of goin' on from the las' word he'd said, f'r all the worl' as though you'd not spoken at all-'Ye'll hear,' he says, 'the deep hummin' sound of scores of guthral voices.'

"I was ineinsed be that triok that he had of seornin' me little irrel'vance,

"Guthral indeed!' says I. 'Worse than the English, bedad! A good slam of the Gaelic I'll want, to clean me ears after ut.'

"Are ye faultin' th' English again,' says he, 'an' you helpin' thim now?'

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Aye, to come to come to their senses!' says I. They that set up the Prooshans in life, at th' expinse of the Frinch, when the Honezolluns hadn't the strenth of the Great Joyces in Galway. They that went to the Germans for fiddlers an' waiters an' kings, an' a cap for their troops, an' a new religion itself, an' whatever they'd want. An' why not at all, an' they all cousins an' Chewtons together?'

"Aye, an' fightin' like cousins,' says he. Kape yer head down,' he says. But he didn' say 'Kape your mouth shut.' A quar❜lsome man, wil' to be at an argyment always, An' there we lay, he on his right cheek an' me on me left, nuzzlin' the wet groun' while I towld him the fao's, subjooin' me voice because of th' inn'my. The two front lines were sendin' up lights all along, an' they intersiotin' wan another above us, the way we seemed to be lyin' out on the floor of a church with a great aroh over our heads

an' the lines of ut all drawn be the tracks of the lights.

"I give th' English all criddit,' says I, 'for comin' at lenth to thimselves, the same as Friday, the black, that turned friendly at last an' assisted the traveller, Robinson Crusoe, against the manaitin' souts that he had in his fam❜ly.'

"Downright fawnin' ye are righ on th' Englishry now,' says Martin. 'Ye'd do right to get a good Blighty, the first wan that offers, an' off with ye home, an' preach your new Gospil to hay thens like Casemint.'

"Such bein's are mere than half English,' says I, 'be descent, or they'd see the gran' laugh we have now at th' English, an' they comin' roun' at last to detist all that's German as much as ourselves. Begob but th' English are entered now to the vermin they had for their cousins, an', plaze Gawd! they'll nivver return to their vommut.'

"I oud have gone on a great while, bein' up in me fac's, but ye'll understand I was speakin' in that place under some disadvantij. Still, I'd got me word in, an' I felt aisier after. But, if ye'll believe me, he wasn't convinced, not a tittle. He tuk out the bomb from his pookut. 'Before

ye have me distroyed,' he says, 'be soreechin' an' hullabalooin' across to your fellow-inn'mies of Englan', we'll bring an event into those quiet lives.'

"Wishful I was for ut too, after the teejum we'd had, an'

over ut, anny owld way,' yells Martin behin' me, an' then I knew he was hit, be the traces of voilent effort there were in the voice of him.

"Now I'll engage ye'll think me a fool. I that had got, be the act of Gawd an' the King's inn'mies, a chanst to be shut of him howlly, for ever, relievin' th' entire platoon of the ourse of Hivvin that Martin was nivver done callin' down be his godlussnuss on us all. A man's a quare thing. I'm tol' be a firs' class dentist beyant at Dromore, if a tooth hasn' got a tooth the match of itself for to bite on, its apt to grow weaker an' weaker, an' fall out evensh'ly. Mebbe it's like that. An' Jawn was as bad. 'Off wid ye to hell!' he says, houndin' me on into safety, th' instiant I halted. Mebbe it was just me resintment at him givin' orders an' ourses an' biznuss as usu'l wid all the pride of a Corp'ril ixpirin' on jooty. Be damned,' thinks I, 'if ye're goin' to stay out there actin' hayroes an' martyrs all night,' an' I wint back an' gev him a fireman's lift an' away with me lovely burden. He was the weight o' the worl'. Be eripes, it's a good horse wins the Gran' Nashnal.

"All the dammij I felt on the road was a sting in me unemployed arm. Then I tuk wan flyin' lep, the like of his own way of goin' to bed, an' the two of us landed, in wan knot of arms an' legs, into the trench, alightin' first on the firin' step an' then in th' owl' stablewashin's of water there was

in the fairway below, an' savin' the life of an inexpairienced sentry be knockin' him down off the step an' out of the way of the muck that was flippin' ivvery where into the parodus, quiet an' vishus.

""Glory,' says I, as we rowled in the sy ooij together, 'be to the Saints!'

"The Saints!' says he, scornful.

"The Cap. saw us before we went down the C.T. on two stretchers. He said we done right. 'But why all the bombin?' he says.

"We found wan of our bombs, sorr,' says Jawn, 'in a dang'rus condition.'

"Yes?' says the Cap. 'An' the other?'

"Mebbe, sorr,' says Jawn, pensive-like, ''twas a kin' ef infection.'

"Hum,' says the Cap. I feared you'd be re-unitin' the Churches.' A good off'cer. He knew all about the two of us. Knew every man's trade in the comp'ny, an' married or single, an' how manny in family.

"Gawd forbid ut!' the two of us said in a breath. An' that ended the talk."

“And what brought the two of you here?" I sleepily asked.

"I was brought," Toomey said, "be a bullet woun' in the liver, an' he be an insincere action, a match for me own.'

33

I guessed. "Oh, he got back on you then? He gave you a lift in, later on, out of the rain?"

"Aye. Onrequested. Wait an' I'll tell ye."

No doubt the story would

have been good. But I am only English. I am given life on terms. I have to take sore labour's bath now and again. "We'll go on to-morrow," I said. "A bit of shut-eye for

me now.

"Ye'll do right," he said. Good-night, an' the blessin' of Gawd be wid ye an' stay wid ye."

I turned over on to my right side, and snuggled in for my sleep. The only thing I could see was the horizontal profile in the next bed. Wasted, etherealised, abstract, the man who had finished joy and moan had now all but attained the remote and awful repose of a marble effigy on a tomb in a Florentine church, seen by one who lies, like itself, on the floor. The only thing to be heard was a faint tap on a window above him, the delicate whipping of some loose end of a climbing rose-tree on the glass. And then, sudden, eruptive, winged with intention and gusto, there came from afar the rush of a huge bass stage whisper: "Are ye wakin', Toomey?"

Deep called unto deep. "Is that Corp'ril Martin, mekkin' night hijjus, disturbin' the ward?"

"It is-an' Good-night to ye now, an' to hell wi' the Pope."

An' the divil take William the Second an' William the Third, an' High Dutch an' Low, and every Martin that's in ut, from Luther out, blasphemin' the howl of the day an' then late into bed, kickin' the stars of Gawd wi' the back of your heels. So go now to your rest."

My own eyes were set on the fugitive fineness of that moribund face. It just moved, turning ever so little to right and to left as the gusts of contention blew over it. Then it settled again, the eyes always fixed on the ceiling. I thought of a water weed on a deep pond, fluctuating minutely when gales race overhead, but soon dead - still again at its moorings.

But now the gale was abating. At each end of the ward a sequence of snorts of disdain was passing into a dying fall, Through a murmurous grumble it sank into the silent breathing of healthy infants asleep. Thus does high-handed nature interfere with the efforts of man to seek peace and ensue it.