He had stayed at Ballymartin until he had completed "The Wayward Man." His father's health had varied greatly, but soon after the publication of the new novel, it mended and, although he did not recover his old strength and vigour, he was well enough to move about and superintend the work on his farm.

"You can go back to London now, Henry!" he said to his son one morning, after breakfast. "I know you're just itchin' to get back there, an' I'm sure I'm sick, sore an' tired of the sight of you. Away off with you, now!" And Henry, protesting that he did not wish to go, had gone to London. Gilbert's second comedy, "Sylvia," had been produced by Sir Geoffrey Mundane and, like "The Magic Casement," had achieved a fair amount of success. "But I haven't done anything big yet," Gilbert complained to Henry. "My aim's better than it was, but I'm still missing the point. Perhaps the next one will hit it...."

In London, Henry began "The Fennels," but after he had written a couple of chapters, he found himself unable to proceed with it.

"I must go back to Ireland," he said to Gilbert. "I want the feel of Ulster. I can't get it into this book unless I'm there, somehow!" And so, sooner than he had anticipated, he returned to Ballymartin, where "The Fennels" was finished, and there he stayed until Gilbert wrote and asked him to join him at Tre'Arrdur Bay.

"You can't get much nearer to Ireland than that," he wrote: "You hop into the boat at Kingstown and hop out of it again at Holyhead and there you are!..."

"I shall be back again in a month, father!" he had said to Mr. Quinn, and then he had taken train to Belfast, where he was to change for Dublin and thence go to Wales.

In Belfast, there was great excitement because the Ulster Volunteers had successfully landed a cargo of guns that were purchased in Germany. The Volunteers had seized the coastguard stations at Larne and at Donaghadee and Bangor, overawing the police, and there had been much jocularity. It was all done in excellent taste. Had it not been for the death of a coastguard through heart failure, there would have been nothing to mar the jolly entertainment....