Bridget received a shock when she saw her uncle’s house—she said that they wouldn’t put a pig in it in America—and the idea she had had of settling down there quickly vanished. However, she determined to stay on awhile in Ireland, and help to the best of her ability the famous soldiers of the I.R.A. (she had not realised yet that the bandits who had held up the train were the famous soldiers) of whom she had heard so much in America. On visiting the solicitor in Ballybor, she found that her uncle had left her a few hundred pounds, and this she gave to the man Hanley, with whom she lodged, to buy cattle with to stock her farm. As soon as Bridget had settled down she found ample scope for her political ambitions both in Cloonalla and Ballybor, where most of the young people of her own age found talking sedition far easier and more amusing than hard work; and as everybody seemed to have money to burn, she had a great time—political meetings, drilling, picnics, and dances. And after joining the Cumann na Ban she volunteered for active service with the local company of the I.R.A., little knowing what was before her. At first the game was amusing enough, teaching the young men the rudiments of first aid, and lecturing to the girls and youths of Cloonalla in the school-house in the evening, followed by dancing until the early hours of the morning; and probably Bridget would have gone no further than this but for the unfortunate arrival of two professional gunmen in Cloonalla, who had been sent from Dublin to carry out the usual series of outrages and then to vanish before the storm burst. The gunmen came with a list of local undesirables (from the I.R.A. point of view) to be removed—many of the names had probably been given out of private spite through the means of anonymous letters, a very favourite practice in Ireland—and at once proceeded to work, or rather to see that the Cloonalla Volunteers did the dirty work. The following week seemed to Bridget like a horrible nightmare, starting with the murder of ex-soldiers, who paid the full penalty of being so stupid as to believe that the British Government would protect its friends and supporters in Ireland, and culminating in the revolting crime of the murder of a Protestant clergyman, who was seventy-nine years of age. Early in the morning, before the household was up, the old man heard a loud knocking at the hall door, and on coming downstairs found the usual party of armed and masked men, who ordered him to follow them. He did so, and had no sooner reached the road than they shot him dead,—to be found by his old wife—the servants dared not leave the house—lying in the middle of the road in a pool of blood.