There was a holiday mood on the people. They had come out to enjoy themselves, and here was an entertainment beyond their dreams of pleasure.... It was a dangerous kind of joke to play ... one of them oul' guns might go off, and who knows who might get killed dead ... and it was a serious thing to seize possession of the Post Office ... if the peelers was to come an' catch them at it an' bring them before the magistrates, they'd be damn near transported ... but it was the great joke all the same. Whoever thought there would be the like of that to see, and not a penny to pay for it.... The minute the peelers came up ... where in hell were the peelers?

It was then that they began to believe that there was more than a joke in this rebellion. There were no policemen to be seen anywhere. "That's strange now! There ought to be a peeler or two about!..."

Then some one, pale and startled, came by. "They've killed a policeman!" he said. "The unfortunate man! I was coming past the Castle, and I saw a Sinn Feiner go up to him and blow his brains out. Not a word of warning! The poor man put up his hand to bid them go back ... they were trying to get into the Castle ... and the Sinn Feiner lifted his rifle and shot him dead!..."

"Begod, it's in earnest they are!..."

"But what can they do? They can't hold out against the British Army...."

"They might do a lot, now! They're mad, the whole of them! What in hell do they want to start a rebellion for?..."

Henry moved away. He went from group to group, listening to one for a while, and then moving on to another. There were many rumours already flying through the crowd. The Germans had landed in the West, and were marching to Dublin. A "mysterious stranger" had been captured on the coast of Kerry a few days before. "It was Casement!" The German Navy had made a raid on England, and the British Fleet had been badly beaten....

A youth, holding a rifle with a fixed bayonet, stood on sentry-go in the middle of the street. He was very pale and tired and nervous-looking, but looked as resolute as he looked tired. He did not speak to any one, nor did any one speak to him. He stood there, staring fixedly in front of him, watching and watching....

There was a sound of rumbling carts, and the noise of people cheering, and presently a procession of wagons, loaded with cauliflower, and guarded by armed Volunteers, came out of a side street, and drove up to the Post Office.

"The Commissariat!" some one said. "Begod they'll be tired of cauliflower before they're through with that lot!"

It was comical to see those loads of cauliflower being driven past. Ireland was to fight for freedom with her stomach full of cauliflower....

There was a Proclamation of the Republic on a wall near by, and he hurried to read it.

"What's the thing at the head of it?" a woman asked, gazing at the Gaelic inscription on top of the Proclamation.

"That's Irish," the man beside her replied.

"I know that. What does it mean?"

"Begod, I don't know...."

Henry read the Proclamation through, and then re-read the finely-phrased end of it!

We place the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose Blessing we invoke on our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.