Читать книгу Ireland in Travail онлайн

18 страница из 68

The crowd looked worried and suspicious of itself, and surely it was evident to him who had eyes to see that war, none the less real because waged below the surface, was going on, and nobody knew who was for this side and who for the other.

Yes, war—rumbling through the streets in the guise of heavy military waggons, tramping round the corners in parties of tin-hatted soldiers, flying up and down the quays in lorries choked with dapper-looking men wearing Balmoral bonnets, rushing up this road and that in Crossley tenders, filled with less romantic men in black uniforms and peaked caps.

I passed over O’Connell Bridge, up Westmoreland Street, and out of it between two grave stone buildings; that across the way an eloquent curving place, once a parliament, and now suffering from a changed greatness as the Bank of Ireland; this, to my left, the grave grey face of Trinity, with its arch like a mouth, through which could be seen cobbled walks removed from the wear and tear of the rest of the city.