Many a day afterwards I wandered along the plains of Meath, thinking and planning and dreaming of the happy land it might be if only we were allowed to work out our own destiny as God would have us. I often walked for three or four hours without meeting a human being. Here and there a lovely mansion; around it the gatelodge of the serf, the winding avenue, the silent trees and the green fields with the bullock as their ruler. Landlordism, worked as the willing instrument of English rule, had wrought this desolation. And I renewed my resolve to do my share in bringing about the change that must come. I spent pleasant, if uneventful days, with Joseph Dardis and with Dr. Lynch and Tom Carton, of Stamullen, and also with Vincent Purfield, of Balbriggan. From them all I received the same genial hospitality that so many had already shown me. Thank God, England has not yet deprived us of our spirit of kindness and hospitality. The summer was now approaching. I was feeling strong and fit again. I was anxious to be doing something. The war was developing and I could not be idle. I felt I had no right to remain any longer out of the fray. Some of the things I had read in the papers had made my blood boil again. Tom MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, who had been with us but five or six months previously lying in wait for Lord French, had been murdered in his home in the presence of his wife. In Thurles two or three similar murders had been committed by the British. They were but the first of a hundred such murders to be committed within a year by British forces, all connived at or directly inspired by the highest officials in the land. I resolved to be up and doing. I returned to Dublin. There I met some of the boys and urged an intensive guerilla campaign. Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy enthusiastically supported my views and favoured my “on with the war” policy. As I have already explained, our own policy was all the time “unofficial.” Neither Dail Eireann nor General Headquarters of the I.R.A. had sanctioned it or accepted responsibility. Mick Collins, I must say, seemed to favour it. He always promised to continue to push our war policy in the “proper quarters,” and it must be remembered that he was then not only on the G.H.Q. staff but was Finance Minister in Dail Eireann. I have already recounted how he was with us on one occasion towards the end of 1919, when we had prepared to ambush Lord French, but the Lord Lieutenant disappointed us.