The next morning I asked the Chief Warder if he had any labour gang at
which I could be employed, for I dreaded a continuance of the thoughts
that had been with me through the night.
“I can put you moulding my potatoes,” he said, with the air of a man
who spoke of something so ridiculous that it disposed of itself.
“Very well,” I said.
“Can you mould potatoes?” he said.
He seemed to be diffident now when his humour took actual shape.
“I can try,” I said. “I was eight hours setting them the day before you
took me.”
So a Gaelic League organiser, an Excise man,
* * * * *
were employed throughout that day moulding the Chief Warder’s potatoes;
we enjoyed the work; and we enjoyed it none the less because of the
new warder under whom we were placed. This warder had made his first
appearance, as far as I was concerned, the previous day. The mask he
wore was not sour, but melancholy; and that in itself was a great
difference. His voice, too, suggested possibilities. It was southern,
and somewhere muffled in its official brevity a human quality echoed. I
had heard that quality instantly when, the previous day, he came into
my cell to bid me hasten as he had others to attend to besides myself.
I had not hastened; but, quite deliberately, I had stood and looked at
him. “’Tis queer criminals you have these times, warder,” I said. I
looked at him; and he looked at me. Then he went to the door, looked up
and down the passage, and returned to me. “Faith, you’re right, sir,”
he said. “’Tis a queer sort of criminals these times.” It would be hard
to express all that he managed to convey in those few words. Perhaps
the melancholy mask he wore was all the more melancholy because of the
thoughts he could not utter. Strange pass for a man when his hand is
bought against his fellow-countrymen; and strangest of all when his
heart is not bought with his hand. We had no cause to regret our warder
during that day’s labour; but I am sure he was not as sorry for us as
I was for him.
He was with us on Sunday also. It being Sunday, we only received one
hour’s exercise during the morning; and as the Chief Warder and his
other officials had gone to Mass the warder was in sole charge of us.
Therefore we all had exercise together; and when I entered the yard I
saw that my guess of Friday was correct, for there was P. J. D. already
before me. He threw up his hand in welcome, and a smile lit over his
face. I passed over and walked behind him.
There were many new faces there. There were about sixteen or seventeen
of us. Some were in prison clothes.
* * * * *
Some had come into conflict with English troops with whom they had been
stationed.
I turned to note the others in civilian clothes. One was an elderly
man, with grey beard and majesterial manner: I never found out who he
was. The man, however, who struck me most walked just ahead of P. J. D.
Tall and athletic of build, he strode round and round the path, the
very embodiment of wrath. His face, when I caught a side glance of it
as he turned each bend, was black and lowering. Once as we came round
the corner that served so well for our quick interchanges, he turned
about, took a quick glance at the warder’s retreating back, and shook
his fist at the prison and all it signified, and said: “By God, but
there’ll be a big judgment to pay for all this yet.” Then he strode on
again, striking his heels on the ground. He had probably just completed
his first night in jail; and his emotion had not yet become transmuted
into something more settled and grim. “Keep your heart up, man, keep
your heart up,” I heard P. J. D. whisper. “There’s plenty of time
before all of us.”