"He mentioned the name of every regiment that took part in the landing, except the two Irish regiments that did the hardest work and suffered the most deaths. I suppose that was an accident, Henry, a little oversight!" "You don't think he left them out on purpose, do you?" "I do. So does every man in Ireland, Unionist or Nationalist. You see, we know this man in Ireland ... he's a well-known Unionist ... a bigot ... and there isn't a person in Ireland who doesn't believe that he deliberately left the names of Dublins and the Munsters out of his despatch. He forgot, when he was writing it, that he was a sailor, and remembered only that he was a politician ... the kind that dances on dead men's graves!" It was difficult to argue with Marsh or with any one who thought as he thought, in face of that despatch. The omission was inexplicable if one did not accept the explanation offered by Marsh. The tradition of the sea is an honourable one, and sailors do not do things like that ... the scurvy acts of the cheaper politicians.... "You make a fence about your mind, John," said Henry, "and you spend all your efforts in strengthening it, so that you haven't time either to look over it and see what's beyond it, or to cultivate what's inside it. You're just building up barriers, when you should be knocking them down!" It was useless to be angry with Marsh or to argue with him. In everything that was done, he saw the malevolent intent of a treacherous people. "Look at this," he said one evening when the English papers had come in, and he pointed to a leading article in the _Morning Post_ in which the writer stated that the bravery of the Irish soldiers showed that the Irish people had now no feeling or grievance against the English, and therefore Home Rule was no longer necessary. "Already, they're plotting! They defile the dead ... they use our dead men as ... as political arguments!" "But the _Morning Post_ has no influence in England," Henry retorted angrily. "It's only read by footmen and sluts!..." "Some of our people are dubious," John went on. "They're inclined to take your point of view, and trust the English. I'll read this paper to them. That'll pull them up. We'd have been content with Home Rule before, but we want absolute separation now. We don't want to be associated with a race that makes bargains on bodies!..." "You're doing a damned bad work, John!..." "I'm helping to keep Ireland Irish, Henry!" He paused for a few moments, and then, laughing a little self-consciously, he proceeded. "Do you know that poem of Yeats's?" _It's with O'Leary in the grave. Romantic Ireland's dead and gone._ Henry nodded his head. "Well, we're going to see whether we can't make Yeats re-write it. Good-night, Henry!" 2