But Sheila's good-natured scorn for the Ulster Volunteer Force did not convince Henry. One could not look at these drilling men, and feel satisfied that they were pretending to be angry or that they did not mean what they said, when they declared that they would die in the last ditch rather than consent to be governed by Nationalists. Mr. Quinn spent much time in denouncing Sir Edward Carson and his friends, but he did not doubt for a moment that the followers would fight. He had very little faith in the sincerity of the politicians. "That fellow, F. E. Smith," he exclaimed wrathfully, "what in hell is he doin' over here, I'd like to know? I'd like to kick his backside for him, an' pack him back to wherever he come from!" And there was F. E. Robinson, too, bounding about Ulster like a well-polished young gentleman from the Gaiety chorus, and delivering historical orations that filled the crowd with amazement.

"He's the great cod, that lad!" Mr. Quinn said. "He's worse nor Smith. He come down here to Ballymartin, an' he made a speech all about King James's foreign policy, and mentioned a whole lot of people that the Or'ngemen never heard tell of. It would 'a' done well for a lecture at the Queen's College ... you should 'a' seen the men nudgin' one another, an' askin' who he was, an' what in the name of God he was talkin' about! 'Why doesn't he curse the Pope an' 'a' done wi' it!' one fellow said to another. 'That lad curse anybody!' says the other one. 'Sure, he'd near boak[3] himself if he done the like of that!' Aye, there's a lot of bletherin' about the Volunteers, but all the same I don't like the look o' things, an' if they're not careful there'll be bother. It'll take the men at the top all their time to hold the bottom ones down. It ought never to have been allowed to begin with. The minute they started their drillin' an' palaver, they ought to 'a' been stopped. Have you seen John Marsh lately, Henry?"

"I saw him when I was in Dublin a few months ago with Gilbert Farlow. He's drilling, too!..."

"It's fearful, that's what it is. Fightin' an' wranglin' like that! I wish I could get him up here a while. I'd talk to him, an' try an' put some sense into him. Do you think would he come if I was to ask him?"

"I daresay, father. Shall I write to him for you?"

"Aye, do, Henry. I like that fellow quaren well, an' I'd be sorry if any harm come to him. He's the sort gets into any bother that's about! Write to him now, will you, an' you'll catch the evenin' mail!"

Henry got writing materials and wrote the letter in his father's room. "Will that do?" he said, passing it to Mr. Quinn for inspection.

"That'll do fine," Mr. Quinn replied, when he had finished reading it. "Matier'll take it to the letterbox!"

"I don't know what the world's comin' to," he went on, a little fractiously. "There's a fellow wouldn't harm a fly, drillin' and gettin' ready to shoot people. An' Irish people, too! One lot of Irishmen wantin' to shoot another lot!... They're out of their minds, that's what's wrong wi' them. There's Matier ... you'd think at his age, he'd have more sense, but nothin'll do him but he must be off of an evenin' formin' fours. And what for? I'd like to know. I says to him, 'William Henry, who do you want to kill?' 'The Home Rulers an' the Papishes!' says he. 'Quit, man,' says I, 'an' talk sense.' 'I am talkin' sense,' says he. 'You're not,' I says to him. 'D'you mean to stan' there an' tell me you want to kill Hugh Kearney?' 'I do not indeed,' says he. 'What put that notion in your head?' 'Isn't he a Catholic an' a Home Ruler?' says I. I had him properly when I said that, for him an' Hugh Kearney is like brothers to one another. 'Would you kill him?' I says to Matier. 'No, sir, I wouldn't,' he answers me back. 'I'd shed me heart's blood for him!' And he would, too!... I've always been against Home Rule, Henry, an' you know well why, but I'm more against this sort of thing than I am against that, and anyway I'm not so sure it wouldn't be better in the long run. There's too much Socialism in England, an' we have to put up with the results of it because of the Union. The Socialists get this law an' that law passed, an' we have to suffer it in Ireland because we're tied up to England...."