were masterless and unbranded cattle - sons of small farmers in
County Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyvegan,
much wanted "moonlighters" from the bare rainy headlands of the
south coast, officered by O'Mores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the
like. Never to outward seeming was there more promising material
to work on. The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It
feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel and the
regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who
held the keys of heaven and hell, and blared like an angry bull
when he desired to be convincing. Him also it loved because on
occasions of stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge
with the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always
found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver when there
was a fallen private to be protected, or - but this came as an
afterthought
his own gray head to be guarded.

Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer,
Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to
listen. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked,
sweet, profoundly irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that
fight like fiends, argue like children, reason like women, obey
like men, and jest like their own goblins of the rath through
rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a
conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the world over.
At the end of six months - the seed always falling on good ground
- Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved
fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more nor
less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they not
all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these