dusk they caught and brought in, often after ill-treatment, torn from
their wives and sweethearts, knocked on the head for resisting, tradesmen
with businesses, young men studying for the professions, idlers, debtors,
out-of-work men. The marvel is that the British fleets fought as well as
they did.

Poverty and sorrow, loss and bereavement, were in every street, peeped
mournfully out of every window, lurked at street corners. From all parts
of the world adventurers came to renew their fortunes in the turmoil of
London, and every street was a kaleidoscope of faces and clothes and
colours, not British, not patriot, not national.

Among these outlanders were Dyck Calhoun and Michael Clones. They had
left Ireland together in the late autumn, leaving behind them the
stirrings of the coming revolution, and plunging into another revolt
which was to prove the test and trial of English character.

Dyck had left Ireland with ninety pounds in his pocket and many tons'
weight of misery in his heart. In his bones he felt tragedies on foot in
Ireland which concession and good government could not prevent. He had
fled from it all. When he set his face to Holyhead, he felt that he
would never live in Ireland again. Yet his courage was firm as he made
his way to London, with Michael Clones--faithful, devoted, a friend and
yet a servant, treated like a comrade, yet always with a little
dominance.

The journey to London had been without event, yet as the coach rolled
through country where frost silvered the trees; where, in the early
morning, the grass was shining with dew; where the everlasting green
hedges and the red roofs of villages made a picture which pleased the eye