The admiralty pursued its course of seizing men of the mercantile marine, taking them aboard ships, keeping them away for months from the harbours of the kingdom, and then, when their ships returned, denying them the right of visiting their homes. The press-gangs did not confine their activities to the men of the mercantile marine. From the streets after dusk they caught and brought in, often after ill-treatment, torn from their wives and sweethearts, knocked on the head for resisting, tradesmen with businesses, young men studying for the professions, idlers, debtors, out-of-work men. The marvel is that the British fleets fought as well as they did. Poverty and sorrow, loss and bereavement, were in every street, peeped mournfully out of every window, lurked at street corners. From all parts of the world adventurers came to renew their fortunes in the turmoil of London, and every street was a kaleidoscope of faces and clothes and colours, not British, not patriot, not national. Among these outlanders were Dyck Calhoun and Michael Clones. They had left Ireland together in the late autumn, leaving behind them the stirrings of the coming revolution, and plunging into another revolt which was to prove the test and trial of English character. Dyck had left Ireland with ninety pounds in his pocket and many tons' weight of misery in his heart. In his bones he felt tragedies on foot in Ireland which concession and good government could not prevent. He had fled from it all. When he set his face to Holyhead, he felt that he would never live in Ireland again. Yet his courage was firm as he made his way to London, with Michael Clones--faithful, devoted, a friend and yet a servant, treated like a comrade, yet always with a little dominance. The journey to London had been without event, yet as the coach rolled through country where frost silvered the trees; where, in the early morning, the grass was shining with dew; where the everlasting green hedges and the red roofs of villages made a picture which pleased the eye and stirred the soul, Dyck Calhoun kept wondering what would be his future. He had no profession, no trade, no skill except with his sword; and as he neared London Town--when they left Hendon--he saw the smoke rising in the early winter morning and the business of life spread out before him, brave and buoyant. As from the heights of Hampstead he looked down on the multitudinous area called London, something throbbed at his heart which seemed like hope; for what he saw was indeed inspiring. When at last, in the Edgware Road, he drew near to living London, he turned to Michael Clones and said: "Michael, my lad, I think perhaps we'll find a footing here."