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Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop
of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers
shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries
of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves
rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gan-
nets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks,
peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatross-
es, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth
trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Je-
rome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks
arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless
yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breech-
es, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and
leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and
leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their
bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot
Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above
their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red
cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlys-
ter plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes
spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of
knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres:
Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against
Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M’Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Red-
mond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward
Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue
of the Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an