“You were able to come. I’m glad,” my hostess exclaimed. “You know every one.”

Himself drifted to a far corner, where I lost him.

I made my way across the great warm room towards the fireplace. Tea was progressing merrily, and I was soon seated with a cup in my hand, eating potato cakes hot from the kitchen.

There were about thirty people present—grave professors, elderly people who might have been doctors or lawyers, one or two who looked like decadent poets, and lots of wives. Everybody was talking. This man had been in the post office during the Rebellion, that woman had carried the Sinn Fein flag somewhere else on that occasion. They told racy stories against themselves and against the British Government.

“The other day,” a priest next door to me began, “I was in Talbot Street at the time of that shooting. You remember?”

“I remember,” said a woman, dropping her cigarette into her saucer. “Yes, do go on.”

“I was in the pork butcher’s shop. As a matter of fact, a bullet nearly got me in there. Quite near enough. I haven’t got the sawdust out of my pants yet, I hugged the floor so close. I went out as soon as it was safe. The D.M.Ps. had gone; you know the way they go. One of the boys was stretched in the middle of the road. There wasn’t much life left in him, not enough to suffer. I knelt down beside him, and the crowd drifted back. A Tommy was standing near, with his hands on his rifle and his tin hat on his head. He wasn’t taking any notice of me. There were other wounded people. All of a sudden an old beggar woman shouldered her way through the crowd to the Tommy. ‘Och,’ sez she, ‘take that tin lid off iv ye while his riverince is saying his prayers.’”

Some one leant above me with a jug of cream.

“Cream?” He poured cream into my cup and sat down by my side with the jug in his hand. “What a life we lead,” he said. “Have you been raided yet?”

“Yes, not so very long ago.”

“Did they take anything?”

“Our breakfast, and a copy of Balzac’s ‘Droll Stories.’ But they were a very decent lot.”

“You were lucky. They are light-fingered gentlemen as a rule.”

“I expect some of those stories aren’t true.”

“Not true!” exclaimed another man. “My dear lady, I know a family near Cork who are constantly raided by the Black-and-Tans. The same man is always in charge. Just before Christmas he called upon them with a revolver in each hand and said, ‘I’ve called for my Christmas box. Make the cheque a decent one, as I’ve had a lot of trouble with this house.’”

Everybody laughed.

“I know two old ladies,” said somebody else, “Unionists by the way. One night at dinner time a party of officers arrived and captured the house. The man in charge told them there was a man on the roof; but he told them not to be disturbed, and to go on with dinner. He came back after a little, apologised, and said he’d made a mistake. They discovered afterwards that he had cleared the house of everything valuable.”

“They’ve got splendid opportunities, of course,” said my friend, balancing the cream jug on the end of the sofa. “I don’t mind looting so much as man-handling. I can tell you some of the boys get a bad time when they are interrogated.”

I swallowed my tea reflectively.

“There are cases of torture that we never hear of,” said a new woman, drawing close. “I know of several cases in the country where the boys were caught, rolled in barbed wire, then flung on the ground, and the Black-and-Tans jumped on them!”

“They must have got sore feet,” I suggested.

“I know of a policeman in Limerick,” the woman went on, “who beats every third woman he meets. He kicked a crippled child from one side of the road to the other in one kick. And then the English people are surprised that the Irish people hold out. The Irish are the most peace-loving and spiritual people in the world, and they must overcome wrong.”

“We know the men who do these things,” said the man beside me. “Twenty years will make no difference. We’ll get them.”

“Well, I’m all for peace,” I declared. “But then I’m not Irish.”

He laughed. “Do you think we’d have got very far if we hadn’t let a little blood?”

“I think it might have taken longer to wake up the Government; but it could have been done. Women got suffrage; no blood was shed. The woman’s war was the only clean one waged, I think. Why not be satisfied now with the bloodshed you’ve had, and try something else?”

“No; the lion’s tail must be twisted. It will be twisted before we’ve finished. Ireland’s only a pin point; but she’s pushing right into the heart of the Empire.”

There was a pause, and a snatch of conversation came from somewhere else.

“I saw Mrs.”—I couldn’t catch the name—“yesterday,” a woman said. “She’s working very hard, and, of course, her husband will kill himself one day.”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“She’s an American; but she always calls the Irish ‘my own dear people.’ Her husband is an Englishman; but he has an Irish soul.”

Our hostess advanced.

“Has any one heard of the Minister of Propaganda lately? I love that man. He’s the only man among you with wit. Tell me, somebody, what is going to happen.”

There was a general shrugging of shoulders as she settled in a chair.

“The British Government will give in.”

“But what of poor Ireland in the meantime?”

“Things have been quiet for a few days,” I ventured.

“An unnatural quiet,” said a second priest. “Something is brewing for the Black-and-Tans. How our boys can gull them!”

People came towards us attracted by our laughter, and an old lady whose name I could not catch, and whom I never saw after that evening, drew into the circle.

“Things are getting worse,” said our hostess. “I can’t go down the street without danger of being run over by armoured cars, and the soldiers just look as if they are going to stand up in the lorries and fire into the crowd.”

“We weren’t talking of Curfew,” said a pallid youth; “but let us, because I want to tell you the story of old Meg.”

“Old Meg? Who’s old Meg?” our hostess demanded.

“You must know her. The dirtiest beggar woman in Dublin.”

“I know her,” a woman exclaimed, “a dreadful old creature. She tore her dress open in front of me the other day in Wicklow Street, and said, ‘For the love iv Heaven, lady, buy me some combinations. It’s after perishing with cold I am this minute, and you in furs. Look at me poor bare body. It’s you have the good heart, lady, and you’ve never felt the cold.’ ‘Indeed,’ I said indignantly, ‘I have. I feel the cold very much. Cover yourself at once, you disgusting old woman. Do you see the policeman looking at you?’ ‘Him!’ she said scornfully, ‘I take no notice iv him. It’s a son I have in the I.R.A. Give me the price of the combinations, lady, and I’ll let you go.’ ‘I’ll do no such thing; but I’ll give you a shilling if you promise not to go near the public-house with it.’ ‘Indade, an’ shame on ye, lady, why would a poor old woman like me be going near a public-house?’”

“That’s Meg,” said the youth. “She’s a great character, and her mother and grandmother begged on the streets. She was curfewed outside my house the other night. Must have been the night you gave her the shilling. Drunk? I heard a commotion and leaned out of window, and there she was defying the British Army. But they collared her. ‘What’re you doing out now?’ asked a Black-and-Tan, sticking a revolver where her belt should have been. ‘It’s going home, I am,’ said Meg. ‘For the love iv Heaven give me a copper.’ ‘It’s a bullet I’ll give you, you old vermin. Get into that lorry quick.’ ‘That,’ says Meg, ‘that! I’m after being a lady now. Och, and it’s me great-grandfather who was after being a king.’ ‘You’ll be after being a corpse if you don’t get a move on.’ They made a start, and suddenly she saw me. ‘Hallo, dearie,’ called out the descendant of kings, ‘I’m curlewed!’”

“The Irish beggars are priceless,” exclaimed the second priest, who had rolled and twisted with laughter until the tears ran down his cheeks. “You heard about the flower-women the day Lord French was attacked?”

“No,” said our hostess. “Tell us, father.”

“Two old flower-women watched the whole thing. ‘Did ye see the bullets flying?’ said one. ‘I did, indeed, and a grand sight it was. Did ye see the boys all standing there cool and steady, firing at Lord French? And a lady with him. “Let me get out,” sez she to he, “let me get out,” sez she. “This is no place for me,” sez she. “Let me get out,” sez she. “You will not,” sez he to she, “and you will not,” sez he.’”

“And now for a last story,” said the second priest, getting up. “The other day a friend in Cork was searched by the Black-and-Tans just before Curfew, for arms, of course. As usual after going through his pockets, the gentleman went through his pocket-book, took all he had, which was five pounds, and also took his silver watch. My friend, who isn’t a man to sit down under things, went over to the officer in charge and said what had happened. The officer came up and told the Black-and-Tan to return the loot. The man grumbled and hauled out of his pocket a dozen watches, and a bundle of notes. ‘Take which is yours,’ he said, swinging the watches, and he held out a handful of notes. It was quite dark, and when my friend got under a light, he found he had got a gold watch for his silver one, and ten pounds for his five.”

In the middle of the laughter that followed the story, the priest made his exit.

We followed suit, and we were not many steps on the way when the old lady I had noticed came up behind us.

“I have something to say,” she said. “I hope you won’t be influenced by what you hear over here. When I see strangers like you I am always so afraid of what will happen to them. The Irish are such good pleaders. But it’s all lamentable. I am as Irish as anybody; but I wish this was over, with all my heart I wish it. It’s not a clean war. It’s having a frightful effect on the young men. Kill, kill, kill is all they think of now, it’s all they talk of, and what will they have at the end of their lives, what battles can they fight over again? I can’t sleep at night, I hear them talking as old men. ‘I got him in his bath,’ one will say. Another, ‘I got him in bed.’ And another, ‘He was visiting his wife. I shot him at tea.’ They have dirtied Ireland’s name, say what they will, they have done that. Doesn’t the most sympathetic American squirm when you compare this to the American War of Independence? I think so. I read the other day of the Poles objecting to the comparison with the Polish struggle for freedom. People who hate England pretend to sympathise with us for their own ends; but there is not a nation that, at heart, does not hold our methods in contempt. We are called ditch murderers, and the expression is justified.”

Her face was working with emotion. We had come to a corner. She said good night and was gone.