workshop. The firm was most anxious that I should remain in the office
altogether, and I have often thought since that my father made a
mistake in insisting that I should learn the trade of a joiner, which
he considered a more certain living than that of an architect or
draughtsman, unless one had influential connections.

It was from the upper window of the office where I was at the work I
have described that I could see the men belonging to our firm drilling
as special constables in the school yard opposite, in anticipation of
trouble in connection with an Irish Rising.

The authorities were evidently preparing for a formidable outbreak in
Liverpool, for there was a large military camp at Everton--a suburb of
the city--and three gunboats in the river ready for action, in case any
part of the town fell into the hands of the Irish Confederates. Special
constables, as in the case of our own firm, were being sworn in all over
the town, and the larger firms were putting pressure upon their
employees to be enrolled. Indeed, some 500 dock labourers were
discharged because they would not be sworn in. My father declined to be
a special constable, but suffered no further from this than becoming a
suspect--his services being too valuable to be dispensed with by his
employers.

He was a genuinely patriotic Irishman, steadfast in his political creed,
though unostentatious in his professions, being more a man of action
than of words. My mother, as I think I have already sufficiently
indicated, was, on the other hand, more demonstrative. I think she must
have had a positive genius for conspiracy. Whatever the movement was she
must have a hand in it. On one occasion--I forget exactly what it
was--some compromising documents had to be got out of the way for the