“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.