y Mother of God!"

"The Holy Mother of God had damned little to do with it," Henry said to
Lander. "It was machine guns...."

3

Lander had obtained a permit for him, so that he could go to England,
and in a little while, he would leave the Club and go to Westland Row to
catch the train to Kingstown. There was a strange quietness in his
heart. He had lived through a terror and had not been afraid. He had
seen men immolating themselves gladly because they had believed that by
so doing they would make their country a finer one to live in.

"It was the wrong way," he said to himself, "but in the end, nothing
matters but that a man shall offer his life for his belief!"

Gilbert Farlow and Ninian Graham had not sought, as he had sought, to
escape from destiny or to elude death. It was fore-ordained that old men
would make wars and that young men would pay the price of them ... and
it is of no use to try to save oneself. John Marsh, too, had had to pay
for the incompetence and folly of old men who had wrangled and made
bitterness ... And now, in his turn, he must pay the price, too. One
must die ... in that there is no choice ... but one may die finely or
one may die meanly ... and in that there is choice. Gilbert and Ninian
and John, each in his way, had died finely. It might have been that he
would have died meanly in Dublin, casually killed, for no purpose, for
no cause.... Well, he had not been killed meanly. There was still time
for him to live on the level of his friends. If youth has had committed
to it the task of redeeming the world from the follies of the Old, Youth
must not shrink from the labour, even though it may feel that the Old
should redeem themselves....

He would go to Boveyhayne and marry Mary, and then he would take her to
his home ... he must do that ... and when he had given his house to her,
he would enlist as a soldier. "Life isn't worth while, if one is afraid
to lose it ... a year or two more, what do they matter if a job be
shirked?" "It isn't the time one lives that matters," he went on, "it's
what one does in the time!"

4

As the mail-boat steamed out of the harbour, he climbed to the top deck
and stood there gazing back at the shore. Exquisitely beautiful, Ireland
looked in the evening glow. Up the river, in an opal mist, he could see
Dublin, still sore from her latest wounds, and here close at hand, he
saw the waves of mountains reaching far inland, each mountain shining in
the