o open
his eyes and see him, he would shout at him, "Good God, Henry, what are
you cryin' about? Go out, man, an' get the fresh air about you!..."

He put his hand out and touched the dead man.

"All right, father!" he said aloud....

5

There was much to do after the burial, and it was not until the
beginning of the Spring that Henry left Ballymartin. He had completed
his sixth novel, and had asked that the proofs should be sent to him as
speedily as possible so that he might correct them before he left
Ireland, and while he was waiting for them, he had travelled to Dublin
for a few days, partly on business connected with his estate and partly
to see his friends. Mr. Quinn had spent a great deal of money on his
farming experiments, the more freely as he found that Henry's books
brought him an increasing income, and so Henry had decided to let the
six hundred acres which Mr. Quinn himself had farmed. At first, he had
thought of selling the land, but it seemed to him that his father would
have liked him to keep it, and so he did not do so. He settled his
affairs with his solicitors, and then returned to Ballymartin; but
before he did so, he spent an evening with John Marsh, whom he found
still keenly drilling.

"But why are you drilling now?" he asked. "This hardly seems the time to
be playing at soldiers, John!"

"I'm not playing, Henry. I _am_ a soldier!"

It was difficult to remember how many armies there were in Ireland. The
Ulster Volunteers still sulked in the North. The National Volunteers had
split. The politicians, alarmed at the growth of the Volunteer Movement
among their followers, had swooped down on the Volunteers and "captured"
them. John Marsh and Galway and their friends had seceded, and, under
the presidency of a professor of the National University, John
MacNeill, had formed a new body, called the Irish Volunteers. The
politicians, failing to understand the temper of their time, worked to
discourage the growth of the Volunteer Movement, and the result of their
efforts was that the more enthusiastic and courageous of the National
Volunteers seceded to the Irish Volunteers.

"We're growing rapidly," John said to Henry. "They're flocking out of
the Nationals into ours as hard as they can. We've got Thomas MacDonagh
and Patrick Pearse and a few others with us, and we're trying to link up
with Larkins' Citizen Army. Mineely's urging Connolly on to our side,
but Connolly's more interested in the