officer,
and the officer agreed to take him on condition that my dad went too to
explain the situation to his colonel. I went with them just to see what
would happen."

"I suppose they made O'Farrelly prisoner?" said Waterhouse.

"You are judging everybody by the standards of this infernal war," said
Power. "That English colonel was a soldier and a gentleman. He stood us
drinks and let O'Farrelly look at the gun. It was there all right and
Ballymahon was entirely surrounded. We got back about five o'clock, with
an ultimatum written out on a sheet of paper. Unless O'Farrelly and his
whole army had marched out and laid down their arms by 8 p.m. the town
would be shelled without further warning. You'd have thought that would
have knocked the heart out of O'Farrelly, considering that he hadn't a
dog's chance of breaking through. But it didn't He became cheerfuller
than I'd seen him before, and said that the opportunity he'd always
longed for had come at last. His men, when he told them about the
ultimatum, took the same view. They said they'd never surrender, not
even if the town was shelled into dust and them buried in the ruins.
That naturally didn't suit my dad--or for that matter, me. The soldiers
were sure to begin by shelling the rebel H.Q. and that meant that they'd
hit our house. I told you, didn't I, that it was next door to the court
house? My poor dad did his best. He talked to O'Farrelly and the rest of
them till the sweat ran off him. But it wasn't the least bit of good.
They simply wouldn't listen to reason. It was seven o'clock before dad
gave the job up and left the court house. He was going home to make his
will, but on the way he met Father Conway, the priest He was a youngish
man and a tremendous patriot, supposed to be hand-in-glove with the
rebels. Dad explained to him that he had less than an hour to live and
advised him to go home and bury any valuables he possessed before the
shelling began. It took Father Conway about ten minutes to grasp the
situation. I chipped in and explained the bracket system on which
artillery works. I told him that they wouldn't begin by aiming at the
court house, but would drop their first shell on his house and their
next on ours, so as to get the range right. As soon as he believed
that--and I had to swear it was true before he did--he took the matter
up warmly and said he'd talk to O'Farrelly himself. I didn't think he'd
do much good, but I went into the court house wit