CHAPTER IV

TO IRELAND

“Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home.” R. L. STEVENSON.

HOLYHEAD pier was in the state of wild turmoil that seethes between the arrival of the mail and its transhipping to the Dublin boat. Passengers ran hither and thither, distractedly seeking luggage, while stolid English porters lent a deaf ear to their complainings or assured them absent-mindedly that everything would be all right on the other side; an assurance always given light-heartedly by the porter who is comfortably certain of the fact that, whatever happens on the other side, he will not be there. First and third class passengers mingled inextricably in the luggage-hunt, with equal lack of success, and divided into two streams when the whistle blew an impatient summons, seeking their respective gangways under the guiding shouts of officials on the upper deck. Through the crowd ploughed the mail trollies, regarding first and third class travellers alike as mere obstructors of His Majesty’s business, and asserting their right-of-way by sheer weight and impetus. Overhead, a grey sky hung darkly, and was reflected in a grey, white-flecked sea.

It was not the usual Ireland-bound crowd of early summer. Comparatively few women were travelling, and except for a few elderly men, there was an entire absence of the knickerbocker-suited, tweed-capped travellers, with golf-clubs and rod-boxes, who make a yearly pilgrimage across the Irish Sea. Most of them were in Flanders or Gallipoli now, and khaki had replaced the rough tweeds; many would never come again. In their stead, khaki sprinkled the crowd thickly. A big detachment of soldiers returning after furlough, crowded the boat for’ard. Officers in heavy great-coats were everywhere; one chubby subaltern in charge of a regimental band, which had been assisting in a recruiting tour in Wales. A small group surrounded a tall old general, whose great-coat showed the crossed sword and baton, while his gold-laced and red-banded cap made him the object of awed glances from junior officers, who forthwith put as much of the ship as possible between themselves and his eagle eye.

Jim Linton and Wally Meadows were among the first out of the train. It was Jim’s way to let a crowd disperse a little before he attempted to reach a given point. “You get there just as quickly, and it saves an awful lot of pushing and shoving,” he said. But Wally’s impatience never brooked any such delay; at all times he found it difficult to sit still, and once movement was permitted him, he was wont, as Jim further said, “to run three ways at once.” Therefore, Jim being too peaceably inclined to argue the matter, they made a hurried descent to the platform, collected hand-luggage hastily, discovered a porter, assisted Mr. Linton and Norah to alight, and had marshalled their forces on the upper deck of the steamer while yet the main body of the passengers strove agonizedly to find their belongings. Then Jim made a leisurely inspection, discovered their heavy luggage in perfect safety, duly embarked: and rejoined his party with the calm certainty of all being right with the world.

People were disposing themselves after the varied fashion of ’cross-Channel passengers. Apprehensive ladies and a few men cast a despondent look at the grey sea and the white horses tumbling off-shore, and prudently sought the shelter of the cabins, hoping, by prompt lying down, to cheat the demon of sea-sickness. More seasoned travellers selected chairs on the main decks, pitched them where any gleams of sun might reach them, and settled down, rolled in rugs, to read through the boredom of the passage. On the railings, small boys perched themselves with the fell determination of small boys all the world over, while anxious mothers rent the air with fruitless appeals for them to come down, and wrathful fathers emphasized the commands with blows, or else smoked stolidly in the conviction that a small boy who was meant to fall in the sea would certainly fall there, in spite of his parents. Babies wailed dismally, until borne off to the cabin by mothers and nurses; sirens rent the air with hoarse shrieks; cranes, loading luggage, rattled and banged, and above their din rose the shouts of newsboys hawking London and Dublin papers. Every hand on the ship was working furiously, for the mail has no time to spare, and nothing matters to it but the time-table.

They were off presently, slipping away almost imperceptibly from the wharf, and nosing out to sea through the grey waves. The ship thrust her bow into them doggedly. The mail-boat’s line is a straight line, and she takes no account of the foaming billows and the anguish of passengers, thrusting through everything from port to port. Several people who had settled down on deck more in hope than certainty cast sad glances on the sea, and disappeared hurriedly below.

Jim and Wally turned up their coat-collars as the breeze freshened, and stood swaying easily to the motion of the ship. They still bore traces of the ordeal they had undergone in the trenches; each was unnaturally pale and heavy-eyed, and recurring attacks of throat-trouble had kept them from regaining full strength. Wally’s eyes, too, were weak: he was under orders to rest them altogether, and was therefore openly jubilant because he could not read war news—which, as he said, was one of the most wearying occupations, only you couldn’t cease doing it without a decent excuse. “Vetted” by a Medical Board, the pair had been given six weeks’ leave, at the end of which time they were to report progress.

Of the nerve-disorder which so frequently follows in the track of gas-poisoning they were fortunately entirely free. Possibly their dose had not been large enough: or their clean youth and perfect health had helped them to throw off the effects felt heavily by older men. They could joke about it now, and their longing to get “some of their own back” was so keen as almost to discount an Irish holiday. Still, war was likely to last long enough to give them all the fighting they needed: there was, after all, no immediate hurry. And it was glorious to feel strength returning: and the new fishing-rods and tackle bore fascinating promise, while Ireland itself was a country of their dreams.

As for Mr. Linton and Norah, they looked after the boys unceasingly, fed them at alarmingly short intervals, and in general manifested so subservient a desire to run all their errands that the victims revolted, declaring they were patients no longer, and threatening severe measures if they were not restored to independence. Norah and her father submitted unwillingly. To nurse trench-worn warriors had the double effect of being in itself comforting, while, so long as the nursing lasted, the warriors could not possibly consider returning to the trenches.

They looked about them as the swift steamer raced westward. Soldiers, soldiers everywhere; every likely youngster was in uniform, and there were many older men whose keen, quiet faces bore the ineffaceable stamp of the regular officer of the old Army—the old Army that was gone for ever, only a fragment left after the first fierce onslaught of war. The men for’ard were laughing and singing, just as they laughed and sang in the trenches; a cornet-player belonging to the band had found his instrument and was leading the tune. Near Norah, three or four nuns, sweet-faced and grave, were seated, evidently enjoying the keen wind that swept into their faces. There was the usual sprinkling of passengers, some mere heaps of rugs in deck-chairs, others walking briskly up and down. Somewhat apart, a tall old priest stood by the rail, looking ahead: a gaunt old man with burning, dark eyes, that searched the grey sea and sky wistfully, as if looking for the land to which they were hastening. Jim, strolling backwards and forwards, came presently to a standstill near him, and asked a question.

“Do you know what time we get in, sir?”

“’Tis about three hours, I believe—that or less,” said the old man, courteously. He turned a steady glance on Jim, and apparently approved of him, for he smiled. “Do you not know Ireland, then?”

Jim shook his head. “It’s my first visit.”

“So?” The old eyes looked ahead once more. “They take under three hours now to cross; ’twas many more last time I came away—the bitter day!” he added, half under his breath. “And that’s three-and-forty years ago, my son!”

“What! and you’ve never been back, sir?”

“Never. I’ve been in America. A good country; but it never lets you go, and it never gets to be home. All that three-and-forty years I’ve been thinking of the day I’d be going back again.”

“And it’s come,” said Jim, his smile suddenly lighting his grey eyes. The old man smiled back

“If you weren’t so young I’d say you knew what it was to be homesick,” said he.

“I come from Australia,” said Jim, briefly.

“Well, well, well!” the priest said. “There’s another great country—only so far away. There’s many a good Irishman there, they tell me.”

“Any number of them,” said Jim. “We’ve got one of the best on our place—Murty O’Toole. He taught me to ride.”

“Did he so? There were O’Tooles in Wicklow when I was a boy; but sure and they’re all over the world. You’ll be glad to go back, when the time comes?”

“Glad!” said Jim, explosively. He laughed. “It’s very jolly, of course, to visit other places. But home’s home, isn’t it, sir?”

“Aye,” said the old man. He looked ahead, his eyes misty. “Three-and-forty years I’ve dreamed of it; and now I’m waiting to see the hills of Ireland coming out of the sea, and this last hour seems longer than all the years. Well, well; and they’re all dead, all the people I knew; and I going home to die, like a wornout old dog.”

“You’ll live in Ireland many a year yet, sir,” Jim told him, quickly.

“No, no; I’m done. ’Tis my heart, and it finished—sure, wouldn’t forty years of work in New York finish any heart!” said the old man, laughing. “But I’m lucky to be getting back to Ireland to die. Did you ever hear, now, of the Sons of Tuireann?”

Jim shook his head. “I’m afraid not, sir.”

“They were great fighting men, and they had great hardship,” said the priest: “and at the end of all things they were on the sea coming home, dying. And one of them cried out that he saw the hills of home. And the others said, ‘Raise up our heads on your breast till we see Ireland again: and life or death will be the same to us after that.’ So they died. That was a good ending. A man wouldn’t ask better. ’Tis a hard thing, dying in a strange country, but you’d go very easy, once you got home.” He spoke half to himself, so low that the boy hardly caught the words. They stood silently for awhile, looking ahead across the tumbling sea.

“I had no right to be talking to you about dying,” the old priest said presently, turning to Jim with a smile that made his face extraordinarily child-like. “Old men get foolish; and my heart’s too big for my body this day, and I getting home. Tell me now—are ye Irish, at all?”

“My mother was Irish,” Jim answered.

“I’d have said so. What part might she have come from?—and is she with you?”

“She died when I was a kiddie,” Jim answered. “She came from Donegal. Father says she always loved it.”

“Well, well! Wherever you’re born, you love that place. But I think the love for Ireland is beyond most things. The people leave it because there’s no room for them and no money; but no matter where they go they leave the half of their hearts behind. And they put something of the love into their children no matter where they’re born, so that they always want to come and see Ireland: and when they come, ’tis no strange place to them; they feel they’ve come home. You’ll feel it—for all that you love that big young country of yours, and want to get back to her. But every old ruin, and every bit of brown bog and heathery mountain, and every little stony field, will say something to you that you will not be able to put into words: and when you go back you will not forget. There, there! I’m talking again!” said the old man; “and to a boy with business of his own. Tell me, now, have you been out across yonder yet?” He nodded in the direction of Flanders.

They talked of war, the priest nodding vehemently and punctuating Jim’s brief sentences with exclamations of “Well, well!” The wistfulness dropped from him suddenly; he was a fighting man, a Crusader—with a young man’s burning desire to be out in the trenches, and a young man’s keenness to hear details of battle. “There’s fifty thousand French priests fighting for France,” he said, enviously: “none the worse soldiers for being priests, I’ll vow, and they’ll be all the better priests afterwards for having been soldiers! If I were young! if I were young!” He laughed at his own vehemence. “It’s your day,” he said; “a great world just now for young men. And they tell me there’s any number of them out of khaki yet—standing behind counters and selling lace and ribbons; and some of them doing women’s hair! More shame for the women that let them!”

“If a man wants to stay out of the game and do women’s work, well that’s all he’s fit for,” said Jim, slowly. “He’s not wanted where there’s work going. But he ought to have some sort of a brand put on him, so that people will be able to tell him from a man in future!”

The priest chuckled appreciatively.

“Petticoats are the brand he wants,” said he. “And an extra tax put on him, to support the widows and children of the men who were men—who went and fought to save his worthless hide. ’Tis a shame, now, they wouldn’t make him pay some way. Well, they wouldn’t have me in the trenches—and it’s good sense they have; but for all I’m a broken-down old ruin I’m going fighting—fighting with my tongue against the boys that stay at home. Perhaps they don’t realize—the young ones: they might listen to an old man that was a priest. Just a few days to rest and feel I’m home at last, and I’m going to do my bit as a recruiting sergeant!”

“Good luck!” Jim said, heartily. “Only don’t get knocked up, sir.”

The old man laughed.

“’Tis only once a man can die,” he said, cheerfully. “I’d die easier knowing I’d done my bit, as you boys say. But I’m in dread I’ll lose my temper with them, especially if I meet the lads that dress heads of hair! They wash them too, I’m told. Well, well, it’s a queer world!”

Wally came up, faintly indignant at Jim’s lengthy absence, and joined in the talk: and presently Mr. Linton and Norah followed, and made friends with the old man. He was such a simple, cheery old man: it was easy to be friends with him. They grew merry over queer stories from many countries, and often the priest’s laugh rang out like a boy’s, while his own stories brought peals of mirth from his new friends. But through it all his dark eyes kept searching ahead: ever looking, looking till the hills of Ireland should lift from the sea.

“They tell me you have big trees in that Australia of yours,” he said. “Tell me now, are they as big as the Califorian redwoods?”

“I don’t know the redwoods,” Wally answered solemnly. “But ours are big. There’s a story of twelve men who started with axes and cross-cut saws to get a gum-tree down. They worked on one side for nine months and then they got bored with that, and they packed up and made a journey round to the other side. And there they found a party of fifteen men who’d been working at that side for a year, and they were very surprised——” Laughter overcame him suddenly at the sight of the priest’s amazed face.

“You young rascal!” said he, joining in the laugh against himself. “And I taking it all in so meekly!”

“I might go on, if you liked, sir, and tell you the story of the man who was out in the bush bringing home some calves,” said Wally.

“Don’t spare me,” begged his hearer.

“Well, he found his way blocked by a fallen tree, too big to get the calves over. So he started to drive them along it, to get round. When he didn’t come home they came to the conclusion that he had stolen the calves; and so they had to apologize to him, later on, when he turned up with a nice lot of bullocks. He said proudly that he hadn’t lost one, only they had grown up while they were on the journey!”

“That was a long tree!” said the priest, between chuckles. “Well, well, it must be a great country that will grow such timber—and such stories, and the boys to tell them!”

Wally laughed.

“I ought to beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Only no good Australian can resist telling tall stories about his tall trees. But I can tell you a true one of a tree I knew where seven men camped in the hollow butt. They had bunks built inside, all round it, and a table in the middle, and of course, space for a doorway. That tree was over fifty-five feet inside, and goodness only knows what it was outside, buttresses and all.”

“And it’s true, I suppose, that you could drive a coach-and-four through a tree?” the priest asked.

“Driving a coach-and-four through the hollowed-out stump of a tree used to be common enough with us,” said Jim. “Not that the four horses mattered: you might as well say ‘and twelve’; it was the width high enough up to take the top of the coach that meant a really big tree. It was easier to make a hollow shell fit for the passage of the coach than to get the whole tree cut down.”

“Quite so—quite so,” said the priest. “And I’ve read of church services being held in a hollow tree, in your country.

“Rather. We know one that held twenty-two people. It was in a wild part of the bush, and whatever clergyman came along used to use it—Roman Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian or Baptist; it didn’t matter. Every one used to roll up, for it wasn’t often there was a chance of a church service. There were lots of jobs for the travelling parson, too: all the accumulated weddings and christenings.”

“Do you tell me!” said the priest.

“My mother had three children before ever a chance came of a baptism,” said Mr. Linton. “Then the three were done together. I was the eldest, and I remember being extremely indignant about it—I was four years old, and it was winter, and the water was cold! It was a standing joke against me afterwards that I had behaved so much worse than my small brother and sister.” He laughed, and then grew grave. “Poor bush mothers! they didn’t have an easy time. Two of my mother’s babies died without ever having seen a clergyman; to the end of her life she worried about the little souls that had gone out unbaptized.”

“It was themselves needed great hearts—those pioneer women,” said the priest.

“They did; and mostly they had great hearts. But then I think most women have, if the need really comes,” Mr. Linton said. “Thousands of them were delicate, tenderly-reared women, with no experience of bush conditions in a new country; but they made good. Women have a curious way of finding themselves able to tackle any conditions with which they are actually faced. My mother never was strong, and she had no training for work; I expect she was something of a butterfly until she married my father and went off into the Never-Never. She ended by being a kind of oracle for fifty miles round; people used to send for her at all hours of the day or night, in sickness, and she developed a business capacity better than my father’s. I remember her as a little, merry thing: always tired, but never too tired to work for other people. She was only one of thousands of women doing the same thing.”

“But the process of learning must have been hard,” said the old priest, pityingly.

“Yes. It must have been a tough apprenticeship. My mother told me she used to sit down and cry often at the loneliness and strangeness of it all—in the long days when all the men were miles away from the homestead, and she was alone, with the chance of bush fires and bushrangers and wild blacks. That was until the babies came. After that there was no time to cry—which, she said, was a very good thing for her. Poor little mother!”

He sighed; and in the silence that followed a slight commotion was audible on the bridge. The priest glanced up sharply.

“Nothing—but that cruel business of the _Lusitania_ makes everyone suspicious at sea, nowadays,” he said. “Still, the Germans may be active enough in the south, but I don’t fancy they’ll come into these landlocked waters. Too much risk from our destroyers.”

Norah was leaning over the rail.

“What’s that thing?” she said, slowly.

Their eyes followed the direction of her pointing finger. Nearly astern, a slender grey object bobbed among the waves: so small a thing that an idle glance might easily have passed it by unnoticed. A shadowy, grey bar, bearing aloft what looked like a nut.

Jim uttered a shout.

“By Jove, it’s a submarine!”

Even as he shouted, a long grey shadow came into view under the bar. Simultaneously, the engine-telegraph clanged from the bridge, and following the signal, the steamer altered her course with a jerk that sent most of the standing passengers headlong to the deck. They picked themselves up, unconscious of bruises, rushing again to the rail.

The submarine was well in view—a slender, vicious, grey boat, with a little cluster of men visible on her tiny deck, round the shaft of the periscope. She was terribly near. Suddenly a volume of black smoke gushed from the steamer’s funnels; the firemen were flinging themselves at their work below, since on speed alone hung their slender hope of safety. Again she altered her course. Sharp orders came from the bridge; sailors were running to and fro, and an officer was serving out life-belts frantically.

Something shot from the submarine—something that made a long, glistening streak across the water, coming straight towards them like a flash; and David Linton flung his arm round Norah muttering, “My God!” A strained, high voice cried, “A torpedo!” and then silence fell upon the ship, broken only by the smothered gasps of women. Straight and swift the streak came; unimaginably swift, and yet the watching seemed a lifetime.

“Hold tight to the rail,” Jim’s voice said in Norah’s ear. She gripped mechanically; and as she did so, the steamer jerked again, plunging to one side like a frightened horse that sees danger. It was just in time. The torpedo shot past, missing the bow by a fraction—a space so small that it was almost impossible to believe that it had indeed missed. Then came relief, finding vent in an irrepressible shout.

“It’s too soon to shout,” some one said. “She’ll make better shooting next time.”

Stewards and sailors were hurrying round, distributing life-belts; it was no easy matter to put them on, for the ship was zigzagging wildly, dodging in a desperate effort to elude her pursuer, and balance was impossible without a firm hold on some fixed object.

“Sit on the deck—it’s safest,” said Mr. Linton. He fastened Norah’s life-belt, while Jim performed a similar office for him, and Wally put one on the old priest, who was so wild with excitement as to be quite oblivious of any such precaution. His face was deadly white, his dark eyes blazing. In his first fall he had lost his black felt hat, and his silver hair waved in the wind.

“The murdering villains—the assassins!” he said. “Yerra, if I could fight!”

An officer called for helpers to bring the women and children from below. Jim and Wally sprang in answer, and a crowd of soldiers came tumbling up from for’ard, elbowing their officers in mad excitement and the rush to be first. Quick and strong hands were needed on the companion ladders with their burdens, as the ship plunged hither and thither, racing in zig-zags at top speed. Many of the women were helpless between fear and the aftermath of sea-sickness; but they came without outcry, with set white faces, determined, if this were indeed Death, to die decently. The babies howled with a lusty disregard of the world common to babies, while the soldiers patted them with far more concern than they showed for the submarine. In a very few minutes not a soul was left below.

“Why do we zigzag?” Norah asked, clinging to the rail as a fresh jerk shook the ship.

“It’s our only chance,” Jim answered. “I don’t think the submarines can beat these boats for speed, or else she’d just come up and sink us at her leisure; and she can’t take aim accurately if we’re dodging. Of course we cut down our speed by not going straight; but we can’t afford the risk of letting her train her torpedo-tube carefully on us. Jove, can’t the skipper handle this ship! She answers the helm like a motor-car.”

“And can’t she go!” uttered Wally.

“Oh, the mail-boats are built for speed and not much else—thank goodness!” Jim said. “Look!—she’s firing again!”

Again the streak shot from the pursuing submarine and darted towards them. They held their breath.

It was a very close shave—only a lightning swerve saved the mail-boat. The old priest uttered a sudden shout of triumph. “Whirroo!” he cried—for a moment just the boy who had left Wicklow more than forty years ago. He shook as he gripped the rail, laughing at the racing grey shadow that followed them.

Jim Linton’s eyes were on his little sister: and Norah, feeling them, slipped a hand into his.

“If it hadn’t been for us you wouldn’t be in this,” he said, miserably.

Norah opened her eyes in amazement.

“But that just makes it not matter so much,” she said. “Just fancy if we weren’t all together! Don’t you worry, Jimmy.” She smiled at him very cheerfully.

“If she hits us and we begin to sink, don’t wait for the ship to go over,” Mr. Linton said. “Half the boats on the _Lusitania_ were death-traps. Let us all jump in and keep together if we can; we would have more chance of being picked up, and less of being taken down in the suction as she sank. Can you swim, Father?”—to the priest.

“I can. But it’s years since I tried, and I don’t know would I keep afloat at all,” said the old man, with unimpaired cheerfulness. “Let you take your own course, and not trouble about me. I’m too old to try jumping, and there’ll be some poor souls I could maybe help. And we’re not beaten yet.” He gave a quick laugh, his grey head well up. “We’re running away, but it’s a good fight we’re putting up, all the same: something to see, after forty years in a New York slum!”

“I believe he likes it!” said Wally, under his breath. But the old man caught the words.

“Like it! I used to dream of adventures when I was a boy, and it was all the sea—clean winds and waves, and ships that were always magic to me. And it ended in a slum: forty years of it, doing my work in the midst of filth and wretchedness. Well, every man has his work, and mine lay there. And now, at the end, this! I always knew ’twas luck I’d have if I got back to Ireland!”

They had raced away in a straight course after the second torpedo, increasing the distance from their pursuer. Now, however, a shot hummed past them, and the captain dared no longer risk a hit—again the ship swerved from side to side, in short, irregular tacks, and the submarine drew nearer once more. On and on—leaping like a hare when the greyhound is behind her: engines throbbing, smoke blackening the sky in her wake. Some of the firemen had staggered up, exhausted, their places taken by volunteers. Ahead, a dim line lay upon the sea: the Irish coast, where lay safety. Would they ever reach it?

Then, from the north, came rescue: a patrol-boat, racing down upon them with threatening guns ready to speak in their defence. She came out of a light haze, which, blowing away, revealed her dogged grey shape, with the white water churning and parting at her bow. Presently one of her guns spoke, and a shell buried itself in the sea not far from the submarine.

“So long, Brother Boche!” said an officer; and suddenly, as if in answer, the submarine disappeared, submerging to the safety of the underworld. The mail-boat ceased to zigzag, running a straight course until near the destroyer, as a child runs to a protector.

The tension relaxed. Voices broke out in quick clamour: and then cheer after cheer came from the pent-up passengers, redoubling as the captain’s face showed over the railings of the bridge. The captain grinned, saluted, and looked at his watch all at once: the danger was over, and now the pressing business of his ordinary life reasserted itself—the landing in time at Kingstown Pier of His Majesty’s mails.

People were laughing and talking nervously, keeping an anxious look-out towards the spot where the submarine had disappeared; scarcely realizing that their peril was past, and that the grey hunter would not again reveal itself, hurrying upon their track. The destroyer shot past them, seeking the enemy, with signal flags talking busily to the mail-boat. A comforting sense of security was in her wake.

“Well!” said Jim. “We left England to find peace and quiet; but if this is a specimen of what Ireland means to give us——”

“We’d better get back to the peaceful marshes of Flanders,” finished Wally.

“I used to think when I was at home—at Billabong—that excitement would be nice,” said Norah. “But it isn’t—not a bit: or else I’ve had an overdose. At any rate, I don’t want any more as long as I live.”

A little sigh came from behind her, and her father made a sudden movement, springing to the side of the priest. The old man was swaying backwards and forwards. They caught him, and laid him gently on the deck. His lips parted, and he tried to speak, but no sound came.

“Go and look for a doctor,” said Mr. Linton to Wally. “Quick!”

He tore at the old man’s collar, while Norah rubbed his hands desperately. It seemed the only thing she could do. A little life came into the white face, and his voice came faintly.

“’Tis the finish for me—don’t worry . . . my heart.” He smiled at them. “And the doctor after telling me not to get excited.”

“Don’t talk,” Norah begged.

“It can’t hurt me. Don’t mind, little one.” He saw the tears in her eyes, and tightened his hand on her fingers. “’Tis a good ending. I wouldn’t ask for a better.”

Wally came back, a young man in uniform, with the R.A.M.C. badge on his collar, at his heels. The doctor bent over the old priest. Presently he rose, shaking his head as he met David Linton’s eyes.

“There’s nothing to be done,” he said, softly.

The old man’s hearing was no less acute.

“’Tis myself could have told you that,” he said. “I knew . . . next time it came. And . . . when a man’s ready . . .”

His voice became almost inaudible, murmuring broken words of prayer. Behind them Jim had formed a line of soldiers, keeping off the curious crowd. Presently he spoke again.

“It’s easy, dying. Only it would be easier if I’d seen it again . . . Ireland.”

“We’re very near,” Norah told him, pityingly.

“Near! And not to see it!” He tried to rise, helplessly. “Ah, but let me look—let me look!”

David Linton’s eyes met the doctor’s.

“It can’t hurt him,” whispered the doctor. “Nothing can do that now.”

They lifted him, very gently. Ahead, the hills of Wicklow were green and near. The grey sky had broken, and a little shaft of sunlight stole out and lay upon the coast. It was as though Ireland smiled to welcome back her son.

The dark eyes looked long and wistfully. Once he smiled at Norah; and then looked back quickly, as though to lose no instant of home. Presently his lips parted in broken words.

“Till we see . . . till we see Ireland again; and life or death will be the same to us after that.” Then no more words came. But when the doctor signed to them to lay him down he was still smiling.