When I was wakened the following morning I was informed that I had to be ready for removal in an hour’s time. The Chief Warder did not know where I was to go, only that at six a guard of soldiers would come for me. It was his opinion that I was to be taken for the courtsmartial in Dublin. That meant anything; it meant, to be more precise, whatever the police desired or intended, for the reign of terror was abroad in the land, and every man’s fate was decreed by whatever the police had decided would make an appropriate chapter in his leabhran at Dublin Castle, without other evidence than the evidence of the compilers. During those days that man was safest who was permitted to remain in any one place for a length of time, for presumably the present orgy of blood and long sentences, of courtsmartial, and authority on its war-steed champing the ground, would begin to pall. Nevertheless, [40]I welcomed the change. Anything seemed better than inaction. It was better to go out and take one’s fate than to stay skulking in a cell. My only anxiety was for my wife, who would know nothing of my removal, and from whom it seemed decided to withhold all knowledge of me.

P. J. D. came down after me to the office where our “effects” were handed back to us. We were to be fellow travellers on the road, and we were marched through the streets of Castlebar to the Railway Station under a sergeant’s guard of eight men. It was too early for the town to be astir, and those who were abroad seemed rather abashed by the spectacle. At the station, as the train came in, to my great joy I was hailed by my wife, who, not getting the promised daily letter, had travelled down by the same train that was to take me to Dublin to discover what was happening. A little tactful authority with the sergeant included her in the same carriage with ourselves; and thus began a co-operation, from without and from within jail, that was to be of rare value in the future.

Again I was fortunate in my custodian. The sergeant belonged to one of the North Staffordshire [41]battalions that had been rushed over for the Rising-Out, and he was a kindly, homely man, very much unlike some of his guard. The songs that came from the adjoining compartment were clearly meant to hearten us with the thought of friendship. There was no timidity in the choice of theme, and the peeler who accompanied us (as guide to the strang............