"Well, call it what you like, but men must do something when they get
together, and we can't be talking all the time. So pocket your
shillings."

"Are they all the right sort?" asked Dyck, with a little touch of
malice. "I mean, are they loyal and true?"

Erris Boyne laid a hand on Dyck's arm.

"Come and find out. Do you think I'd lead you into bad company? Of
course Emmet and Wolfe Tone won't be there, nor any of that lot; but
there'll be some men of the right stamp." He watched Dyck carefully out
of the corner of his eye. "It's funny," he added, "that in Ireland the
word loyal always means being true to the Union Jack, standing by King
George and his crowd."

"Well, what would you have?" said Dyck. "For this is a day and age when
being loyal to the King is more than aught else in all the Irish world.
We're never two days alike, we Irish. There are the United Irishmen and
the Defenders on one side, and the Peepo'-Day Boys, or Orangemen, on the
other--Catholic and Protestant, at each other's throats. Then there's a
hand thrust in, and up goes the sword, and the rifles, pikes, and
bayonets; and those that were ready to mutilate or kill each other fall
into each other's arms."

Erris Boyne laughed. "Well, there'll soon be an end to that. The Irish
Parliament is slipping into disrepute. It wouldn't surprise me if the
astute English bribe them into a union, to the ruin of Irish
Independence. Yet maybe, before that comes, the French will have a try
for power here. And upon my word, if I have to live under foreign rule,