Читать книгу Ireland in Travail онлайн

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“They laughed at that, and the Black-and-Tans was all for running me into the Castle; but the military, God save them, was for me being just a poor old jarvey, and they stood by me and jumped me into the car and drove me back to stables to see who I was, and then they took me back to the old mare and let me go. Och, but it was a night what with one and another, and it was after curfew when I was home, I was that tormented with them all. They pulled me up every short way and jumped me into a car to see who I was and then back again to the old mare. It’s no time for a jarvey, mum.”

We were rattling along the Liffey. The tide was out and the few seagulls were investigating the city’s discarded biscuit tins in the mud on either side of the water. All along the embankment were men—old men, young men, boys. They propped the walls, they dozed upon the bridges, they watched the Guinness brewery carts rumbling backwards and forwards. Some looked at us with blank faces; but the majority looked into the mud that the tide had left.