ing,
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._

"That's John," he said to himself, "or MacDonagh! And they began the
thing by killing an unarmed man! Their fine phrases won't cover that
mean deed!..."

9

He went back to his Club, and on the way, found that the rebels were in
possession of Stephen's Green. The gates were closed, and at each gate
were armed guards. He looked through the railings, and saw some boys
lying on the turf, with their rifles beside them. They did not move nor
look up, but lay very still and quiet, with a strange, preoccupied
expression on their faces. A little further on, other lads were digging
up the earth.

"What are you doing?" he said to one of them, and the lad straightened
himself and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"I don't know, sir!" he said, smiling nervously. "I'm supposed to be
diggin' a trench, but I think I'm diggin' my grave!..."

A trench! When he looked at the poor scraping of earth and sod, he felt
a fierce anger against Marsh and h