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“He brought me here, and we walked and talked.” 47 jerked his thumb to the left. “Up that end is a waterfall which feeds the lakes, and all the time we seemed to be getting to that or leaving it. We watched the children if we were disturbed, or talked about the birds, and my ‘cousin’—I can’t give you his name or number—was mad on them, and had a cupboard at home full of pot plants.”

“Did he tell you how things are going?” I broke in.

47 pondered this. “He thought there was a lot of work to be done; but the situation was getting fairly well in hand. The people over here are fearfully hampered by the powers that be.” 47 looked carefully round the gardens without turning his head. “Listen to this,” he said, pulling some papers out of his pocket. “Here are one or two choice little extracts from the rules of the Cumann na mBan, the woman’s branch of the Irish Republican Army, of which Countess Markievicz is the head. The Countess is said to go about with an armed escort, and to carry a bag with a gun inside. The spring of the bag fires the gun. It may be a legend. Here we are.