In the afternoon the curtain went up on a matinee performance of The Mailed
Fist.
The first act was in the home of Madame Gonne-McBride. It was, properly, an
exposition of the power of the enemy.
With Madame Gonne-McBride, once called the most beautiful woman in Europe,
Sylvia Pankhurst, and the sister, of Robert Barton, I entered the big house
on Stephen's Green. Modern splashily vivid wall coloring. Japanese screens.
Ancient carved madonnas. Two big Airedales thudded up and down in greeting
to their mistress. I spoke of their unusual size.
Madame Gonne-McBride, taking the head of one of them between her hands:
"They won't let any one arrest me again, will they?"
She is tall and slim in her deep mourning--her husband was killed in the
rebellion of 1916. Her widow's bonnet is a soft silky guipure lace placed
on her head like a Red Cross worker's coif. On the breast of her black gown
there hangs a large dull silver cross. Beggars and flower-sellers greet her
by name. It is said that a large part of her popularity is due to her work
in obtaining free school lunches. Anyway, there was great grief among the
people when she was thrown into jail for supposed complicity in the
unproved German plot. The arrest, she said, came one Sunday night. She was
walking unconcernedly from one of George Russell's weekly gatherings, when
five husky constables blocked the bridge road and hurried her off to jail.
At last, on account of her ill health, she was released from prison--very
weak and very pale.
Enter seventeen-year-old Sean McBride. Places back against the door. Blue
eyes wide. Breathlessly: "They're after Bob Barton and Michael Collins.
They've surrounded the Mansion House."
Hatless we raced across Stephen's Green--that little handkerchief of a park
that never seemed so embroidered with turns and bridges and bandstands and
duck ponds before. Through the crowd that had already gathered we edged our
way till we came to the double line of bayonets and batons that guarded the
entrance to Dawson street. Over the broad, blue shoulder of the policeman
directly in front of me, I glimpsed a wicked-looking little whippet tank
with two very conscious British officers just head and shoulders out. Still
further down were three covered motor lorries that had been used to convey
the soldiers.
Sean, for the especial benefit of constable just ahead: "Wars for democracy
and small nations! And that's the only way they can keep us in the British
empire. Brute force. Nice exhibition for the American journalists in town."
Constable stalked Sean back to edge of crowd. Sean looked at him steadily
with slight twinkle in his eye. Miss Barton, Miss Pankhurst, and I climbed
up a low stone wall that commanded the guarded street, and clung to the
iron paling on top. Sean came and stood beneath.
Miss Pankhurst, regarding crowd in puzzled manner: "Why do you all smile?
When the suffragists were arrested we used to become furious."
Sean looking up at her in kindly manner in which old rebel might glance at
impatient young rebel: "You forget. We're very used to this."
Miss Pankhurst made an unexpected jump from her place. She wedged her way
to the line of soldiers. As she talked to two young Tommies they blushed
and fiddled with their bayonets like girls with their first bouquets of
flowers. Twice a British major admonished them.
Miss Pankhurst, returning: "Welsh boys. Just babies. I asked them why they
came out armed to kill fellow workers. They said they had enlisted for the
war. If they had known they were to be sent to Ireland they would have
refused to go. I told them it was not too late to act. They could take off
their uniforms. But they? They're weak--weak."
As dusk fell, party capes and tulle mists of head dresses began to appear
between the drab or tattered suits of the bystanders. Among the coming
reception guests was Susan Mitchell, co-editor with George Russell on
_The Irish Homestead_.
Susan Mitchell, of constable: "Can't I go through? No? But there's to be a
party, and the tea will get all cold."
In the courage of the crowd, the people began to sing The Soldiers' Song.
It took courage. It was shortly after John O'Sheehan had been sentenced for
two years for caroling another seditious lyric. A surge of sound brought
out the words: "The west's awake!" Dying yokes. And a sudden
right-about-face movement of the throng.