n' a wee girl. An' terrible wee tories they are, too!
They're about somewhere with their aunt Kate. An' how an' all are you,
Henry?"

"I'm very well, Sheila."

"You're lookin' gran'. I hear you write books, but I never read noan of
them!"

"Would you like to read them?" he asked.

"I would, fine. Dear, oh, I often wonder how anybody can write books. I
never was no hand at writin' anything, not even a letter. But I suppose
there's a knack in it, an' once you learn it, you're all right!"

"Yes," he replied, "that's about it. I'll send my books to you. I'd have
sent them before if I'd thought you'd care to read them!"

"You might 'a' knowed rightly, I'd be glad to have them...."

3

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