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—Hush now, said Scrotes.

—Don’t you get it, old man? I want to feel good. I never have that feeling. It’s tiresome knowing oneself evil always. That man up there drips goodness like a sweat. I should just like a feel of it myself for once.

—MacMurrough, MacMurrough, said Scrotes, and his bony fingers turned gauntly him round. He led him to a seat far down the garden, where MacMurrough could hear the sea. He lowered his eyes and watched his button bals with patent golosh and the grassblades that crazy-quilted them.

—It won’t do, will it? he said. I can’t pretend myself into acceptable shapes. His Majesty’s Wandsworth has seen to that. Besides, it’s not the doing, it’s the being that’s my offense. You could see that on Kettle’s face. The doing is neither here nor there. Doing only offers an opportunity to be caught.

—You know, he continued, they make it so damned difficult. They make a thing so deeply wrong that no morality can afterward apply. It doesn’t matter how we go about it, kindly or coldly. No good is so good as to mitigate; all further wrong is a feather’s weight upon the deed itself. See it in the newspaper reports. One can be a gentleman thief. One can be a love-struck murderer. We’re just unspeakable, we’re sods.

—Who are we? asked Scrotes.

—People of my kind.

—You have a kind? said Scrotes.

—Yes, and we are easy to find. Under bridges, at the back-end of piers, in parks when parks are closed, in the shadows of others, in the night.

Far up the garden the boys of Erin mavroned and macree’d. Whish it whash, said the sea to the shore. By the summerhouse MacMurrough saw the comfort for the troops who waited in a phalanx of tulips. Where was Doyle? The comfort might topple without his shoulder to slope to. There was Doyle far behind, on his own, in his kilt and sash and pinned to his sash, MacMurrough saw it, his Red Hand badge.

And he appeared at that moment beautiful to MacMurrough; proud, defiant, the way he watched the play like a wild animal considering food. He might be a badge himself, a golden crotchet that had pinned to the trees. The knowing of him, of his nasal whine, his feet that smelt, this did not take from his beauty. His beauty claimed his defects for the part of him that made it possible, made him true. MacMurrough saw the making of a man, of a fellow creature, of such who can say, boldly and freely, I do.

—When you told him of the Spartans, Scrotes asked, what did you intend?

—I don’t know that I’m sure. One is sensible to his feelings for his friend. I thought it might cheer him to know those praised in his national song had felt the same.

—Not nearly the same, said Scrotes.

—I had rather gathered the Spartans were famed for it.

—The Spartans’ desire was praiseworthy and good. Their world was shaped by that desire, as ours is shaped by man and wife.

MacMurrough pursed his lips. I want it to be all right for him, he said. For both of them.

—Help them.

—I have procured the one his suit. The other apparently can clothe himself. It should seem the extent of my capacity to assist.

—Help them make a nation, if not once again, then once for all.

—What possible nation can you mean?

—Like all nations, Scrotes answered, a nation of the heart. Look about you. See Irish Ireland find out its past. Only with a past can it claim a future. Watch it on tramcars thumbing its primers. Only a language its own can speak to it truly. What does this language say? It says you are a proud and ancient people. For a nation cannot prosper without it have pride. You and I, MacMurrough, may smile at the fabulous claims of the Celt. We may know that the modern Irishman as much resembles the Gael of old as he resembles the Esquimau or the Kafir on the Hindu Kush. And we may believe he is the better for that. But no matter. The struggle for Irish Ireland is not for truth against untruth. It is not for the good against the bad, for the beautiful against the unbeautiful. These things will take care of themselves. The struggle is for the heart, for its claim