oars. I wondered whether Danny Herlihy might be persuaded to run me out in his Ford oar; but the police sergeant, whom I consulted, thought it would be a pity to let the peor decent fellow risk the pelt of a bullet after him on New Year's Day. "Maybe he'd have bad luck the whole year if he'd get shot on New Year's Day," he said solemnly. Just then the Head Constable at Dunreagh rang up to ascertain my whereabouts. It was most opportune, for I explained the situation and was told in return that an exsoldier car-owner in Dunreagh would come to Clashagoppul for me in a couple of hours.

The matter being settled, I spent the morning in the Fagans' comfortable sittingroom. Daylight is a great reviver of courage, and I found that much of the caution displayed overnight by my hosts had melted away in the sunshine. Moreover, they had almost succeeded in believing I had told them the plain truth about my adventure!

I was anxious to solve the mystery surrounding Cornelius. Mrs Fagan herself actually led up to the subject.

""Tis seeking the picture, you are?" she said. "Indeed, 'tis after leaving a great gap on the wall."

Now that my attention was drawn to it, something certainly was missing from the wall facing the window-a fact emphasised by the square of wall - paper showing its original unfaded colour.

"Cornelius thought the

world-wide of that picture,' went on Mrs Fagan, "Didn't he buy it in London the first leave he got after the King visiting the Army in Flanders, and a grand gold frame to go round it, and a Union Jack flag to hang over the top! Sure every one in the country did be admiring it!"

I recalled the picture thena large and gaudily-coloured portrait of King George V.

"It was a beautiful picture," I said. "Did Cornelius take it to England with him?"

"He did so," said Mr Fagan, settling himself into his wife's chair by the fire, for the shopbell had rung suddenly and she hurried away. ""Faith, it was on account of the picture he went. And I'm glad he's gone, though Herself and me is lost without him." He lowered his voice, and, leaning towards me over the arm of his chair, went on: "I wouldn't say & word last night, for I didn't know whether them that stopped you on the road mightn't be after you still; and 'tis best to know nothing, the way you'd be giving them no occasion to take your life. God knows I'd not be telling you a lie on New Year's Day, but if Cornelius would be here now he'd be dead!"

He launched into a long description of the vicissitudes of Cornelius after he had been demobbed. With his wife and little boy he had intended settling permanently at Clashageppul to help the old people with the farm and shop. He had counted on a

wise.

Cornelius was subjected to a persistent and relentless perseoution. It began with a kind of social boycott. Nobody spoke to him on his way to or from Mass. Nobody would have any dealings with him at local fairs. He was warned, anonymously, to keep away from the pony races. Then the men employed on the Fagans' farm left without notice at the busiest time of the harvest. The eattle kept breaking out mysteriously and straying into bogs and glens. A valuable young horse was found entangled in barbed wire on an adjacent farm.

"Cornelius had great spirit in him always," said Mr Fagan, "and he knew it was because he had been fighting agin the Germans in place of for them that the Sinn Fein had him persecuted. But it vexed him when his wife was in dread to go outside the house, and when his young son would be playing at shooting policemen and shouting, 'Up the rebels!""

"Where did you learn that at all?' says Cornelius. At school, sir,' says the little fellow, and Up Dublin! Down England! Up the Huns!' says he, proud-like of his learning. Cornelius was lepping mad, and he wouldn't let him go to school any more. And didn't they come after that and throw stones on the roof in the middle of the night

same as they'd shoot a policeman. He thought to best them in the latther end, though his wife was crying all the time to go back to England. But it was the picture settled him, He was smoking his pipe one evening after giving the young horse a gallop. Two men came to the door on bioyeles. 'Ye have a pioture within in the house,' they says. 'That's true maybe,' says Cornelius. 'Tis a picture of ould George the Englishman,' says they, and bedad! ye've got to take it down.'

"Get out of that, quick,' says Cornelius.

"Well, they made off on their bicycles, for he put the fear of God on them with the look he gave them. But didn't ten of them come with black masks and guns at one o'clock in the night, and they bet the backdoor in. Cornelius got a stick and went to the head of the stairs. 'We'll not allow a pioture of the English King in the Irish Republic,' says they. 'Let ye take it down at once or we'll shoot it down,' and they up the stairs to the sittingroom. But Cornelius was in front of them in it, and had the picture whisked off the nail and into a cupboard in the wall.

""'Tis down,' says he, quiet enough; 'I'd not give ye the satisfaction of firing at his Majesty, ye dirty cowardly tinkers,' says he. They left him then, but he was terrible angry, and did no more, but away with him and his wife and child to England.

"I fought for the freedom of

the world,' says he, and it's not the freedom of a dog I'd get in Ireland.””

There was little one could say in comment on this tale. Mere words seemed inadequate, and it is a shameful fact that similar oases occur continually all over the country.

Fagan poked the fire vigorously. "The Government will be driving the decent people to go Sinn Fein to save themselves," he said bitterly. "Wirra! what ails them at all that they can't govern? Is it the way they're afraid of Sinn Fein?"

"Well, they seem to be going to give us Home Rule now, and perhaps that will settle the country," I suggested.

He laughed hoarsely.

"Is it Home Rule to settle the country when divil a man in Ireland can keep a law, let alone make one?" he asked; "and it's not a republio that would settle the country either, no, twenty republics! Though for the matther of that, it's not twenty republics there'd be in Ireland within six months, but forty, and the whole lot of them persecuting each other and wanting England to help. 'Faith, it's the English would have their fill of hardship in the latther end!" he concluded with gloomy satisfaction.

The sound of a motor-horn in the street told me the soldier and his car had arrived.

"Look," said Mr Fagan as I rose to go, "what's wanted is for the English Government to govern. Not to be fooling

with Home Rule Bills and hungry - strikes and motorpermits. Let them keep the Union on and give us martial law till the country's settled again. What's that you're saying?-martial law would inconvenience the quiet people? Well, and what's in it now for us? Is it convenience we're having? It is not! Is it safety we're having? It is not! Have we liberty to do as we like? We have not! Then for God's sake let them give us martial law and enforrce it!"

Late that afternoon I passed through Clashagoppul on my way home, and stopped to say good-bye to the Fagans.

The sun had set, and with the long hours of darkness before them their nerves were again in the ascendant. Mrs Fagan suggested I was incurring needless danger in being driven by a soldier.

Mr Fagan, with an uneasy laugh, referred to the political views he had expressed that morning as "all talk and thrash-same as you'd see on the newspapers."

Both implored me to say nothing about Cornelius.

"Herself does be very frightful by night," said Mr Fagan, "and indeed there's no saying quare things mightn't happen to us these quare times."

His parting words, gravely uttered, seemed to sum up the situation for many in Ireland at present

Wirra! what good is your life to you at all when you'd never know the minute that you'd lose it?"

A CERTAIN afternoon of March this year found me at the City Station in Karachi on my way up-country after an absence from India that had extended throughout the War.

Now, if there is one thing that can make Indian railway travelling almost bearable, that thing of course is privacy. But on this particular day the train was crowded, and I looked in vain for an empty compartment. Finally, I had to content myself with an upper berth in a coupé, the lower berth of whieh was already taken up by a green canvas Wolseley valise. An upper berth for the two days' desert journey to Lahore! it was a black business. I sat thoroughly soured and soured and glared at that roll of bedding, wondering resentfully what manner of owner would eventually materialise.

But, after a little, mere vulgar ouriosity got the better of me, and I furtively turned the valise over to take a peep at any name there might be underneath. There was nothing to be seen but four large white initials. Still, these told me all I wanted: for any one with such queer initials has surely no need to name his property in full. I felt that "J.U.D.E." could stand for no one the world over but for "Judy" Elkington. Now Judy and I

had started life at the "Shop together; and we had met again, in Simla-days before the War, when he had been in the Intelligence Branch at Army Headquarters. So we were old friends.

He had always been a good all-round man, had Judy. Within a very few pounds of the best professional jockeys on the flat, they used to say; and you might find his name, too, more than once in Rowland Ward. But that W&S only one side of him. For he had a quaint love for roaming the byways of Indian history and religion, and was shining light of more than one learned Asiatic Society. Still, he never rode this hobby of his to excess, and was always the best of company. I was in luck after all; the Sind desert began to lose many of its prospective horrors.

Just before the train started I caught sight of a wellremembered figure strolling over from the bookstall, and we were soon shaking each other by the hand and making the usual remarks and inquiries that go with such a meeting.

The first hour or two of our journey were fully occupied in comparing notes. Then came Kotri Junction, with its adjournment for dinner. And afterwards, as the desert sand began imperceptibly to creep