 
 
 The air was suddenly rent by the opening chords of a 
 wild ragtime tune, and in a minute he was swinging her over 
 the hyaline floor. She danced well: too well. She seemed 
 to have no volition of her own, and melting into his arms 
 responded automatically to every movement of his. The mad 
 ragtime strain, with its fierce dissonances and breathless syn- 
 copation, surged through him stirring his blood and thrilling 
 his nerves with a vivifying current of electricity. Wild
 
 3 88 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 imaginings passed through his brain, and all that was primi- 
 tive in him leaped to the surface. He abandoned himself 
 to the sheer joy of dancing. His limbs seemed tireless. He 
 felt as if he could go on like that forever. 
 
 And then abruptly the dance came to an end and Mabel 
 was fanning herself and praising the floor. The next dance 
 was promised to Jack and Bernard retired to soothe his im- 
 patience with a cigarette in the dressing-room. Here he was 
 in no way surprised to meet Molloy, who was an habitue 
 of the Gresham. 
 
 "Hello!" said Bernard. "I thought you were at the 
 Front." 
 
 " I haven't time," said Molloy. " I'm frightfully busy 
 at present. I've three or four of these sedition cases coming 
 up shortly. . . . I'm defending the blighters, too, though 
 personally I'd like to see them all dumped in the Liffey. 
 ... I say, I saw you dancing with a damn pretty girl just 
 now. You might give me an intro ? . . . " 
 
 Languid waltz and vivid one-step alternating, the evening 
 sped by. Bernard and Mabel sat out most of the second 
 part of the program, and talked. They talked about every- 
 thing and themselves: but chiefly about themselves. He 
 told her things that he had never told anyone else. He told 
 her about the nursery Babylon and his imaginary island. 
 She told him about her home life and her dreary work. 
 They had become confidants . . . 
 
 " Which do you like best, the waltz or the one-step ? " 
 she asked, suddenly. 
 
 " The one-step, I think," replied Bernard. " I like the 
 frank savagery of it. It puts the devil into you: rips the 
 wrappings of civilization off you and turns the ball-room 
 into a battlefield where you carry off your bride like a primi- 
 tive skin-clad man." 
 
 "Hmph! ... I prefer the waltz. It makes you fall 
 asleep on life and dream of operas and scenes in books." 
 
 They were silent awhile, and then Mabel said:
 
 WAR 389 
 
 " What a lovely night! " 
 
 " I've never had such a night before," said Bernard. 
 
 " Nor I." 
 
 ;< ' On such a night/ " Bernard quoted, " ' Troilus me- 
 thinks . . . ' 
 
 " Try a new one," said Mabel. 
 
 " Hm, let's see ... On such a night Tristan methinks, 
 with cheeks incarnadined And beating heart, first looked 
 into the eyes Of Mark's intended in the spacious halls Of 
 Chapelizod." 
 
 " Hear ! Hear ! . . . let's try and out-night you. . . . 
 On such a night Giulietta in a mirror caught The soul of 
 Hoffmann." 
 
 " On such a night Cyrano's nose did blush amid the verse 
 Wafted towards Roxane's window." 
 
 " On such a night Stood Tessa weeping by the Grand 
 Canal, And uttered messages to birds a-wing For Barataria." 
 
 " On such a night Giuseppe lilted like a love-sick boy Of 
 sparkling eyes to Marco." 
 
 " On such a night I feel like having an ice. Come down 
 and get me one." 
 
 " You're some poet," said Bernard on the way down. 
 
 " I did The Merchant for the Intermediate my last year 
 at school." 
 
 " Don't spoil it all," said Bernard. 
 
 They went to the ball-room and had another dance: a 
 waltz to the tune of Come Back to Erin. When it was over 
 they tacitly returned to their former nook. They had so 
 much to say that dancing seemed an irritating interrup- 
 tion . . . 
 
 An hour went by thus; and then Bernard said: 
 
 " We must preserve that poem of ours. Let's write it 
 down before we forget it." 
 
 He started to scribble on the back of his program, she 
 looking over his shoulder the while. Intoxicating presence! 
 It distracted his memory and she had to prompt him fre-
 
 390 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 quently. Their heads were very close together, and a strand 
 of her hair tickled him. Then, when the task was done, 
 Mabel wanted to dance again. 
 
 " It must be nearly the last dance," she said, and they 
 rose from their shelter to go downstairs. As they faced 
 each other for a moment a wave of passion swept over Ber- 
 nard. He found himself stammering uncontrollably. 
 
 " Mabel ..." he said, and stopped, tongue-tied. 
 
 She looked up at him timidly. 
 
 " Dear! " he ventured. 
 
 She seemed to shrink from him for a second, and then she 
 was in his arms and submitting languorously to his kisses. 
 
 The last waltz saw them not. 
 
 He awoke next morning to find Swathythe by his bedside. 
 
 " It can't be ten yet, Swathythe," said Bernard, sleepily. 
 
 " No, sir, but ... " 
 
 " Well go away and don't disturb me. Didn't I tell you 
 not to call me till ten ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, but I thought ..." 
 
 " You'd no business to think, Swathythe." 
 
 " Mr. Ward has been arrested, sir. I thought ..." 
 
 Wide awake at once Bernard sprang out of bed. Swa- 
 thythe respectfully handed him a newspaper.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 
 
 MRS. HARVEY was somewhat taken aback when Ber- 
 nard and Mabel came to tell her of their engagement. 
 Mabel, the beauty of the family, was expected to make a 
 match which would restore their fallen fortunes; she knew 
 it, and so had kept her affair with Bernard a secret. The 
 revelation was, therefore, an unpleasant surprise to Mrs. 
 Harvey, but she recovered her equanimity in time to avoid 
 betraying herself. 
 
 " You're a rash pair of children," she said. " Well, 
 God bless you. May you be happy." And she expressed a 
 desire to have a chat with Bernard. 
 
 He called on her a few days later when Mabel was away 
 at her work, and in a short time she was pretty thoroughly 
 acquainted with his financial position. 
 
 " And now," she said, " I've one piece of motherly advice 
 for you. You take far too much interest in politics. Steer 
 clear of it, or you'll never get on in your profession." 
 
 " If Washington had taken that advice America wouldn't 
 now be free," sair Bernard. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Mrs. Harvey, serenely. " But Wash- 
 ington wasn't a suitor for my daughter." Which bowled 
 Bernard over completely. 
 
 Mrs. Harvey was less pleased than ever with the prospect 
 of the marriage, not for her daughter's sake, but for her own. 
 Bernard and Mabel could, as a matter of fact, have married 
 quite comfortably by the end of the year, but that would not 
 have satisfied Mrs. Harvey's requirements at all. She was 
 tired (and no wonder) of her present toilsome life, and 
 wished to become a lady of leisure once more. Her daugh- 
 391
 
 392 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ters, therefore, would have to look for husbands who would 
 be wealthy enough to compensate her handsomely for the 
 loss of their earnings, and as Bernard was not rich, nor, 
 owing to his infatuation with a very lost cause in politics 
 ever likely to be so, he was a very undesirable son-in-law 
 from Mrs. Harvey's point of view. Moreover, there was 
 a certain social stigma associated with a party whose 
 adherents so frequently found themselves in gaol (where 
 Bernard might be landed any day himself) and as Mrs. 
 Harvey's insatiable ambition was to regain that social status 
 which she had lost, her chagrin at her daughter's choice can 
 well be imagined. She was not, however, so foolish as to 
 oppose it openly. Mabel, she knew, was not a girl of par- 
 ticularly strong character, but she was proud and could be 
 far more easily led than driven, more potently influenced by 
 ridicule than by force. For the present, therefore, Mrs. 
 Harvey bided her time, and, while outwardly she blessed the 
 engagement, she set herself to the discovery of a more desir- 
 able rival, contenting herself, meanwhile, with stray dis- 
 paraging remarks about Bernard his seriousness, his un- 
 tidiness, and so on with occasional reflections on the com- 
 forts of wealth, fervent hopes that Bernard would attain it, 
 and despondent prophecies that this was very unlikely. 
 
 This policy Mabel treated at first with indifference, but 
 gradually she became uneasy and communicated her fears to 
 Bernard. He, however, only laughed, and said her mother 
 was over-anxious about her happiness. 
 
 "Cheer up," he said. "The spring is coming: you can 
 feel it in the air. I'll work like a nigger now, and then 
 in the summer, perhaps. . . . Meanwhile, we have our Sat- 
 urdays and Sundays and our evenings together, so don't 
 be downhearted. . . . And, dear, who knows but Ireland 
 may be free by our wedding-day. The tide is turning 
 already." 
 
 The anger and despair and bitter laughter that had tor- 
 tured Bernard through the winter had not been ousted from 
 his soul by love: requited love, however, now distracted him,
 
 \N AMATEUR ARMY 393 
 
 and simultaneously hope began to revive at sight of the 
 already changing attitude of the people. Hostility towards 
 the Volunteers was still strong, and still widely spread, but 
 it was no longer uncompromising, and it was narrowing in 
 scope. Even those who strongly disagreed with them recog- 
 nized that they had a case and that it could not be contro- 
 verted by mere abuse. . . . They were seldom called traitors 
 now, though names like " factionists " and " cranks " were 
 still flung at them. 
 
 These were Spring days and it was good to live and love. 
 He took Mabel for long walks : out to Howth ; up the Three 
 Rock, through the Glen of the Downs. One breezy, sunny 
 day they climbed to the Hell-Fire Chib. They raced each 
 other up the grassy gorse-clad slope of Mount Pelier, and 
 arriving breathless at the top were nearly blown to pieces by 
 the wind. The gusts hurtled and shrieked round the rough 
 stone w r alls of the naked ruin and in and out of its bleak 
 chambers. Bernard tore off his cap and let the wind ruffle 
 his hair and rattle his unbuttoned rain-coat with a noise of 
 rending cloth. 
 
 " Isn't it glorious," he said, joyously inhaling the ex- 
 hilarating fluid. 
 
 " I'm so cold," said Mabel, and drew him into the lee of 
 the building, pulling his arm round her for comfort. They 
 seemed lapped in a magic silence now after the turmoil 
 outside. 
 
 " What a sight I am," exclaimed Mabel, adjusting her 
 hair by the help of a pocket mirror. 
 
 " You look your best untidy," said he. 
 
 " Go away ! " she laughed and added, " You're a perfect 
 sketch yourself." 
 
 " What ho for a hot cup of tea? " said Bernard, and they 
 ran down the sheltered hill hand in hand. 
 
 " If anyone saw us," remonstrated Mabel. 
 
 They walked along the Velvet Strand another day from 
 Portmarnock to Malahide, a great deserted stretch of beach 
 at that season.
 
 394 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " What a dull spot," said Mabel. 
 
 " Is it bathing-machines and nursery maids you'd like to 
 see?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " I don't like this loneliness," she said, holding his arm 
 closer. 
 
 They stood listening to the thud and jingle of the breaking 
 and retreating waves, while the wind whistled in the bent- 
 grass on the sand dunes behind them. Sky and sea were 
 grey and mournful. The air was scented with brine and 
 sea-weed. They let the wind sweep them at a run along 
 the hard crinkled sand, crunching sea-shells under their feet. 
 
 They reached the road winding above the rocks towards 
 Malahide. 
 
 " Don't you love that sound? " said Bernard, stopping to 
 listen to the sighing hum of the wind in the telegraph wires, 
 mixed now with the plashing sound of the waves chopping 
 among the rocks. 
 
 " What wild, weird things you take pleasure in ! " said 
 Mabel. 
 
 " You're not wild and weird, are you?" asked Bernard. 
 
 " I soon will be if I associate much with you." 
 
 " Well, if you're afraid ..." 
 
 "Silly!" said Mabel. 
 
 Sometimes they had no time for walks like these and 
 contented themselves with a stroll in Stephen's Green, calm 
 oasis in the noisy city, or they would walk out to the Phoenix 
 Park, or along the Canal side, or suburban avenues, or even 
 the less frequented city streets. 
 
 " The glorious dust ! " says Bernard, as they emerge 
 blinking from a cloud of it, a swarm of sharp specks that 
 prick their skin as it drives before the blast and passes on 
 with a rasp of withered leaves slithering along the pavement. 
 
 "Horrid stuff!" says Mabel. "I'm half blinded." 
 
 " A peck of March dust is worth a ton of tonics." 
 
 " Thank you. I can dispense with both." 
 
 " You don't like anything I like." 
 
 " You like all sorts of queer things better than me."
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 395 
 
 "Mabel!" 
 
 " Yes, you do." 
 
 " You're cruel, dear." 
 
 She laughs, and immediately repents. 
 
 " Don't mind me, old boy. I never mean half what I 
 say^. . . " 
 
 " Jack," said Mrs. Harvey to her son that same day, 
 " next time you're in town on leave I wish you'd bring up 
 one of your friends with you. . . . Some nice young officer 
 with money, you know. . . . Brothers ought to do those 
 things for their sisters." 
 
 Meanwhile, Stephen was in gaol. 
 
 He took the whole thing in his habitual philosophic way: 
 nothing ever seemed to disturb the equanimity of this taci- 
 turn young mountaineer. While he was awaiting trial his 
 father came to see him (it was the old man's first visit to the 
 city for more than quarter of a century) and shed tears in 
 the visitor's cage, for which his son sternly rebuked him. 
 At the court-martial Stephen made no defence : he maintained 
 a dignified silence throughout the whole procedure, which 
 apparently concerned him not in the slightest, nor did he 
 seem to hear the sentence of three months' imprisonment 
 which was passed on him. . . . Mentally, he was resolving 
 that those months should not be wasted months. 
 
 So when he was locked in his cell he wasted no time 
 repining over the inevitable. After a brief survey of the 
 narrow bare apartment, he took up the Bible which lay on 
 the shelf near the door and read, most of it for the first time, 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 " Imperialism skilfully mixed with religion," was his com- 
 ment as, after reading as far as Joshua, he stretched himself 
 on his plank bed for the night. " Well, well. They say 
 there's nothing new under the sun." 
 
 In spite of the hardness of his couch he slept soundly. 
 
 In the morning he awoke to the monotonous regularity
 
 396 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 of prison life. He took the successive events as they came 
 and made the best of them. Breakfast was a coarse, un- 
 appetizing meal consisting of sour bread and milkless, un- 
 sweetened cocoa. Skilly and potatoes were the variants in 
 other meals: meagre unsavoury sustenance, but he devoured 
 it healthily and complained only of its insufficiency. In his 
 hour of exercise he trod the prison yard vigorously, taking 
 great breaths of air, and planting his feet down hard and 
 firmly. He was set to the task of chopping wood, and he 
 chopped skilfully, taking pleasure in the work. He cleaned 
 his cell with the zest one gives to a work of art. He bur- 
 nished his tin mug till it shone like silver. In the exercise 
 yard he gathered dandelion leaves to flavour his dinner. . . . 
 By such mitigations he made life tolerable. 
 
 For an hour in the mornings, when the day was fine, the 
 sun shining through his window painted a golden square on 
 the opposite wall, and Stephen used to place himself so as 
 to intercept the beam that traversed the cell. By standing 
 on his stool he could plunge head and shoulders into the 
 life giving ray, made to seem almost substantial by the dust 
 particles that danced within it, and breathe in warmth and 
 nourishment. . . . 
 
 Sunday Mass was a respite amid rigour. Assisting at the 
 holy sacrifice he could forget he was a captive in the sublim- 
 ity of the occasion, in the feeling that his spirit was in com- 
 munion with all the worshippers attending the same cere- 
 mony at the same time all over the world. Wondrous rite 
 common to all men, friends and foes, bond and free ! Sacri- 
 fice offered perpetually in the same manner and in the same 
 tongue by warring and allied peoples ; in prisons and palaces, 
 in chapel and cathedral, on ships at sea, on rude altars in the 
 open air under savage skies. Intimate consolation of the 
 single soul; potent unifier of mankind. 
 
 " If our International doctrinaires could be induced to 
 come to Mass ..." thought Stephen. 
 
 " Thank God, I'm a Catholic, not a piping little protester 
 whose creed is unknown beyond his own doorstep. . . .
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 397 
 
 What fools were those men who rejected their share in the 
 one common possession of Europe ..." 
 
 He had plenty of time for thought in the long hours he 
 spent locked in his cell. He revised his whole philosophy 
 and found it unaltered. He was filled with exultation at 
 realizing how hard the universal battle between light and 
 darkness was being fought. His faith was confirmed. 
 
 He read also. The prison library was a poor one, but he 
 extracted value from it. On the second day of his cap- 
 tivity the librarian, going the rounds with his basket of books, 
 tossed a volume into the cell, which Stephen hastened to pick 
 up. It was a very soiled and battered Third School Reader, 
 published by an English educational firm. Disappointed 
 though he was, Stephen started to read it. The first lesson 
 was an essay on the ant, which was more concerned to point 
 a moral than to be accurate in natural history. This was 
 followed by a story about a boy, a nobleman and a cow, 
 brought together to illustrate the profitableness of honesty 
 as a business policy. Then came the highly edifying story of 
 the painter who found in the same person at different ages 
 the models for his pictures Innocence and Guilt. Four tales 
 had for their themes different phases of England's career of 
 world conquest, and Freedom was patronized by the stories 
 of two men who had fought against conquest by countries 
 other than England: Hofer and Kosciusko. Two poems, 
 Excelsior and Ye Mariners of England, together with the 
 most priggish of old Aesop's fables, completed the collection. 
 
 The book was a revelation to Stephen. It showed him 
 the mould in which the English mind was cast. 
 
 " No wonder they are what they are," he reflected, " if 
 this is the kind of thing they're brought up on." 
 
 He saw English Imperialism at its source: commercial 
 morality (" Be good and you shall prosper") ; the natural 
 deduction therefrom ("We prosper, therefore we are 
 good ") ; and that sublime assurance which sets aside as 
 perverse the views of other people about their private con- 
 cerns when those views fail to recognize that the highest
 
 398 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 morality is to aim directly at promoting England's pros- 
 perity . . . 
 
 He remembered that Bernard had once told him that the 
 average Englishman really believes that to be governed by 
 England is freedom, and more. 
 
 " Why," he thought, " the Irish lie is bad enough, but 
 it's a pleasant, harmless lie that hurts no one but ourselves, 
 and it's a white, shining truth beside the English lie." 
 
 He began to speculate upon the war. 
 
 " Perhaps on every side the truth is fighting with the lie: 
 the French and English truth fighting the German lie; the 
 German truth fighting the French and English lies . . . 
 
 " But it achieves nothing but material destruction . . . 
 
 " No. Metaphysical half-truths won't carry us very far. 
 . . . Secret diplomacy is only too evidently the cause. 
 
 " The whole thing is wasted effort. There's no national 
 truth at stake at all ... 
 
 " Why not set the universal truth to tackle the ubiquitous 
 lie? ... More metaphysics! . . ." 
 
 He began to feel that the conquest was not for Ireland 
 an unmixed evil. 
 
 " If we'd never been conquered we'd now be a great 
 power . . . with foreign possessions ... a slice of Africa 
 perhaps, and some Pacific Islands. . . . Bearers of the white 
 man's burden and curses. We'd be thinking on lines like 
 this ..." 
 
 He flung the Third School Reader from him. 
 
 " It's better as it is. When we're free we'll be a small 
 nation like Switzerland, Bulgaria, or Norway . . . sensible 
 onlookers at the European tragi-comedy ... a people in 
 good training, not bloated degenerate giants like the great 
 Powers ..." 
 
 The next book they gave him was Reade's Foul Play, 
 but Stephen cared nothing for novels, so he asked to have 
 it changed, and they gave him a School History of England. 
 After that he was given a very dilapidated Hamlet, and now 
 he was happy. True, the version had been barbarously
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 399 
 
 bowdlerized by a Protestant clergyman in order to make it 
 " fit for the home circle." Not only was it purged of all 
 grossness, but even such words as " damned " and " bloody " 
 were replaced by softer epithets: Horatio swore that he 
 would " cross " the ghost " though it slay " him, and the 
 speech in which Hamlet unpacked his heart with words 
 and fell a-cursing like a very drab could not have brought 
 the blush of shame to the cheek of modesty. Still it was 
 Hamlet all the same, that wonderful poem, ever familiar, 
 yet ever startling those who think they have plumbed its 
 depths with some fresh undiscovered beauty or subtlety. 
 Stephen's taste favoured rant, probably because his own 
 manner was the reverse, and he spouted to the echoing walls 
 of his cell things like: 
 
 And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore, 
 With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus 
 Old grandsire Priam seeks, 
 
 and: 
 
 Let them throw 
 
 Millions of acres on us, till our ground, 
 Singeing his pate against the burning zone, 
 Make Ossa like a wart. 
 
 He fell to thinking, ever and again, over the question of 
 the punishment and prevention of crime. 
 
 "What good could jailing do anybody?" he asked him- 
 self. " Can spending twenty-three hours of the day locked 
 up by yourself and getting bad and insufficient food improve 
 any one's character, let alone a weak one? . . . But a 
 comfortable jail would be no deterrent. . . . Nonsense. 
 In a properly-run state loss of liberty would be enough 
 punishment and deterrent for anybody. It's poverty makes 
 jailbirds. . . . What sort of prisons shall we have under 
 the Republic?" 
 
 The problem occupied him for days. 
 
 " No good," he said at last. " Atmosphere isn't suited
 
 400 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 to constructive thinking. . . . Prisons should improve men 
 anyhow, not waste them . . ." 
 
 The weeks went by and the months. The more frequent 
 appearance of his ray of sunshine told Stephen that it was 
 Spring in the world outside. Nature was awakening from 
 her sleep; the armies of men were making renewed prepa- 
 rations for slaughter ; and for all his stoicism Stephen's blood 
 throbbed impatiently for freedom. The last weeks before his 
 release seemed interminable. 
 
 3 
 
 The Volunteers were a nation in miniature. They had 
 their Parliament and Executive; their Exchequer and Pos- 
 tal System; Industries, a Labour Exchange, and an Insur- 
 ance Society; newspapers; a women's organization; boy 
 scouts; a secret service even. They were a nation at war 
 ever on the alert : a unanimous nation with a single purpose : 
 a disciplined democracy: a nation of citizen soldiers. 
 
 Bernard was now in a position to materialize some of the 
 dreams of his childhood. At a re-election of officers he dis- 
 placed Brohoon as captain of his company and set to work 
 vigorously to drill, organize and arm his men on more effi- 
 cient lines than that officer had followed. Their numbers 
 had risen again: new members had rejoined and old ones 
 were slipping back to their allegiance. The average attend- 
 ance was now about seventy. Less than half of these had 
 rifles, but arms were being steadily and surreptitiously 
 brought into the country, and nearly every week Bernard 
 was able to produce a rifle to be balloted for and paid for 
 in instalments. . . . What sacrifices this payment must have 
 involved for many! Some of the men were heroically gen- 
 erous: unskilled labourers with ragged coats and not enough 
 to eat he knew must jealously hoard every penny to pay 
 the weekly instalment for the rifle which was, in every 
 sense, their dearest possession ; and even the prosperous ones, 
 the clerks and mechanics, must have had to dock them- 
 selves of many luxuries. . . . Brohoon was a man of slov-
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 401 
 
 enly habits and no disciplinarian, 'and Bernard found his 
 hardest task in smartening up the men and teaching them 
 a military gait and carriage, the more so as he had neither 
 himself by nature. He was at his best in the field, where 
 he carried out hundreds of experiments as to the best meth- 
 ods of using and economizing his forces. (He would lie 
 awake at night thinking out problems: how to block such 
 and such a road with a force consisting of thirty-six rifle- 
 men, fifteen men with shotguns, and twenty-two men with 
 pikes and revolvers: and so on.) He re-organized the com- 
 pany from top to bottom : into three sections he put his rifle 
 and gun men, equally divided each in each; and into the 
 fourth section the unarmed men (to be armed in sudden 
 emergency with pikes and revolvers). He instituted a 
 mobilization scheme by which the whole company could be 
 assembled in forty minutes. 
 
 The drill-night for the company was Thursday, and on 
 Saturday afternoons they used to attend the general battalion 
 drill. Occasionally on Sundays there would be a field-day 
 for the whole regiment: to Bernard a terrible sacrifice, since 
 otherwise the day would be spent with Mabel. Mabel too 
 used to resent his absence on these occasions. 
 
 " You like this horrid volunteering better than me," she 
 would say. 
 
 " My darling, how unfair you are. If you only knew 
 how I long to be with you. But a soldier isn't his own 
 master, you know." 
 
 " You could easily get off if you liked." 
 
 " But it wouldn't be right, dear, especially for an officer." 
 
 " It isn't right to desert your girl, is it ? " 
 
 " My dear, aren't men leaving their girls for their coun- 
 try's sake all over the world today." 
 
 " That's different." 
 
 " Don't say a silly thing like that, dear. It's come to be 
 the most annoying phrase in the English language for me." 
 
 "Why? . . . But what matter? Bernard, look at the 
 sky. It'll be lovely at Howth tomorrow."
 
 402 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " It's no use, dear." 
 
 " Oh, well, go then." 
 
 They always ended thus, and the sacrifice was rendered 
 all the harder for Bernard. 
 
 Came the field day. The defending side would march 
 away first: to the Dublin Mountains or to Cuala. The 
 attackers would follow in due course, and when the pre- 
 arranged ground was reached there would be a scrambling 
 amateurish battle. You would see straggling, skirmishing- 
 lines blundering across the hedge-intersected fields or amongst 
 the boulders and quarry-holes of the hillsides: fierce duels 
 between opposing scouts: whole companies wandering about 
 hopelessly at sea : charges in column on the road : stout old 
 Hugo McGurk forcing his way through a hedge: a volley 
 of hand-claps (to represent firing) : Umpleby fussing about 
 with a map, trying to find the way out of a morass in which 
 he had impounded his company: Hektor O'Flaherty storm- 
 ing about as umpire: then a final rush by the attackers to 
 end the battle, and fraternization by the troops of both sides 
 over sandwiches and ginger-beer . . . 
 
 Then the march home, tired and dirty, in the evening. 
 Oh, the brave music of marching feet! Physical exhilara- 
 tion of braced shoulders and legs rhythmically swinging! 
 Surge of primal instincts in peace-tamed hearts! Two 
 thousand feet moving in unison: tramp-tramp on hard 
 frozen roads ; plash-plash on muddy ones. O'Dwyer spins 
 by on a bicycle. " Easy time those fellows on the staff get," 
 mutters Bernard. Tramp-tramp. " Suppose we were really 
 marching on Dublin." Plash-plash. " Shall we ever, I won- 
 der?" Tramp-tramp-tramp. "Are these infernal miles 
 Irish or English?" Some one behind strikes up a song: 
 
 " Deep in Canadian woods we've met 
 From one bright Island flown . . ." 
 
 Rings out the chorus: 
 
 " Ireland, boys, hurrah ! 
 
 Hurray!
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 403 
 
 Ireland, boys, hurray! 
 
 We'll toast old Ireland, dear old Ireland, 
 
 Ireland, boys, hurray!" 
 
 " What sadness there is in that story about the two regi- 
 ments on the Rapidan . . . slaughtering each other next day 
 for a cause that mattered to none of them. They became 
 soldiers in the hope of some day righting for Ireland. . . . 
 Poor devils, they slaughtered each other instead. . . . Eter- 
 nal waste ! " . . . Tramp-tramp. ... A new strain swells 
 forth : 
 
 " So-oldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland, 
 
 Some have come* from a land beyond the wave. 
 Sworn to be free . . ." 
 
 A motor whizzes by, drowning the words with its whirr: 
 a load of fur-wrapped superciliousness: "Disloyal asses!" 
 you fancy them saying. Tramp-tramp-tramp. 
 
 " Steady, boys, and step together. 
 Steady, boys, and step together." 
 
 " Brave boys: a column of sturdy manhood. Ridicule and 
 abuse haven't moved them from their purpose. They've 
 worked and toiled for the cause through it all. Great stuff! 
 Gallant souls." ... A pair of laughing lovers passes by on 
 the side-walk. " How much pleasure do these men get out 
 of life? And they sacrifice that little for this." Plash- 
 plash. " All over Europe armies are marching like this "... 
 
 " Let Erin remember the days of old 
 
 Ere her faithless sons betrayed her 
 When Malachi wore the collar of gold 
 Which he won from her proud invader." 
 
 " Emmet would wish to have seen this day. Oh, to be at 
 the head of an army marching to that air," he said. " And 
 here we march today. . . ." Tramp-tramp . . . Lights 
 ahead: the outskirts of the city: traffic and chattering peo- 
 ple. The Soldier's Song swells forth again and dies away:
 
 40 4 THE WASTED ISL'AND 
 
 " Tonight we'll man the Bearna-Baoghail 
 In Erin's cause come woe or weal. 
 'Mid cannon's roar and rifle's peal 
 We'll chant a soldier's song." 
 
 Clatter of boot-soles on cobbles. On through the city . . . 
 
 " March to attention ! " 
 
 The column marches in silence with sloped arms amid 
 crowds that either heed not or stare and scoff. . . . 
 
 The Volunteers had their own social life too. The differ- 
 ent companies and battalions used to give concerts and 
 ceilidhes ; the Boy Scouts gave theirs ; the Gaelic League gave 
 more. Bernard became a habitue of the ceilidhes. He loved 
 the rollicking swing of the old Irish dances; the melancholy 
 of the songs; and the irresistible gaiety of the dance-music. 
 He induced Mabel to come with him once, but never again. 
 She thought the company " low " (it certainly was not gen- 
 teel) and the dances were too rough and strenuous for her. 
 The master of ceremonies was too odiously familiar with 
 her, she thought. He was a shock-headed youth, toothless 
 from canine to canine, wearing an untidy saffron kilt which 
 revealed a pair of very dirty knees; and in his good-natured 
 eagerness to instruct Mabel in the intricacies of the dance 
 he handled her (with those grubby paws of his) far more 
 than she liked far more than Bernard liked too, for that 
 matter. ... So Mabel went to no more ceilidhes, and Ber- 
 nard in consequence was prevented from attending as many 
 as he would have wished. 
 
 They were gay functions, those ceilidhes: skirling pipes 
 and laughing fiddle and merry dances: wailing songs and 
 fierce recitations; babble of Irish everywhere. Some one 
 would come up to Bernard and say: 
 
 " Cionnus taoi, a Bhearnard?" 
 
 " Taim go maith, go raibh maith agat. Cionnus taoi 
 fein?" 
 
 " Go maith. Cionnus ar thaithn an Aonach leat? " 
 
 " Middling. Is better Sraid Graf ton e."
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 405 
 
 " Mhaise, greadadh chug at, is mor-chuiseach ataoi le do 
 chuid Gaedhealach briste! " 
 
 " Cad is brigh le sin? Ni'l acht cupla foda Gaedhealacha 
 agam." 
 
 " A Td go leoir. Beidh tu Gaedheal mor go socair." 
 
 And the conversation would continue in English. 
 
 Every one came to those ceilidhes. Staid professors and 
 scholars with European reputations looked on from the back- 
 ground: grave dames in Irish costume; little shop-girls in 
 white muslin ; a stray man in evening dress ; Gaelic Leaguers 
 in saffron kilts; Indian law-students in their brilliant native 
 costume; Volunteers in their grey-green uniforms: a motley 
 pattern they made as they threaded their ways in and out 
 of the mazes of the Rinnce Fada or Ballai Luimnig. Here 
 you would see McGurk dancing bravely in spite of his girth ; 
 there Umpleby hovering near a celebrity: here Brohoon strut- 
 ting around like a peacock; there Austin Mallow gazing 
 rapt into space . . . 
 
 One night Stephen and another man just released from 
 gaol were brought in by a crowd of admirers, Stephen 
 obviously against his will. The dancers it was during an 
 interval rose and cheered. The other man smirked and 
 bowed, but Stephen scowled angrily. He came over after- 
 wards and sat by Bernard. 
 
 " You're out early," said Bernard. 
 
 " You get a remission for good behaviour." 
 
 " Is gaol a very frightful experience ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Isn't it rather boring, then ? " 
 
 " No. I learned a lot." 
 
 "Well, I suppose that's something gained. . . . Person- 
 ally I'd rather dispense with it." 
 
 Stephen looked round superciliously on the scene of gaiety. 
 
 " Such a way of spending an evening," he said. 
 
 "A damn good way," replied Bernard. "You're a ter- 
 rible anchorite, Stephen. You've nothing human in you."
 
 406 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " To see our Volunteers capering about like that ! Ugh ! " 
 " They're none the worse soldiers for it. ... Red blood 
 would be a political asset to you, Stephen. You'll never 
 achieve anything if you can't allow for human nature." 
 " Seven centuries' oppression should have hardened us." 
 " Thank God it hasn't," answered Bernard . . . 
 Bernard had transplanted himself bodily from one stratum 
 of society into another. He saw no more of the Gunby 
 Rourkes and Heuston Harringtons and Bonegrafts and other 
 denizens of the Square, and became acquainted with life 
 on a totally different scale and governed by totally different 
 conditions. In the Volunteers there were men of many 
 grades, social and financial, but there was no sharp dividing 
 line of snobbery between them : caste was unknown to them : 
 their spirit was democratic, inborn and unconscious. 
 
 First there were the civil servants and clerks: prosperous 
 most of them unless they married. A single young man 
 can live very comfortably in lodgings, dress well, possess 
 books, and have a fair amount of enjoyment on his pay of 
 anything from twenty-five to sixty shillings a week ; but mar- 
 riage means children and a house. One of Bernard's lieu- 
 tenants on whom he occasionally called was a man of thirty- 
 five, married, with six children. He lived on the north side 
 of the city in one of a row of exactly similar two-storied 
 red-brick villas. There was a railing in front with a gate, 
 on which was the name Emain Macha (the houses beside it 
 were called The Beeches and Roseville}, Inside the railing 
 was a grass-plot four feet square, with a miserable enonymus 
 shrub in the centre and some wilted London Pride in a 
 parched flower-bed. A diminutive asphalted pathway led 
 to the hall door, reached by ascending one step of granite. 
 The tiny hall was so packed with unnecessary furniture that 
 the door could only be opened half-way by the lady of the 
 house, who would come down with sleeves rolled up and 
 smelling of Sunlight soap, apologizing that this was her wash- 
 ing-day. Poor, bothered, worn-out young woman ! She was 
 crushed with the burden of making ends meet, keeping her
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 407 
 
 house clean, keeping her husband comfortable, and bearing 
 and rearing children. She had long ceased to worry about 
 her appearance, but she had evidently been pretty once. 
 (Bernard wondered did her husband still love her: was 
 there time for romance in theij scrambled lives?) She 
 would show him into the sitting-room, a musty apartment 
 but little larger than the hall and most uncomfortably con- 
 gested with gimcrack furniture. There he would sit talking 
 over a meagre fire and a pipe with his lieutenant, a big man 
 with a hearty laugh who seemed not at all stifled by his 
 cramping surroundings. Upstairs they would hear the 
 squealing of the children while their mother, unceasing in 
 toil, put them to bed. A piano would jangle in the house 
 next door and a gramophone screech in the one opposite. 
 
 " Room ! room ! " Bernard would say to himself. " This 
 eternal huddling ! Street upon street of these infernal villas : 
 soul strangling cages : man's sacrifice of comfort to gentility. 
 . . . Oh, damn, damn, damn the whole system." 
 
 The frank, unpretentious bareness and carpetlessness of 
 the houses of the lower grade the labourers and artisans 
 offended him less. They were less stuffy, and so were their 
 inhabitants. They made no pretence to gentility at all; 
 roared with laughter when amused; spat on the floor; and 
 did not use pocket-handkerchiefs. Their uproarious evenings 
 were a pleasure he did not indulge in often. 
 
 These two grades had a good deal of discomfort and not 
 a little hardship in their lives, but there were Volunteers 
 of a lower grade still: the class that exists on the hunger 
 line: the class to which the war meant not dearer food but 
 less food: not the substitution of margarine for butter, but 
 the abandonment of margarine and the diminishing of bread. 
 Life for them was a perpetual struggle and a losing one; 
 they had little room for ideas, but their inspiration was a 
 dumb instinctive patriotism. Their one sorrow was their 
 inability to arm themselves. They would have starved them- 
 selves to do it, but they were already starving. Sometimes 
 they tried desperate methods : a gaunt, hungry, ragged mem-
 
 4 o8 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 her of Bernard's company turned up on parade one day with 
 a modern Lee-Enfield rifle for which he had way-laid one 
 of his Britannic Majesty's soldiers in a lonesome place. He 
 established a valuable precedent. 
 
 One of Bernard's section-commanders was of this class, 
 another was a grocer's assistant and the remaining two were 
 clerks. One of his lieutenants was a mechanic, the other 
 a civil servant. They met at his flat occasionally to discuss 
 the business and progress of the company, and the lieutenants 
 sometimes came in for a friendly talk. Swathythe used to 
 sniff aristocratically at these visitors, waiting on whom he 
 deemed beneath him. He approached Bernard once on the 
 subject. 
 
 " If you'll allow me to say so, sir," he said, after some 
 tactful humming and hawing, " I think it's a pity for a 
 young gentleman like you to associate with such riff-raff. 
 They'll just use you for their own ends, if you don't mind 
 me saying so. Some of these fellows as come 'ere never 
 brush their 'air, sir. They spit on the carpet, sir: I've 
 awful, work after 'em ; they don't know 'ow to be'ave in a 
 gentleman's 'ouse, sir. You ought to stick to your own 
 class, Mr. Lascelles, wot knows your ways and you know 
 theirs, for mark my word, sir, these people will just use you 
 and chuck you aside when they done with you. .... I 'ope 
 you'll excuse me speaking so freely, sir." 
 
 " You haven't spoken a bit freely, Swathythe," replied 
 Bernard. " You've spoken like the slave you are." . . . 
 
 It was about this time that there came to live in the flat 
 above Bernard's a man called Malone: a stern-looking, griz- 
 zled Irish -American on the verge of fifty years of age. He 
 came early to see Bernard and almost at once demanded 
 point-blank : 
 
 " Does this Volunteer movement mean business? " 
 
 Bernard assured him that it did, but Malone did not ap- 
 pear satisfied. 
 
 " Are you going to fight? " he asked. 
 
 " Under certain conditions," replied Bernard.
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 409 
 
 " See here," said Malone. " I'd better tell you right away 
 what sort of a man I am. I was born in Tipperary of quiet 
 decent folk who paid their rent regularly and took no part 
 in politics. When I was about six years old our landlord 
 discovered that cattle paid better than human beings, so 
 we were flung out on the roadside and our home pulled 
 down. We had to emigrate, of course, but my father wasn't 
 the sort of man to take tyranny lying down, and a few days 
 before we started he shot the landlord dead: and, to be as 
 brief as possible, he was caught and hanged for it. My 
 poor mother and I made for America where she had a brother 
 who had promised to help us, and in the coffin-ship we 
 crossed in my mother died. . . . Well, my uncle was a 
 single man and doing well, and he stood by me. I won't 
 bore you with details of my life more than to say that I made 
 good and became pretty well off. But I was never con- 
 tented. Way down I always felt that I wanted to be even 
 with the people who killed my mother and father, and I'd 
 a kind of objection to being driven out of my country. My 
 uncle, however, was always telling me to stay where I was 
 and not bother about the old country. He said it wasn't 
 worth living in so long as it was ruled by the English, and 
 the English could only be driven out by war, and the coun- 
 try wasn't strong enough to fight: every time she fought she 
 was beaten. I read some Irish history then, and came to 
 the conclusion he was right. But about that time the Par- 
 nell movement began to look like winning out, and, thinking 
 that perhaps there might be something in Constitutionalism 
 after all, I came over her and lent a hand. But you know 
 what happened: nothing but failure: and I went back to 
 America disgusted. . . . Well, after that I stuck to my 
 business for a while. Then, when the trouble between 
 England and the Boers began I came over here again to see 
 if the people were game for a rising. But not they. The 
 country was just about dead, and there were no arms in it 
 anyway. However, I got a chance to get my own back on 
 England, for I struck up with some fellows who were getting
 
 4 io THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 up a brigade to fight for the Boers and I joined them." 
 
 "Was there a man called Christopher Reilly among 
 them?" 
 
 " Yes. Damn good stuff he was, too. He was killed in 
 action afterwards. Did you know him ? " 
 
 " He was my uncle." 
 
 " Then you're sure to be the right stuff. As soon as I 
 heard the Volunteers had declared against England I came 
 right over to join in the fight. When is it to be? " 
 
 Bernard tried to explain the policy of the Volunteers, and 
 Malone was obviously disappointed with it. 
 
 "What's the good of shilly-shally?" he said. "If we 
 don't fight now we'll never get such a chance again. Eu- 
 ropean wars are rare birds, my lad." 
 
 They argued long and hotly, but Malone was impervious 
 to reason. He was no politician; just a plain honest man of 
 one idea: and while Bernard was exasperated by his stolid- 
 ity he could not but admire him. He was very much against 
 accepting any German help. Once let them in, he said, 
 and there would be no getting them out again : all great 
 Powers were the same. 
 
 His creed was very simple. 
 
 " Our own right arm and the help of God," he said, " will 
 see us through. Fight whenever you can. What matter 
 if you lose? If you fight often enough you're bound to win 
 in the end." 
 
 4 
 
 The fairest part of the Irish year is that season when 
 Spring is melting into Summer, when the lilac laburnum 
 and hawthorn bloom triumphant over the fallen cherry 
 blossom; when the foliage of beech and lime and elm and 
 sycamore is fresh and viridescent; when the sunlight is still 
 silvery and the breezes still cooling: the ideal season for 
 lovers. Bernard and Mabel took full advantage of it. 
 They spent most of their Sundays amid the bee-loud heather 
 of Howth or scrambling amongst the rocks of the Scalp or
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 411 
 
 sailing about the shimmering Bay, and in the evenings they 
 watched the decrescent moon of May waning in the eastern 
 sky and at her going looked for the rising sickle of June in 
 the West. In the nights of her absence they gazed upon the 
 stars, making new groupings and constellations of their own : 
 Mabella and Bernardus and Johannes Taurus Collapsus, 
 a romantic occupation. 
 
 They began to know each other, and to question. Ber- 
 nard was something of a puzzle to Mabel. His seriousness; 
 the long political lectures he used to give her; his sudden 
 bursts of anger over some act of English brutality or hypoc- 
 risy ; his fierce enthusiasms for beautiful things, the plash- 
 ing of a brook, the smell of damp woods, a stanza of poetry, 
 what not all his impersonal emotions : these things amazed 
 and disconcerted her. She could not understand why, if 
 he loved her, he would never desert a Volunteer duty for 
 the sake of her company. She resented his tendency to 
 sermonize. . . . And then there were the things she loved 
 in him; the laughter and sadness in his eyes; the play of 
 the wind and sunbeams in his hair; the gesture of his hand 
 and thrust of his chin in argument; the way he held his 
 pipe in his strong white teeth ; his smile, mostly in the 
 eyes, with just a twitch of the lip; the queer impetuous 
 things he said ; and then the tenderness of his embrace. 
 
 And Bernard puzzled over Mabel too: her flippancy, her 
 easy acceptances, her desire for mere happiness, her lack of 
 interest in ideas, her blindness and deafness to the things 
 he thought beautiful, her insistence on the personal equa- 
 tion in all things. He could not understand her unreadi- 
 ness to sacrifice his company occasionally to the cause in 
 which they both believed. He resented her tendency to 
 turn everything into a joke. He would begin to ask him- 
 self if he really loved her and then a glance at her face 
 would make him forget everything else. He loved her airy 
 grace and the yielding slimness of her waist and the wonder 
 of her eyes and the scent of her hair. He loved the queer 
 little things she said, and the soft touch of her hands, the.
 
 412 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 warm tenderness of her lips, and her trustful surrender of 
 herself to his embrace. 
 
 They loved and talked of love and made love to each 
 other and built castles in the air and were happy . . . 
 
 They passed an organ grinder in the street one day. 
 
 " What waste of human material," quoth Bernard. 
 " What use is a system that leaves hundreds of men, many of 
 promising material, trying to grind out a living in that use- 
 less way? " 
 
 " Most people are poor through their own fault," pro- 
 claims Mabel. 
 
 Bernard has run up against that argument with infuriat- 
 ing frequency, so he starts on a new tack (Shavian of 
 course). 
 
 " But take a baby just born into the world. Why should 
 he be handicapped in the battle of life right at the start? 
 How can he ever win his way if his parents are too 
 poor to feed or educate him properly? He never gets a 
 chance." 
 
 " His parents shouldn't marry if they can't afford chil- 
 dren," says Mabel primly (innocent little Malthusian: Mal- 
 thusianism of this sort is rampant among good and charitable 
 folk). Against this rampart Bernard's arguments storm in 
 vain. 
 
 " Bernard, I'm afraid you're getting indelicate," she says 
 when he goes too far. 
 
 Reluctantly after a time Bernard realized the impossibility 
 of carrying Mabel with him in his social ideas. She was one 
 of those people who consider Christ's statement of fact about 
 the poor being always with us as a complete argument against 
 all Social reformers. The first time she used this argument 
 against him he felt a desperate clutch of disappointment at 
 his heart, and a fleeting memory of Janet Morecambe 
 crossed his mind ; but the next moment Mabel had said : 
 
 " Don't let's quarrel over horrid things, dear," and put 
 an arm round him and kissed him. She was irresistible 
 then .
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 413 
 
 One brilliant day they took a well-stocked picnic-basket 
 and went by motor-boat to Ireland's Eye. Through bracken 
 shoulder-high they trudged to the topmost point of the 
 island. Half-way up they had to stop and kiss each other, 
 and then just as he had released her he had to pull her back 
 to him and kiss her again. 
 
 " Greedy boy! " she cried, and ran from him laughing. 
 
 Breathless they reached the top and stood upon the rocky 
 pinnacle. Other picnic parties were landing on the beach: 
 there were parties scattered all over the island, the smoke 
 from whose fires curled up in thin wisps here and there, 
 faintly perfuming the air. 
 
 " Look, dear," says Bernard, hand sweeping the horizon, 
 " we came skimming round the Bailey there, just where 
 that purple patch is, then we let her run before the wind 
 right into the harbour. . . . Got in exactly to time just as 
 we'd arranged a month before. Not bad, eh? " 
 
 " You're some boy, aren't you ? " 
 
 " You'd say that if you knew all the secrets of that stunt." 
 
 " What secrets? " 
 
 " Tu ue quaesieris; scire nefas" 
 
 11 What's all that about? " 
 
 " Curiosity, thy name is girl." 
 
 " I suppose you like to be thought an enigma. Well, keep 
 your old secrets. / don't care." 
 
 " Oh, what a gorgeous day ! On such a day Deirdre 
 methinks " 
 
 " Here, open that basket and make yourself useful. I'm 
 hungry." 
 
 They chose a mossy hollow for their meal. All round 
 them insects buzzed and hummed : sea gulls wheeled scream- 
 ing overhead: puffins scuttled through the air and darting 
 down into the sea climbed cliffwards with silvery fish in 
 their pink parrotlike beaks. The sun drew fragrant odours 
 from the baking turf and the dead and living bracken and 
 heather. Bernard and Mabel munched chicken and choco- 
 late,
 
 4H THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Why can't we always be together, mo chroidhe? . . . 
 When shall we be married ? " 
 
 " I wonder." 
 
 " Why not now ? " 
 
 " How could we, dear? " 
 
 " Why not? I have money." 
 
 " Not enough to marry on, I'm afraid." 
 
 " We could marry on a ten pound note." 
 
 " Yes. And be miserable and uncomfortable ever after." 
 
 " You talk as if I was a pauper," protested Bernard. 
 
 " One must be sensible, dear." 
 
 " Many people have married on less than I've got." 
 
 " And you may be sure they've regretted it." 
 
 " What a little bundle of common-sense it is ! " 
 
 " I'd need to be, with a big lump of romance like you." 
 
 " But, dear, wouldn't you like to be married soon ? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so, but I don't want to be scraping and 
 saving. I've had enough of it. ... How goes the practice, 
 dear?" 
 
 " Not so badly. Nine patients on the roll. A new one 
 yesterday." 
 
 " What was wrong with him ? " 
 
 "Hay fever." 
 
 " Why don't your friends get real bad things that you 
 could charge heavily for? We'll never get married on dys- 
 pepsia and hay-fever." 
 
 " Oh, every little helps." 
 
 " We've been engaged six months, half a year." 
 
 "Tired of it yet?" 
 
 " Dear! How could you? " 
 
 "My darling!" 
 
 Silence for a while. 
 
 " Dear, will you promise not to be angry if I tell you 
 something? " 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " But you must promise not to be angry first." 
 
 " Well, I won't be unless you deserve it,"
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 415 
 
 " I've been appointed an organizer in the country." 
 
 " Is that all? Why should that make me angry? " 
 
 " Well, you see, it means no more Saturdays together." 
 
 " Oh, Bernard ! How could you ? " 
 
 " Dear, I couldn't help it. Some of our country corps 
 are falling to pieces for lack of instructors and I have to do 
 my share to buck things up." 
 
 " But think of me, dear." 
 
 " Indeed I do. If it wasn't for you I'd give my Sundays 
 too." 
 
 " Oh, give them all if you like. Don't mind me." 
 
 " Darling, I wish you'd be reasonable . . ." 
 
 " I wish you'd be kinder." 
 
 Deadlock. Presently Mabel whimpers: 
 
 " And only just now you were wondering when we could 
 be married. How can we ever be married if you neglect 
 your practice, running all over the country? " 
 
 " You make things very hard for me, dear." 
 
 The joy of the day is clouded, but in the end there is 
 reconciliation with kisses . . . 
 
 Another day. 
 
 A recruiting march through the streets of the city. A 
 pipers' band in kilts, with green streamers from their pipes: 
 a mighty flag of rebel green: the band is skirling out The 
 Wearing of the Green. To gain recruits for the British 
 Army everything is done to appeal to the national spirit 
 which the very presence of that army oppresses and derides. 
 The colours of England are never to be seen upon the re- 
 cruiting platforms nowadays: the very recruiting-posters 
 and hand-bills smack of Ninety-Eight: vile hypocrisy of Eng- 
 land. What would Tone say to see his name used and his 
 words misrepresented in order to delude his countrymen 
 into the army of the oppressor? But to hear that air: 
 " They're hanging men and women for the wearing of the 
 green " 
 
 " Good lordl" exclaimed Bernard. " They've no sense, 
 of decency."
 
 4 i6 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " And look at that," he said, pointing to a recruiting 
 poster which represented a body of troops marching past the 
 old Houses of Parliament over which flew the green flag 
 with the crownless harp. "The abandoned beasts! If our 
 people don't hate the swine after that they never will. The 
 damned, damned hypocrites ! " 
 
 " How seriously you do take things ! " said Mabel. 
 " Don't worry your poor old head over nothing." 
 
 "Nothing!" exclaimed Bernard. He was thinking of 
 the brave boys marching away to their death in response 
 to appeals written by cynical old politicians with their tongues 
 in their cheeks: marching to fulfil their side of a treaty 
 whose breach by the other side was a foregone conclusion. 
 " Oh, world of knaves and fools! " he thought. " How 
 long shall the tragic farce go on ? . . . And if I were to tell 
 the fools what I thought of the knaves, the fools would 
 laugh me to scorn and the knaves would jail or kill me." 
 
 " Where shall we go for tea today? " asks Mabel. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, tea? ... I don't know. Wherever you 
 like." 
 
 " Let's try the Princess for a change, then." 
 
 5 
 
 Crowley was out attending to a case when Bernard arrived 
 at his house at Ballylangan, but he had left orders as to his 
 reception and the house-keeper installed him comfortably 
 in the sitting-room with tea and papers. A large volume 
 lay open on a table, and Bernard picked it up: it was Max 
 Nordau's Degeneration. He began to read at the opened 
 pages, which contained the slashing attack on Rosetti and 
 the mystics. 
 
 " This man has sound dope," thought Bernard. " He 
 says everything I've been thinking about friend Mallow and 
 his gang. . . . Footling round with the number Seven and 
 the rest of it. By Jove, he has all the stigmata." 
 
 Nordau becoming heavy after a time, he went searching
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 417 
 
 among the pile of periodicals. The mauve cover of Manan- 
 nan caught his eye at once. 
 
 " Hello! Wonder what old Crowley indulges in this for? 
 Thinks it a sort of duty, I suppose. I wouldn't waste six- 
 pence on it." 
 
 He turned the leaves idly. There was a pompous little 
 article on The Art of Austin Mallow by Cyril Umpleby, 
 mostly syrup ; a very inaccurate account of the Howth gun- 
 running it might almost be called an Umplebiad by 
 Austin Mallow (" Quid pro quo," muttered Bernard) ; 
 an article called " Jail Days " by Brian Mallow ; and two 
 poems: one a thrush-and-rosebud song by Theodosia, the 
 other an obscure lucubration called The Lord hath Arisen, 
 by Austin. 
 
 " Seven flames aflare in the blood-red sky 
 The pallid earth shudders, then leaps on high," 
 
 read Bernard. 
 
 " Old Nordau, I wish you weren't quite so voluminous, 
 or I'd publish you as a penny pamphlet. You're a tonic, 
 Herr Professor," he said. 
 
 Crowley 's voice sounded in the hall, and the door opened. 
 
 " Hello, old man, so glad to see you. What's that tosh 
 you're reading? Lord I'm tired. Let me get these boots 
 off. . . . Just been introducing a new subject into the sun- 
 kissed Empire: future citizen of the Republic, let's hope: 
 he didn't seem a bit keen on entering the Empire anyhow. 
 . . . Stands the Castle where it did ? " 
 
 " More or less, though Gussie seems to regard us more 
 in sorrow than in anger. . . . The Party's still gratefully 
 kissing John Bull's boots." 
 
 " Well so long as it's only his boots . . ." 
 
 " It's not doing them any good with the people though. 
 The cranks and soreheads are markedly on the increase in 
 town." 
 
 " Is that so? I wish I could say the same for this place." 
 
 " How are things here? "
 
 418 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Pretty rotten, I'm afraid. There's about a dozen sound 
 men in Ballylangan and a couple of score in the surrounding 
 district. There's one good sign though. The National 
 Volunteers are falling to pieces, and only meet once in a 
 way for a resolution-passing stunt." 
 
 " It's the same everywhere. In some places companies 
 are coming over to us holus bolus." 
 
 " So I believe. Rosaleen's beginning to see through her 
 seducer." 
 
 " About time. Can we begin work soon ? " 
 
 " Yes. I've ordered a parade in a central spot for eight 
 tonight. We'll buzz over after dinner." 
 
 " The war goes well, doesn't it." 
 
 " Yes. The Russians have gone back so far that they'll 
 have to publish new war-maps. . . . By the way, did you 
 see Redmond's speech about the maps of Ireland? " 
 
 " I never bother wading through that sort of muck." 
 
 " This was a treat. He says that every German soldier 
 going into battle has a map of Ireland in his pocket with 
 the farm he's going to get marked on it. Now a map that 
 size would make some bundle. It would take a man twenty- 
 five feet high to carry it, I reckon, so you needn't wonder 
 now how the Germans are able to beat the world. They're 
 a nation of Supermen." 
 
 " But aren't we a green people ? I suppose the audience 
 swallowed it all right? " 
 
 " To the last foot of it." 
 
 Dinner was served presently and Crowley made inquiries 
 about his friends in town. He seemed to chafe against his 
 secluded life as a dispensary doctor. 
 
 " And how's our old friend Fergus Moore? " 
 
 " Still on the same old tack. ... I remember years ago 
 when I first met him (I was a seoinin then) he told me 
 physical force was no good and constitutionalism was worse. 
 I remember him one day comparing parliamentary agitation 
 to a dwarf, beaten in a fight with a giant, throwing down 
 his sword and saying ' Here, let's reason this out.' I re-
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 419 
 
 member at the time suggesting a combination of the two 
 methods, and when I met him the other day I reminded him 
 of this, and told him the Volunteer movement tried to 
 achieve that. ' Well,' says he, ' and what have you suc- 
 ceeded in doing? Split the country once more: that's all. 
 Ireland,' says he, ' is a hopeless case.' I left him at that. 
 These pessimists would make Mark Tapley gloomy. . . . 
 I believe he drinks now on top of his other little weak- 
 ness." 
 
 " Let him go hang. But he's a loss. He has brains." 
 
 " There's a hell of a lot of people with brains and no guts 
 in this country. You know the academic intellectual type, 
 for instance, that takes up a detached point of view and 
 has the impudence to lecture the rest of us?" 
 
 " Kennedy, for instance." 
 
 " Exactly. ... I'd like to kick that type. Smirking 
 asses." 
 
 " Emasculated bookworms," said Crowley. 
 
 Crowley prided himself on his taste in cigars, and his 
 housekeeper made excellent coffee. When they had just 
 settled down to the enjoyment of both Bernard glanced 
 casually at his watch. 
 
 " Great Scott! " he cried. " Eight o'clock." 
 
 " No hurry," said Crowley calmly. 
 
 " Isn't the parade at eight ? " 
 
 " My dear Bernard, don't you know the national failing? 
 In Dublin eight o'clock means half past, and in the country 
 it means half-past nine." 
 
 " Not in my command," said Bernard. " In my company 
 in Dublin the men have to be in the hall five minutes before 
 the fall-in or we send them away." 
 
 " You'll find it hard to break the countrymen into 
 that." 
 
 " It was hard to break the Dublin men in at first. But 
 I gave them a stiff lecture on discipline once: told them 
 how we lost the battle of New Ross: it had a great effect. 
 Nobody's ever late now."
 
 420 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Well, nobody'll be in time tonight anyway, so you 
 needn't waste that J. S. Murias." 
 
 Shortly before nine Crowley got out his motor and they 
 drove over to the meeting-place, the field of a friendly farmer 
 some five miles away. About twenty men were already 
 assembled when they arrived, and half a dozen more strag- 
 gled in during the next quarter of an hour. Under the 
 cold light of the moon Bernard drilled them: a weird and 
 romantic experience. Upon how many such assemblies had 
 that disc looked down through the long history of Ireland's 
 passion? Fenians, Confederates, United Irishmen, all had 
 drilled and marched in turn under her gentle light. She 
 had watched the tide of hope and despair generation after 
 generation, and was still watching for what? The 
 ghosts of Ninety-Eight and Forty-Eight and Sixty-Seven 
 seemed to be abroad that night. 
 
 In the shadow of a hedge a policeman stood taking notes. 
 
 6 
 
 The silvery sun of early summer had deepened to burn- 
 ished gold: the air currents were hot and sluggish: the 
 foliage of the trees was darkened and bedraggled. It was 
 August. Bernard was in Cloughaneely again, alone this 
 time. He wanted to learn Irish properly and was living in 
 a cottage with a couple of old peasants who knew nothing 
 else. He was trying to re-Gaelicize himself thoroughly in 
 every way: to shake off the last remnants of Britishism that 
 still tinged his ways of thought and drifted in his Huguenot 
 blood. He wanted to catch some of that old Irish spirit 
 which he had by some intuition dimly perceived among the 
 people of Leinster and which was to be the foundation of 
 the polity which lay half-formed in his brain. He set out 
 to study the people. He had long conversations (dull in 
 matter, most of them, and full of linguistic difficulties; for 
 the Irish of Donegal is a harsher, flatter language than one 
 learns in the Gaelic League in Dublin) with his Fear Tiff he 
 and Beann-a-tighe. He would stand and chat with people
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 421 
 
 on the roadside; he talked with the shop-keepers and with 
 the kelp-burners on the beach. He admired the quiet dig- 
 nity of all these people : they had neither the subservience of 
 the English rustic nor the effusive familiarity of the Dublin 
 demos. Their manners had the grace of simple charity 
 untainted by pretentiousness or servility. They were the 
 children of the dispossessed Gael, and they seemed to know 
 it. 
 
 Yet there was a certain worldliness in some of them that 
 disappointed Bernard. Frequently he would meet some one 
 who would express surprise that one like him should come 
 there to learn a language for which they could see no use, 
 and when, in his halting Irish, he would try to explain his 
 motives they would only laugh at him. He found little 
 sympathy for the purity and ardour of his national ideas 
 either: he saw none of the fiery political enthusiasm of 
 Dublin: Volunteering was dead in the county. There 
 was an apathetic patience about the people that galled him 
 and roused him to indignation that could find no expression 
 in his broken Irish. As for the war their attitude of detach- 
 ment from it was sublime. Even in Dublin that conflict 
 was beginning to take a back place in people's thoughts: 
 in the country generally it was a thing of small importance: 
 here in the Gaedhealteacht it was treated with complete in- 
 difference. 
 
 " Ireland is a neutral country if ever there was one," 
 Bernard reflected. " And our politicians are telling the 
 world we're heart and soul with the Allies. ... I wish 
 old Willoughby was here." 
 
 Willoughby was then at the front, in the trenches before 
 Ypres, whence he frequently wrote to Bernard. He had 
 ceased to mention Ireland in these letters. With the best 
 will in the world he was unable to see Bernard's point of 
 view, and, knowing Bernard as he did and being satisfied 
 that he was pursuing the course he considered right, he had 
 decided to drop the subject. He insisted, however, on the 
 righteousness of Britain's case in the war, and Bernard, not
 
 422 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 caring for the ungrateful task of decrying the cause for which 
 his friend was risking his life, received these pleadings in 
 silence. . . . 
 
 During his second fortnight at Cloughaneely Mabel ar- 
 rived on the scene. In the office in which she worked she 
 had made friends with another girl, an enthusiastic Gael, 
 who had succeeded in imparting some of her spirit to 
 Mabel and inducing her to agree that they should spend 
 their annual holiday together in the Gaedhealteacht : a step 
 to which certain conspiring with Bernard lent added attrac- 
 tions. Her friend was none too pleased to learn at the last 
 minute that Mabel's fiance was at Cloughaneely, foreseeing 
 many afternoons when she would be abandoned to her own 
 company, but Mabel paid no attention to her ill-humour. 
 
 " You can go and learn your old Irish," she said in reply 
 to certain forebodings expressed by the disappointed one. 
 " I'm out for a holiday." 
 
 She put an end to Bernard's studies, linguistic and psy- 
 chological, immediately on her arrival, but he had grown 
 to be so lonely without her that he did not mind. Mabel 
 abandoned her friend altogether to her own devices and 
 spent nearly the whole of each day with Bernard. 
 
 " What would mother say if she knew ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " We're engaged, aren't we? " said Bernard. 
 
 " Yes, but she's so proper. She's always telling me not 
 to see too much of you. I think she thinks we might get 
 tired of each other." 
 
 "As if we could!" 
 
 " As if we could! " 
 
 Kisses. 
 
 " I've been having a dreadful time since you left," went 
 on Mabel. " Jack's always bringing up officer friends from 
 the Curragh, and I have to entertain them. . . . Such 
 frightful bores as they are! " 
 
 " Why do you have to entertain them ? Couldn't Molly 
 or Susan do it? " 
 
 " Mother insists that 7 must. She says a doctor's wife
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 423 
 
 must get used to entertaining people. . . . Have you any 
 more patients yet ? " 
 
 "A few." 
 
 " Why isn't there a plague of some sort? " 
 
 " Modern sanitation's too good, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Well, I don't see how we're going to get married with- 
 out it." 
 
 " Life is long, my dear." 
 
 " But youth isn't. I'll be passee in another ten years." 
 
 " Not for me, darling." 
 
 " So you think now. But wait " 
 
 " Don't you trust me, dear? " 
 
 " Men are all the same." 
 
 " Hm. What do you know about men, miss?" 
 
 " I've learnt a lot these last few weeks." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Those Curragh officers." 
 
 "Damn them!" 
 
 " Are you jealous? " 
 
 "Have I need to be?" 
 
 " Ah ! That's the question." 
 
 "Mabel! Havel?" 
 
 " No, dear. Don't be silly. I hate them . . ." 
 
 " What'll Miss Mulligan be doing without you all this 
 time? " 
 
 " Oh, bother Miss Mulligan. . . . Are you comfortable 
 in that cottage, dear?" 
 
 " Tolerably. But it's rat-haunted. I don't mind con- 
 fessing I'm afraid of rats. . . . Beastly things." 
 
 " I don't mind rats a bit, but I'm terrified of mice." 
 
 " That's silly. They're so tiny." 
 
 " Exactly. That's why." 
 
 " Rats are repulsive things, and when I was a boy I read 
 a story of a man who was eaten alive by them, so I've had a 
 horror of them ever since. ... I can tell you it gives me 
 the creeps to hear them scampering about the floor at night.'* 
 
 " Silly old boy! ... What a lovely sunset! . . ."
 
 424 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Miss Mulligan made great progress in Irish that fort- 
 night for she scarcely saw anything of Mabel. The lovers 
 enjoyed each other's society undiluted day after day. They 
 cycled together to the foot of Errigal, to Dunlewy Lake, 
 to Magheroarty: they climbed Muckish: they sailed to Inish- 
 bofin. This was perhaps the happiest part of their court- 
 ship: the period of questioning was over and they had come 
 to the period of acceptance. The things in which they were 
 in accord seemed infinitely more important than the things 
 in which they were incompatible, and the sweetness of kisses 
 compensated for the bitterness of misunderstanding. They 
 had a kind of romantic tolerance for each other which is an 
 infinitely better basis for marriage than romantic illusion, 
 but unfortunately in their case, while it was Mabel's defi- 
 ciencies that Bernard tolerated, her tolerance was for his 
 virtues. Still for the present they were very happy, for 
 no coming events cast their shadows over the bogland of 
 Tirconnell. 
 
 " Sandy must be in action by this time," said Bernard 
 one evening as they wandered by the seashore. (Sandy had 
 sailed with the Tenth Division for the Dardanelles some 
 weeks before.) " I wonder how these fellows manage to 
 summon up any feeling against the poor old Turk. The 
 only time he ever came in contact with Ireland was to send 
 us foodships in the famine, God bless him." 
 
 There was a green and gold sunset behind the black 
 sprawling bulk of the Bloody Foreland. Inland was a wild 
 waste of bog and heather sparsely scattered with cottages. 
 Billows from the Arctic thudded on the shore. Little 
 heaps of burning seaweed on the sand sent up fumes of vio- 
 let smoke. At one of the heaps three cottagers were hold- 
 ing an animated conversation. Bernard stopped to listen 
 to the music of the Irish tongue . . . 
 
 " This is the real Ireland," he said at last to Mabel. 
 
 " It's a dull place," said Mabel; then seeing a shadow 
 pass over his face she added: " But not when you're here, 
 darling."
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 425 
 
 7 
 
 Insatiably the world went on slaughtering its sons: reck- 
 less sterilizing butchery. An empty earth was the prospect 
 anticipated by those who dared to think. 
 
 Bernard still used to receive the Ashbury Chronicle, which 
 showed an ever-lengthening Roll of Honour. Of his own 
 contemporaries, Sedgwick, his one-time football captain, had 
 been killed at Ypres ; Reppington and Lashworthy at Neuve 
 Chapelle; and his friend Murray, crying: " Ireland for 
 ever! " at the head of his company of Liverpool Irish, fell 
 riddled with machine-gun bullets on the slag-heaps of Loos. 
 
 When Bernard returned to town towards the end of Au- 
 gust Suvla Bay had been fought and won, and that strip 
 of sun-baked beach had cost the quenching of laughter in 
 thousands of Irish homes. Half the people he knew were in 
 mourning and he found his mother pale and anxious, every 
 day expecting one of those fatal telegrams . . . 
 
 It was Sir Eugene who received it when it did come, and 
 he went and told her the news. 
 
 "Wounded! " she cried, and gave a great sigh of relief. 
 "Thank God," she said fervently; for to be wounded in 
 the Great War was the best chance of life. 
 
 8 
 
 Stephen and Hektor sat one evening in the smoking-room 
 of the Hotel Neptune. 
 
 " I'd like to know your opinion of Austin Mallow," said 
 Hektor. " Is he a knave or a fool? " 
 
 " There's a little of both in every man," replied Stephen. 
 "What particular knavery or folly do you suspect in 
 Mallow?" 
 
 " Well, I was over at his place the other day and he be- 
 gan to talk in an offhand way about rebellions and things. 
 He asked me what I thought of the chances of a rebellion 
 nowadays. ' Nil,' said I. He asked me would I be against 
 a rebellion. ' Sure thing,' said I. ' A rebellion without 
 some chances of success would be a mug's game.' ' It all
 
 426 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 depends on what you mean by success or failure,' says he. 
 ' Was Robert Emmet a failure? ' ' A fiasco,' said I. ' Then 
 you think his military failure was enough to condemn his 
 action?' says he. 'No,' says I. 'But before you under- 
 take a rebellion you must have good grounds to hope for 
 military success. Perhaps he had them,' says I, ' and perhaps 
 he hadn't. I don't know.' ' Then,' says he, ' you don't 
 think a moral success any compensation for a military fail- 
 ure?' 'I'm a soldier, not a philosopher,' says I. 'And 
 you think there's no chance for a rising now ? ' says he. 
 ' Not a scrap,' says I. ' Don't you think,' says he, ' that if 
 we fired the spark in Dublin the whole country would blaze 
 up like a power-magazine.' ' Well,' says I, ' if you will 
 talk in metaphors, the country isn't a powder-magazine. 
 It's a wet bog. Besides, if the country did rise, what would 
 be the use? There aren't ten thousand rifles in the place. 
 An insurrection without foreign help would be squelched in 
 a week.' ' I doubt it,' says he. Now is that man as big a 
 fool as I think him? You're on the Executive and see 
 more of him than I do. What do you think? " 
 
 " I must have a talk with him myself," said Stephen. 
 
 A few days later he got into conversation with Austin 
 at the end of a meeting of the Executive and, after accom- 
 panying him part of the way home, was invited to come 
 the whole way and have a cup of tea. This was served 
 not in the sitting-room but in Austin's own sanctum, a small 
 room at the top of the house, the principal article of whose 
 furniture was a roll-top desk littered with sheets of paper 
 on which were scribbled the beginnings and rough-drafts 
 of poems, and with the manuscripts of contributors to 
 Manannan. Amateurish water-colours and crayon-sketches 
 evidently Austin's own covered the walls, and there 
 were some weird symbolic designs in oils on the panels of 
 the door. Austin lit the fire which was set in the grate, 
 changed his coat for the Japanese gown he had worn on 
 Stephen's former visit, and poured out the tea, which Theo-
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 427 
 
 dosia brought in, with a yellowish bony hand that trembled 
 with the effort of lifting the pot. 
 
 " How's the war going these days? " he said. " I seldom 
 read the newspapers." 
 
 " Much the same. I think it's fairly evident now that 
 the Germans aren't going to win a military victory." 
 
 " Do you really think so? " 
 
 " I'm certain of it. The best we can hope for now is a 
 draw." 
 
 " That'll be as bad for us as a British victory." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. It might even prove better than 
 a German victory: I distrust all great Powers. It looks 
 as if the big nations will go on fighting to exhaustion point, 
 and then comes our chance to wring good terms out of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " But we don't want terms. It's independence now or 
 never. I've talked to several of the Executive about it, and 
 they've mostly agreed that now is the time to strike." 
 
 " But why? " 
 
 " Isn't England fighting the strongest enemy she's ever 
 had or ever likely to have? You don't get European wars 
 more than once in a century. If physical force is ever to 
 justify itself it must be now when the enemy is at his weak- 
 est." 
 
 " But he isn't at his weakest. So far from weakening 
 England the war strengthens her. Her armies are five 
 times as large as they were in peace time and she wouldn't 
 miss the number that would be required to flatten us in a 
 month. What forces have we? Twenty thousand men 
 at the most, and less than two- thirds of them armed ; and 
 we haven't ammunition to last three days' hard fighting. 
 My dear Mallow, we haven't the ghost of a chance." 
 
 " I don't believe our chance is as poor as you think, but 
 in any case I hold that the fight itself is the thing. If we 
 fail, we fail, but at least it can be said that we tried. We've 
 been too long without bloodshed and in consequence the
 
 4 28 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 national spirit is decaying and giving way to Imperialism. 
 We must redeem the people by sacrifice." 
 
 " Don't you worry about the people. The present im- 
 perial tint is only skin deep, and it's wearing off already. 
 Conditions aren't nearly so desperate as to need desperate 
 remedies. If the people were really beginning to think 
 imperially, to regard themselves as British, to regard the 
 Union Jack as their flag, to talk of the British fleet and army 
 as theirs, then perhaps a blood-sacrifice might be required 
 to redeem them. But they aren't doing anything of the 
 kind. They're getting less pro-British every day. The 
 young men are coming into the Volunteers. The Volun- 
 teers are rapidly becoming a formidable weapon: they're 
 steadily arming and drilling and learning to shoot: they're 
 a fine disciplined force of the best material you could get 
 anywhere. If we only keep on as we're going, when the 
 war ends we'll be able to put up a stiff demand to England, 
 well-backed with bayonets and with a united people behind 
 us. To go into rebellion simply means the smash up of our 
 movement and a fresh disarmament of the country, and giv- 
 ing the English a closer grip on us than ever. That might 
 possibly produce a nation of ardent patriots, but I think our 
 armed handful more useful. . . . Besides, the country 
 doesn't want a rebellion, and a minority must assume in- 
 fallibility before it can presume to commit the remainder. 
 
 Austin Mallow was silent a moment. 
 
 " Yes," he said at length, " I quite see the force of your 
 arguments. I admit that they're convincing, and I can find 
 no answer to them. But still, I feel that I'm right." 
 
 "Great Scott!" cried Stephen. "Do you mean to say 
 that you'd plunge us into rebellion in face of arguments you 
 admit to be convincing, just because of some vague feeling 
 that it might be a good thing? " 
 
 " How could I plunge you into anything against your 
 will? " said Austin. " I'm merely expressing my own feel- 
 ing." 
 
 " Were you ? " thought Stephen, and drank some tea. He
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY, 429 
 
 watched Mallow while he did so and noticed that his yellow- 
 ish face was working with some strange excitement. His 
 last words were evidently an attempt to lull the suspicions 
 which he felt he had roused in Stephen, but his self-control 
 was insufficient to make them convincing. Stephen could 
 see that Austin was literally bursting with revelations and 
 in a state to blurt out anything. He accordingly put on an 
 air of obtuseness and said : 
 
 " However we may speculate in theory, the whole notion 
 of a rebellion in these unromantic days is rather laughable, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Austin, looking at Stephen, saw only a commonplace scep- 
 tic lounging in an armchair, and felt that he might safely 
 give vent to the revelations which were tearing him. 
 Stephen, looking up under lowered lids, saw Austin rise, 
 contorted like the Delphian priestess. 
 
 " Fool! " cried Austin. "You think your cool reasoning 
 can dispose of anything. But there are things above reason. 
 I've seen you laugh over my poetry: I know you laugh at 
 me and at all poets. But we poets are often prophets: I'm 
 a prophet." 
 
 " Yes," replied Stephen. " I dare say. It must be jolly 
 useful. What time is it? " 
 
 He had learnt as much as he wanted, and he took an early 
 leave. 
 
 " Mallow," he said to Hektor afterwards, " is such a fool 
 that his folly is quite as mischievous as conscious double- 
 dealing. He needs watching. What can you do with a 
 man who is convinced that he's wrong and yet feels that 
 he's right?" 
 
 9 
 
 " Things are bucking up here under your regime," said 
 Crowley. " Twenty new recruits this week, and we got 
 sixty odd during September." 
 
 " That's all very well," said Bernard, " but I can't un- 
 derstand why we don't do even better." 
 
 " National purity of the Gael, my boy. He's afraid tq
 
 430 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 look on Freedom in naked beauty, and likes her to be de- 
 cently clothed." 
 
 There was a heavy rat-tat at the hall-door at this mo- 
 ment, and presently the house-keeper came in and in an agi- 
 tated voice announced that a policeman wanted to speak to 
 Mr. Lascelles. 
 
 " Unsolicited testimonial to your organizing abilities, 
 Bernard," said Crowley. " Slip out by the window there 
 and buzz off in the car. I'll blarney them for a bit." 
 
 " I don't believe they want to arrest me," said Bernard, 
 " or they'd have come right in without ceremony. " How 
 many are there, did you say ? " 
 
 " Only one, sir," said the housekeeper. " He's got a letter 
 in his hand, I think he wants to give you." 
 
 " Well, show the blighter in," said Crowley, cocking a 
 revolver which he took from a drawer and placed in his 
 pocket in case of necessity. 
 
 The woman withdrew and ushered in a bashfully blushing, 
 young constable, who, avoiding Crowley 's scornful glance,, 
 handed a long official envelope to Bernard, saying: 
 
 " Me ordhers is to deliver this into your hands." 
 
 " Thank you," said Bernard. " I'm much obliged." 
 
 The constable shuffled shyly with his feet for a moment 
 and then awkwardly stalked out. 
 
 " Rather an unimposing instrument of tyranny," said 
 Crowley. " What have we here? " 
 
 Bernard opened the envelope and they read the enclosed 
 document, which said that whereas Bernard Lascelles, physi- 
 cian, had in sundry ways promoted disaffection among his 
 Majesty's subjects and been guilty of acts prejudicial to 
 recruitment for his Majesty's forces in and about the town- 
 land of Ballylangan, the competent military authorities, un- 
 der the powers conferred on them by the Defence of the 
 Realm Act, hereby ordered the said Bernard Lascelles, physi- 
 cian, to quite the following area, namely Ireland, within 
 ten days of the receipt of the order, failure to obey which 
 would involve severe penally.
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 431 
 
 " New motto for the Party," said Bernard. " ' Ireland 
 an area. . . . An Area Once Again' What?" 
 
 " This looks bad for you, old man," said Crowley. 
 "What'll you do?" 
 
 " Consult headquarters when I go back to town. We've 
 half a dozen other organizers on the road, and they'll prob- 
 ably all be in the same boat. ... I wonder which is the 
 more unpleasant life, dodging arrest or going to jail." 
 
 *' Not much to choose between them, I fancy." 
 
 " I'm damned if I leave my country, anyway, for any 
 Hasted English general," said Bernard . . . 
 
 When he arrived at Headquarters next day he found two 
 'Other organizers who had received similar orders awaiting 
 the decision of the Executive, which was in session upstairs, 
 as to their course of action. Presently Umpleby, who had 
 ibeen organizing in the South, came in. 
 
 " What? You too? " cried Bernard. 
 
 Umpleby ruefully produced the familiar envelope. 
 
 " I'll write to every paper in the country to denounce this 
 tyranny," he said. 
 
 " Will you ! " said Bernard. " Not if the Executive 
 knows it. You'll obey order, my son, and that won't be one 
 of them." 
 
 " But the world should know of this. We must have 
 publicity, Lascelles. Never in the whole history of the 
 tyranny of big nations over small ones [hot even in Ninety- 
 Eight with all its horrors, Jan ancestor of mine, I believe, 
 was flogged and pitch-capped in those days (he survived it 
 too, poor devil) j] do we hear of such high-handed, bar- 
 barous, unrelenting . . ." 
 
 He was interrupted by the entry of Stephen, who came 
 to communicate the decision of the Executive. The order 
 was to be completely disregarded and organizing carried on 
 as usual. 
 
 " What about informing the press? " asked Umpleby. 
 
 " That will be done officially," replied Stephen. 
 
 Bernard went home in pensive mood. He felt no heroic
 
 432 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 exultation in suffering for the cause. He dreaded the pros- 
 pect of gaol. He suffered in advance in his imagination 
 the discomforts, the coarseness, the vile food, the loneliness 
 of prison life. . . . And what would Mabel say? . . . 
 
 " Bah! Let's forget it," he said, shaking himself. " I've 
 ten days' freedom anyhow. I'll make the most of them." 
 
 " Swathythe," he said when he reached home, " I suppose 
 you are aware that I'm an enemy to your country? " 
 " Yes, sir,' said Swathythe. 
 "You don't object, Swathythe? " 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " It isn't against your conscience to serve me? " 
 " No conscience, sir. Can't afford such luxuries." 
 " Sometimes, Swathythe, you talk like Lord Goring's valet 
 in An Ideal Husband." 
 
 " Yes, sir. I always strive to model myself upon him." 
 " Hm. Well, look here, Swathythe, I'm going to entrust 
 some of my affairs to you. I've had the honour of engaging 
 the attention of the military authorities of your Imperial 
 country, and the possibilities are that I shall find myself in 
 gaol very shortly." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir? " 
 " I say, I may find myself in gaol, Swathythe." 
 " I'm afraid that puts a different complexion on the case, 
 sir." 
 
 " I thought you'd no conscience, Swathythe? " 
 " Quite true, sir. But I've my prospects to consider. It 
 wouldn't do me no good, sir, to have served a gentleman as 
 'ad been in gaol, sir, if you'll excuse me, sir." 
 
 " Don't mention it, Swathythe. So I can't rely on you? " 
 " No, sir. And if you anticipate an early arrest, sir, I 
 should be much obliged if you would make it convenient 
 to dispense with my services as soon as possible." 
 
 " Certainly, Swathythe. You can take yourself to the 
 devil at once if you like. Only you'll get no wages in lieu 
 of notice."
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 433 
 
 " Perfectly satisfied, sir," said Swathythe, and withdrew 
 obsequiously. 
 
 " What will life be without Swathythe? " cried Bernard. 
 " Oh, Ireland, you expect too much of your sons." 
 
 Then Mabel had to be told. She fairly broke down and 
 cried when she heard the news, and Bernard, after some 
 clumsy and unavailing attempts to console her, stood by 
 helplessly waiting for the storm to subside. It was at her 
 own home that this happened, but fortunately Mrs. Harvey 
 was out. 
 
 " Everything seems against us," sobbed Mabel. " I don't 
 believe we'll ever be married. . . . Where will you go to? 
 How long will you have to stay away? " 
 
 " I'm not going anywhere." 
 
 " What are you going to do, then ? " 
 
 "I'm just going to sit tight." 
 
 "But ... ? " 
 
 Bernard explained. He might be forcibly deported: he 
 might be imprisoned: he would know for certain in a few 
 days. Mabel's grief burst forth afresh. 
 
 " Oh, Bernard, how could you? What will mother say? " 
 
 " Dash your mother," said Bernard irritably. " You 
 don't think I like going to prison, do you? " 
 
 She was repentant in a moment. 
 
 " Don't mind me, dear. I'm horrid and selfish, I know. 
 But oh, how I'll miss you, Bernard." 
 
 " Never mind. It can't be for ever, and we'll have a 
 good time these next ten days, won't we? " 
 
 She smiled through her tears . . . 
 
 They made the most of his ten days' freedom. October 
 was drawing to a close, damp and chilly, but they contrived 
 to have at least one good walk together, and they went to 
 many theatres and picture houses. 
 
 " How does your mother take it? " Bernard asked once. 
 
 " She hasn't said a word," replied Mabel. 
 
 Bernard whistled and said:
 
 434 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " That's ominous . . ." 
 
 He produced two pink pieces of cardboard from his pocket. 
 
 " What about a last dance together? " he said. " Thurs- 
 day may be my last day of freedom, or my last day in Ire- 
 land. Let's make it a pleasant one . . ." 
 
 " Oh, my dear," cried Mabel. " Why, why, why do 
 things like this happen ? ... Is it all a nightmare ? " . . . 
 
 Malone read the deportation order with grim satisfaction. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll admit now," he said, " that the time has 
 come to fight." 
 
 " I don't," said Bernard. 
 
 " Are you going to wait until all the leaders are jailed or 
 deported then? If you don't fight now you're disgraced." 
 
 " We're a military movement," said Bernard, " and we 
 take our orders from our officers without criticism. We're 
 the first disciplined movement Ireland ever had." 
 
 " I'd think more of a movement that wanted to fight," 
 said Malone. 
 
 10 
 
 On a raw morning at the beginning of November Bernard 
 and O'Dwyer saw Eugene off from Westland Row Station 
 bound for the Western Front. They stood on the platform 
 together, but they could say little. Bernard and O'Dwyer 
 hated the cause in which he was going to fight, but Eugene 
 was going in all good faith to fight, as he thought, for Ire- 
 land : so there was little to say. 
 
 They stamped their feet on the platform and clapped 
 their gloved hands and exclaimed frequently: 
 
 " By Jove, it's cold." 
 
 " Queer situation! " said O'Dwyer. " Two Sinn Feiners 
 seeing off a British officer. It would make an Englishman 
 .stare." 
 
 " I suppose Englishmen think Sinn Feiners have horns and 
 a tail," said Bernard. 
 
 " I hope we Irish soldiers will patch up that eternal 
 quarrel," said Eugene. "Bernard, I hope you aren't in for
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 435 
 
 too bad a time. I hate to think of you in a prison cell in 
 weather like this." 
 
 " Or any weather," laughed Bernard. " Win a V.C. and 
 they might reprieve me on the strength of it." 
 
 " Not much chance of that, I'm afraid. I'm not built o 
 very soldierly stuff." 
 
 Indeed it was hard to imagine those mild blue eyes lit 
 with the spirit of battle, or those soft and gentle hands deal- 
 ing out death. War and Eugene seemed things incompatible. 
 
 " What a decent, kindly fellow Eugene is," thought Ber- 
 nard, and regretted the smallness of their intercourse to- 
 gether. "Has my neglect hurt him?" he wondered. 
 " How unkindly I've sometimes spoken to him," he reflected 
 bitterly. " I've never concealed my thinking him a fool: 
 and he's no fool." He made great resolves for the future: 
 he and Eugene were to be friends, and more than friends. 
 
 Eugene got into the railway carriage and stood leaning 
 out of the window. The train began to move slowly. 
 
 " Good-bye, old man. Good luck ! " said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Good luck," said Eugene, smiling in that grave way of 
 his. 
 
 Bernard could say nothing on account of a choking lump 
 in his throat. He stood gazing after Eugene's face, still 
 lit with its kindly smile, until something blurred his vision. 
 
 II 
 
 There was no joy in ragtime nor solace in waltzing for- 
 Bernard and Mabel when the tenth night came. Their 
 souls were tremulous with the imminence of parting and 
 they wanted to be left alone together. Early in the evening 
 they left the ball-room and retired to that nook where nearly 
 a year ago they had told their love. They could say little, 
 but sat hand in hand, whispering to one another now and 
 again some tender phrase. 
 
 "You'll think of me in prison sometimes, dear?" 
 "Sometimes, did you say? My darling, I'll think of 
 nothing else . . . And you ? "
 
 436 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I couldn't think of you more than I do already. All 
 day at my work you're never out of my thoughts. It's a 
 wonder I don't type your name into the letters." 
 
 "My dearest!" 
 
 " And can I write to you ? " 
 
 " Not for a month . . . What a long month that will 
 be." 
 
 " How short these ten days have been." 
 
 " That month will seem like a thousand such days." 
 
 " Perhaps they won't put you in prison. Mightn't they 
 deport you ? " 
 
 " They might." 
 
 " Well, if they do, I'll come over the sea and marry you." 
 
 " Will you, really? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He kissed her then, but he did not tell her that he felt 
 sure that prison would be his fate. 
 
 " Time seems long when you look forward," he said, " but 
 time past seems very short. We've been engaged ten 
 months, and they've gone by like three." 
 
 " Like a week," said Mabel. 
 
 " There must be great days in store for Ireland. They 
 seem a long way ahead now, but when they come we'll look 
 back on these times and laugh. . . . What shall I be in the 
 Republic?" 
 
 " Foreign Secretary." 
 
 " Ah, you'd like to be holding brilliant receptions, 
 wouldn't you? But I'd rather be Minister of Education or 
 head of some department for town-planning." 
 
 " How dull." 
 
 " You'd be the chief guest at all the school prize-days in 
 the country, or you could give grand dinners to the town- 
 planning experts." 
 
 " I'd rather entertain the foreign ambassadors." 
 
 " You caa go to the foreign secretary's wife's receptions. 
 That'll be that little girl who was dancing with Felim 
 O'Dwyer tonight."
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 4.37 
 
 " What nonsense we're talking. . . . Bernard, Ireland 
 will never be free." 
 
 " She will. And in our lifetime, too, with luck." 
 
 " It sounds so impossible. How long have we been under 
 England?" 
 
 " Nearly seven hundred and fifty years." 
 
 " And you still hope? " 
 
 " England was four hundred years under the Romans, 
 and people still hoped, and the end of it came at last. The 
 Roman Empire is dead and gone, and England still lives." 
 
 Discussion had made them temporarily forget the coming 
 separation. Then suddenly Mabel remembered it again, and 
 threw herself weeping into his arms. 
 
 " Our last night together," she cried. " My dear, can 
 nothing be done? " 
 
 He held her and comforted her and talked more nonsense 
 to her and made her forget again. The evening sped by, 
 and they went downstairs and danced the last waltz together. 
 The tune was Come Back to Erin, a favourite finale, to 
 which they had danced scores of times in happier days. 
 Now the old melody seemed brimful of all the tears ever shed 
 in Ireland, yet with something of hope arising through it. 
 Bernard's mood was almost exultant, and Mabel, looking 
 up at him with tear-dimmed eyes, wondered at the expression 
 of his face . . . 
 
 As Bernard was getting into his overcoat in the dressing- 
 room, Molloy accosted him. 
 
 " Having a last dissipation ? " he said. " I hear that two 
 of your colleagues were arrested this evening. One of them 
 is a client of mine, too: Umpleby." 
 
 " We're making no defence, of course," said Bernard. 
 
 " You'll get it all the harder for that." 
 
 " Well, ' 'tis but in vain for soldiers to complain,' you 
 know. How are things with you ? " 
 
 Just then O'Dwyer rushed up to Bernard and said : 
 
 " You're done, old man. Three policemen and a taxi at 
 the door."
 
 438 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Damnation," said Bernard. " My G man's better than 
 I knew. I thought I'd given him the slip." 
 
 "Will you try and dodge them?" 
 
 " Not worth it. May as well take what's coming first as 
 last. ... I say, will you look after Mabel and see her 
 home?" 
 
 O'Dwyer having promised, they went out and found 
 Mabel waiting in the hall. She took the news quietly and 
 they went to the lounge together to wait for the crowd to 
 disappear. In spite of O'Dwyer's presence she held Ber- 
 nard's hand tight till the end. 
 
 Taxis hooted and whips cracked without and the laughing 
 throng melted away. Bernard, Mabel and O'Dwyer arose 
 and went out. Two taxis stood by the kerb. One was that 
 which Bernard had engaged to take Mabel home: three 
 policemen stood by the other. One of these came forward, 
 but stopped when Bernard said: 
 
 " It's all right. I know what you want. I'll be with 
 you in a minute." 
 
 He took both Mabel's hands in his and said : 
 
 " Well, au revoir, my darling." 
 
 Instantly, she threw her arms round his neck and they 
 kissed: a long kiss: feast of desire that knows no surfeit and 
 grows greater the more it feeds: joy ever soaring, yet reach- 
 ing no culmination; yearning and satisfaction, bliss and woe, 
 dominance and surrender, despair and triumph, all com- 
 pounded. Into that moment they strove to pack all the 
 rapture of the stolen months to come. Still unsatisfied, their 
 lips reluctantly sundered. Then, abruptly, Bernard caught 
 her to him again and kissed her fiercely and swiftly once. 
 He pushed her from him after that and entered the taxi 
 without looking back. 
 
 The policemen got in clumsily beside him.
 
 AN AMATEUR ARMY 439 
 
 12 
 
 " I see that young Bernard Lascelles has been sent to 
 prison," said Lady Mallaby Morchoe to Mrs. Gunby Rourke 
 in the costume department at Switzer's. 
 
 " Really," said Mrs. Gunby Rourke. " Well, I'm not 
 surprised. He's a bad lot altogether. Poor Sir Eugene!" 
 
 "What makes you think him a bad lot?" asked Lady 
 Mallaby Morchoe. 
 
 " I'm afraid I've been indiscreet. Isn't it enough that 
 he's been sent to prison ? " 
 
 " O, that's for something political. What else has he 
 done ? " 
 
 " Well, between ourselves, I saw him at Antwerp some 
 time ago in the company of a very shady-looking woman, 
 indeed." 
 
 " Probably some German agent." 
 
 " I shouldn't be surprised ..." 
 
 "Have you heard about Sir Eugene Lascelles' son?" 
 said Mrs. Bonegraft to Lady Mallaby Morchoe at the coun- 
 ter in Mitchell's. 
 
 " Yes. I'm sorry for his father and mother," said Lady 
 Mallaby Morchoe. 
 
 " I wonder what he's done," said Mrs. Bonegraft. 
 
 Lady Mallaby Morchoe assumed a mystifying expression. 
 
 " A dark business," she said. " German intrigues have 
 something to say to it, and I believe there's a woman at the 
 bottom of it." 
 
 " Dear me," said Mrs. Bonegraft. " What sort of 
 woman ? " 
 
 " A notorious adventuress, I hear, and probably in Ger- 
 man pay. He was seen all over Antwerp with her." 
 
 " Dear, dear," said Mrs. Bonegraft. " I always thought 
 him such a nice young man." 
 
 " O, I don't mind a young man sowing his wild oats, 
 but he shouldn't betray his country in doing it ..." 
 
 " We should take care that we don't give our young men 
 too much liberty," said Mrs. Bonegraft to Mrs. Metcalfe
 
 440 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 in the cooling-room of a Turkish bath. " There's young 
 Bernard Lascelles, as nice a young man as you could wish 
 for, gone sowing his wild oats and disgracing himself and 
 his family." 
 
 " What has he done? " asked Mrs. Metcalfe. 
 
 " O, don't ask me. It's too awful a story. German spies 
 and wicked woman and all sorts of terrible things . . . 
 There's some dreadful woman he associates with in Antwerp, 
 his mistress, I suppose ..." 
 
 So the story went from mouth to mouth, and, as in the 
 whispering game that changes " Julius Caesar was stabbed 
 by Brutus " to " The cat's in the kitchen," it reached Mrs. 
 Moffat in a very much altered form, and a very spicy one, 
 too; and Mrs. Moffat handed it on to Mrs. Harvey. 
 
 "My poor Mabel!" said Mrs. Harvey, and dabbed a 
 handkerchief to her eye. Her eyes were large and luminous 
 and her lachrymal glands were very readily stimulated. 
 " My poor Mabel! " she repeated. " My innocent child." 
 
 But she congratulated herself on the acquisition of a 
 weapon for which she had neither hoped nor sought.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 
 
 * * A S a military expert," said Stephen to Hektor O'Fla- 
 
 -** herty, " what did you think of the manoeuvres yes- 
 terday ? " 
 
 O'Flaherty smiled reminiscently and said : 
 
 "Kind of hide-and-seek stunt, wasn't it? When it was 
 all over the Green Field-Marshal came up to me and said: 
 ' Well, umpire, who's won ? ' ' Search me,' said I. ' If 
 I'd some vague notion what the two armies were aiming at, 
 and a sort of general idea where the blazes they'd all got to, 
 a decision might be hazarded. But as it is . . . ' He 
 didn't like that a bit, sir." 
 
 " He wouldn't." 
 
 " I wonder what the hell they thought they were up to? 
 There were about nine hundred men engaged and they 
 covered an area twice the size of the battlefield of Waterloo. 
 I guess either line could have been broken by a determined 
 billy-goat. ... I was sorry for the rank and file. They 
 seemed completely at sea. ... As for the generals, it made 
 me laugh to hear them issue their orders. You'd have 
 thought they were Hindenburgs directing army-groups." 
 
 " Yes. There's a kind of megalomania afflicting some of 
 our leaders: the intoxicating effect of power, I suppose. 
 Those two generals of yesterday would think nothing now 
 of tackling the British Army in the field." 
 
 " I wouldn't put it past them." 
 
 " I'm worried about some of our Executive, that's a fact. 
 The old unanimity has been going from us during the last 
 few months, and a party seems to be segregating itself from
 
 442 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the rest of us. This party is made up of the men whose 
 judgment and ability I've most reason to distrust: men 
 without a sense of proportion, and some of them mentally 
 unbalanced. . . . 
 
 " Now, if you take a movement like ours, a military, rev- 
 olutionary and party secret organization, and put at the 
 head of it three or four men who are fools enough to think 
 it a match for a regular army, a couple of plotters who are 
 above being frank with their colleagues, and an unhealthy 
 fanatic like Mallow who preaches a doctrine of blood-sacri- 
 fice where do you think you're heading to ? " 
 
 " It looks bad," said Hektor. " But I doubt if they've 
 the guts to do anything." 
 
 At this moment Felim O'Dwyer entered the smoking- 
 room wearing a look of unusual gravity. 
 
 " I've something important to tell you fellows," he said. 
 " Let's go somewhere where we won't be disturbed." 
 
 " My bedroom," suggested Stephen, and they adjourned 
 there at once. 
 
 " I'll begin right at the beginning," said O'Dwyer, pacing 
 up and down the room, while Stephen sat on the bed and 
 Hektor on a chair. " I met Austin Mallow casually at 
 Headquarters today, and he asked me to come out and 
 lunch with him. I was rather surprised at this, because 
 we're not particularly friendly, and then I came to the con- 
 clusion he was going to ask me about the author of that 
 poem of mine : A Vision in the Void of Night, you know ; 
 so I began to cast about for excuses for his non-appearance. 
 However, Mallow said very little all through the meal: it 
 was at the Dolphin : a good square four-course lunch, with 
 a bottle of Burgundy. Then at the end, over coffee and 
 cigars, he looked me straight in the face with those piercing 
 eyes of his and said : ' What do you think of the way things 
 are going? ' At once, I remembered the interview he'd had 
 with you, Stephen, so I looked as stupid as I could and said : 
 'What do you mean?' Then he began to talk quietly 
 about the present policy. Did I think the arrangement to
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 443 
 
 fight from our houses in case of an attempt to disarm us a 
 good one? Didn't I think we were taking the arrest of 
 Lascelles, Umpleby and the others rather tamely? Weren't 
 the men getting impatient of inaction? And so on. I said 
 very little, but gave sympathetic grunts from time to time. 
 Then he began to get more definite, and asked me whether 
 we were likely to get a better chance of striking than the 
 present. I became duller still, and he became so exasperated 
 that he gave away far more than he intended. I got nothing 
 consecutive out of him, but by piecing things together I de- 
 duce this in brief : that there's a party on the Executive who 
 mean to strike a blow as soon as possible; that they're in 
 alliance with the Liberty Hall crowd ; and that the date is 
 to be about Christmas." 
 
 " By gad, Stephen, you had sound dope," said Hektor. 
 
 " Wait though," said O'Dwyer. " When I'd got as 
 much as I wanted out of him, I told him I didn't approve 
 of an insurrection, and that I was sure the majority of the 
 Volunteers were the same. ' You're wrong there,' says he, 
 ' for I'm in a position to know. I must insist, however, that 
 you regard all I've said to you as strictly confidential,' which 
 was rather like tightening the strings after you'd let the cat 
 out of the bag. So I've come straight over here, and that's 
 that." 
 
 He took a chair and lit a cigarette. 
 
 " This is serious," said Hektor. " Gad, they must be 
 bigger fools than I thought them. An insurrection in mid- 
 winter! Why, the weather would be enough to quell it. 
 The English needn't fire a shot." 
 
 " This has got to be stopped," said Stephen. " I'll see the 
 sane members of the Executive after the meeting this eve- 
 ning and tell them your story, O'Dwyer." 
 
 " The Insurgent Chieftains will probably try and capture 
 the Executive at the elections next week," remarked Hektor. 
 
 " I should say, certainly," replied Stephen. " They 
 wouldn't stick at a coup, but they'd like the sanction of 
 majority rule if they could get it. ... We must put up a
 
 444 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ticket of sane men and canvass the country before the Con- 
 vention meets. The organizers will make good canvassers 
 and any I know are our way of thinking." 
 
 " I'll be on the country myself, next week," said O'Dwyer. 
 " I've taken on Lascelles' district." 
 
 "Good," said Stephen. "The question now is: who 
 shall we put on the ticket? There are let's see: yes 
 six safe men on the Executive already. We'll put them up 
 again and add three others. Plump for those and we get a 
 clear majority. . . . Would you stand, O'Flaherty? " 
 
 " I don't mind," said Hektor. 
 
 " And you, O'Dwyer? " 
 
 " I'd find it easier canvassing for a ticket I wasn't on," 
 said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Well, the whole crowd will have to be consulted any- 
 how." He looked at his watch, and said: "-Five o'clock. 
 I must be off to Headquarters." 
 
 Bernard made no attempt to take his imprisonment philo- 
 sophically. He chafed and fretted at his confinement, 
 found the solitude intolerable, and could not stomach the 
 food. Moreover, he was not, like those born to National- 
 ism, inured to English injustice: he could not take it as a 
 matter of course, and he lashed himself into fury by think- 
 ing of it. 
 
 When the cell door first slammed behind him he stood for 
 a moment surveying the narrow space in which for the next 
 four months he was to spend twenty-three hours out of every 
 twenty-four. The cold bare walls and floor, the small 
 barred window, the plank bed, made a harsh and chilly pros- 
 pect. Suddenly, his eye fell on a book lying on a shelf near 
 the door. He hastened to pick it up, found that it was a 
 Bible, and threw it down again. A fit of fierce impatience 
 seized him, and he began striding about the cell, striking his 
 heels on the floor, head bent and hands in pockets.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 445 
 
 By-and-by supper was brought to him, consisting of the 
 usual milkless, sugarless cocoa and sour bread, but he could 
 not bring himself to touch it and went hungry to bed. To 
 bed, but not to sleep, for the hardness of the plank, the pangs 
 of hunger, and the searching cold of the November night, 
 combined to keep him awake interminable hours. Blessed 
 oblivion came to him shortly before morning, to be rudely 
 broken into ere it had begun to refresh him, and he rose 
 and dressed himself, eyelids heavily drooping and teeth chat- 
 tering the while, in the bleak light of a winter's dawn. 
 They brought him skilly for breakfast and hunger drove him 
 to swallow the unappetizing mess, but he could not retain 
 it. Sick and miserable, he sat for two hours with his head 
 in his hands until he was cramped and numb with the cold. 
 Then he was taken out to the exercise-yard and along with a 
 score of other poor creatures set to chopping wood. Um- 
 pleby, from a far corner of the yard, grinned sympathy to 
 him, and was roughly spoken to by the warder in conse- 
 quence. Shivering with cold, Bernard chopped and chopped, 
 which warmed him somewhat though it sorely blistered his 
 hands. Then farewell to the sky and back to the cell again. 
 . . . The librarian, going his rounds, tossed a book on his 
 table. It was a Third School Reader and Bernard flung it 
 from him in disgust. 
 
 He fell to thinking of Mabel and realized that for a day 
 and a night she had scarcely entered his thoughts. 
 
 " Dear little girl, what made me forget her? Is she 
 thinking of me now? Is she working, I wonder? No. 
 She's gone out to her lunch: a bun and a glass of milk at 
 the D.B.C. What would she think if she knew I'd for- 
 gotten her? ... It was too cold to think. . . . Lord, I'm 
 hungry. What would I like now? Mutton cutlets and 
 potato chips, crisp and brown and piping hot. And a glass 
 of foaming beer. . . . Damn it, I am hungry." 
 
 Dinner came: soup and potatoes. He drank a little of 
 the greasy slop and dissected out the healthy part of a worm- 
 bored potato. It served but to whet his appetite. He de-
 
 446 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 voured the second potato ravenously, skin, worm-holes, 
 and all. 
 
 "Are there no better books in the prison than this?" 
 he asked a warder, holding up the School Reader. 
 
 The warder took pity on him ; said it was hard on ' the 
 likes of him ' to be in a place like that; and gave him Daniel 
 Deronda, which had been rejected by the burglar in the 
 neighbouring cell . . . 
 
 The days went by ever so slowly. Bernard had none of 
 Stephen's stoicism, and patience was not in him. More- 
 over, he was in love. So he fretted and fumed and could 
 not even settle down to the enjoyment of George Eliot's 
 masterpiece. He would pace his cell backwards and for- 
 wards for hours on end, or he would sit still lost in dreams 
 of food, or Mabel. Sometimes a bar of sunlight would 
 shine through his window on to the opposite wall and he 
 would stare at it gloomily, fancying that it mocked his 
 helplessness. 
 
 Mass brought him no consolation. Though he had that 
 deep-rooted, sub-conscious faith that no Catholic was ever 
 without and which recalls nearly even' wanderer in the end, 
 he had none of Stephen's intellectual convictions in religion. 
 His intellect, in fact, nearly always led him away from it, 
 and it was his emotions that invariably brought him back. 
 In his adolescence it was the need of supernatural help in 
 a crisis that had revived his lost faith, and the crisis over 
 he had relapsed later on to unbelief. Then the magnificent 
 music of one of Bach's Masses on a Christmas Day had re- 
 called him again, to fall away once more after an argument 
 over the question of eternal punishment. Thus, he had 
 wavered all his life. The sacrifice of the Mass, therefore, 
 had little inspiration for him when shorn of pomp and music, 
 and the effect of the little ceremony in the bare gloomy 
 prison chapel was, if anything, depressing. He found it 
 difficult even to pray . . . 
 
 Poor Bernard was fond of the good things of life and he 
 was accustomed to getting them, too. For all his hunger
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 447 
 
 he could not stomach skilly, and the prison bread gave him 
 indigestion. Day by day he grew thinner and weaker. 
 He came soon to think of nothing else but food and to dream 
 of it when he slept. The common empyreumatic dishes 
 conjured themselves up tantalizing before his vision. In his 
 imagination he saw the rich brown of grills, heard the siz- 
 zling of f ryingpans, smelt the savour of rashers. He would 
 dream of feasts, and always some of the guests would be 
 late, so that he would have to wait, hungrily eyeing the vic- 
 tuals. Then the late ones would arrive; he would draw out 
 his chair to sit down ; and in that instant he would awake. 
 
 Naturally of a nervous temperament, ill nourishment 
 made him nervy. A horror of loneliness and confinement 
 came upon him : a revival of the horror he had once endured 
 as a small boy when a nurse had shut him up in a linen- 
 press as a punishment for some naughtiness or other. A 
 hysterical fear that he might be forgotten and left in his 
 prison for ever took possession of him. He imagined him- 
 self caught here like a rat in a trap when the prison might 
 be on fire above. He felt forsaken by all the world . . . 
 
 After a seeming eternity he realized that only ten days had 
 passed a twelfth part of his sentence. 
 
 " All that I've been through already over again," he 
 groaned, " and again and again eleven times ! " 
 
 Weeks went by, and the time came for Mabel's first letter 
 to arrive. In the back of his Bible was the scoring made 
 by some poor wretch of the days of his captivity (two years 
 he had had) and Bernard used it at second hand to count 
 the days up to the arrival of his letter. It came at last, a 
 short and colourless note, and a day late at that. 
 
 Dear Bernard, 
 
 I hope you are quite well and not too lonely. It must be 
 dreadful to be locked up in a cell this cold weather . . . 
 
 So it began, and after a few items of not very interesting 
 news it wound up, without any expressions of affection, with 
 her initials.
 
 448 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard was disappointed and puzzled and then hit upon 
 an explanation. 
 
 " Silly little dear," he said, " she was shy of the governor 
 seeing what she'd write." 
 
 He wrote her a love letter, cramming all his feelings and 
 a thousand endearments by writing microscopically into the 
 official sheet of notepaper. At the end he wrote: " Don't be 
 shy of the governor. He's only a machine." 
 
 Christmas Eve came, and he remembered the last one so 
 happily spent with Mabel. In his imagination he saw the 
 glittering shop windows and the jostling crowds in Graf ton 
 Street, and heard the tinkling of tea-cups. 
 
 3 
 
 Felim O'Dwyer sat idly poking the fire in the bed-sitting- 
 room which he inhabited in a little house on the South 
 Circular Road. By daylight it was a horrible enough apart- 
 ment, with its dingy yellow wall-paper, its faded thread-bare 
 carpet; its blackened ceiling; with its enormous battered 
 double bed, its rickety wash-stand, and tawdry dust-soaked 
 mantel-hangings ; and with its grimy window looking out on 
 a dreary yard and the back of another house. But at night, 
 with the blind drawn and the lamp lit, it looked cosy enough, 
 and O'Dwyer had added to the furniture a couple of wicker 
 arm-chairs and a book case, and had covered the table with a 
 red baize cloth. His means being small, he was obliged to 
 live modestly in order to afford a consulting room in Mer- 
 rion Street. 
 
 He ceased toying with the poker and took a little note- 
 book from one of his pockets and a pencil from another. He 
 chewed at the latter for about a minute and then scribbled 
 the following lines: 
 
 It's very true, dear, that eyes of blue, dear, 
 And brown eyes too, dear, have charmed ray sight. 
 But your eyes of grey, dear, my heart have made, dear, 
 Very much afraid, dear, that it's killed outright.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 449 
 
 He paused here and muttered: 
 
 " Now if I go on with that I'll probably spoil it and make 
 it comic." 
 
 He read the verse over to himself with approval. 
 
 " It would fit on a post-card," he said. 
 
 He read it again. 
 
 " What an ass I am," he said. 
 
 Felim O'Dwyer was in love . . . 
 
 There was a knock at the hall-door and some one was 
 admitted. Then the handle of his own door was turned. 
 Swiftly, he pocketed his note-book as Hektor O'Flaherty 
 and Hugo McGurk entered. 
 
 " Hello, boys! Come right in." O'Dwyer poked up the 
 fire to a blaze and produced cigarettes. " What are you 
 doing in town, Hugo ? " 
 
 " Working for my final," said McGurk. 
 
 " Lazy devil ! I heard you'd got stuck again in Autumn." 
 
 " Arrah, what harm? Sure, I'm young yet," 
 
 " How are things in your part of the country, by the 
 way? " 
 
 " Looking up a bit. They've only got two recruits for 
 the Army in the last three months, and they corner-boys 
 that enlisted when they were drunk. There was a recruit- 
 ing meeting hissed only the other day. McGovern, the local 
 gombeen-man, was speaking: small nationalities, Catholic 
 Belgium, and all the rest of it: fierce raimeis. 'What 
 would the Germans do if they came to Ballylennon ? ' says 
 he. ' They'd take the land off ye,' says he. ' They'd batten 
 on your flesh and blood,' says he. Then a fellow in the 
 crowd calls out: ' Sure, ye wouldn't let 'em threspass on 
 \our presairves, McGovern.' You shduld have seen Mc- 
 Govern's face at that: it was a treat. He couldn't get 
 another word in for the racket." 
 
 " The country's coming to its senses at last," said Hektor. 
 
 "How are things going on the new Executive?" asked 
 O'Dwyer. 
 
 " That Executive," said Hektor, " gives one furiously to
 
 450 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 think, as the French say. The party with sound dope has 
 the majority but the other crowd don't seem to mind. I'm 
 sure there's things going on behind the scenes, and I don't 
 like it. No, sir. As you know, we faced them right at the 
 beginning with the question of fight or no fight. McNeill 
 put the thing to us fair and square in a statement that just 
 put the whole case against insurrection in a nutshell. I 
 watched the faces of the unsound dopers during the reading, 
 and what did I see there? Conviction? Not on your life. 
 Sheer downright obstinacy. There was a sneer on Mallow's 
 face that I could have booted him for, and Barret was posing 
 for a bust of Robert Emmet. When the statement was 
 over the dopers got up each in turn and heartily endorsed 
 every word of it. What more could be said? And yet it's 
 as plain as a pikestaff that their minds are made up, and I'm 
 as sure as death that they're working underground." 
 
 " I'll tell you a little tale," said McGurk, " that'll tack 
 on to that. The other day I dropped in at Rathgar Road 
 to have a crack with Brian Mallow. He didn't seem extra 
 pleased to see me, and he took me up to Austin's study at 
 the top of the house instead of the sitting-room. I was 
 surprised, of course, but I said nothing. Anyhow, we 
 smoked and talked for a while a couple of hours, maybe 
 when brother Austin sticks his head in at the door and tells 
 Brian he wants him for a few minutes. Brian goes out, 
 calling on me to wait a bit and he'd be back. Well, I 
 waited for maybe quarter of an hour, and then I remembered 
 I'd an appointment that I'd be late for if I didn't go at once. 
 I got up and went downstairs, and then I thought I'd look 
 into the sitting-room and tell Brian I was off, if he was there. 
 Well, I opened the door, and what do you think I saw? A 
 meeting of anarchists it looked like. There was me bould 
 Austin sitting at one end of the table looking as cute as a 
 leprechaun: you know the eyes of him: and P.H.P. and 
 Plunkett and all the rest of the dope crowd sitting in con- 
 clave. I tell you, Hektor, I got a look from the pote that 
 fairly froze me blood, so I just banged that door and buzzed
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 451 
 
 off. . . . Now, sirree, what do you think of that adven- 
 ture ? " 
 
 " Hm. It looks bad, sonny." 
 
 " Damn it," said O'Dwyer, " it's clear as daylight what 
 they're up to; only what have we to go on? What can we 
 do? If we faced them with it they'd only give renewed 
 assurances, I suppose." 
 
 " Exactly," said Hektor. " They're answered our sus- 
 picions twice that way already." 
 
 " Confound it," said O'Dwyer. " These fellows call 
 themselves democrats. What do they think elections are 
 for if they disregard their verdict? What would they say 
 if we were the minority and tried to stick them in the back? " 
 
 " They used to talk about the corruption of the U.I.L.," 
 said McGurk, " and the way the Hibs. rig elections, but 
 sure these fellows out-do them altogether. And whatever 
 you may say about the U.I.L., they never gambled with 
 men's lives." 
 
 " It's an absolute betrayal of the men," said Hektor. 
 " We've taught them discipline for their own undoing." 
 
 " But what can we do? " exclaimed O'Dwyer. 
 
 " We ought to recall the Convention," said Hektor, " and 
 put the case to them fair and square. I know what that 
 would mean. The delegates are a sensible crowd, and even 
 those who didn't vote for our ticket don't want any insur- 
 rection dope. The lunacy of the movement, I'm glad to 
 say, is confined to the Executive." 
 
 " Is that going to be done? " 
 
 " I'm afraid not. I put it up to our crowd, but they 
 didn't think it would work not yet, anyway. You see 
 we've nothing but guess-work and suspicion to go on and the 
 doper's assurances will be accepted without question." 
 
 " And meanwhile? " 
 
 " Meanwhile," said Hektor, " we must keep our eyes and 
 ears wider open than ever."
 
 452 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 4 
 
 A worried Chancellor of the British Exchequer, faced 
 with a war-bill of some five million pounds a day, cast his 
 eye round for economies which would help him to make 
 ends meet and laid covetous hands upon the grant for the 
 teaching of the Irish language in the schools of Ireland, 
 thereby securing the continuance of the war for some ten or 
 eleven minutes. The Party deputed to look after Ireland's 
 interests in the Imperial Parliament took the robbery with- 
 out a whine, whereupon the Volunteers took the matter up, 
 convened a public meeting of protest in Dublin, and stepped 
 out of the seclusion into which they had seemingly lapsed for 
 more than a year. The Volunteers themselves were a little 
 surprised at the size and tone of the audience which mus- 
 tered at their call. The Round Room of the Mansion 
 House was packed to the doors; the Parliamentarian speak- 
 ers were treated as men of no account, while the Volunteers 
 were heartily cheered; and references to the Bill on the 
 Statute Book, Small Nations, and the Sanctity of Treaties, 
 were. invariably greeted with sarcastic laughter. 
 
 " Sure, the bloody ould Empire's bust anyhow," shouted 
 an interrupter in the middle of one speech. 
 
 " Begob! " said McGurk to O'Dwyer, " we're out of the 
 wilderness at last." 
 
 But it was the Conscription question that really re- 
 established the Volunteers as a force in Irish politics. While 
 the Party hesitated as to a course of action the people of 
 Dublin were once more summoned to the Mansion House. 
 The numbers of the previous meeting were doubled: a sec- 
 ond room had to be requisitioned, and even that was in- 
 adequate. There was no superfluous reasoning or argu- 
 ment in the speeches: simply a reiteration of the plain state- 
 ment that Irishmen did not recognize the right of the British 
 Parliament to conscript them, and the straightforward un- 
 mistakable resolution carried by acclamation: " We will not 
 have Conscription." In their effort to serve two masters the 
 Party leaders at Westminster made a woeful spectacle of
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 453 
 
 themselves: they professed to regard the whole question as 
 one of expediency, not of principle, and protested that Ire- 
 land was ready to accept the measure if it were proved 
 necessary to the winning of the war which nobody, not 
 even themselves, believed. Their attempt to get the credit 
 for the defeat of the measure failed lamentably, for the Irish 
 people had once more come to realize that unyielding patriot- 
 ism is a more potent argument with England than fine spun 
 reasoning and to regard the Irish Volunteers as the saviours 
 of the nation. 
 
 " We've turned the corner now," said Stephen to Hektor. 
 " It's only a question of time before the whole people comes 
 over to us." 
 
 " If only our own crowd would keep their heads," mut- 
 tered Hektor. 
 
 The season of Spring must have an enlivening effect 
 upon the minds of men. The Spring of 1915 had seen 
 public opinion begin to veer round in favour of the Volun- 
 teers: by the Spring of 1916 a widespread feeling of respect 
 was gradually expanding into unqualified approval. They 
 were still a minority; still even a small minority; but they 
 were no longer an insignificant minority. And their in- 
 fluence was out of all proportion to their numbers, for they 
 were vigorous, earnest, honest, intelligent, and fearless, and, 
 to all appearance, unanimous. Neutrals openly professed 
 admiration for them, and many supporters of the Party 
 looked on them with favour. 
 
 They seized an early opportunity of testing the popular 
 sentiment. Fresh public meetings were held to protest 
 against the persecution of Bernard, Umpleby, and the other 
 organizers, and roars of approval greeted the announcement 
 that for every organizer arrested two more had been sent on 
 the road. 
 
 " So the more they arrest," said the speaker, " the more 
 they'll have to arrest. . . . Now who stands for Ireland? 
 Who tells England that her gaols have never stifled the soul 
 of Ireland and never will? "
 
 454 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 The popular imagination was caught, for, though the old 
 traditions of nationalism had lapsed, they had not died. 
 Scores of young men rushed to enrol themselves in the 
 Volunteers. 
 
 St. Patrick's Day gave an opportunity for an organized 
 display of strength. A review and march-past of the Dublin 
 Regiment were held in College Green at mid-day, all traffic 
 being forcibly suspended for the occasion. On the very 
 spot where the Volunteers who had won the independent 
 Parliament in 1782 had held their famous review the build- 
 ing that had housed that Parliament looked down upon their 
 descendants marshalled in the same cause. The spectacle 
 of this well-armed, disciplined, green-uniformed army was 
 one to appeal to the heart of the populace. Here was an 
 Irish army: an army pledged to fight for Ireland alone and 
 owning no allegiance but to Ireland ; an army that had 
 drilled and armed in face of discouragement and persecution ; 
 an army that had flung the gauntlet in the face of the heredi- 
 tary foe by announcing that any attempt to disarm it would 
 be resisted to the death. A gallant army and a gay army: 
 these men had seen through the lies that had deceived the 
 rest of the nation for so long; they had used the enemy's 
 catchwords as a gibe against them; they had turned Eng- 
 land's war aims into a joke; their witticisms were on every 
 lip; they took the enemy's persecution with a laugh and 
 went to gaol jesting. And deep down in every heart was a 
 feeling that since they were persecuted they must be in the 
 right. 
 
 " The man in the gap! " shouted a spectator as Eoin Mac- 
 Neill passed along the lines, and the epithet was enthusi- 
 astically applauded. 
 
 A war-office motor-car attempted to pass through the 
 cordon during the course of the review. McGurk, who 
 was in command of this particular section, stepped in front 
 of it. 
 
 " Go back," he said. " You're violating Irish neutrality." 
 
 A choleric Colonel in the back of the car angrily de-
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 455 
 
 manded a passage, saying he was engaged on work of na- 
 tional importance. 
 
 " Show me your passport signed by Eoin MacNeill," said 
 McGurk. 
 
 The Colonel ordered the chauffeur to proceed, but Mc- 
 Gurk levelled a rifle at him, whereupon the Colonel cursed 
 his impudence roundly, but deemed it prudent to retreat. 
 
 " Some demonstration of power," remarked Hektor, who 
 had witnessed the scene, to Stephen. 
 
 " If we can only keep our lunatics in control," said 
 Stephen, "we'll have all Ireland with us in six months." 
 
 5 
 
 Bernard's second month in gaol dragged itself slowly by. 
 Once more he counted the day till the arrival of Mabel's 
 letter. Once more it was a day late: two days: three. 
 Then came a note briefer and colder than the previous 
 one. 
 
 " So much for women's promises," said Bernard and wrote 
 to her in similar vein, though not so briefly. 
 
 "What on earth is she up to?" he asked himself. 
 " Wish I'd insisted on her taking the visits." The visiting 
 time being in the midst of her working hours it had been 
 arranged that his monthly letter should be from her and 
 his visit from his mother. 
 
 The latter came punctual to the hour and babbled news 
 to him. Sandy was home from the Dardanelles, poor boy, 
 crippled for life. He had been buried by a high explosive 
 shell and his legs had been so crushed that they had to be 
 amputated, one at the knee, the other at the hip. They 
 had not heard from Eugene for a week. Alice had become 
 a V.A.D. Sir Eugene had burnt every photograph of Ber- 
 nard that he could lay his hands on. She crammed an 
 astonishing amount of information into the allotted quarter 
 of an hour. 
 
 So his second month ended and a third stretched itself 
 before him.
 
 456 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard was by nature a propagandist. Any view that 
 he held strongly he always wished to put before every one 
 he met in an enthusiastic desire to convert them. In this 
 he differed from Stephen who thought only of conversion 
 in mass and would not waste time on individuals, and from 
 O'Dwyer, who hated his opponents too much to wish to con- 
 vert them. Alone in his cell now Bernard held imaginary 
 controversies with all his enemies in turn. He tackled the 
 Redmondites: 
 
 " According to your present theory, Sir Edward Carson 
 is a more patriotic Irishman than Eoin MacNeill; George 
 Gunby Rourke and Fred Heuston Harrington are true men, 
 and Stephen and I are traitors. . . . But you wouldn't dare 
 follow your idea to its logical conclusion or you'd have to 
 drop it at once." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " What could they answer without stultifying them- 
 selves ? . . . Well, why not practise humility and do stultify 
 yourselves? " 
 
 Again no answer. 
 
 He tackled the Unionists: 
 
 " You do a lot of spouting now about the honour and 
 glory of Ireland. You presume to call yourselves Irish 
 patriots, and yet you call me a traitor because I hold dif- 
 ferent views from yours as to what's good for Ireland. Go 
 on. Stick to your old attitude, the attitude of England's 
 garrison and you will at any rate be honest and consistent. 
 . . . Ireland's War, indeed! You'd goad her into it even 
 if it wasn't." 
 
 He tackled the " Intellectuals," as typified in Mrs. Heus- 
 ton Harrington : 
 
 " You claim to be intelligent and yet you believe that this 
 war is being fought for a principle. You claim to be broad- 
 minded and yet you never read our side of the controversy. 
 You call us narrowminded though we read far more of your 
 propaganda than our own. You claim to be a thinker, and 
 yet you find your level in the leading articles of the Irish
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 457 
 
 Times. . . . You call the Catholic Church the enemy of 
 freedom; you call her persecution of heretics an attack on 
 freedom of thought and her index an attack on freedom of 
 speech and writing. Yet you support the British Govern- 
 ment in its persecution of Irishmen, its censorship of their 
 papers and its prohibitions of their meetings? 
 
 !< ' Ah, that's different,' I hear you say. Fool! 
 
 " You think it tame and cowardly of me to take the word 
 of the Church for the truths of religion, yet you'd have me 
 take the word of English politicians for the truth of the 
 war. You scorn me for submitting to the laws of the 
 Church, yet you'd have me submit to conscription by the 
 English Parliament. . . . Freedom, madam! You don't 
 know the meaning of the word." 
 
 He tackled the Academic neutrals: 
 
 " Bloodless bookworms ! " he cried. " Shake off your dust 
 and live. Why leave doing to fools? You'd rather make 
 nothing than make a mistake. Your greatest fear is the fear 
 of looking ridiculous. Damn your dusty smugness! Better 
 make fools of yourselves by doing things than be fooled by 
 doing nothing. 
 
 "What would they answer to that, I wonder? Relight 
 their pipes and go on reading, I suppose." 
 
 The fever of argument left him and he became reflective. 
 
 "What fools men are! How readily they are deceived. 
 Here are the common men of the world slaughtering each 
 other at the bidding of the few they know to be their com- 
 mon enemy. Here are common men at the same bidding 
 locking up me who am their friend. A world of idiots! 
 Will it ever be sane? 
 
 " If I could only reach to the minds of the people then 
 the walls of my prison would be torn down in an hour. 
 Would they? Bah! I doubt if they'd listen to me. . . . 
 Education . . . 
 
 " I'm in a prison within a prison. Ireland is a prison, 
 and we poor captives stretch out our hands vainly to our 
 fellow-men. If they only knew, if we could only reach their
 
 458 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 minds. . . . But we can't . . . The people as yet know 
 neither how to talk nor how to listen . . . 
 
 " When is the universal Revolution coming? Will 
 France lead it? ... Or Russia? . . . Why not Ireland? 
 We are the only people who ever rose for an idea. It took 
 hunger to make even France rise. . . . But we're too small. 
 Who'd follow us? Snobbishness still rules the world. . . . 
 Men ! What dear stupid fools you are ! 
 
 " One thing is certain. The present system is smashing 
 itself. It cannot last for ever: it cannot last our time. . . . 
 Will it smash the world in the process? Or will the people 
 arise from the wreckage ? " 
 
 Chaotically questions and ideas fermented in his half- 
 starved brain. They wore him out, and yet he could not 
 sleep. 
 
 And ever and again he would return to wondering at 
 Mabel's reticence. It could not possibly be due to mere 
 shyness, he told himself. Could she have ceased to care? 
 He refused to contemplate the thought. Her tears at leav- 
 ing him, the warmth of her last kiss forbade it. But why? 
 Why? Why? He had so looked forward to those letters. 
 He had hoped for some of her little jokes, for endearments 
 that he could have read over and over again, so sweetening 
 many a weary hour. Was she destitute of imagination that 
 she could not think of this? Did it not occur to her that 
 her letters would be his only gleam of sunshine? And oh, 
 the coldness of those brief notes of hers, too disappointing 
 to bear a second reading. Why? Why? Why? 
 
 She had become a part of himself and separation was 
 gradually getting unbearable. He ached for the sight of her, 
 hungered to touch her; and in a fever of longing the third 
 month went by. His desire mounted higher and higher as 
 the day for the next letter approached. It brought nothing. 
 He waited grimly while three more days went by. The 
 fourth brought a post-card hoping that he was very well.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 459 
 
 6 
 
 By the end of March Ireland was pretty thoroughly 
 awake. Recruits were pouring into the Volunteers, whole 
 companies of Redmondite Volunteers were transferring their 
 allegiance, country corps that had been dormant since the 
 split were reviving, and the activity of 1913 recommenced. 
 Recruiting meetings for the British Army found it increas- 
 ingly harder to get a hearing, frequently they had to be 
 cancelled for lack of an audience, and the number of recruits 
 obtained was negligible. The Volunteers were now the 
 most vital force in Irish politics. Still small in numbers 
 their energy and ability were tremendous. They took the 
 lead whenever any Irish interest was threatened by West- 
 minster; they dominated the Gaelic League; student Volun- 
 teers permeated the life of University College, controlled the 
 societies, were the leaders of the domestic politics of the 
 College, and made of its magazine a Volunteer organ; in 
 those villages in the country where the Volunteers were 
 strong the police had ceased to be petty tyrants and were 
 treated with the contempt they deserved. Irish Unionists 
 took serious alarm at the complexion of things, and ques- 
 tions began to be asked in Parliament. The Parliamentary- 
 leaders made new protestations of loyality and proceeded 
 to apologize and explain matters. They attributed the 
 changed spirit in Ireland to the re-actionary policy of the 
 Ascendancy, to the introduction of Conscription, to the 
 Government's repeated rejection of their own advice, to the 
 repressive measures of the military, to German gold to 
 anything rather than to a revival of national spirit which 
 was disgusted with the Party's own slavishness surrender, 
 and lack of policy. 
 
 But, while externally the position of the Volunteers be- 
 came every day more secure, internally their affairs were 
 growing more and more unsatisfactory. 
 
 " I feel as if we're sitting on a volcano," said Stephen to 
 O'Dwyer. " The Pearse crowd have given us the most 
 definite assurance possible that they don't intend to rebel,
 
 460 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 but I simply don't believe them. Mallow asked me the 
 other day under what circumstances I'd go into rebellion. 
 I told him that without the help of fifty thousand foreign 
 soldiers and as many more rifles extra the thing would be 
 suicide and disastrous to the country. ' I quite agree with 
 you,' says he, but his eye couldn't deceive me. They're up 
 to a deep game I'm sure." 
 
 " Why not recall the Convention ? " 
 
 " I've put that to our crowd a hundred times but they 
 keep shirking the idea. They say we've no case to put be- 
 fore it and that if we had we'd only cause a split. Well, 
 I'd risk it, but they won't." 
 
 " A split would be better than a rebellion anyway." 
 
 " They're hoping against hope that there'll be no re- 
 bellion." 
 
 " They may give up hope," said O'Dwyer. " Unless we 
 take immediate action the rebellion will be upon us before 
 we know where we are." 
 
 " Hello ! Have you struck on a new plot ? ", 
 
 " No. But look at this." 
 
 He took from his pocket a folded periodical and handed 
 it to Stephen. It was a copy of that month's Manannan. 
 
 " Page four," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 "Where have I seen this before?" mused Stephen, and 
 read out: 
 
 " IGNIS IMMORTALIS. 
 Seven spears in the day of light 
 
 Shall avenge, with might our blood and tears. 
 Seven seers shall in death indict 
 The blast and blight of the bitter years. 
 
 It sounds familiar, somehow." 
 
 " Mallow read it to us two years ago when we called at 
 his house with Lascelles." 
 
 " I remember." 
 
 " That's a swan-song for you." 
 
 "What does it all mean?" 
 
 " I'll explain it to you. I know the tricks of the trade.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 461 
 
 The ' seven spears ' and the ' seven seers ' are the seven 
 elopers. The ' day of light ' means the day of the insurrec- 
 tion. The rest is obvious. And I think the fact that he 
 composed the thing two years ago and only publishes it 
 now means that the bust up is close at hand." 
 
 " Hm. Somewhat fantastic." 
 
 " Life is more fantastic than poetry. I'll stake my neck 
 on this. Read the second verse." 
 
 Stephen resumed: 
 
 " Seven victims upon the altar 
 
 Shall sing a psalter of faith renewed. 
 
 The flame rekindled no more shall falter 
 
 Nor word-wise palter the multitude. 
 
 Double Dutch to me," he said. 
 
 " It means that they don't hope for success, but mean the 
 whole thing as a blood-sacrifice to restore the national 
 spirit." 
 
 "What's wrong with the national spirit? It's coming 
 along fine as far as I can see." 
 
 " Poetical impatience, my boy. They like the thing done 
 dramatically." 
 
 " Well, Mallow and Co. are welcome to make a blood- 
 sacrifice of themselves if they like, but I object to their 
 playing the game on me. I'll be no bleeding corpse in a 
 slaughtered heap for Pearse to die on." 
 
 " Nor I. And it's a rank betrayal of the men, too. They 
 trusted us to lead them to some sort of success, not to make 
 sanguinary object-lessons of them." 
 
 " This'll give the English just the chance they want, to 
 grind us back into the mud we're barely rising from. They 
 could crush a rebellion in a month, dragon the whole coun- 
 try, and apply conscription good and hard." 
 
 " Good God," said O'Dwyer. " A hundred more years 
 of slavery. The blind idiots! " 
 
 " After this," said Stephen, " you'll probably begin to 
 share my distrust of poets and poetry." 
 
 "I've more than poetry to go on," replied O'Dwyer,
 
 462 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " I was down at Ballylangan yesterday and Crowley showed 
 me a document he'd just received from Headquarters 
 contingent orders in the event of military action being de- 
 cided on." 
 
 " No such orders have been issued from Headquar- 
 ters." 
 
 " I thought as much. These were signed, 'Austin Mal- 
 low, By Order of the Executive.' " 
 
 " Positive evidence at last. Get me a copy of that and 
 I'll face them with it on Wednesday." 
 
 " The impudence of them," said O'Dwyer. " Who 
 knows but we'll find our own names some day fixed to an 
 order for insurrection? ... I must write to Crowley." 
 
 7 
 
 When Bernard emerged from gaol he was in such a state 
 of pent up passion and curiosity that he would have rushed 
 instantly to Mabel's house had not his mother met him at 
 the gate in a taxi and taken him home with her. 
 
 " WTiat'll the governor say? " he asked. 
 
 " He won't be back from his rounds till three, and he'll 
 be stuck in his consulting room for a couple of hours after. 
 . . .My darling boy, how thin you've got." 
 
 Merrion Square was reached in a few minutes. In the 
 breakfast room Bernard found Sandy lying on a sofa near 
 the window, a ghost of his former self. 
 
 " Some crock, amn't I," he said with a smile. " How- 
 ever, I'm told they make wooden ones just as good now- 
 adays." 
 
 " We live in a scientific age," said Bernard. " Whether 
 they smash us up or put us together again it's all done 
 scientifically. Progress is a wonderful thing." 
 
 " Cynical as ever," chuckled Sandy. 
 
 By some instinct Lady Lascelles had hit upon the exact 
 meal to satisfy Bernard at the moment. A huge dish of 
 bacon and eggs and sausages, steaming hot, was brought in,
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 463 
 
 together with coffee, toast, jam, and muffins, and in a couple 
 of seconds he was stuffing himself ravenously. 
 
 " By gad, you can put a meal away," said Sandy, ad- 
 miringly. " Did they starve you, old chap? " 
 
 " Damn nearly," said Bernard, his mouth full. " This 
 kind of meal has haunted my dreams for four months. . . . 
 How goes the war for truth and freedom and Christianity 
 and the rest of it? " 
 
 " Ugh! " ejaculated Sandy. " Don't talk about it." 
 
 " Why ? What's happened ? " 
 
 " These bloody English," said Sandy with tremendous 
 emphasis. " By gad, I'm sick of them. So are all the 
 Irish soldiers, and as for the Colonials, I believe they hate 
 them more than the enemy." 
 
 " Why? What have they done? " 
 
 " They're yellow, my dear Bernard. You can't rely on 
 them. They let you down. . . . Do you know, the Irish 
 and Colonial regiments are beginning to refuse to go into 
 action if there's an English regiment on their flanks. They 
 can't be relied on to go over the top, and, of course, the flank 
 they're on gets left in the lurch. . . . That's how I got 
 knocked out. Our battalion did its work in fine style, 
 cleared out three lines of Turkish trenches and was just 
 going to settle down when we found ourselves isolated. 
 The English battalions on each side of us had failed to come 
 up, so we had to retreat, and on the way back I got done in 
 . . . Lord, those bloody English! I've been a Shin from 
 that moment." 
 
 " Hm! " said Bernard. " The failure of an English regi- 
 ment doesn't seem to me to be a very adequate reason for a 
 complete change of political conviction." 
 
 " You prosy old fish," jeered Sandy. " I thought all 
 you Shins hated the English like poison." 
 
 " Exactly. We hate them like poison. You hate poison 
 when it's boiling in your veins or hacking its way through 
 your intestines, but you wouldn't waste time hating it in
 
 464 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 bottle, or after the mustard-and-water have transferred it 
 from you to a bowl." 
 
 " That's a lovely metaphor," said Sandy. " I must make 
 a note of it. ... Well, my heart is with the Shins anyway, 
 and I wish I could be some use to them. Unfortunately, 
 my body's a goner, and I never had any brains worth speak- 
 ing about. . . . Lord, those bloody English." 
 
 " Have you used that expletive in the presence of the 
 governor? " 
 
 " Yes, and by gad, his face turned all the colours of the 
 Union Jack. ... If you've finished gorging, the mater 
 wants to see you in her room." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Go and see." 
 
 He went upstairs and found his mother in her room. 
 She had changed into a black dress. 
 
 " I've something to tell you, Bernard," she began, but 
 Bernard had already guessed what it was. 
 
 " Eugene ? " he said, and she nodded. 
 
 "Pead?" 
 
 " He was killed in a trench-raid soon after Christmas. 
 ... I thought it better not to tell you in prison ..." 
 
 Bernard was neither shocked nor very much grieved, for 
 the news was only to be expected and he and Eugene had 
 never been very intimate. He suffered, however, what was 
 perhaps a more trying emotion: remorse. As on the day 
 when they had parted, he realized poignantly how snap- 
 pish and unkind he had often been to his brother, and how 
 impatient of his harmless short-comings. Poor Eugene, 
 what a gentle, kindly fellow he was: how soft and woman- 
 like the touch of his hand : how serene and winsome his 
 smile. It was a cruel fate that sent him who had never 
 spoken an unkind word, who had never given pain to man 
 or beast, who should have been a loving husband and father, 
 out to that bloody shambles in Flanders. What unmiti- 
 gated horror must the war have held for this sensitive soul. 
 Bernard could picture the last cruel scene: the surprise at-
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 465 
 
 tack by night: the grey-coated raiders pouring into the 
 trench: the short sharp struggle; Eugene, wincing from 
 violence and hesitating to strike, ripped with a bayonet and 
 left to die in agony. And now all that he had known of 
 his brother lay rotting in a nameless grave. For what? 
 Would that the ghosts of him and a thousand other innocents 
 like him could return to earth and face the politicians with 
 that question. 
 
 Bernard took an early leave of his mother and Sandy 
 and hastened to his flat in Harcourt Street. He found there 
 a heap of letters, including three from Willoughby and one 
 from Eugene written the day before his death: a gay, yet 
 wistful document the reading of which brought tears to Ber- 
 nard's eyes. Almost he fancied he could hear the dead voice 
 speaking the written words. ... In due course he went to 
 meet Mabel at the office where she worked, but having 
 waited fruitlessly for ten minutes after all the other girls 
 passed out, he hurried over to her home, puzzled and appre- 
 hensive. The maid-of all-work admitted him. 
 
 " Is Miss Mabel in? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 "Mrs. Harvey, then? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 She showed him into the sitting-room, where he had to 
 wait five infuriating minutes before Mrs. Harvey deigned 
 to come down. The moment she appeared he blurted out: 
 
 "Where's Mabel?" 
 
 Exasperatingly placid, Mrs. Harvey deposited her jelly- 
 like bulk in an armchair, serenely arranging the sit of her 
 dress before replying. 
 
 " I didn't quite catch your remark," she said, in a casual 
 tone. " Would you mind closing the door? " 
 
 Bernard slammed it with a movement of his foot, and 
 demanded again: 
 
 "Where's Mabel?" 
 
 " I'm not sure that it isn't an impertinent question, but 
 she's gone out for a walk with her fiance."
 
 4 66 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "With her what*" 
 
 " Her fiance." 
 
 " But I'm her fiance." 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear boy. That engagement wasn't seri- 
 ous. A mere boy-and-girl affair, I always regarded it. It 
 was clearly understood that she was at liberty to change her 
 mind if someone who could support a wife made her an 
 offer." 
 
 " I never understood that. I was perfectly serious." 
 
 " If you were, I'm afraid I saw no sign of it. A young 
 man who is really in earnest works hard at his profession 
 and doesn't waste time over politics and suchlike nonsense. 
 I remember giving you some such advice myself when you 
 first came to ask my approval. Well, you were too high 
 and mighty to listen, and must needs go gallivanting round 
 the country organizing sedition and landing yourself in 
 prison. I don't think that shows much consideration for 
 my daughter." 
 
 Bernard heard this speech with amazement. He had not 
 yet fully realized the situation. 
 
 " You you're not fair to me," he stammered. 
 
 Mrs. Harvey shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " I have my daughter's interests to consider," she said. 
 
 " You've set her against me," cried Bernard, angrily. 
 " I don't believe she'd have given me up of her own accord. 
 She never said a word about it in her letters." 
 
 " No doubt she thought you had enough to worry you 
 already." 
 
 " Well, I won't believe she's ceased to care for me till 
 I've heard it from her own lips." 
 
 " You may believe it or not as you like. She's to be 
 married in a fortnight." 
 
 Bernard was completely staggered. 
 
 " Married? " he gasped. 
 
 " Yes. They're to be married very quietly," said Mrs. 
 Harvey, imperturbably. " Captain Musgrave's leave is 
 nearly over and he has to return to India ..."
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 467 
 
 " Captain Musgrave ? " said Bernard. 
 
 " My future son-in-law. A charming man, Bernard, and 
 very well off. A member of a good old English family. 
 Probably you know him. He was educated at Ashbury." 
 
 A horrible recollection shot through Bernard's mind: a 
 scene of his first days at school that had been indelibly 
 printed in his memory. 
 
 " Stanley Musgrave? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " My God ! " exclaimed Bernard. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " said Mrs. Harvey. 
 
 " Nothing," said Bernard. 
 
 " Have you any further questions? " said Mrs. Harvey. 
 
 Bernard turned and left the room. In the hall he nearly 
 collided with Molly. 
 
 " Hello, Bernard," she said. Then she saw his face. 
 " I say, I'm sorry about Mabel," she said. " It's jolly rot- 
 ten of her. However, I'd forget it, if I were you. If you 
 saw the thing she's chosen the shock to your vanity would 
 cure your heartache." 
 
 Bernard found himself unable to answer. Molly pressed 
 his hand sympathetically and let him out without further 
 speech. 
 
 Heedless of his direction he strode rapidly through the 
 streets, his mind a chaos of wonder, jealousy, anger, grief 
 and humiliation. A shower of rain fell presently and for a 
 long time remained unnoticed, but eventually it drenched 
 him through and so drove him home. 
 
 It was nearly dawn before he slept. 
 
 8 
 
 He wrote to Mabel insisting on seeing her once alone. 
 She complied, appointing an hour and a certain place in 
 Stephen's Green. They exchanged not a word when they 
 met, and Bernard led the way to a secluded seat. They sat 
 down and remained silent for a few minutes, Bernard draw- 
 ing lines in the gravel with his walking stick, and Mabel
 
 468 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 fidgeting with her glove. All around them were the signs of 
 another Spring: budding trees, chirping birds, ducks quack- 
 ing on the pond, the sun blazing out at intervals when the 
 clouds permitted . . . 
 
 " What's the meaning of it all? " said Bernard, at length. 
 
 She could not answer for a while. The reasons that had 
 urged her seemed now so small and mean. Of course, her 
 mother was at the bottom of it. Bernard had been only 
 a week in gaol when she had begun to drop stray morsels 
 of Mrs. Moffat's revelations in Mabel's way; a little later 
 Mrs. Moffat, herself, was brought on the scene; Mabel had 
 flounced out of the room at the first word, but the germ of 
 doubt had found its entry. Mrs. Harvey's subtle methods 
 of work after that defy analysis. She hinted that Bernard's 
 p re-occupation with politics spoke badly for his affections; 
 she repeated her forebodings about his financial prospects; 
 she dwelt on the social stigma involved in imprisonment. 
 She did it all so lightly and casually that no purpose could be 
 discerned behind it. ... Then Captain Musgrave began to 
 appear more frequently. He had been introduced to Mrs. 
 Harvey some time before by a friend of former days, and 
 had been one of those stray guests whose entertainment had 
 fallen to Mabel, of which she had complained to Bernard on 
 a bygone day in Cloughaneely. It was at this stage that her 
 first letter to Bernard became due, and in jealous anger 
 against the past she suspected she wrote the brief cold note 
 which had so puzzled him. His answering love-letter mol- 
 lified her feelings but slightly, and she allowed herself, half 
 out of a desire to be revenged on Bernard, half out of nat- 
 ural coquetry, to enjoy Musgrave's advances and even faintly 
 to reciprocate. At this point her mother slipped in a hint 
 of Musgrave's wealth and position, and one day, with that 
 conscious tact which is the height of tactlessness, withdrew 
 from the sitting-room in the very middle of afternoon tea in 
 order to leave them alone together. Subsequently, the Cap- 
 tain was allowed to take the whole family to the pantomime ; 
 Mabel was given the seat next to him; and in the interval,
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 469 
 
 Mrs. Harvey's ever-ready tact sent them out alone to the 
 buffet for coffee. Mabel was in such an undecided frame 
 of mind at the end of another month that she scribbled off 
 an even shorter note than the previous one to Bernard, and 
 then took offence at his reply. She began to look kindly on 
 Musgrave now: in her innocence of men and the world 
 (she had, of course, like all Catholic girls, been educated at 
 a Convent) she mistook for love and kindness what was only 
 half-veiled sensuality, and favourably compared his consider- 
 ate devotion with Bernard's off-hand comradeship. Bernard 
 had sometimes found it necessary to control his honest passion 
 with an enforced frigidity that made innocent Mabel doubt 
 his ardour: Musgrave, having never in his life controlled 
 his desires, was actuated by no straining spirit made violent 
 by repression, but exuded a kind of sensual benevolence that 
 looked for stimulation. Mabel began to look to him as a 
 lover with pleasurable anticipation. . . . He proposed to 
 her in the middle of the third month, and after consulting 
 with her mother, she accepted him the following day. Mrs. 
 Harvey valued the engagement- ring at a hundred and fifty 
 pounds . . . 
 
 And now Mabel had to explain all this to Bernard. She 
 could not bring herself to mention Mrs. Moffat's scandalous 
 stories: looking at his face she found she could not believe 
 them any longer, and her modesty would not have permitted 
 her to discuss such a subject in any case. She put her excuse 
 before him brokenly: 
 
 " I thought, perhaps . . . you didn't seem to love me as 
 much as at first. ... I thought you were getting tired of 
 me ..." 
 
 " Mabel, how could you imagine such a thing? Did I 
 give any sign of it? " 
 
 " You you wouldn't work at your profession. . . . 
 You didn't seem in any hurry to get married. . . . You 
 went on with your writing and drilling while I was slaving 
 away in that horrid old office. . . . Bernard, you don't 
 know how tired I was of that work ... so dull and mo-
 
 470 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 notonous . . . never any fresh air ... hardly any holidays 
 ... a long scramble. ... I couldn't have borne it any 
 longer, Bernard. I looked to you to take me out of it, and 
 I hoped for such happiness with you. And you didn't seem 
 to care, so long as you had your politics. . . . And then 
 my home, Bernard. The perpetual saving and scraping . . . 
 the counting of pennies . . . the three of us sleeping in one 
 stuffy little room so as to have more space for lodgers. . . . 
 Mother always at us for extravagance if we bought ourselves 
 chocolates or kept the light on at night to read. ... It was 
 bad enough before the war, but now Bernard, I couldn't 
 bear it any more. It was killing me. . . . Don't think too 
 badly of me, dear. I ... I felt I was wearing out. You 
 wouldn't be able to marry me for another two years, perhaps. 
 . . . And you mightn't have cared for me then ..." 
 
 She paused. Bernard remained silent, savagely digging at 
 the ground with the end of his stick. A sparrow chirped 
 monotonously in the plane-tree overhead. 
 
 " So it comes to this," said Bernard, hoarsely, " that 
 you've sold yourself. . . . Sold yourself. And without the 
 excuse of necessity for which less fortunate women sell 
 themselves. You've sold yourself for luxuries: for theatres 
 and satin dresses. . . . My God, aren't your body and soul 
 more value to you than that? . . . And to throw me aside 
 who love you for a beast like Musgrave! " 
 
 " Don't say that," said Mabel. " He's very kind." 
 
 " Kind ! " Horrible pictures passed before Bernard's 
 mind. So Musgrave was kind? He could imagine the 
 form his kindness took, and shuddered. In that moment the 
 divinity slipped away from Mabel before his eyes, and she 
 became as something soiled. He had never realized before 
 that women are human : that good women have passions 
 like good men. The thought of his Mabel, his innocent, 
 joyous Mabel, yielding to a sensual impulse, horrified 
 him. 
 
 There was a long and painful silence. They had ceased 
 even to fidget, and looked into one another's eyes.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 471 
 
 " Well," said Bernard at length, " I suppose there's noth- 
 ing more to be said." 
 
 Mabel tried to speak, but the words refused to come. 
 Bernard rose. 
 
 "Good-bye," he jerked out; hesitated a moment; then 
 turned on his heel and strode away down the path . . . 
 
 Mabel remained in motionless reverie for the best part 
 of an hour, and then wearily walked home. 
 
 Bernard would not have had her now if he could : she was 
 spoilt for him for ever by the kiss of Musgrave. 
 
 "The thought of it! Ugh! The swine! The sensual, 
 lecherous beast! A toad, a cuttle-fish were cleaner . . . 
 He holds her with those flabby groping hands of his and 
 kisses her my God ! kisses her with that abominable 
 mouth, the mouth that has dabbled in foulness and played 
 with sin. Oh, the pollution of it! A nymph yielding to a 
 satyr!" 
 
 In his madness he passed his own door unheeding and 
 walked half the way to Dolphin's Barn. 
 
 "Vampire!" he cried in his heart. "Why couldn't he 
 leave my little girl alone and stick to his harlots and pleasure- 
 girls? Flogging a jaded appetite, I suppose." 
 
 Immersed all his life in ideas he knew but little of human- 
 ity: did not know that licentiousness hankers after innocence. 
 . . . Discovering where he was he turned back and made for 
 home. He passed it once more before entering. 
 
 He poured out some whiskey. Then: 
 
 " No. That's a mug's game," he said. " Only drink 
 when you're happy, or you spoil both yourself and the 
 drink." 
 
 The morning paper was on the table and he picked it up. 
 Idly turning the pages his eye fell on a heading in the 
 correspondence column : 
 
 THE HORROR OF JAILS 
 Letter from Mr. Cyril Umpleby. 
 
 In the most fluent journalese Mr. Umpleby dissertated on
 
 472 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the soul agony he had endured in the inartistic surround- 
 ings of Mountjoy. It was a heart-rending picture and it 
 made Bernard laugh. 
 
 " Vain little beast," he said, and read the whole news- 
 paper through, advertisements and all, forgetting Mabel in 
 the process. 
 
 But he hungered for her still. He sought exhaustion in 
 long walks and so secured sleep, but she haunted his dreams. 
 He dreamed once that the Musgrave episode had been a 
 dream, and that on emerging from gaol he beheld Mabel 
 waiting for him at the gate. She smiled at him as she 
 had been wont to do; he advanced to take her in his arms; 
 but in the midst of the ineffable joy of her kiss he awoke, 
 his sorrow and disappointment all the more intensified. . . . 
 He could take no food though his sorely tried body clam- 
 oured for it. He could barely summon up the energy to 
 dress himself in the morning; he put on whatever came handy 
 and let his hair go wild; one night after a long walk he 
 flung himself down on the outside of his bed and fell asleep 
 in his clothes. He became utterly careless of life. 
 
 He shirked meeting his friends. On several occasions 
 O'Dwyer, Hektor, and Stephen called, but they always 
 found him from home. Stephen left a note once saying 
 that he wished to speak to him about some new develop- 
 ments in the political situation, but Bernard paid no atten- 
 tion. On another occasion they met in the street, but Ber- 
 nard was distraught, and after a few commonplaces they 
 separated. 
 
 " I met Lascelles today," said Stephen to Hektor. " He 
 was looking ghastly. I never imagined gaol could have such 
 an effect on a man." 
 
 " It's more than gaol that's playing the deuce with Ber- 
 nard," said Hektor. " Haven't you heard that he was shook 
 by that girl he was engaged to ? " 
 
 " Surely that wouldn't do it! " said Stephen. 
 
 Passers-by in the street used to stare at Bernard's pale, 
 hollow cheeks and blazing eyes. He came near to a break-
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 473 
 
 down, but then Nature reasserted herself and sheer hunger 
 drove him to eat. He began to mend physically from that 
 out, but it was a long time before his melancholy grew any 
 less. From the midst of his own gloom he looked forth dis- 
 tastefully on the movements of a spring-enlivened world. 
 
 He had a last glimpse of Mabel two days before her mar- 
 riage. He had gone for a stroll by himself in the Phoenix 
 Park and was walking along a narrow, unfrequented path, 
 admiring the budding trees and bitterly wishing for one to 
 share his admiration, when she came round a corner beside 
 a khaki-clad figure. Bernard's heart stopped still for a mo- 
 ment and then began beating furiously. Mabel's face went 
 first white and then red. Bernard looked at his rival. Mus- 
 grave at thirty was, in appearance at any rate, an improve- 
 ment on Musgrave at seventeen. Military training had 
 eliminated some of the grossness of his figure, straightened 
 his back, and smartened his slouching gait. He wore a 
 moustache, and his horrible teeth had been replaced by a 
 well-made artificial set that gave a fictitious firmness to the 
 salacious lips that had slobbered at Bernard in the dark lobby 
 thirteen years before. He smiled sheepishly at Bernard, 
 whom he evidently recognized. Bernard mechanically, raised 
 his hat. Musgrave saluted. They passed each other by and 
 went out of each other's lives . . . 
 
 Next day he received a letter from Janet Morecambe. 
 She had recently heard of his arrest, and she wrote to con- 
 gratulate him on having found himself at last and to express 
 a hope that his confinement had done him no harm. Bernard 
 sat staring at the letter and then violently apostrophized 
 himself : 
 
 "You damned fool! You shallow, sensual idiot! You 
 might have had her for the asking and you rejected her. 
 You deserve everything you've got." 
 
 He read the letter through over and over again, and then 
 carefully placed it in his breast pocket.
 
 474 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 9 
 
 " Baffled again," said Stephen to O'Dwyer in his room 
 at the Neptune. " Mallow took that Order without turning 
 a hair. ' I understood,' says he, as cool as a cucumber, ' that 
 it was unnecessary for Directors to submit the routine work 
 of their departments to the Executive.' ' There was noth- 
 ing routine about this,' said I. ' Excuse me,' said he, ' but 
 if you will examine the orders closely you will see that 
 they are entirely contingent upon general orders, and that 
 they deal only with demolitions, which is my particular 
 department.' Well the Executive accepted the explanation 
 and said it mustn't occur again. So of course they'll take 
 care never to get found out again. They'll send no more 
 orders to Crowley." 
 
 " Do you know," said O'Dwyer, " if their party supplies 
 the knaves on the Executive, ours supplies the fools. I feel 
 very uneasy about things. ... I wish we had Lascelles 
 with us again. He has very sound dope to hand out as a 
 rule, and it would distract him from worrying about that 
 woman. She was married a few days ago, by the way, to 
 a damned Englishman. May his skin be tanned and made 
 into slippers for the Kaiser." 
 
 " McGurk and O'Flaherty have gone to fetch him over 
 here to tea, if they can find him. But he's generally out." 
 
 " Is McGurk staying here now? " 
 
 " Yes. He moved in about a week ago." 
 
 " By Jove, this is a regular Factionists' Home. Wish you 
 were nearer Merrion Street and I'd move in too." 
 
 "How's your own little affair progressing?" asked 
 Stephen with a smile. 
 
 " Not so bad. I took her to the pictures yesterday. I 
 wonder could I dare ask her to come to the D'Oyly Carte 
 Operas in Easter Week." 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm not an expert in those matters, but why 
 not try? She can only refuse." 
 
 " Yes, but a refusal's such a blow. It seems to discount 
 all the favourable omens for weeks before it."
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 475 
 
 " Faint heart, etcetera." 
 
 " I know what I'll do. I'll buy the tickets before asking 
 her, and then she can't refuse." 
 
 " Not at all a bad plan, as far as my limited experience 
 goes. . . . Come down and have some tea. The others 
 should be back by this time." 
 
 They descended to the coffee-room and sat down to a 
 plenteous, if inelegant meal of tea, bread and butter, boiled 
 eggs, jam, and cake. They had only just set to when Hek- 
 tor, McGurk, and Bernard arrived. 
 
 "Hello, O'Dwyer!" cried McGurk. "How's the 
 form?" 
 
 " And the fair Gladys? " added Hektor. 
 
 O'Dwyer blushed and said she was quite well. 
 
 " Sit down, Bernard," said McGurk. " Tea'll be up 
 in a minute. Ye won't scorn a humble tea, you that's used 
 to dining late, will ye? " 
 
 Bernard protested his entire delight with the arrangement, 
 and the newcomers drew up their chairs as the meal was 
 served in. 
 
 "Holy murdher! " exclaimed McGurk. "Ye put no 
 sugar in me tea, Stephen." 
 
 " I put your whole ration in," said Stephen. " You can 
 have some more if you don't want a second cup." 
 
 " Well to hell with the war," said McGurk. " Hektor, 
 you rotten false prophet, how long more are the Germans 
 going to spend taking Verdun ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Hektor gloomily. " They've made 
 a bungle somewhere, I'm afraid." 
 
 "Poor old Ireland!" said McGurk. "The fates are 
 ag'in her." 
 
 " They tell me you're qualified at last, Hugo," said Ber- 
 nard. "When are you going to start practice?" 
 
 " Arrah, what are ye talking about? Haven't I done 
 enough for one year? Say, boys, I've been and gone and 
 got me exam., and this fella wants me to go and practise!" 
 He took a slice of bread and butter, plastered it thickly with
 
 476 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 jam, bit off a huge mouthful, and turned to O'Dwyer. 
 
 " Been writing any pothry lately? " he asked. 
 
 O'Dwyer shook his head. 
 
 " Felim has been better employed," suggested Hektor. 
 
 " I always thought courting was an incentive to pothry," 
 said McGurk." 
 
 " Not to the kind of poetry you like, Hugo," said 
 O'Dwyer. 
 
 McGurk burst out laughing and said : 
 
 " Janey Mack, he's been writing love pomes." 
 
 O'Dwyer blushed red, and Stephen intervened on his be- 
 half. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Hugo," he said. " Pass the cake, 
 Hektor." 
 
 " This is a punk cake," said Hektor, vainly attempting 
 to cut it without breaking it up. " Say, boys, we'll have to 
 put a stop to the war." 
 
 Gathering afterwards in the smoke-room, where there 
 happened to be no other guests, they discussed the political 
 situation. Recent developments were disclosed to Bernard 
 who received them with incredulity. He was not, like the 
 others, personally acquainted with the leaders of the move- 
 ment, but he had always felt sure that they were reliable, 
 since their down-trodden cause could make no appeal to 
 men who were not patriotic, unselfish, and honourable. 
 Mallow being diseased, he left out of account. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that these men that ye've trusted 
 would drag us into an insane rebellion by trickery?" he 
 exclaimed at last. 
 
 " Every word I've told you is God's truth," said Stephen. 
 
 " The meanness and treachery of it," said Bernard. " I 
 wouldn't have believed it of them. . . . But what can be 
 done ? " 
 
 "That's what's so hard to decide. They've repeatedly 
 sworn that there's nothing on foot, and they've explained 
 away any positive evidence we've produced. If we recalled 
 the Convention the only evidence we could put before it
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 477 
 
 would be our recollections of certain conversations, the order 
 sent to Crowley, and a poem of Austin Mallow's. We'd 
 simply be laughed at." 
 
 " Perhaps you're alarming yourselves unnecessarily," said 
 Bernard. " If your case is so very unconvincing how does 
 it convince yourselves? " 
 
 " It's not a case where one can take any risks," said 
 Stephen. 
 
 " Mallow's eyes glaring across the table at the Dolphin 
 were convincing enough for me," said O'Dwyer. 
 
 " It's the devil of a puzzle," said Bernard. " What good 
 do they expect from a rebellion ? " 
 
 Stephen explained. 
 
 " I'm all at sea," said Bernard. " It's a hopeless muddle. 
 I suppose we'll just have to keep our eyes skinned in the 
 hope of hitting on a piece of evidence that'll appeal to the 
 Convention." 
 
 " If you ask my advice," said McGurk, " I'd say: ' Take 
 no risks. Poison their tea and have done with the whole 
 job.' " 
 
 10 
 
 Towards the middle of April Willoughby came to spend 
 the last three days of a fortnight's leave with Bernard. 
 The latter was now looking more like his old self again, 
 but his friend was shocked at the change in his appearance. 
 
 " This damned Prussianism ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Why do you call it Prussianism ? " asked Bernard. " I 
 call it Britishism." 
 
 " Irreconcilable still," laughed Willoughby. 
 
 " Don't let's talk politics," said Bernard. " I'm about 
 fed up with things in general, and it does me good to see 
 you." 
 
 They h?d a pleasant three days together. They talked 
 over old times and recalled old dreams they had once held 
 in common. They talked of the dead : of Eugene and Mur- 
 ray. 
 
 " I got some nice letters of condolence from Ashbury
 
 478 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 after Eugene's death. Father Bumpleigh told me he was 
 one of those Irishmen who had died to make England great, 
 and there were others nearly as bad. The Chronicle said 
 he had died as an Englishman should." 
 
 " Lack of imagination, I'm afraid, is characteristic of our 
 people," said Willoughby. " It looks as if it's gradually 
 losing us the friendship of Ireland." 
 
 " You had Ireland as an ally, much to my disgust, at the 
 beginning of the war, but that didn't content you. You 
 must have her as a subject or not at all, so it looks as if 
 you're going to lose her altogether." 
 
 " The average Englishman can't conceive of the Irish as 
 distinct allies. He can only conceive of them as rebels and 
 traitors on the one hand, or else as ceasing to be Irish and 
 becoming British." 
 
 " Exactly," said Bernard. " That's why all'ance between 
 us is impossible. . . . Can you imagine Stephen and Hek- 
 tor and me being ' loyal ' to Sherringham, Lashworthy and 
 Co.? What have we in common? Oh, Willoughby, when 
 will you and the decent crowd in England step in and stop 
 this perpetual waste of Ireland? How long is our genius 
 going to be stifled under your dead weight? Look at my 
 friends. Look at Hektor, condemned to play at soldiering 
 when in any other country he'd be a great strategist. Look 
 at O'Dwyer, who in any other country would be a successful 
 author, wearing his soul out with useless hatred. Look at 
 Stephen, a philosophic statesman of world-wide ideas, con- 
 demned to hold a second-rate position in an insignificant 
 faction. Look at myself, wasted and wearing out like the 
 rest. Why the devil do you let Sherringham and Co. stand 
 between you and me? " 
 
 Willoughby had no answer, and Bernard dropped the sub- 
 ject to talk of other things. 
 
 " How's your sister-in-law ? " he asked later. Somehow 
 he found a difficulty about uttering her name. 
 
 " Janet ? Oh, she's quite well. She's working in a home 
 for blinded soldiers at present."
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 479 
 
 The days slipped by all too rapidly. The third night 
 they sat up over whiskey and pipes till quite late in spite of 
 the early train Willoughby had to catch. 
 
 " If all the men who love Irish whiskey loved Ireland 
 she'd be free tomorrow," said Willoughby. " Here's Eerin 
 go brar ! The land of good drink and sound logic." 
 
 Bernard switched off the light and watched the fire-glow 
 playing on Willoughby's honest, rugged features as he told 
 tales of the trenches: tales of horror and humour; tales of 
 sublime heroism and bestial cruelty; tales of the endurance 
 and self-sacrifice of common men. Willoughby's eyes and 
 voice expressed far better than his halting and limited words 
 the love and admiration he felt for the little Cockney war- 
 riors he commanded. 
 
 " By Jove," he said, " if you saw them in action. Brave 
 as lions, Bernard. . . . No, that's a silly phrase of poets 
 and journalists and means nothing. Terriers fits them bet- 
 ter. . . . And then when it's all over, their kindness to one 
 another. I've seen a foul-mouthed little beast tending to 
 a wounded comrade as gently as a woman. . . . And they 
 take everything so philosophically, and joke through it all. 
 . . . My little counter-jumpers and costers are made of bet- 
 ter stuff than the old knight errants, I tell you. . . . No. 
 They've no hatred of the Germans in spite of all the news- 
 papers. They're decent, cynical little beggars . . . 
 
 " I wish our nations could be friends, Bernard. We 
 could be, too, if only the people had their way. . . . It's 
 men's natural instinct to be friends after all. Why I've 
 known kindly feelings to cross No Man's Land from trench 
 to trench. . . . What are we killing one another for? . . ." 
 
 Willoughby looked up and saw Bernard's gaze fixed in- 
 tently upon him. He laughed uneasily. There was deep 
 affection between these two men, but Willoughby's English 
 stolidity and Bernard's Irish shyness forbade the expression 
 of it. Bernard, however, with a foreboding of disaster in 
 his mind was accumulating memories. They sat in silence 
 until the fire died down. . . .
 
 4 8o THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard saw his friend off from Kingstown next morn- 
 ing, where they parted on the deck of the steamer with a 
 handclasp and a " Good-bye and good luck." So Willoughby 
 went his way, to be blasted out of existence a few days later 
 upon a field in Picardy . . . 
 
 The news reached Bernard almost at once, and of the 
 three blows which struck him in so short a space this was 
 the hardest. Eugene's loss had filled him with remorse; 
 thwarted desire had lacerated him on Mabel's defection; 
 but Willoughby 's death left him stunned with a deep and 
 abiding sorrow. 
 
 II 
 
 Nobody least of all those who knew them best un- 
 derstood why Mr. Leeds and Mr. Conachy were such 
 friends; for Leeds was a fanatical and ignorant Republican 
 while Conachy was a very moderate Home Ruler ; Leeds was 
 loud-voiced and ill-educated, Conachy intellectual and re- 
 fined ; and finally Leeds had been at tremendous pains to find 
 a Gaelic transmogrification of his appalling surname, while 
 Conachy was acutely ashamed of the blatant Gaelicism of 
 his. There was, however, one link between them, and that 
 was that neither ever felt it incumbent upon him to act up 
 to his opinions. Conachy had never taken Mr. Redmond's 
 advice to join the British Army, and Leeds was not a mem- 
 ber of the Irish Volunteers. 
 
 On Wednesday the nineteenth of April at five o'clock 
 in the afternoon these two were having coffee in a Grafton 
 Street restaurant, and discussing a handbill which had been 
 given to them before entering. At numerous other tables 
 the same handbill was causing excited discussion. 
 
 " Secret orders issued to military" read Conachy. " I 
 wonder what on earth it means." 
 
 " It means another plot by this bloody gover'ment to 
 down th' Irish people," pronounced Leeds. 
 
 " By Jove, there's that fierce rebel O'Dwyer over there," 
 said Conachy. " Perhaps he can explain it." 
 
 "Rebel, didja say?" said Leeds contemptuously. "The
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 481 
 
 man's a bloody West-Briton. Did jever hear th' accent of 
 um? And he thinks Shakespeare a greater pote than Davis." 
 
 Conachy paid no attention to this harangue but waved 
 his hand to O'Dwyer, who was sitting alone at another table 
 waiting to be served. 
 
 " Won't you sit down with us? " said Conachy as O'Dwyer 
 approached. " We want your opinion of this secret order." 
 
 "What secret order?" asked O'Dwyer. 
 
 "Haven't you seen it? It's issued as a handbill from 
 your Headquarters." 
 
 " I'm only just back from organizing in the country," 
 said O'Dwyer. 
 
 "Well, what do you make of that? " said Conachy, and 
 handed over the document. 
 
 O'Dwyer took it and read it over, with knitted brows. 
 
 The following precautionary measures have been sanc- 
 tioned by the Irish Office on the recommendation of the 
 General Officer Commanding the Forces in Ireland.' Hm. r 
 ' All preparations will be made to put these measures in 
 force immediately on receipt of an Order issued from the 
 Chief Secretary's Office.' Hm. ' First, the following per- 
 sons to be placed under arrest: All members of the Sinn 
 Fein National Council, the Central Executive Irish Sinn 
 Fein Volunteers, Executive Committee National Volunteers.' 
 Hello ! This is getting interesting. ' Coisde Gnotha Com- 
 mittee Gaelic League.' By Jove! 'See list A 3 and 4 
 and supplementary list A 2.' I wonder what A i contains, 
 and why should A 2 be supplementary to 3 and 4. ... 
 However. ' Police will be confined to barracks.' Hm. 
 ' An order will be issued to inhabitants of city to remain 
 in their houses.' Devilish exciting! ' Pickets will be placed 
 at all points marked on maps 3 and 4. Accompanying 
 mounted patrols will continuously visit all points and report 
 every hour.' What sort of donkey drew up this, I wonder? 
 ' The following premises will be occupied by adequate forces.' 
 Hm. Adequate forces?" 
 
 He went on reading intently in silence.
 
 482 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "Well, what do you make of it?" asked Conachy, but 
 O'Dwyer paid no heed. 
 
 An attendant brought O'Dwyer coffee and biscuits. 
 
 "What? No sugar ?" he exclaimed. " You might bring 
 me some saccharine." 
 
 " It'll make syrup of your coffee," said Conachy. 
 
 There was a cry of " Stop Press " in the street outside, 
 whereupon Leeds rushed out and presently returned with a 
 paper. 
 
 " The military say it's all a fabrication," he announced. 
 " Just what they would say." 
 
 " They happen to be telling the truth this time," said 
 O'Dwyer. 
 
 " What! " cried Leeds. " Wouldja take the word of the 
 garrison against the word of yer own Executive ? " 
 
 " I take nobody's word for anything," replied O'Dwyer 
 calmly. " I'm going by internal evidence." 
 
 " The Higher Criticism," said Conachy. " But who's 
 the fabricator ? " 
 
 " I reserve my opinion on that point, but you may take 
 it from me no pogrom is intended." 
 
 " Well you're a nice sort o' Volunteer," said Leeds. 
 
 " Doubtless," said O'Dwyer. " Well, Conachy, I'm 
 afraid I must rush away. . . . Oh, damn ! " This exclama- 
 tion was caused by his having tried to drink off his coffee 
 and scalded himself in the process. He caught up his hat 
 and vanished. 
 
 " Well, I'm jiggered," said Conachy. " He's grabbed the 
 hand-bill." 
 
 O'Dwyer hurried down Grafton Street, caught a north- 
 going tram at College Green, and arrived in ten minutes 
 at the Neptune Hotel in a state of breathless excitement. 
 Stephen was out, but he found Hektor and McGurk waiting 
 for tea in the coffee-room, and dragged them in spite of their 
 protests up to the former's bedroom. 
 
 " Where did the original of that order come from ? " he 
 asked at once.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 483 
 
 " From the secret service," said Hektor. 
 
 " Who runs the secret service ? " 
 
 " Chap called Moran." 
 
 " What sort of dope has he ? " 
 
 " He's rather a dark horse as far as I know, but he's a 
 personal friend of Austin Mallow's." 
 
 " That's done it then." 
 
 "Why? What 'sup?" 
 
 " Couldn't you see that the whole thing's a forgery ? " 
 
 " It seems all right to me." 
 
 " Good lord, Hektor, you're a soldier, and yet you think 
 that document was drawn up by a military man! I'm 
 ashamed of you. Look here. Read the thing." 
 
 He thrust the paper into Hektor's hand. 
 
 " I served in an O.T.C. at school," he went on, " so I 
 know how orders are drafted. That's no military order. 
 It applies to no one in particular. In what earthly way 
 could any one obey the thing? You know how explicit 
 military orders are. Now look at that. ' Pickets will be 
 placed. . . . Patrols will report. . . . Adequate forces will 
 occupy. . . .' Delightfully vague, isn't it. It's intended 
 for the public, not for soldiers, and it's been drawn up, not 
 by a soldier, but by a civilian with a smattering of military 
 knowledge." 
 
 " Glory be! " exclaimed McGurk. 
 
 " You're damn well right, O'Dwyer," said Hektor. 
 " What a set of mugs we've been." 
 
 " The thing's a forgery on the face of it," said O'Dwyer. 
 " Look at all these lists and maps they refer to: A 3 and 4, 
 and no A i. Maps 3 and 4, and no I and 2. That shows 
 your amateur forger trying to be too clever. Then do you 
 notice the list of premises to be seized? All the Volunteer 
 premises are marked by name and number, but they've been 
 content to say vaguely: ' All National Volunteer premises.' 
 What does that show? The authorities would surely put 
 down the numbers in both cases, so we can only assume that 
 this was drawn up by one of our people who was too lazy
 
 484 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 to look up the necessary details about the other movements." 
 
 " Me dear Holmes! " said McGurk. 
 
 " Perfectly simple, my dear Watson," said O'Dwyer. 
 " Now look right at the end and you'll see that in addition 
 to the houses named they're to seize ' all premises in list 
 5 D.' More amateur cleverness. Surely if they had such 
 a list as 5 D it's the notorious houses that would be on it, 
 and any others that they thought of would be mentioned 
 separately? " 
 
 " Quite true," said Hektor. " And I thought myself that 
 they'd scarcely be such fools as to occupy the Archbishop's 
 House." 
 
 " That alone is enough to indicate forgery. They've laid 
 it on just a little too thick." 
 
 " But what's th' idea? " asked McGurk. 
 
 " It's an attempt to bring the whole country out in rebel- 
 lion," said O'Dwyer. " They probably intend to strike at 
 once and they hope to get people on their side by faking 
 up a government pogrom against the whole national move- 
 ment." 
 
 " The bloody grafters! " ejaculated McGurk. 
 
 "Where's Stephen?" asked O'Dwyer. "We haven't 
 a minute to waste. They wouldn't have produced this thing 
 unless they were going to take immediate action." 
 
 ' ' Seven Spears in the Day of Light,' " quoted Hektor. 
 
 " My God ! " interrupted O'Dwyer. ** What a fool I was 
 not to see it before. ' The Day of Light ' means Easter 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Begob ! " cried McGurk. " The manoeuvres ! " 
 
 Orders had been issued the previous week for the holding 
 of reviews and manoeuvres by the Irish Volunteer forces 
 over the whole of Ireland, and it would be a simple matter 
 for the agents of the conspirators to transfer the manoeuvres 
 to reality. The only course open now to the peace party 
 would be a public announcement, but this was impossible 
 owing to the fact that it would inevitably result in Govern- 
 ment intervention and perhaps produce a Government offen-
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 485 
 
 sive which would be quite as undesirable as the rebellion 
 they wished to prevent. They were therefore constrained 
 to a slow and secret course of action at a moment when time 
 meant everything. Hektor, plain, blunt soldier as he was, 
 felt completely at sea; so did McGurk; O'Dwyer on the 
 other hand had already begun evolving schemes with light- 
 ning rapidity, each more complicated and futile than the last. 
 
 " We're in the soup," he groaned. " They've had six 
 months to conspire in. How are we going to undo it all in 
 three days? I wish to the devil Stephen was here." 
 
 The mention of Stephen's name relaxed the tension at 
 once. All had implicit faith in his cold, calculating intelli- 
 gence, and at that very moment they thought they heard his 
 step outside the door. But it was only Umpleby. He 
 knocked and was told impatiently to enter. 
 
 " Hello! " he said. " I'm looking for Stephen Ward." 
 
 " He's out," said McGurk. " Wouldn't we do? " 
 
 " Well, I came to find out his opinion about this exceed- 
 ingly disturbing document " (holding out a copy of the 
 handbill). " I've just written letters to the editors of the 
 Daily News and the Manchester Guardian, but I'm afraid 
 we may find a sanguinary pogrom in progress before they 
 can publish them." 
 
 " Arrah, be aisy now," said McGurk. 
 
 " I'm not at all easy, my dear fellow. I take this matter 
 seriously. Never in the whole course of our country's trag- 
 ical history; not even in the worst days of Mountjoy and 
 Carew; not even in the sanguinary and sordid transactions 
 before the Union; has such a dastardly- and . . ." 
 
 " Hould on," interrupted McGurk. " Tell him the sad 
 reality, Hektor." 
 
 The revelation made Umpleby gape. His parenthetic 
 fulminations were terrible to hear, but it was hard to say 
 whether the impending fate of his country or the slight 
 inflicted on his vanity by the neglect of the rebel leaders to 
 consult him were the more potent influence. 
 
 " This," he said, " is the most high-handed, calculated,
 
 486 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 insolent, treacherous piece of cynical, audacious double-deal- 
 ing and jerrymandering that it has been my lot to be the 
 innocent, duped, and deluded victim of. I shall write a 
 letter immediately to the Irish Independent" 
 
 " Holy Moses! " exclaimed McGurk. 
 
 " I'm afraid you'll have to restrain your epistolary ac- 
 tivities," said O'Dwyer. " We don't want to drag the Gov- 
 ernment into the business, you know." 
 
 "But what's to be done?" asked Umpleby, very much 
 dashed. 
 
 " Search me," said Hektor. " We're waiting for Ward. 
 Meanwhile, let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow 
 we may be arrested. I think I heard the gong . . ." 
 
 " The worst of it is," said O'Dwyer, " I've seats booked 
 for the Gondoliers on Tuesday for two . . ." 
 
 When Bernard saw the " Military Order " he doubted its 
 authenticity at once on the same grounds as O'Dwyer did, 
 a talk with whom confirmed his opinion. He went up to 
 Malone's flat to discuss the matter with him and found him 
 jubilant. 
 
 " There'll have to be a fight now," he said. 
 
 Bernard expressed his opinion of the Order. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Malone. "It's what I've been ex- 
 pecting for the last month. I hope the Volunteers are ready 
 for a scrap." 
 
 They argued for a long time but to no effect. Malone 
 positively revelled in delight at the coming battle. 
 
 " All the world will know now," he said, " that Ireland 
 hasn't surrendered. Whether we live or die the rottenest 
 page in our history is going to be turned over for good. 
 Get your gun out, my lad." 
 
 He produced a neat little magazine rifle from a cupboard 
 and critically examined the breech. 
 
 On Thursday night Bernard sat at home sorting some of 
 Eugene's papers which had been entrusted to him by his
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 487 
 
 mother. He realized now how little he had known of Eu- 
 gene's inner life, of his ideals, emotions and ambitions. 
 Having persistently underrated his brother's abilities he had 
 been inclined to regard them as negligible, but these papers 
 undeceived him. There were poems amongst them: reli- 
 gious and nature poems mostly, lacking in high inspiration 
 but simple and sincere expressions of genuine emotion. 
 There were three articles which he had sent in to different 
 papers and which had evidently been rejected: all on the 
 subject of the Dublin slums, honestly indignant, but senti- 
 mental rather than intellectual. There was an essay on the 
 causes of the war, commonplace and platitudinous, but 
 quite transparently an expression of opinions honestly held. 
 And finally there was the rough draft of a scheme for the 
 foundation of a society and a journal for the spreading of 
 Irish ideas in Trinity College. 
 
 While he was engaged on this melancholy task he heard 
 a ring at the hall-door and looking up saw that it was after 
 ten o'clock. His house-keeper he knew would be in bed, 
 so he went out and opened the door himself. He was 
 surprised to see Brian Mallow standing on the steps out- 
 side. 
 
 "Mum's the word!" whispered Brian, and stepped into 
 the hall with a darkly conspiratorial air. " Will you take 
 me where we can't be overheard ? " 
 
 Bernard conducted him to the sitting-room, gave him a 
 chair by the fire, and returned to his seat at the table. 
 
 " Well, what's the mystery? " he asked. 
 
 " The greatest thing going," replied Brian. " The Re- 
 public's going to be proclaimed on Sunday." 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Bernard. He was startled out of 
 his self-control, but Brian thought he was merely excited. 
 Bernard restrained himself forthwith and determined to hear 
 everything. 
 
 " Yes," went on Brian. " There's to be a rising all over 
 Ireland at midday on Sunday, fifty thousand Germans are 
 to land in Kerry, and the German fleet is going to sally out
 
 4 88 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and attack England. I got you the job of taking command 
 in Kerry to receive the Germans." 
 
 " Oh. And when was all this decided on ? " 
 
 " At a special meeting of the Executive last night." 
 
 " I never heard of such a meeting. Ward and O'Flah- 
 erty were dining with me last night." 
 
 " We're not telling them. They're afraid to rebel and 
 they'd only try and interfere if they knew. They'll come 
 in all right when it's on." 
 
 " Does MacNeill know? " 
 
 " Oh, lord no. He'd interfere too if he did." 
 
 " Well, he'll know from me then." 
 
 Brian began to look anxious. 
 
 " You mustn't tell any one or you'll spoil everything," he 
 said. " Look here. All this was between ourselves." 
 
 " Pity you didn't mention that before," said Bernard. 
 " I say, you don't mind my putting you out, do you? I'm 
 going to see MacNeill." x 
 
 " No you don't," said Brian and, whipping out a revolver, 
 he pointed it at Bernard's head. " Hands up! " he cried. 
 
 " Nonsense," said Bernard calmly, and proceeded to fill 
 his pipe. " You know very well you wouldn't dare fire. 
 Don't be theatrical." 
 
 " Hands up," reiterated Brian. 
 
 Bernard struck a match and carefully lit his pipe. Speak- 
 ing between the puffs he said : 
 
 " I wish you'd . . . put that thing . . . down. It might 
 go off." 
 
 " You're not going to leave this room," said Brian, " if 
 I have to spend the whole night with you." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Bernard. 
 
 Brian was standing up with levelled revolver, and the 
 table was between them. With a sudden jerk Bernard drove 
 the table hard against Brian, who, taken unawares, stag- 
 gered back, tripped, and fell, striking his head on the fender. 
 His revolver dropped on the floor and Bernard hastened to 
 seize it.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 489 
 
 " Damn you, Lascelles," said Brian, sitting up and finger- 
 ing the bump on his occiput. 
 
 Bernard unloaded the revolver, put the cartridges in his 
 pocket, and tossed the weapon back to its owner. 
 
 " Woe betide you if you give us away," muttered Brian. 
 
 " I'm sorry for my apparent inhospitality," said Bernard, 
 " but I really must be going. You can follow at your lei- 
 sure. Close the door when you're leaving, by the way." 
 
 " And you're the man I converted," said Brian. " I wish 
 to hell I'd let you remain a Unionist . . . 
 
 " What'll Austin say?" he ruefully asked himself when 
 Bernard was gone. He consoled himself by reflecting that 
 things had gone too far to be stopped. Those fifty thousand 
 Germans would be enough to ensure action. 
 
 " All the same," he said as he left the flat, " I'll get it 
 in the neck from Austin. . . . Good lord, what'll he 
 say?" 
 
 Meanwhile Bernard had taken out his car and run over 
 to O'Dwyer's lodgings. He was out, the landlady said. 
 Two gentlemen had called for him in a taxi about an hour 
 ago. Bernard thereupon turned and hastened across town 
 to the Neptune Hotel. He found McGurk in the smoking- 
 room. 
 
 " Where's Stephen ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh, is that you, Bernard?" cried McGurk, springing 
 up from the arm-chair in which he had been lounging. 
 " Have ye heard the news? The fat's in the fire at last. 
 Stephen and Hektor are gone to MacNeill's. There was a 
 fella came in her a couple of hours ago who'd been in with 
 the dopers and got cold feet. There's to be guns landed in 
 Kerry and a rising on Sunday, and . . ." 
 
 " Are there German troops coming? " 
 
 " Divil a troop." 
 
 " I thought as much." He told McGurk about the Brian 
 Mallow episode. 
 
 " Oh, there's to be no Germans," said McGurk. " Our 
 man said so, and he ought to know, for he was thick as
 
 490 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 thieves with them. Sure if there was, wouldn't we all be 
 in it ? " 
 
 " And what are our people going to do? " 
 
 " They'll be holding a palaver at present. Hektor swears 
 he'll put lead in Mallow. I hope they'll shoot the whole 
 bloody bunch." 
 
 " Then there's nothing I can do? " 
 
 " The best thing you can do is to go home where they can 
 find you if they want you. Stephen told me not to stir from 
 here." 
 
 Instead of going straight home, however, Bernard made 
 for Mallow's house. He was in a most uneasy frame of 
 mind, foreseeing nothing in the contemplated rebellion but 
 the smashing of the Volunteer movement and the loss to 
 the nation of its sole defence against conscription and its 
 hope of freedom. Arriving at the house at Rathgar, as 
 soon as he was admitted he pushed past the servant and 
 opened the sitting-room door. Austin Mallow and another 
 insurrectionary member of the Executive named Barret were 
 sitting at the table poring over a map. 
 
 " Oh, it's you, is it ? " said Austin. 
 
 " Yes," said Bernard, breathing hard. He expected a vio- 
 lent tirade from Austin, but the poet merely said : 
 
 " I'm glad you came. Sit down." 
 
 " I want to know the meaning of all this high-handed 
 trickery," said Bernard, still standing. 
 
 " Certainly," said Austin. " Our methods are not quite 
 what we'd like ourselves, but . . . under certain condi- 
 tions. . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 Bernard took a chair at the foot of the table. 
 
 " Do you seriously expect to beat the British Army? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " We do," said Austin. 
 
 Bernard uttered an exclamation of derision, and Barret 
 interposed. 
 
 " You don't understand," he said. " We don't expect to
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 491 
 
 win in a military sense, but we are confident of a moral vic- 
 tory." 
 
 " Hmph ! " ejaculated Bernard. 
 
 " I appreciate your feelings," said Barret. " You and 
 your friends are extremely clever young men, and all the 
 force of reason and common sense is on your side. But . . ." 
 
 He paused, as if not ready to speak all that was in his 
 mind. 
 
 "Well? "said Bernard. 
 
 " Reason and common sense are not enough. You have 
 no vision. You are blind to the spiritual essentials. You 
 will organize and drill and discipline your men for ever, but 
 you'll never do anything decisive, because reason and com- 
 mon sense are always on the side of the big battalions. We 
 see beyond these petty things. We see beyond failure and 
 death to the victory which failure and death will achieve. 
 Failure and death will be the voice by which we shall speak, 
 first to our own people, and then to all the peoples of the 
 world, and by our failure and death we shall forge a weapon 
 which those who scoff at us now will afterwards use . . ." 
 
 " You may be right," said Bernard. " Personally I think 
 you're wrong, but I won't argue that. But however right 
 you may be you can't justify your acting against the will of 
 the majority of the Executive or the way in which you have 
 deceived us." He addressed himself to Barret, feeling it 
 useless to argue with his fanatical companion. Barret hesi- 
 tated at this, however, and Austin broke in: 
 
 " Do you think that when we've decided what must be 
 done we're going to be held back by considerations of that 
 sort? Do you think that we're going to place the feelings 
 of our colleagues or even of our own personal honour above 
 the interests of Ireland? Do you think that we'll allow 
 ourselves to be thwarted by your timidity and lack of enter- 
 prise? No, thank you. Ireland must be saved in spite 
 of the strength of her enemies and the weakness of her 
 friends."
 
 492 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Bernard paid no attention to this harangue but continued 
 to address himself to Barret. 
 
 " It isn't fair to the men," he said. " They joined the 
 movement in the belief that if there was to be a fight it 
 wouldn't be a hopeless one. To lead them out to what even 
 you admit to be certain defeat is the grossest treachery to 
 them." 
 
 " The men will endorse our action afterwards," said Bar- 
 ret. 
 
 " All Ireland will endorse it eventually," said Austin. 
 " And just mark my words. Our minds are made up. The 
 fight is bound to be fought. And any one who interferes 
 with us from this out will be crushed. Ireland has been 
 ruined by faint hearts too often. We shall see that it doesn't 
 occur again. . . . That's a warning to you . . ." 
 
 " Hmph! Very dramatic I'm sure," said Bernard. "But 
 don't you imagine that you're the only people who can play 
 the crushing game . . . not by long chalks. And don't 
 think you've a monopoly of patriotism. For myself I can 
 say that I prefer Ireland to my theories about her, and that's 
 more than you can say." 
 
 " How charming! " said Mallow, with a sneer on his thin 
 lips. Barret turned to Bernard and said : 
 
 " I've no doubt whatever that you are as much concerned 
 with the good of Ireland as we are. But consider this: 
 nothing can stop the fight now, and interference on your 
 part will only hamper us no more. It's a pity we cannot 
 agree, but there we are." 
 
 " I hold my view as strongly as you hold yours," said Ber- 
 nard. " So I'll oppose you to the end. . . . Good evening." 
 
 He rose and went out. 
 
 13 
 
 Next morning Bernard was sitting down to a Good Fri- 
 day breakfast milkless tea, butterless buns, and a kippered 
 herring when O'Dwyer came in looking pale, heavy-eyed 
 and exhausted.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 493 
 
 "Can you give me some breakfast?" he asked. "I've 
 a lot to tell you and I'm in a hurry. . . . None of your 
 black tea and buns. I'm starving and worn-out so I'm 
 giving myself a dispensation." He dropped heavily into the 
 nearest arm-chair. 
 
 Bernard hurried out to give the necessary orders, but was 
 back in a moment to ask: 
 
 " Tea or coffee? " 
 
 There was no answer. O'Dwyer had fallen asleep in the 
 chair. Bernard left him so until breakfast was ready and 
 then roused him with difficulty. 
 
 " Have I been asleep ? " murmured O'Dwyer. " Lord, 
 I'm fagged out. Up all night and running all over the city 
 this morning." 
 
 Bernard poured out tea for him and O'Dwyer stumbled 
 over to the table. He drank and ate a little and soon woke 
 up completely. 
 
 " Listen now," he said. " Stephen and Hektor discovered 
 last night that there's to be a rebellion . . ." 
 
 " I know," said Bernard. " McGurk told me." 
 
 " Good. Then I can skip a lot. They came straight 
 over to my digs and fetched Sullivan from his, and we all 
 drove out to MacNeill's. He's drawn up countermanding 
 orders, and we've had them typed and addressed, and we're 
 sending them out by hand all over the country. I've got 
 about a dozen here for you, for corps scattered over southern 
 Leinster. You'll take them, I suppose? . . . Good. I've 
 another set for Umpleby : he's a sound man for all his absurd- 
 ity. McGurk's doing the west, and I'm going north this 
 evening after I've had a sleep. . . . Tea's great stuff, Ber- 
 nard. I feel a new man already." 
 
 " I suppose I'd better start as soon as possible? " 
 
 " The sooner the better," said O'Dwyer, and handed over 
 a bundle of letters . . . 
 
 So Bernard found himself driving all that day over Ossory 
 and Hy Kinsella. First he posted straight to Ballylangan 
 where Crowley who was mightily indignant at the idiocy
 
 494 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 and trickery of the whole affair undertook the delivery 
 of three of the documents whose addresses lived fairly near. 
 
 " What sort of an insurrection these fellows expect in 
 this neighbourhood I can't make out," he said. " Our corps 
 are all small and only a quarter of them armed, and they're 
 scattered about all over the place. What the devil we could 
 do beats me." 
 
 At shops in country towns, at doctors' houses, at farm 
 houses, at labourers' cottages, at lonely cabins on the moun- 
 tains Bernard left his missives, and the look of relief on the 
 faces of the recipients was good to see. They were shrewd 
 fellows, these young Volunteer captains, and there were few 
 that did not realize the madness of the adventure to which 
 they had thought themselves committed. They would not 
 have hesitated a moment about obeying those orders, issued, 
 as they thought, by the Executive they had elected to govern 
 them, but the countermanding order was obviously welcome. 
 Bernard's task was a long and tiring one, and not much more 
 than half of it was accomplished by midnight, when he put 
 up at a village inn where not only the son but the proprietor 
 himself were Volunteers. He completed his round by the 
 middle of the next day and hastened back to Dublin. 
 
 On arriving at the Neptune that evening he found Hektor 
 sunk in intense gloom. 
 
 " What's the matter now? " he asked. 
 
 " We've our backs to the wall, sonny," said Hektor. 
 " The insurrectors have beaten us at every turn. Sullivan 
 and Hobson have been kidnapped and Stephen escaped by 
 the tips of his eyelashes." 
 
 "Great Scott! " 
 
 " We had the insurrectors up to Headquarters and after 
 a grand palaver they withdrew and apologized and swore 
 that it was all off. The only thing to worry about then 
 seemed to be the arms ship and we just prayed that Jellicoe 
 might be propitious to us. Well, when all was squared up 
 the dopers took their departure and about three hours later 
 Stephen was sitting here alone when Austin Mallow arrived
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 495 
 
 in a cab and asked him to come to a conference at his place 
 to settle up matters of detail. It seemed a bit thin to 
 Stephen, but he went down to the cab, and if the fellows 
 inside hadn't been just a trifle too quick on the draw he 
 might have gone with them. As it was he just smiled and 
 excused himself. Since then we've heard that the others 
 have disappeared, but where they are we don't know." 
 
 "What does it all mean, I wonder?" 
 
 " It means that they're going to try and pull the thing 
 off in Dublin anyway. You see the countermanding orders 
 have never reached the Dublin men as the four battalion 
 commandants happen to be insurrectors. However, Stephen's 
 called the remainder of our party together and we've sent 
 in a notice to the Sunday papers. Short of calling round on 
 all the men individually I don't see what else we could do. 
 . . . I'm fair sick of this game. I'm a soldier, sir, and my 
 career in that line has been persistently interfered with. I 
 joined this movement in a military capacity, not as a keeper 
 in a criminal lunatic asylum; which seems to be my prin- 
 cipal function at present." 
 
 The following morning on his way to Mass Bernard 
 bought a Sunday paper. Prominent on the front page was 
 the following notice: 
 
 Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to 
 Irish Volunteers for Easter Sunday are hereby rescinded, 
 and no parades, marches, or other movements of Volunteers 
 will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey this 
 order strictly in every particular. 
 
 The day passed by uneventfully. Bernard spent it with 
 his mother, Alice, and Sandy.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CATASTROPHE 
 
 ALL Dublin that is to say all Dublin that felt that it 
 really counted and a good proportion that had no idea 
 that it didn't was at Fairyhouse Races on Monday. The 
 society papers said all Dublin was there, and as definitions 
 are valuable to students and statisticians let it here be stated 
 that in this context " all Dublin " means and includes five 
 peers, six baronets, eleven knights, two generals, an inde- 
 terminate number of colonels, captains and subalterns, some 
 hundreds of untitled gentry, and some thousands of the 
 commonalty: with women and children over and above. 
 The Earl and Countess of Ringsend were there, with their 
 son Lord Sandymount. Sir Swithin and Lady Mallaby 
 Morchoe were there ; and Sir Perry and Lady Tifflytis ; and 
 Sir John and Lady Bonegraft (newly titled and striving to 
 appear unconscious of it) ; Mr. and Mrs. Gunby Rourke 
 were there; and Sir Eugene Lascelles; and Mrs. Harvey 
 (whose newly acquired son-in-law had evidently been a sound 
 investment) . It was a most brilliant assembly. 
 
 The refreshment room behind the Grand Stand hummed 
 with conversation during the luncheon hour. 
 
 " How dowdy Lady Inchicore is," said Mrs. Moffat to 
 Mrs. Metcalfe. " Really, my dear, if I were a Countess 
 I think I'd treat myself to a new hat now and then." 
 
 " It's a long time since Mrs. Harvey appeared in society," 
 said Mrs. Metcalfe. " Has she come in for money? " 
 
 "My dear, haven't you heard?" said Mrs. Moffat, and 
 proceeded to explain . . . 
 
 " How well Sir Eugene bears his sorrow," said Lady 
 496
 
 CATASTROPHE 497 
 
 Bonegraft to Mrs. Gunby Rourke. " To look at him you 
 wouldn't dream that he'd lost his son only a few months 
 ago. I think it's so brave and patriotic of him to be so 
 cheerful." 
 
 Sir Eugene at the moment was enjoying a paternal flirta- 
 tion with a pert little miss of seventeen. Sir John Bonegraft, 
 who hated him, interrupted heavily, saying: 
 
 " Hello, Lascelles. Is that boy of yours out of gaol yet? " 
 
 Sir Eugene flushed angrily and said: 
 
 " I know nothing whatever about him." Whereat Sir 
 John emitted his thumping laugh and went off to mimic him 
 to Sir Perry Tifflytis . . . 
 
 A young man came into the refreshment room breathless 
 with excitement and blurted out to the first person he saw: 
 
 " Heard the news? . . . Ructions in town . . . Sinn 
 Feiners out. . . . Shooting everybody . . . The Castle 
 taken . . ." 
 
 People pressed round him eager for news which, how- 
 ever, was received with incredulity. 
 
 " A mere street riot, I'm sure," said Sir Eugene Lascelles. 
 
 " No. They've got the Castle." 
 
 " Disloyal beggars! " 
 
 "What's all the excitement?" some one asks, pressing 
 into the circle. The story is told again. There is a babel 
 of questions and comments. 
 
 " Sin fainars: what are they? " 
 
 " But they've got the Castle . . ." 
 
 " It's all nonsense." 
 
 " They ought to be shot." 
 
 " I knew this would happen." 
 
 " This weak-kneed Government! " 
 
 " What can you expect with a man like Birrell? . . ." 
 
 " German gold, you may be sure . . ." 
 
 "... And in the middle of the great war too! " 
 
 " I hope they'll all be shot." 
 
 " I'll bet it's all over by this time." 
 
 These are samples of the more intelligent of the remarks
 
 498 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 which filled the air. The excitement lasted for some ten or 
 fifteen minutes but for lack of definite information it quickly 
 subsided, and incredulity took its place. Interest returned 
 to the races . . . 
 
 The road was packed with pedestrians and vehicles when 
 it was all over. The humble commonalty footed it to the 
 station, or cycled, or crowded in half-dozens on to outside 
 cars, while motors of every description, from insignificant 
 little two-seaters to mammoth landaulettes, humming, hoot- 
 ing and screaming, threaded their courses Dublinwards 
 through this chattering, jangling confusion. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gunby Rourke in their magnificent Rolls Royce were the 
 first to extricate themselves from the multitude and hasten 
 down a clear road towards the city, to their ultimate un- 
 doing; for at the end of a long suburban road they came 
 upon the outermost of the barricades. 
 
 It was a ramshackle structure: a makeshift coacervation 
 of diverse objects. An overturned tramcar made up nearly 
 half of it ; the remainder consisting of a couple of motor- 
 cars, half a dozen bicycles, a few paving stones, some sand- 
 bags, and the pillage of a second-hand furniture shop. 
 There was a gap at one end. The fortification was manned 
 by five men in the grey-green uniform of the Volunteers, 
 and rifles could be seen projecting from the windows of the 
 houses that flanked it. The inhabitants of the district, re- 
 spectable and ragged, stood about staring, grumbling, or 
 cursing. 
 
 " Halt! " rang out the voice of one of the garrison, and as 
 if to guarantee the seriousness of the command there burst 
 forth the sound of rifle-fire from a distant quarter of the 
 city. 
 
 " Don't mind him," said Mrs. Gunby Rourke to her 
 chauffeur, who had slackened speed. " Drive for the gap." 
 
 " I'll blow your brains out if you do," said the Volunteer, 
 whereat the great Rolls Royce stopped dead. 
 
 "What impertinence!" cried Mrs. Gunby Rourke. 
 " Drive on, Jennings."
 
 CATASTROPHE 499 
 
 " We'd best go back, madam," said Jennings. 
 
 " Ye'll do nothing of the sort, then," said the sentry. 
 " If ye move wan inch I'll shoot ye dead." 
 
 " This is outrageous ! " said Mrs. Gunby Rourke. " What 
 can we do, Arthur? " 
 
 " I'm afraid we must bow to the inevitable, dear," said 
 Mr. Gunby Rourke. 
 
 Another Volunteer, evidently a section-commander, now 
 came out of one of the houses and crossed the barricade. 
 
 " WV11 have to commandeer this car," he said, fingering 
 the handle of a revolver at his belt. " May I ax ye to step 
 out." 
 
 Mrs. Gunby Rourke was perfectly furious at this. 
 
 " Do you know who I am, sir? " she demanded. 
 
 " Ye may be the Empress o' Chiney, ma'am, but we've 
 got to finish this barricade, and that car o' yours'll just 
 do it." 
 
 Mrs. Gunby Rourke was almost speechless with indigna- 
 tion. She gasped incoherently and then turned on her hus- 
 band, who was lying back in his seat passively smoking a 
 cigar. 
 
 " Are you going to sit there quietly and hear me in- 
 sulted ? " she asked. 
 
 Mr. Gunby Rourke waved his cigar helplessly and said: 
 
 " What can one do, my dear? " 
 
 " Do! " exclaimed his wife, and became incoherent again. 
 
 " Arrah, be aisy, ma'am," said the Volunteer. " We 
 won't do y'anny harm, an' when the Republic's established 
 sure we'll give ye compensation for the car. Will ye dis- 
 mount if ye plaze? " 
 
 Mrs. Gunby Rourke turned her outraged eyes to heaven 
 and sat still, but her husband and the chauffeur alighted. 
 
 " Come along, my dear," said the former. " We nfust 
 yield to superior force for the moment, but they'll all be 
 shot in a few days." 
 
 Mrs. Gunby Rourke made no answer, but seeing the Vol- 
 unteer lovingly fondle the handle of his revolver she de-
 
 500 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 scended from the car and walked off on her husband's arm. 
 The Rolls Royce was stuffed into the gap in the barricade. 
 
 A shot and its echo sounded in the far distance. Bernard 
 dropped the book he was reading and listened. Another 
 shot rang out close at hand. Then silence. 
 
 He heard some one come down the stairs at a run, and in 
 a moment John Malone burst into the room. 
 
 " Did you hear it? " he cried. " They're suppressing the 
 Volunteers ! " 
 
 Another distant shot was heard, followed by two others 
 in rapid succession. A chill sense of realization came to 
 Bernard. 
 
 " It isn't that," he said. " It's rebellion." 
 
 " Hurroosh! " cried Malone. " I guess I'm going for my 
 gun." And he rushed out. 
 
 At the same moment Bernard heard the tramp of feet in 
 the street outside and, going to the window, he saw a squad 
 of men in green uniforms marching up the street. 
 
 "Foiled again," he muttered; and added: ."Poor dev- 
 ils!" 
 
 Malone returned, carrying his rifle. 
 
 " Aren't you coming? " he said. 
 
 Bernard knew it would be useless to enter into a discussion 
 with him, so he merely said : 
 
 " Not yet. Don't wait for me." 
 
 Malone disappeared. Bernard went out a few minutes 
 later. Hurrying down Harcourt Street he was struck by 
 the unnatural quietness everywhere. Traffic seemed to have 
 been suspended, and people stood at their doors or in little 
 groups on the sidewalks, talking in subdued tones, with 
 every now and again an anxious glance down the street 
 in the direction of Stephen's Green. Arriving at the corner 
 Bernard saw a little bunch of people being hustled out of 
 the Park by some of the Citizen Army, who, as soon as the
 
 CATASTROPHE 501 
 
 last of the civilians had been thrust outside, closed the gate 
 and secured it with a lock and chain. In a shrubbery inside 
 the railings half a dozen of the men in green were digging 
 entrenchments. The people who had been expelled from 
 the Green stood staring at them, arid from the open doors 
 and windows of all the houses in the neighbourhood the 
 inhabitants were staring hard. Passers-by in the street 
 stopped and stared in their turn. There seemed to be noth- 
 ing else for people to do but to stare: they were too puzzled 
 and stupefied to talk. An ominous silence reigned over all, 
 broken only by the clink and scrape of the tools of the 
 trench diggers and the occasional pop of a distant rifle. 
 
 Bernard had no time to stop and stare. He walked on 
 along the east side of the square until he reached Grafton 
 Street, where he stopped abruptly on seeing a section of his 
 own company marching towards him. Bernard succeeded 
 in catching the commander's eye and raised his hand, where- 
 upon the latter halted his men, came over to Bernard, saluted, 
 and stood to attention. 
 
 "How's this, Muldoon?" asked Bernard. "How did 
 you come to be mobilized without me ? " 
 
 " Captain Skehan mobilized us, sir," replied Muldoon. 
 
 " Captain Skehan ? " queried Bernard. 
 
 " Yes, sir. He showed us his promotion order signed by 
 Commandant-General Pearse. ... I thought you'd been 
 promoted to the Staff maybe, Captain." 
 
 " Not exactly, Muldoon," said Bernard. " In fact I 
 rather fancy I've been cashiered." 
 
 " I'm sorry to hear that, Captain." 
 
 " This rebellion isn't an Executive affair at all, you know. 
 It's mutiny against the President as a matter of fact. The 
 whole thing's a frightful mix up and there's no time to 
 explain it. I'm going down to Headquarters now to see 
 what can be done. Meanwhile, what'll you do? " 
 
 " I suppose I'll have to carry out me orders, Captain. 
 But between ourselves I don't know what we're out for. 
 We'll be bet for certain."
 
 502 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Something may be done yet. Where are Headquarters, 
 by the way? " 
 
 " At the G.P.O., Captain." 
 
 " Very well. I suppose you'd better carry on for the 
 present." 
 
 Muldoon saluted and returned to his men. Bernard re- 
 sumed his way, passed down Grafton Street and W^estmore- 
 land Street, and arriving at O'Connell Bridge ran into 
 Stephen and Hektor. 
 
 " Well," said Stephen. " What do you think of this piece 
 of lunacy ? " 
 
 " Can nothing be done ? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " Look," said Stephen, and pointed down Sackville Street. 
 The Republican Tricolour of Orange, White and Green 
 was flying from the roof of the General Post Office. 
 
 " There's been a scrap already," said Hektor. " A party 
 of Lancers went down the street about ten minutes ago and 
 were fired on. Three were killed." 
 
 " Nothing can stop it now," said Stephen. 
 
 There was a burst of firing far away on the south side of 
 the city. 
 
 " Attack on Portobello Barracks, I suppose," suggested 
 Hektor. 
 
 Excited groups of people were standing about, on and near 
 the bridge discussing the situation. Stray words from some 
 of them reached Bernard's ears: " Bloody fools! " "What 
 the hell do they think they're up to? " " I hope they'll all 
 be shot." 
 
 " The Republic doesn't seem to be exactly popular/' ob- 
 served Hektor. " Physical force won't have much stock in 
 the country when the dust up is over." 
 
 " I hope to heaven the country'll keep quiet," said Stephen. 
 " How do things look where you were? " 
 
 " They didn't seem at all anxious to come out," replied 
 Bernard. 
 
 " I bet they won't like abandoning Dublin," said Hek- 
 tor.
 
 CATASTROPHE 503 
 
 " Well, let's hope they'll have the sense to do it all the 
 same," said Stephen. 
 
 " I don't know that sense is everything," said Bernard. 
 He was looking at the flag of Ireland flying in the breeze, 
 and a longing seized him to fight and die in its defence. 
 A thousand emotions were welling up in his heart. The 
 spirit of the rebels of all the ages was calling to him; the 
 music of Ireland was playing to him; the anger of Ireland 
 was thrilling him ; reason was being swamped in floods of pas- 
 sion. Stephen, reading all this in his face, said quietly: 
 
 " This rebellion will be the ruin of Ireland. It'll be 
 crushed in a few days; the country will be conscripted; 
 and when the people see the damage done they'll react to 
 constitutionalism for another generation and the Union will 
 have a fresh lease of life." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Bernard. 
 
 " Hello, you chaps! " said a voice suddenly, and turning 
 round they were faced by Fergus Moore. They had not 
 seen him for over a year, so they were startled by the change 
 in his appearance, constitutionally wrecked as he was by 
 long-continued dissipation. 
 
 " Where are you off to? " asked Hektor. 
 
 " I'm going down to the G.P.O. to see if they can spare 
 me a rifle." 
 
 " I gave you credit for more sense," said Stephen. " Don't 
 you know that this piece of lunacy is going to be the ruin 
 of the country? " 
 
 " Who can be sure of anything? And what matter any- 
 way? I've lived a rotten life, so I may as well die de- 
 cently." 
 
 "At your country's expense?" said Stephen. 
 
 " If you saw D.T.'s in front of you you wouldn't split 
 hairs over the morality of a fight that gives you a chance to 
 die game, would you? I'd like to kill an Englishman or 
 two anyway." 
 
 " There's no canteen in the G.P.O.," said Stephen drily. 
 That's unworthy of you, Ward," replied Moore. " But 

 
 50 4 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 I'm going to my death, so I salute you. Good-bye all." 
 
 He shook hands sentimentally with the three and marched 
 off towards the Post Office. 
 
 " I thought that kind of character didn't exist outside 
 novels," said Hektor. " Who says Sidney Carton's improb- 
 able now ? " 
 
 " Those who go seeking death never find it," said Stephen. 
 " I bet you Moore'll come out of this scatheless: which is 
 more than will happen to more useful poor fellows." 
 
 Suddenly Bernard cried : 
 
 " Hello! Here's Umpleby," and the others looking round 
 saw the little man approaching from the direction of D'Olier 
 Street. He was loaded up with equipment, carried a Howth 
 rifle on his shoulder, and was quite breathless. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so glad to have met you," he puffed. " What's 
 the meaning of it all? I was mobilized for a route march 
 but it looks more like a rebellion. I thought we'd cancelled 
 that . . ." 
 
 Stephen explained the position. 
 
 " But," said Umpleby, tentatively scanning Stephen's face. 
 " Er . . . doesn't honour require that we should throw in 
 our lot with our comrades? " He was hoping with all his 
 heart that it didn't, and his brow was knit with anxiety. 
 
 " I can's answer for your honour," said Stephen bluntly, 
 " but personally I'm going home." 
 
 Umpleby heaved a sigh of relief. Here was good company 
 to err with. 
 
 " I'll do the same," he said. " Meanwhile I think I'll 
 rid myself of these superfluous and incriminating impedi- 
 menta." Without more ado he divested himself of his ac- 
 coutrements and dumped them, rifle and all, over the parapet 
 of the bridge into the Liffey. 
 
 " Now I think I'll run off home," he said. " My wife 
 will be very anxious about me." (Distant firing.) " Hear 
 that. She'll think they're all hitting me. . . . Good-bye, 
 boys. He shook hands hurriedly and scuttled back down 
 D'Olier Street.
 
 CATASTROPHE 505 
 
 " I suppose I may as well be off home too," said Bernard. 
 
 " No. Come along to the Neptune with us," said Stephen. 
 " We can get you a room. We may as well stick together 
 in case of trouble." 
 
 Bernard was very pleased by this invitation. Since Ma- 
 bel's defection and the loss of Eugene and Willoughby soli- 
 tude had become intolerable to him. He craved for human 
 society, and now above all he needed the support of Stephen's 
 strong will and character. Hektor supplemented the invi- 
 tation in his bluff way and Bernard accepted it. 
 
 " Let's stroll on, then," said Stephen. 
 
 They crossed the bridge and walked down Sackville Street, 
 which was a chaos of strange sights. In the upper stories 
 of many shops the windows had been smashed and then 
 barricaded with furniture, behind which could be seen the 
 green-clad forms of Volunteer sentinels silently waiting. 
 The street was still thronged with wondering people, who 
 walked about, stood and stared, or flung jibes at the imper- 
 turbable garrisons of the shops. Excited children ran hither 
 and thither, and a ring of them, with not a few of their elders 
 commingled, was gathered round the body of the horse that 
 had been slain in the affray with the lancers. At the end 
 of Abbey Street some Volunteers were erecting a barricade 
 of bicycles and rolls of paper under the curious and not 
 very friendly gaze of a crowd of spectators. The toilers 
 seemed to be embarrassed by this publicity, and a pink-and- 
 white youth who acted as sentry was shyly endeavouring to 
 make the crowd stand back. Some one chaffed him rudely, 
 whereat he blushed and desisted from his efforts. He was a 
 bashful revolutionary. 
 
 Bernard and his friends walked on and arrived opposite 
 the Post Office, whose windows had been smashed and barri- 
 caded like those of the shops. 
 
 "I'd just like to go in and tell the dope crowd what I 
 think of them," said Hektor. 
 
 " You'd only get shot for your pains," said Stephen. 
 
 Bernard drew their attention to a small crowd collected
 
 506 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 at the base of Nelson's Pillar, evidently reading a poster of 
 some kind. He went over, followed by the others, and from 
 the outskirts of the crowd read: 
 
 POBLACHT NA H EIRE ANN 
 THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 of the 
 IRISH REPUBLIC 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND 
 
 Irishmen and Irishwomen : In the name of God 
 and of the dead generations from which she receives 
 her old traditions of nationhood, Ireland, through 
 us summons her children to her flag and strikes for 
 her freedom . . . 
 
 There were too many heads in the way to read any further, 
 and the others called to him to come on. The three con- 
 tinued their walk, Bernard going slowly and very pensively. 
 When they reached the Parnell Monument he turned back 
 and saw once more the flag waving in the wind, the sunlight 
 enriching its gold and green. 
 
 " It seems a shame to desert them," he said. 
 
 " Begad," said Hektor. " I hate leaving them in the lurch 
 like that." 
 
 " Look here, you two," said Stephen. " Do you, or do 
 you not believe that this rebellion is going to be ruinous to 
 Ireland?" There was no answer. "Well then," he re- 
 sumed, " have sense and come on. If these people are bent 
 on wrecking the country we're not going to help them any- 
 how." 
 
 " But the rank-and-file ? " said Bernard. 
 
 " Indeed I'm sorry for them," said Stephen, " but I don't
 
 CATASTROPHE 507 
 
 see how we can help them. We did what we could these 
 last few days." 
 
 There was nothing more to be said. They turned their 
 backs on the Post Office, walked on in silence, and in five 
 minutes were at the Neptune Hotel. In the hall they met 
 McGurk fully equipped and armed. 
 
 " What are you up to, Hugo? " asked Hektor in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " I'm going into this bloody rebellion," replied McGurk. 
 
 " Don't be an ass, Hugo," said Stephen. 
 
 " Ah, sure I know it's absurd," said McGurk. " But I 
 can't be deserting the poor boys." 
 
 " You'd rather desert your country instead ? " said 
 Stephen. 
 
 " Sure this fight finishes Ireland for our time," said Mc- 
 Gurk, " so we might as well go down with it. We'll all 
 be shot anyway whether we fight or not." 
 
 " That doesn't make it right to fight, Hugo." 
 
 "What matter? . . . And I want to kill a few of them 
 bloody English before I die anyhow." 
 
 " Well," said Hektor. " Good luck." 
 
 " Good luck, boys." 
 
 And Hugo McGurk made his sally. 
 
 "What splendid material these fellows are going to 
 waste," said Stephen. 
 
 " The best stuff in Ireland," added Hektor . . . 
 
 After lunch Bernard crossed town to pay a visit of warn- 
 ing and reassurance to his mother. The poor lady could not 
 understand the situation at all: it was enough for her to 
 know that her son would not be in the fighting, and she 
 made him promise faithfully to take care of himself and not 
 to stir out of doors. 
 
 In the evening he returned to the Neptune Hotel. The 
 aspect of the streets was unchanged ; no troops had as yet 
 appeared on the scene; but the distant sound of sustained 
 firing from three different directions indicated that fighting 
 had already begun on the outskirts of the city. In Sackville
 
 508 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 Street the crowds had increased, but they were of a different 
 complexion from those of the morning. Dusk had sent re- 
 spectable people to their homes and lured forth the under- 
 world in search of loot. All the ragged, starving and de- 
 formed population of the slums was abroad and looting had 
 already begun. Two sweet-shops and a boot-shop had been 
 broken into and plundered to the very walls, and a draper's 
 was being rapidly stripped when Bernard appeared on the 
 scene. The dead horse still lay in the centre of the street 
 but attracted no more attention. Ragged children ran about 
 clad in all kinds of finery. Old women staggered along 
 with sacks bulging with loot. Drunken harlots danced and 
 sang. The crash of another window brought every one rac- 
 ing in its direction for more plunder. The shouts of quar- 
 relling thieves rang through the air. In the distance was the 
 muffled roar of the fighting. 
 
 Bernard passed on. A dirty, dishevelled young woman 
 wearing a gorgeous hat and with a sealskin coat over her 
 tattered blouse and skirt was dancing in the middle of the 
 street yelling: 
 
 "The Volunteers is up! Ireland's free! Hurroo!" 
 
 Another equally repulsive creature was shouting obsceni- 
 ties at the garrison of the Post Office. 
 
 " Up th' Alleys an' to Hell wid the Kayzer! " she 
 shrieked. 
 
 Grim and silent stood the Post Office in the gloom. The 
 tricolour hung limp from its staff. Bernard walked on. 
 The uproar in Sackville Street sank to a murmur and finally 
 died away. 
 
 3 
 
 The dawn of Tuesday the twenty-fifth was heralded by 
 fresh bursts of rifle fire. Bernard and his friends had an 
 early breakfast; and a meagre one, too, for the Neptune, 
 having many mouths to feed, had begun to ration already. 
 Dolan, the landlord, came in to them full of news. 
 
 " Sure, they're not doing so bad at all," he said. 
 They've got the Castle and the whole country's up, and the
 
 CATASTROPHE 509 
 
 Jairmans have landed in Kerry, and there's an English 
 cruiser sunk off Fenit and the Pope's sent Pearse his bless- 
 ing." 
 
 " Get out of that, Dolan, you old cod," said Hektor. 
 
 " It's God's truth I'm tellin' ye, Misther O'Flaherty," 
 said Dolan. " I wouldn't tell ye thruer if ye were the priest 
 of God and I was on me knees to ye in the Confessional. 
 Sure the milkman told me this morning, an' his brother 
 told him, an' the brother has a son in the Volyunteers, so 
 he has. . . . Arrah, why aren't yez all in the fight? It's 
 down to the G.P.O. I'd like to be going meself, so I would." 
 
 " If we went down to the G.P.O.," said Hektor, " it's 
 precious little you'd ever see of the money we owe you, 
 friend Dolan." 
 
 " Sure, you're welcome," said Dolan, and went over to 
 abuse the rebels and all their generations to a Unionist cus- 
 tomer who had just come down to breakfast. 
 
 The three went out into the streets, which, as on the 
 previous day, were again thronged with the curious. Loot- 
 ing was still going on in Sackville Street which was strewn 
 with paper, card-board boxes, and broken and discarded 
 plunder. The sacking of Lawrence's great toy-shop was in 
 progress. 
 
 For half-a-crown Hektor obtained a copy of the Irish 
 Times from a newsboy, from which they learned that 
 Dolan's news was untrue. The attack on the Castle had 
 been attempted with insufficient forces and had completely 
 failed ; there had been no German landing but a ship, laden 
 with arms, had been sunk off Cork; the country was quiet, 
 with, however, reports of small movements in North Dublin, 
 Wexford and Galway ; the British Navy was intact ; and the 
 Pope was apparently neutral. The centre of the city was, 
 however, still in the hands of the Volunteers, and their out- 
 posts were evidently holding their own, for the sullen firing 
 in the distance had approached no nearer. It was, however, 
 getting more and more continuous. Monday's sporadic 
 bursts were replaced by a long, seldom-interrupted roar,
 
 510 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 which by midday was sustained almost without a lull, show- 
 ing that hard fighting was in progress. Then all of a sud- 
 den came an explosion of firing from a quarter quite close to 
 the centre of the city, and this time it was mingled with the 
 rattle of machine guns. 
 
 " Can they be attacking the Castle again ? " said Hektor. 
 
 " More likely the enemy have broken through and are 
 attacking the City Hall," replied Stephen. 
 
 The sounds of battle were certainly coming from Cork 
 Hill, where, as Stephen surmised, the military were attack- 
 ing in force. Volley followed volley of rifle fire until 
 volleys could no longer be distinguished, and howling them 
 down came the relentless grinding dud-dud-dud of the ma- 
 chine guns. Two long hours it lasted without intermission, 
 while Bernard listened tense with excitement and anxiety. 
 Then there was silence. What did it indicate? Bernard 
 and his friends could only guess, but it meant that soldiers 
 and Volunteers Irishmen both as it happened were 
 fighting desperately hand-to-hand up and down the stair- 
 cases and in and out of the rooms and corridors of the City 
 Hall and the Daily Express offices. No quarter was asked 
 or given in that ferocious melee, and when the blood-stained 
 buildings finally remained in the hands of the military a 
 deathly silence settled down over the city. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " asked Bernard. 
 
 " Hard to say," replied Hektor. " Probably they've 
 found infantry assaults too costly and they're going to bom- 
 bard us." 
 
 " Poor old Dublin ! " said Bernard. He was filled with 
 dismay. The destruction of the dear old city was a melan- 
 choly prospect enough, but the possible fate of its three hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants was too terrible to contemplate. 
 
 " They couldn't do it," he said. 
 
 " Couldn't they! " said Hektor, ominously. 
 
 " It doesn't make much odds either way," said Stephen. 
 " Another few days like this and we'll all be starving."
 
 CATASTROPHE 511 
 
 4 
 
 Dublin has reason to be proud of Easter Week, for the 
 gay, shabby, majestic old city bore herself bravely during her 
 six days' agony. While her young Volunteers, sleepless, 
 hungry, and bewildered, fought heroically against over- 
 whelming odds, her citizens faced the horrors which had so 
 suddenly and unexpectedly fallen upon them with calmness 
 and fortitude. Indeed, their principal feeling throughout 
 was one of curiosity, and they were foolhardy in the ex- 
 treme in their desire to satisfy it. Tradesmen went about 
 their humdrum and necessary business with matter-of-fact 
 courage in face of every danger. So long as there was milk 
 to deliver the milkmen delivered it; so long as there was 
 bread it did not remain undistributed; and it was the same 
 with all the providers of necessities. When the fires began 
 to add a new horror to the situation the fire brigade crossed 
 bullet-swept zones to fulfil their duty and so saved the city 
 from certain destruction. Of panic there was no sign 
 anywhere. 
 
 On Wednesday the bombardment began. In the morn- 
 ing the gunboat Helga steamed up the Liffey, pounded Lib- 
 erty Hall into ruins, and proceeded to drop shells into Sack- 
 ville Street. Rifle-fire at the same time began afresh and 
 the machine-guns recommenced their infernal racket. To 
 those who listened it seemed that the whole city must in- 
 evitably be destroyed, for what buildings could possibly sur- 
 vive the fearful tornado that smote upon their ears? As 
 soon as the din slackened in one quarter it burst forth even 
 more vigorously in another. Thus, when the dwellers on 
 the south side noticed a slight diminution in the distant roar 
 from Sackville Street, with shattering suddenness crashed 
 forth a violent fusillade close at hand : where troops nelwly 
 arrived from England and on the march from Kingstown 
 had fallen upon the Volunteer outposts in the Pembroke 
 area and been repulsed with heavy loss. And even as the 
 sounds of this conflict died away, from the southeast with 
 redubled intensity burst out the cannonade which the Helga
 
 5 i2 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 was directing against the stronghold of Boland's Mill. 
 Then it too gave place to the sounds of a fresh attack from 
 the north. So all day long the thunder of battle rolled 
 unceasingly ; it went on muttering even after dark ; and there 
 were vicious bursts at intervals during the night . . . 
 
 Thursday brought hunger and the fires. There was no 
 milk that day, and no bread: people counted themselves 
 lucky to scrape together a meal of black tea, stale crusts, and 
 scraps of meat. The sun shone brilliantly as it did all 
 through the week. The battle roar boomed forth again, 
 more heavily than ever, but it had ceased to terrify. It had 
 become monotonous. All count of time had been lost; peo- 
 ple felt almost as if the rebellion had always been, and came 
 to accept it as a thing of custom and part of the natural 
 order of the day. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, 
 people had asked each other incessantly: " How long is it 
 going to last? " On Thursday they asked it no more. 
 
 About midday came the first of the fires. Following the 
 fall of a succession of shells a thin wisp of smoke rose up 
 from a shattered house in Abbey Street. Almost simul- 
 taneously a second appeared further on. There was no 
 pause in the shooting. Flames began to leap out of the 
 windows of some of the houses, and still shell after shell 
 dropped in the area. A dense column of flame-reddened 
 smoke came billowing up out of the wrecked buildings, and 
 with a crackle and roar and the thunderous fall of beams 
 and masonry the fire began to spread in every direction. 
 Soon the whole block of buildings bounded by Abbey Street, 
 Sackville Street, and Eden Quay was ablaze. Great black- 
 and-ruddy pillars of smoke rose up into the sultry air, eddy- 
 ing and bulging and spreading themselves into a vast canopy 
 aloft. As night fell the terrified inhabitants saw the sky lit 
 by a lurid glare, and so immense was the conflagration that 
 even in the outlying districts the spectators received the im- 
 pression that it was close at hand. It was generally be- 
 lieved that the whole city was doomed, and that night no- 
 body slept.
 
 CATASTROPHE 513 
 
 5 
 
 " Our boys are the stuff," said Hektor to Stephen. 
 " They sure are making some stand." 
 
 " And all for nothing," replied Stephen. " What waste 
 of courage and material." 
 
 It was the evening of the fourth day of the insurrection. 
 The sounds of battle were continuous ; the smell of burning 
 tainted all the atmosphere; the glow from the flames of 
 Sackville Street leaping skyward grotesquely illuminated 
 the smoking-room of the Neptune, paling the light of the 
 single candle that burned on the mantelpiece. 
 
 " I don't like the look in Bernard's eye," said Stephen. 
 " He's been over-wrought during this last month and this 
 catastrophe seems to have upset him completely. He's in 
 the mood for any kind of folly, I'm afraid. Where is he 
 now? " 
 
 " Out on the roof," said Hektor. " He's like a young 
 soldier under fire for the first time. There are two kinds of 
 men and they each act differently in that situation: one sort 
 gets panicky and wants to run away; the other sort gets 
 nervy and wants to get near the firing. That's Bernard's 
 sort. I hope he's not going to do anything silly." 
 
 Abruptly, the cannonade stopped and they could hear 
 faintly the hiss and crackle of the Sackville Street furnace. 
 
 Out on the roof stood Bernard gazing fascinated at the 
 blaze. Great tongues of flame licked at the purple sky and 
 playing on the smoke-columns gave them a sanguine hue. 
 Black and red was the canopy that obscured the face of the 
 moon, who, just past her full, glanced down once through a 
 rent in its texture and straight was veiled again. Jets and 
 cascades of sparks spurted up and were blotted out or rum- 
 bled back to earth. Sooty and flaming particles drifted 
 about close at hand and fell around him. The acrid smell 
 of burning tickled his nostrils. The rims of his eyes and 
 the back of his throat smarted. After the cessation of the 
 cannonade the random rifle-shooting of the night was re- 
 sumed.
 
 5H THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 " Poor old Dublin," he muttered. 
 
 The last two days he had passed in a state of hardly sup- 
 pressed nervous excitement. With the music of the guns 
 stirring the battle-lust of the warrior latent within him he 
 had found it increasingly difficult to restrain himself from 
 rushing out headlong into the fight, and the impassivity of 
 his friends had been a source of constant irritation. As 
 the fight progressed the actual circumstances of its bringing 
 about became less and less important to him; and more and 
 more clamant came the call of Ireland and his comrades. 
 Swamping all ratiocination rose the feeling that Ireland was 
 fighting for her life and that he was standing aside and 
 looking on. As the battle raged fiercer and fiercer he 
 fancied that the Bocanachs and Bananachs and Witches of 
 the Valley, that had danced on the spear points of 
 the warriors of the Tain, were riding the shells and rushing 
 behind the bullets, shrieking over the carnage and destruc- 
 tion of the fray, and mocking at him in his safety and seclu- 
 sion. 
 
 " Keep cool," Hektor had said to him. " There'll be an- 
 other fight after this. When they come to conscript the 
 country who will there be to lead the people unless we 
 survive? " 
 
 But now he was in no mood to think. He beheld his 
 city devoured by flames; he foresaw the downfall of his 
 country and the destruction of the movement that had been 
 his pride; he had heard in the streets the curses of the 
 people against the insurrection, its leaders, and all who had 
 act or part in it. He was weary of life, too: he had borne 
 more sorrow in a month than comes to many in years; and 
 he asked himself whether existence would be endurable in 
 the beaten and enslaved Ireland of the future. 
 
 "What is there left to live for?" he cried. "What is 
 life without hope? What more poisonous than vain re- 
 grets?" 
 
 With that he gave one more look at the leaping fury in the
 
 CATASTROPHE 515 
 
 southern sky, rushed down from the roof, and, hatless and 
 unarmed as he was, went out into the night. 
 
 Stephen and Hektor heard the hall-door slam, and half- 
 suspecting what had occurred they started up and made one 
 for the door, the other for the roof. Stephen opened the 
 door and looked out, but no one was in sight. Hektor came 
 down and announced that Bernard was gone. 
 
 " I expected it," said Stephen. 
 
 " Oughtn't we to go and look for him? " said Hektor, 
 but Stephen shook his head. 
 
 " No use," he said. " We'd never find him now, and 
 even if we did we couldn't bring him back." 
 
 Meanwhile, Bernard was seeking the way to the Post 
 Office. It would have been impossible to reach it by Sack- 
 ville Street, bullet-swept as it was and lit up by the glare 
 of the burning buildings, so he went hunting for a way 
 round to the west hoping to strike on Mary Street and so 
 slip in by the rear. But this part of the town being un- 
 familiar to him he lost himself. Wandering vaguely on he 
 got entangled in a labyrinth of bye streets and finally lost 
 all sense of his direction until, happening on a wider street, 
 he got a glimpse of the Pole Star, by whose guidance he set 
 forward once more on a southeasterly course. 
 
 And then he encountered the sentry. Right at the end of 
 the street he stood, an unmistakable figure in his trench 
 helmet and with the moonlight glinting on his fixed bayonet. 
 Bernard w r as astonished to see him, and dismayed, too, for 
 he was himself unarmed. He guessed, however, that in the 
 bye street he had got through the cordon which the military 
 were drawing round the centre of the city, and he realized 
 that to reach the Post Office he must break his way back 
 through it. So he went on. Slinking slowly along the 
 shadowy side of the street he got to within twenty yards of 
 the sentry, whose back was towards him, without being 
 heard. Then, bracing himself, he made a rush. The sentry 
 turned at the sound of running feet, but Bernard was upon
 
 516 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 him before he could bring his rifle to the present. They 
 grappled, but not for long. The soldier was a degenerate 
 little factory hand and Bernard flung him easily. Down he 
 went, his rifle underneath him, and Bernard on top. The 
 soldier attempted to shout, but Bernard gripped his throat 
 with his left hand, half strangling him, and looked about 
 for a weapon. The bayonet caught his eye. Throwing his 
 whole weight on top of the enemy and holding on tight to 
 his throat, with his free hand he unfixed the bayonet from 
 the rifle. There was fear and horror in the soldier's eyes, 
 which made Bernard pause a moment. Then " It's my life 
 or yours," he muttered, and with some difficulty forced the 
 steel home. The soldier gave a gasp and a shudder and then 
 became limp. 
 
 At that a cold reaction came upon Bernard. Rising to his 
 feet and dropping the bayonet he stood gazing down on the 
 corpse. 
 
 " Poor devil! " he muttered. 
 
 All the fire had gone out of him, leaving him weak and 
 hesitating. He remained standing there, gazing stupidly at 
 his victim. The dead eyes were starting from their sockets ; 
 the throat was bruised ; there was a great dark stain on the 
 breast of the tunic. 
 
 "My God! I've killed a man!" he told himself in 
 ghastly realization. 
 
 He thought of those to whom that poor body might be 
 dear . . . 
 
 He had no desire to get to the Post Office now, and even 
 as he thought of making for home he heard footsteps ap- 
 proaching. He turned and fled back the way he had come. 
 There were sounds of pursuit for a while, but he soon left 
 them behind. He slackened his pace and wandered on. He 
 was lost once more in the dark deserted streets, but still he 
 blundered forward. He knew not what he was doing nor 
 where he was going. In his condition of physical and 
 mental exhaustion everything about him seemed unreal, and 
 he felt as if he were in a nightmare.
 
 CATASTROPHE 517 
 
 It was in this condition that he fell into the hands of a 
 military patrol. The meeting was a surprise to both parties, 
 for they were simultaneously approaching a street corner at 
 a moment when a prolonged spell of firing obscured all other 
 sounds. Bernard was seized before he had time to realize 
 what had happened, and in his state of carelessness and 
 stupefaction he made no attempt to answer the questions put 
 to him. 
 
 " There's blood on 'is 'ands, sergeant," observed one of 
 his captors. 
 
 " me," ejaculated the sergeant. " Then w'd best 
 
 lock 'im up." 
 
 Bernard was put in charge of a corporal and three men 
 who marched him off forthwith. 
 
 " If you're one of these 'ere Sin Finers," observed the 
 corporal, " you've no call to be ashimed of it. They can 
 fight orlright. As I said to Bill 'ere this morning, standing 
 as you might say on the edge o' the grive, with the bullets 
 
 whizzing orl rahnd us, ' me, Bill,' I says, ' these fellows 
 
 are the stuff.' " 
 
 Bernard remained silent, and in another minute they 
 reached the gloomy sprawling bulk of a military barracks. 
 A lamp flashed through the gate which was immediately 
 opened. 
 
 " Taken in arms? " asked the sergeant of the guard when 
 Bernard was handed over. 
 
 " Unharmed," replied the corporal. 
 
 " Lucky for him," said the sergeant. 
 
 A tall man in civilian clothes came forward out of the 
 guard-room and after a careful scrutiny by the light of a 
 lamp which he carried seemed to recognize Bernard. 
 
 " Important prisoner," he grunted. 
 
 Bernard's original captors marched away. He was placed 
 in the custody of a fresh corporal's guard and conducted 
 across the gravelled barrack yard to a door in one corner; 
 then down a flight of steps, along a flagged corridor, dimly 
 illuminated and dismally echoing, down another flight of
 
 518 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 steps, and into another corridor dark and damp and cold. 
 The corporal switched on an electric torch, took a key from 
 his pocket, and pulled open a heavy iron door, revealing a 
 cavity blacker than night. 
 
 Bernard was thrust inside and the door was slammed and 
 locked. He was in utter darkness. The sound of the re- 
 ceding feet of his captors died away in the distance, and he 
 felt that the last link connecting him with the living world 
 was gone. He was entombed. 
 
 He stood for a few moments absolutely still, stunned by 
 a feeling of overwhelming despair. Then gradually his 
 senses became again perceptive. No ray of light penetrated 
 the obscurity. The atmosphere was cold yet oppressive, 
 and stank abominably. Walking round the cell he found 
 that it was very small, which seemed to add to its horror; 
 and he was seized by a fierce despairing impulse to kick and 
 batter at the door. He restrained it, however, though the 
 sensation of being buried and forgotten was chillingly real. 
 
 His body ached with bruises. One of his nails had been 
 torn off in the struggle with the sentry but in the march of 
 events the wound had gone unheeded. Now that he had 
 time to think he became painfully conscious of its burning 
 agony. He tried to assuage it by sucking, but this only made 
 it worse. He tried leaving it alone, but still it tortured him. 
 He put it in his mouth again and by the counter-irritation 
 of gnawing the finger low down near the knuckled gained 
 some relief. 
 
 He wandered about aimlessly. He was tired and longed 
 for sleep, but the notion of sleep in that tomb appalled him : 
 it would be too like death. Moreover, he shrank from 
 touching any part of the cell, imagining the walls to be 
 slimy and filthy and dreading to think of what might not be 
 on the floor. So he stood in the dark for an hour or more, 
 wondering, grieving, thinking, despairing. Nature, how- 
 ever, proved too strong for him. His frame was exhausted, 
 his eyelids weighted. He sat down in a corner of the cell, 
 leaning his head against the wall. His hand, dropping to
 
 CATASTROPHE 519 
 
 the floor, came in contact with some nameless shapeless 
 filth, the touch of which made him shudder. And after that 
 he fell asleep . . . 
 
 He was awakened by the arrival of a soldier with food. 
 There was a dim grey light in the cell coming from a nar- 
 row slit very high up in the wall. Very faint and far away 
 he could hear the muffled rumble of war. 
 
 6 
 
 " Things are quieter this morning," observed Hugo Mc- 
 Gurk on Friday. 
 
 He and his section held a house commanding one of the 
 canal bridges. Every windowpane in the building had been 
 smashed and the embrasures were fortified with sand bags, 
 mattresses and articles of fuiniture. These ramparts had 
 been riddled and splintered by bullets, and the front of the 
 house was chipped and spotted and scarred all over, for the 
 position had been under fire most of the previous day. The 
 garrison had originally numbered eight, but two had been 
 slain, and three of the survivors wore bandages. Smoke- 
 grimed, hungry, and exhausted they had scarcely left their 
 posts at the windows for close on eighteen hours, but their 
 spirits were still undaunted. No heart could fail under Mc- 
 Gurk's cheery command. 
 
 Grimmest and most fearless of all the garrison was the 
 grizzled recruit, John M alone. Firing with deadly speed 
 and accuracy he had done more to repel yesterday's assaults 
 that all the rest of his companions put together. Towards 
 the end of the day a bullet had pierced his right forearm but 
 he had barely given time to allow it to be bandaged before 
 he was back at his post dealing out death once more. It was 
 to him that McGurk's remark had been addressed. 
 
 " I guess things will be all the hotter when they come," 
 he replied. " I tell you, sergeant, this has been some fight. 
 Well worth living for, my son." 
 
 The sentry from the roof entered the room just then and 
 saluted McGurk.
 
 520 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 "Troops massing at the end of the road," he reported. 
 
 McGurk made the round of his defences. 
 
 " Hold your fire till you're sure to hit, boys," he said. 
 " Mulligan, keep your head down. We can't afford any 
 more casualties. . . . Kelly, don't waste your ammunition. 
 ... If any Red Cross waggons come along fire on them. 
 We've been done in the eye that way once too often. . . . 
 Now, boys, they're coming ..." 
 
 A tornado of firing burst forth as he spoke. Bullets 
 came through the windows and pattered on the opposite 
 walls. The rooms were filled with smoke and dust. A 
 Red Cross waggon came down the street and on to the 
 bridge. Then there was an explosion and it came to a 
 standstill. Malone had emptied his magazine into the bon- 
 net. Soldiers poured out from it and made a rush for the 
 house. Down went three of them: a few ran back: half a 
 dozen came storming at the garden gate. The man at the 
 window over the hall door dropped his empty rifle and fired 
 both barrels of a shot gun loaded with buckshot into the 
 midst of them. Four fell and the remainder ran away 
 screaming with pain. More soldiers came pouring over the 
 bridge. Malone, hurrying not at all, but still firing with 
 the same monotonous regularity, picked off man after man 
 and drove the survivors behind the waggon for shelter. 
 Some of them began shooting from this piece of cover, and 
 Mulligan fell dead with a bullet in his brain. 
 
 "Steady, boys! " cried McGurk. "Heads down! Shoot 
 slow." 
 
 There was a lull in the combat. A bandaged warrior 
 stepped up to McGurk. 
 
 " Ammunition nearly gone," he said. 
 
 " Well, well," said McGurk. " We'll have to retreat, I 
 suppose." He thought a moment. " Have you any am- 
 munition left, Malone? " he shouted. 
 
 " Plenty," called back Malone. 
 
 "Well, the rest of you fall back over the roofs," said 
 McGurk. "You take command of them, Mick. Me and
 
 CATASTROPHE 521 
 
 Malone will hold the rear for a bit. Carry on now." 
 
 The man saluted and marched off with his three comrades. 
 
 " Here they are again," cried Malone and re-opened fire. 
 McGurk dropped behind a sand-bag and did the same. 
 His shooting was wilder than Malone's and not so accurate, 
 but he did some damage all the same. It was, however, 
 hopeless for these two to stop the enemy's rush. Over the 
 bridge it came and into the garden. A terrible explosion 
 told of bombs flung at the door, and at that moment Malone 
 gave a cry of pain and rolled over. McGurk rushed to his 
 side. 
 
 " I'm done," said Malone. " You'd better git." And 
 he died. 
 
 It was too late to retreat. Down went the door with a 
 crash and the enemy surged into the hall and up the stairs. 
 McGurk rushed out on to the landing. Bang! went his last 
 cartridge and the foremost soldier dropped. On came the 
 others, a tall man and a little man at their head. McGurk 
 at the stair-head crossed bayonets with the tall man, and the 
 little man tried to run in under his guard. McGurk 
 knocked up the tall man's rifle and dealt the little man a kick 
 in stomach that sent him reeling. Back and forward went 
 McGurk's bayonet like the tongue of a snake, jabbing the 
 tall man in the chest. Before he could withdraw it another 
 man leapt over the body of the little man and stabbed Mc- 
 Gurk in the side. McGurk uttered a curse and went back a 
 step. Another man thrust at him, wounding his thigh. 
 With a roar of anger McGurk clubbed his rifle and smashed 
 in his assailant's head, but at the same moment he was 
 wounded again by another foe. Then at last he fell and the 
 whole band swarmed up and over him, trampling the life out 
 of him . . . 
 
 Once more the tumult of war crashed over the city. 
 With redoubled intensity the big guns boomed and the ma- 
 chine guns rattled, and gallantly the diminishing rifles of 
 the Volunteers answered back. The Post Office, heart and 
 brain of the insurrection, was being shelled. After twenty
 
 522 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 minutes of intense bombardment those who watched saw the 
 Republican Flag become obscured by a cloud of smoke. Up 
 from the roof rushed a swirling black column, and soon 
 afterwards a long flame curled up out of one of the windows 
 and licked at the foot of the flag staff. Little figures could 
 be discerned running about on the roof desperately fighting 
 the flames amid a hail of bullets. Their efforts were useless. 
 Out of the windows and through the roof leaped the red 
 blaze. Soon the whole interior was irretrievably involved 
 and the building had become a vast raging furnace. With 
 a crash the whole internal structure fell in and a gigantic 
 pillar of smoke and flame and sparks and incandescent frag- 
 ments shot up into the sky. Down came the sparks again in 
 a glittering cascade ; up rushed another fury of flames ; down 
 rolled the smoke in coiling fuming billows, spreading them- 
 selves abroad or dissipating themselves in filmy clouds. 
 Soon nothing was left of the building but the four bare 
 walls, from one corner of which the flag still flew. It was 
 still flying over the red glowing embers when night fell. 
 For an hour after dark it still fluttered feebly in the breeze. 
 Then suddenly the staff lurched forward and went down. 
 
 7 
 
 Loneliness intolerable; darkness impenetrable; despair un- 
 fathomable: another long night stretched before Bernard in 
 his subterranean dungeon. The day had been long and 
 tedious enough. After the man who had brought him food 
 in the morning had departed, not a soul had come near him, 
 not a sound had been heard in the corridor outside. He 
 began to fear that he had been forgotten. As the weary 
 hours dragged themselves along he waited and hoped, hoped 
 and waited for another visit however brief: anything to 
 break the appalling silence and monotony. But the grey 
 light faded, the night began, and he knew that he was aban- 
 doned. What had happened? Was Dublin destroyed? 
 Had the barracks been taken and the garrison slain? Was 
 he to be left here down in the depths of the earth, to smother
 
 CATASTROPHE 523 
 
 and starve ? Horrifying thought, that sent him to batter at 
 the iron door until he was exhausted. All his strength was 
 gone now, and he was sick with hunger. He tottered and 
 fell, bruising his head on the stone floor; then, painfully, he 
 crawled into a corner and sat still. 
 
 He was destitute of hope now and his only wish was that 
 death would come quickly and mercifully. He closed his 
 eyes, thinking of death as a pleasant restful sinking into a 
 warm velvet-like oblivion. He imagined that he felt it 
 coming to him and resigned himself to it joyfully. But he 
 was only falling asleep. In a short time he was awake 
 again, shivering with cold, and with a throbbing pain in his 
 head that made the pain in his finger seem mild by contrast. 
 He groaned in anguish to find himself still alive. " Buried 
 alive," a voice seemed to say to him. " Buried alive! Bur- 
 ied alive " ; the terrible words, beating rhythmically in his 
 brain, made him want to make another dash for freedom, but 
 he found himself too weak to rise. How his head ached! 
 He slept again ; slept and woke alternately through several 
 shivering hours. While he slept he dreamed, and while he 
 lay awake his brain worked feverishly and automatically. 
 He could no more control his thoughts than his dreams: 
 both took possession of him and made him their plaything. 
 Soon he was unable to distinguish between the dreams of 
 his sleeping and those of his waking, which became inter- 
 mingled and continuous like the strands of a thread or the 
 threads of a tangle. 
 
 He lived over again the events of the past month. He 
 saw Eugene fighting desperately for his life amid fire and 
 darkness: heard him calling for help: saw him go down be- 
 fore a dozen bayonets and turn reproachful eyes on himself 
 standing by inactive. He saw scenes from their life as boys: 
 saw himself treating Eugene always with scornful neglect: 
 saw Eugene vainly attempting to propitiate him and make 
 friends: saw again that reproachful look in his eyes. He 
 felt himself base, with a baseness of which he had never 
 been conscious before. ... In the red fire-glow from his
 
 524 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 own hearth he saw Willoughby as he had seen him their last 
 evening together. Then the hearth vanished and the glow 
 seemed to come from a burning village. He found himself 
 standing beside a grave in Picardy feeling once more the 
 flood of grief burst over him with all the keenness of first 
 realization. 
 
 He saw his early days of courtship with Mabel, but they 
 were no longer days of undiluted happiness. Always they 
 were strolling along a dark cedar-bordered avenue and fre- 
 quently quarrelling over some trifling difference. Then 
 they would come round a curve and beyond it Janet would 
 be standing, and she would say: "/ wouldn't quarrel with 
 you. Why did you hurt me? " Then he would start for- 
 ward to go to her, but Mabel would hold him back, and 
 Janet would disappear in the shadows. Afterwards he and 
 Mabel would be walking together in the Dublin streets, 
 and Musgrave's bestial face would appear out of a cloud of 
 dust. Mabel would say : " You like dust and all sorts of 
 horrid things: so you can keep them," and she would leave 
 him and go over to Musgrave. Another time she was re- 
 monstrating with him for sacrificing their marriage to poli- 
 tics, and he was replying that politics was a sacred duty. 
 Then appeared Austin Mallow saying: " Do you think we'll 
 let ourselves be held back by you? Our minds are made up, 
 and if you interfere we'll crush you without a thought. 
 And at that Mabel burst out laughing and said : " So 
 there's your lovely politics: and you'd sacrifice me for that." 
 Thereupon he showed her a picture of the island of his 
 childish imagination, and opening his soul to her as he had 
 never done in life unfolded to her all his hopes and projects; 
 but at these she only laughed and said: " That's not politics. 
 It's only a dream." " Only a dream! " he replied. " No, 
 the world is a dream if you like, or rather a nightmare. 
 These are the only realities." But she merely laughed again, 
 and in the midst of her laughter he awoke to the dark silence 
 of the dungeon. 
 
 In this waking interval his thoughts reverted to the in-
 
 CATASTROPHE 525 
 
 surrection. What would be its results, he asked himself. 
 What would be the fate of the rebels? Of his friends? 
 Of himself? Death, he felt certain, would be meted out to 
 the rebel leaders, and perhaps to the rank and file as well. 
 He and his friends would be less fortunate: long sentences 
 of penal servitude would be their fate: a dreary desolate 
 prospect of wasted life sickening to contemplate. At that 
 he gave way to a recrudescence of violent anger against the 
 authors of the calamity and the things they had done to 
 enforce their will. What had they achieved? In one mad 
 week they had shattered work of years: dead were some of 
 the bravest hearts in Ireland: broken was the orderly, con- 
 structive, enthusiastic movement that was to have been built 
 up until it had became the Irish nation. He gave himself 
 up to vain regrets over his vanished hopes. And what of 
 the future? Stephen's prophecy came back vividly to his 
 memory. He saw the Irish people, helpless and leaderless, 
 tortured and dragooned, and conscripted into the armies of 
 the oppressor. He saw Ireland, plundered of wealth and 
 manhood, lose sight at last of the light of freedom which 
 till then had never been eclipsed. For if the things that 
 were done on Easter Eve can be repeated or defended, then 
 there can be no more trust amongst Irishmen ; and the coun- 
 try whose sons cannot trust one another can never be freed. 
 So a despair blacker than his dungeon settled on Bernard's 
 soul: despair for his country, despair for his friends, despair 
 for himself. And out of his despair rose a hatred such as he 
 had never felt before for the prime author of all these dis- 
 asters : the great soulless enemy that had seized and tortured 
 and wrecked his country and left it a wasted island of 
 thwarted desire and lost endeavour. Over and over again, 
 sleeping and waking, the same hatred, the same anger, the 
 same regret, bitterness, and disillusionment turn and turn 
 about haunted and racked his brain ; over and over again 
 the same dreams and visions flickered before his imagination, 
 wove themselves into one vast pantomimic nightmare and 
 left his mind a bewildered incoherent turbulence. Grin-
 
 526 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 ning faces made mock of him, harpies snatched feasts from 
 him, policemen tore him from the altar just as he was about 
 to place the wedding ring on Mabel's ringer. He argued 
 interminably with hosts of people that he knew about the 
 same perpetual subject Ireland and the war tormented 
 as much by his own fiery logic as by the stupidily of his op- 
 ponents, and could never prevail. He stooped gigantically 
 out of the clouds and watched fantastic battles raging in the 
 island of his childish dreams. He saw the right and wrong 
 in their quarrels with a god-like dispassionateness, and sought 
 to intervene: vainly, for he was invisible to his pigmy cre- 
 ation and it was impalpable to him. Then the ten nations 
 sprang out of the map as ten ugly little figures that came 
 quarrelling to his feet and demanding judgment from him, 
 which, when he gave it, they laughed to scorn and went on 
 quarrelling. He saw Europe spread out before him like a 
 map, with little grey lines of smoke, like the fume of a 
 blown-out match, where the battles were: no sound, no sign 
 of the conflict but this ; but a vast and woeful wailing arose 
 on all sides that assailed his ears in his ethereal altitude. He 
 saw the whole world handed over to three demons wearing 
 the faces of Sherringham, Tracy-Sidbotham, and Musgrave. 
 He saw the malevolent glee with which they took the sphere 
 and rent it asunder and tossed it into a great fire. The fire 
 leaped up all round him and he found himself standing in 
 the witches' cauldron of Sackville Street ; saw the city ringed 
 round by hosts of demons led by the same infernal three. 
 He stood in the middle of the street shouting denunciations 
 at them, at which they shrieked with laughter. He argued 
 and expostulated with them, and the demon whose face was 
 Sherringham's cried : " Of course you're right. That's why 
 you're going to be crushed." At that a perfect storm of 
 hatred swept over him and he rushed headlong at the ring of 
 ghastly faces, but even as he did so they vanished, and he 
 found himself in a dark street gazing down on the corpse of 
 the soldier he had killed. His eyes were fixed in a hideous 
 stare, and even as Bernard looked into them the flame of life
 
 CATASTROPHE 527 
 
 leaped in their depths. At that such terror came upon him 
 as he had never experienced in life: a cold transfixing terror 
 that paralysed every muscle in his body, glued his feet to the 
 ground, and set every molecule in his brain in furious vibra- 
 tion: a freezing devastating terror from which death itself 
 would seem a safe and kindly refuge. He awoke with a 
 shriek, only to plunge back again into a repetition, more 
 tangled and fantastical than before, of the whole hideous 
 delirium. In a few hours he went through an eternity of 
 torment. He had lost all sense of time, all feeling of reality. 
 Existence had become phantasmagorical. 
 
 His head ached excruciatingly and seemed ready to burst. 
 
 And then: pitter-pitter-patter: the scurrying of little feet. 
 Rats? . . . Instantly he was frozen with horror. His 
 heart stood still. A cold sweat broke forth on his brow. 
 He felt his hair rising on his scalp. Pitter-pitter-patter. It 
 was somewhere in the room, looking at him. It could see 
 in the dark. Pitter-pitter-patter. Another? How many? 
 . . . Frantically he realized his position, buried underground 
 with this loathsome pattering horror. Shudder after shud- 
 der shook his frame. He remembered that he was weapon- 
 less, and tearing off one boot he staggered to his feet. The 
 rats, frightened by the noise, scudded away, but he fancied 
 they were assailing him. Their numbers sounded legion. 
 . . . He shrieked with terror and fell . . . 
 
 In his debilitated condition the revival of a childish fear 
 was enough to turn his mental balance, already weighted 
 against sanity by sorrow, disillusionment, darkness and soli- 
 tude. It was a madman that they found in the cell on Sun- 
 day morning a piteous, terror-distorted figure that cow- 
 ered in a corner, beating the air with a boot. 
 
 8 
 
 All Hell seemed loose in Dublin on Saturday. One after 
 another the Volunteer outposts had been swamped or driven 
 in, and now the main positions were isolated one from an- 
 other, while the cordon was closing tighter and tighter on
 
 528 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 the centre of the city, where somewhere in the mean streets 
 behind the Post Office the chief command had sought fresh 
 quarters. On this position the enemy's artillery was now 
 concentrated. From ten o'clock in the morning till four in 
 the afternoon the bombardment went on relentlessly, still 
 answered feebly by the rifles of the defenders, until the west 
 side of Sackville Street, Henry Street, and part of Moore 
 Street was made fuel for a conflagration which rivalled that 
 of Thursday. Once more the unfortunate people of Dublin 
 saw imminent destruction lowering over their city. Despair 
 at last took possession of them. 
 
 " Is this going on for ever? " they asked each other, and 
 even as they waited for an answer, the boom of the big guns 
 ceased and the rifle-fire diminished in volume and was no 
 longer continuous. The rebel commanders had surrendered. 
 
 Then those who watched from a distance saw a strange 
 sight. A little band of men, not quite a hundred in number, 
 weary, tattered, and grimy, came marching down Sackville 
 Street under a fluttering white flag. They were met at the 
 bridge-head by a party of military, and there at the foot of 
 O'Connell's statue, with the flaming buildings forming a 
 lurid background to the scene, they laid down their arms. 
 The insurrection was over. 
 
 Amongst those who surrendered was Fergus Moore. 
 Throughout the fighting this man had performed deeds 
 which would have been heroic had they not been inspired by 
 suicidal determination. When the flag was shot away it 
 was he who had fixed it up again amid a hail of bullets; 
 when the Post Office was in flames it was he who was fore- 
 most in the futile attempts to extinguish them ; when volun- 
 teers had been called for to storm a British barricade he had 
 been the first to offer himself and the only one to return un- 
 scathed. He had sought for death and it had been denied 
 him, and now he handed in his arms and equipment with 
 the same bitter smile still hovering on his war-stained 
 countenance.
 
 CATASTROPHE 529 
 
 9 
 
 Next morning Hektor was arrested in bed, but Stephen, 
 who was already up and nearly dressed, made his escape by 
 the roof. By bluff and good fortune he succeeded in passing 
 the cordon; got away westward out of the city; swam the 
 Liffey in the neighbourhood of Lucan; and struck out for 
 his home in the mountains. There was a hiding place in 
 Glencoole which he had discovered as a boy and which he 
 now intended to make use of, relying on his father to supply 
 him with provisions. 
 
 In the evening he reached the top of the glen and turned 
 round to look back on the city from the spot whence he had 
 so often gazed as a boy. In the darkness he could dimly 
 discern the great plain which, stretching from sea to sea and 
 dividing the northern mountains from the southern, had 
 rendered possible the conquest of Ireland. Very black to 
 the east lay the sea with a thousand twinkling lights girdling 
 its shore, and the great ray of the Bailey sweeping in a mag- 
 nificent circle over the cliffs of Howth and the waters of the 
 bay. On the edge of the blackness a dull red spot like a 
 cooling cinder marked the site of the city, and in the sky 
 above it was a delicate glow. The wind sighed in the val- 
 ley behind him. 
 
 He stood for a moment wrapped in melancholy contem- 
 plation, but shook the mood off abruptly. 
 
 " Regrets are waste of time," he said. " What's done is 
 done. What of the future? Is conscription coming? 
 Can we repel it by diplomacy, or shall we have to fight? 
 . . . And what shall be the national policy now? . . . Will 
 constitutionalism revive? What will the war bring? . . . 
 Is the Revolution coming? . . . What shall be our next 
 step?" 
 
 His thoughts were far away in the future as he turned and 
 walked down the valley.
 
 530 THE WASTED ISLAND 
 
 10 
 
 When everything was over the people of Dublin came 
 forth in their thousands to look at the wreckage; and 
 mothers and wives went searching the barracks and prisons 
 and hospitals and morgues for those who had fought, or for 
 those who had ventured out foraging or sight-seeing and had 
 never returned. Among these went Lady Lascelles seeking 
 her son, whom she found at last by the aid of Mr. Gorge 
 Molloy, the rising young solicitor (who afterwards took 
 charge of the lunacy proceedings). 
 
 "What news?" asked Sandy, anxiously, from his couch 
 when she returned home after her heart-rending discovery. 
 
 Lady Lascelles threw herself down on her knees beside 
 her youngest son and burst into tears on his shoulder. 
 
 " Is he dead ? " asked Sandy. 
 
 " Worse," sobbed the mother. " O, my three boys! " she 
 cried. " My broken wasted boys ! " 
 
 ii 
 
 In his refuge in Glencoole, Stephen read of the collapse 
 of the rebellion ; of the minor skirmishes in Galway, Wex- 
 ford and Fingall, where evidently the countermanding orders 
 had gone astray or been disobeyed; and of the quiescence of 
 the rest of the country. It was quite clear that Ireland was 
 both puzzled and annoyed by the whole affair; she repudi- 
 ated the insurrection and its authors with anger and disdain ; 
 and contemplated their possible punishment with indiffer- 
 ence. It seemed for a time as if militant nationalism had 
 slain and discredited itself. 
 
 And then came the shootings. . . . Pearse and the leaders 
 undid by their death much of the harm which the insurrec- 
 tion had done to their cause, for Ireland roused herself in 
 rage when her sons were slain by the foreigner. 
 
 News came in slowly to Stephen, for his father dared not 
 visit him too often. First the lists of the executed trickled 
 in; then he heard of the death in action of The O'Rahilly, 
 McGurk, Malone, and others; then of the arrest of Case-
 
 CATASTROPHE 531 
 
 ment; and finally, of the rounding up of the Volunteers all 
 over the country. Crowley and Umpleby and Moore were 
 amongst those deported and interned at Frongoch; Brian 
 Mallow and Hektor O'Flaherty received sentences of twenty 
 and ten years' penal servitude. Saddest fate of all was that 
 of Bernard Lascelles. 
 
 " What a catalogue of wasted material! " he muttered. 
 
 There was no news of O'Dwyer. Presumably he had 
 escaped arrest. One vaguely familiar name hovered hither 
 and thither through the newspapers. Mr. Molloy, the ris- 
 ing young solicitor, rose higher and higher on the wreck- 
 age ... 
 
 " And now," said Michael Ward to his son, " now that 
 everything has turned out as I told you it would, what do 
 you mean to do? " 
 
 " I suppose," replied Stephen, " we must begin all over 
 again." 
 
 THE END
 
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