a Sinn Fein Court. Flanagan gested that the police should went and was heavily fined, ambush the Volunteers in the but Evans took no notice of grounds. the summons. Flanagan was now, of course, afraid to act as agent, and the question again arose of how they were to get the poteen to the different buyers. While matters were in this state Flanagan sent a warning to Evans that the Volunteers would raid Ardcumber on a certain night, and that the results would be very pleasant for them. The situation was now serious. It was impossible for two men to defend such a large house, and once inside, the Volunteers, apart from the fact that they would probably shoot them, would certainly break up the distillery, and the rapid increase of their bank balances would cease. That evening they received a letter stating that they had been banished from Ireland by an order of the Sinn Fein Court, and giving them two days in which to leave the country. The same night, after dark, a volley of shots was fired through the window of every room showing a light, and the following morning they had to cook their own breakfast, as the old woman did not turn up. But David Evans was not beaten yet. After breakfast he motored into Ballybor, where he waited until it was dark. He then went to the barracks, and told Blake that the Volunteers had threatened to raid Ardcumber the following night for arms, and sug Blake, only too glad to help a friend, and eager to get the Volunteers together in the open, consented, and before Evans left the two had thought out a very pretty trap. It has been mentioned that Ardcumber stood at the foot of a range of mountains, which isolated the Ballybor country on the east, and across them for many miles there was only one track, which led down to the back of the demesne, and which was never used except by country people bringing turf in creels on donkeys from the mountain bogs during the daytime. Blake proposed to start out the following afternoon with a good force, cross the mountains by the main road, which ran through a pass due east of Ballybor, and return by the mountain track, reaching Ardcumber demesne soon after dark. Here David Evans was to meet them and guide them to the scene of the ambush. The district between the demesne and the mountains was thinly populated, and at that hour no one would be abroad for fear of the Black and Tans. The attackers would be certain to come from the opposite direction, and would not be likely to arrive before the moon rose at 11 P.M. The police, with a party of Cadets and two Lewis guns, were in position by 9 P.M. in a shrubbery on each side of the avenue, about a hundred yards from the house. At 11.30 P.M. the Volunteers, sure of their prey, marched up the avenue in column of route, singing the "Soldiers' Song." When they were within forty yards Blake called on them to halt, lay down their arms, and put up their hands. The column halted at once, and for a second appeared to waver, but an officer gave the order to deploy. Before the column could break up both Lewis guns opened fire. Unfortunately at this moment a dark cloud obscured the moon and heavy rain began to fall, with the result that, after the first short burst of fire, the Volunteers were invisible; and though the police started in pursuit, they failed to overtake the flying rebels, and had to concentrate on the house. After collecting and rendering first-aid to the woundedthere were none killed-the police brought their cars up to the house, and shortly afterwards returned to Ballybor. The Evanses were now fairly safe from the Volunteers, but again the question of distributing the poteen arose, and this time it looked as though they would have to do it themselves. They tried to induce Flanagan to come on again; but the egg merchant was by now thoroughly frightened, and thankful to get off with a heavy fine. O'Dowd, being a police suspect, was out of the question, but there still remained His Majesty's mails. The story of how the Evanses had played the police off against the Volunteers was soon the talk of the countryside for many a mile, and so queer and uncertain is the Irish peasant's mentality that, where one would have expected them to be furious and determined to be avenged, on the contrary their great sense of humour was immensely tickled at the idea of the police defending the Ardcumber distillery, and the Evanses became popular heroes. After the Volunteer attack, Blake, being afraid that they might make another attempt to capture the arms in Ardcumber House, offered David a party of Black and Tans for protection, but this offer was refused. For some time His Majesty's mail cars carried the Ardcumber poteen punctually and efficiently-in fact, far better than either O'Dowd or Flanagan had done. Petrol tins were still used to put the poteen in, and Evans would leave the full tins at a garage twice a week, where the mail cars got their petrol from, and if a mail car carried a few extra tins of petrol, who thought anything about it? Unfortunately the mail contract for that district ran out a few months afterwards, and this time was given to a man from the North, an Orangeman, and once again Evans had to find a fresh way of sending round the country his now famous poteen. But so popular had the Evanses become that, instead of having to seek agents, they received offers to deliver the in the present state of chaos. poteen from the manager of a creamery in the Cloonalla district, and also from the manager of a Co-operative Society in a village distant about four miles from Ardcumber. Evans closed with both offers, and the cousins redoubled their efforts to turn out all the poteen they possibly could, knowing that an end must come sooner or later. Two months afterwards the Auxiliaries discovered that the creamery was being used as a Sinn Fein prison, and, as a result, raided the place one night and burnt it to the ground. Incidentally, they found several full petrol tins in the manager's office, filled up their petrol tanks with them, and could not make out why the cars would not start. It is both possible and probable that, except for some unforeseen accident, the Evanses might have gone on making and selling poteen for an indefinite time-in fact, as long as the country remained The distillation of poteen always has and always will appeal to the Western peasant, and the story of how the Evanses called in the police to defend their still against the attack of the Volunteers will be told over the firesides of many a cottage for generations to come-long after Sinn Fein is dead and buried. But at last their good luck deserted them. One night while working at the still, John carelessly knocked over an oillamp, and in a moment the old dry woodwork of the attic was in flames. Before morning the grand old house, with its great collection of priceless furniture, was a smouldering ruin, nothing but the bare blackened walls standing, and so it is likely to remain for all time. The Evanses, having made a considerable sum of money by now, said good-bye to Blake, and returned to their native land. XI. THE MAYOR'S CONSCIENCE. In the spring of 1920 Blake suddenly received orders to proceed to a town in the South of Ireland on special duty, and on applying for leave was granted a fortnight, which he determined to spend in Dublin. In due course his relief arrived, and after handing over he found himself free from all responsibility for the first time for many months. At this period the Government and the Irish railwaymen were enacting a comic opera worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best, the Government paying the railway companies a huge subsidy, the greater part of which found its way into the railwaymen's pockets in the form of enormous wages, while the men refused to carry any armed forces of the Crown; and the public, who, of course, indirectly paid the looked on helplessly. subsidy, In order to get a passenger train Blake had to motor thirtytwo miles to a station in the next county, where, as yet, no armed forces had tried to travel. While waiting here a green country boy asked him some trivial question, and with little difficulty Blake led him on to tell his whole history. When the train reached a junction after about an hour and a half's run, there was considerable delay while a large party of Auxiliary Cadets searched the train, and eventually arrested a police sergeant, whom they removed after a desperate struggle to a waiting motor. Blake was reading at the time, and did not think anything was wrong until he In spite of a Sinn Fein edict saw the sergeant being dragged to the contrary, many young out of the station. It then men, who could find no work occurred to him that, though in Ireland, or who wished to he thought he knew every avoid service in the I.R.A., Cadet in the West by sight, were at this time contriving yet he failed to recognise any to emigrate to the States by of the search-party. However, crossing to England and sail- it was useless to interfere, as ing from Southampton. In he was alone and unarmed. order to defeat this, Sinn Fein agents were in the habit of frequenting the termini in Dublin for the purpose of getting in touch with these would-be emigrants and forcing them to return home. This youth, who came from the Ballyrick district, and had never been in a train in his life, told Blake that a brother in the States had sent him his passage, and that he was due to sail from Southampton in a few days' time, but had to go to the American Consul in Dublin in order that his passport might be viséd, and asked Blake where the consul's office was. Blake warned him not to tell any one he met on his journey that he was going to America, or he would surely fall into the hands of the Sinn Fein police, and thought no more about the matter. Blake stayed at a hotel near Stephen's Green, and for the first part of the night, so silent and empty were the streets, that Dublin might have been a city of the dead. However, about 2 A.M., a miniature battle broke out in some near quarter, and for hours rifle-fire and the explosions of bombs continued, varied at times by bursts of machine-gun fire. The following morning after breakfast he set out to see a high official in the Castle, a friend of his father's, and also to report at the R.I.C. Headquarters there. While walking along Grafton Street shots suddenly rang out at each end, and at once the crowd tried to escape down several by-streets, only to be held up by the Cadets at every point; and it was not until two hours afterwards, when the Cadets had satisfied themselves that the men they wanted were not there, that Blake was free to proceed to the Castle. The streets appeared much the same as usual, but the Castle was greatly changed from peace times. The entrance gates were heavily barred; barbed wire, steel shutters, and sandbags in evidence everywhere. Outside, a strong party of Dublin Metropolitan Police and Military Foot Police. Inside, a strong guard of infantry in steel helmets, while a tank and two armoured cars were standing by ready to go into action. As nobody was allowed to enter the Castle without a pass, Blake had to get a friend from the headquarters of the R.I.C. to identify him before he could gain admission, and he learnt from this friend that the party of Auxiliaries he had seen the previous day arresting the police sergeant at the junction were in reality a flying column of Volunteers, who had managed to smuggle the Cadets' uniforms into the country from England. Blake found that most of the officials in the Castle were virtually prisoners there, and in order to keep their figures down had improvised a gravel tennis-court and also a squash racket-court. When training at the depot in Dublin, Blake had made the acquaintance of a Colonel Mahoney, who had retired and lived near Kingstown with his only daughter, and his chief object in going to Dublin was to see Miss Mahoney again. After leaving the Castle he met her by appointment, and after they had lunched and been to a picture-house, they left by tram to be back in time for tea with the Colonel. After the tram started Blake found that he had an hour to spare, and got out at Ballsbridge to see a friend, while Miss Mahoney went on alone. On reaching the Mahoneys' house Blake learnt that, when Miss Mahoney got out at Kingstown, she had been followed by four young men, who had demanded the name of the man she had travelled in the tram with, and on her refusing to disclose Blake's name, they had knocked her down with the butts of their revolvers, and left her there partially stunned. The following day, when on her way to meet Blake again in Dublin, her tram was held up by Auxiliaries, and all the men on it carefully searched for arms; but before the Cadets boarded the tram, Miss Mahoney saw several young men pass their revolvers to girls sitting next to them, with the result that the Auxiliaries found no arms. On leaving the tram at the end of Kildare Street, the pockets of her coat feeling unusually heavy, she put her hands into them and found a revolver in each. At the same moment two men overtook her and demanded their arms. When he had been in Dublin four days Blake had to go to Broadstone Station to inquire about a kit-bag which had been lost on the journey to Dublin. He reached the station about |