so the winter days passed. the prison was wrapt continually in an unpleasant amalgam of winter fog and huntley & palmer’s smoke. we never saw the sun, though occasionally, when the fog cleared, we could make a guess at it where it strode the sky.
little wonder if we occasionally got upon one another’s nerves. none of our nerves were of the best, and we all felt the deathly system of prison life like an oppression on us, blotting out all intellectual life and making a blank of mind and soul. yet no outsider saw cleavage among us. that was a principle we never let down.
of an evening we met together and discussed different aspects of national affairs, partly with the intention of defining our future action, and partly with a view to defining our points of view in their relation to one another. the two things were really one; for satisfactorily to outline the second was already largely to complete [127]the first; and we were determined not to lose the chance with which we had been so admirably furnished. moreover, when birthdays arrived we had modest supper-parties, in which song and good will supplied the lack of viands.
yet towards the end, with illness and depression settling on most of us, we kept largely to our own cells, despite their icy temperature. we were suffered books—carefully selected. it became part of our business carefully to test the selection by arranging for a variety of books to be sent in to us by friends. especially was this so when a happy accident gave us the name of our censor; and it was deeply interesting to see his path among the classics of irish literature.
in this we were assisted by our friends outside. indeed, not the least value of our months of imprisonment was the revelation of friendship, and its spontaneity and strength and unity in those of our race. we had but to express a need and it was at once met by leagues and committees that had been gathered together, both at home and in england, to befriend and serve us. if our state was like that of an island it was at least an island washed by a great sea of friendship.
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the gifts cast up by the tides of that sea became embarrassing as christmas approached. we had altogether to dispense with prison fare; and our thrills of excitement were not the less because we were so remote from the outer world. but the full bounty of that sea was never to be experienced by us.
shut away though we were, we watched political affairs closely—watched not merely the surface that appeared, but watched for indications of the hidden streams that ran—and when john dillon brought forward his motion for the discussion of the irish prisoners of war we guessed that he had learned some hint that we were to be released. this came soon after the failure to get us to sign pledges of good behaviour. when, however, the threatened motion was never taken, it was clear that we were not to be released. we were not greatly affected; but we watched that pending motion with interest. it became a theme of daily jest with us. when, after the change of government, the motion at last was discussed, the sign was clear to us; and we were not surprised when, the following day, we learned that irish interned prisoners were to be released. in a noncommittal way some of us began to pack—like [129]men who were content, the next moment, to unpack, and take whatever came without perturbation. on friday, the 22nd of december, we heard that the frongoch men were going, and during that day we learned that a courier was expected during the afternoon with papers for our release. no courier, however, arrived; and sunday saw us content again to continue as we were without complaint. it appeared, as i afterwards learnt, that the home office had actually arranged for our release together with the men at frongoch, but that the irish office had intervened. it was not till the sunday afternoon that the home office won its way. for on that day, christmas eve, at half-past two, the governor came into the prison to tell us that we were to be ready to go out in two hours’ time. it seemed indeed that our maximum of inconvenience had been sought; for it was impossible then for many of us to reach home for christmas, and such men had need to lodge where they could with the more fortunate.
so at half-past four we passed out through the streets of reading, singing our songs as we went. each man went to take up his duty as he had always conceived it, but with the added hardness inevitably begotten of a jail. and each [130]man remembered his fellows who still were in jail, the men who, for the same duty and for the same high cause, were serving sentences at lewes, beside whom our sufferings were a light thing lightly endured.
