The people in the streets are laughing and chatting.  Indeed, there is gaiety in the air as well as sunshine, and no person seems to care that men are being shot every other minute, or bayoneted, or blown into scraps or burned into cinders.  These things are happening, nevertheless, but much of their importance has vanished.

I met a man at the Green who was drawing a plan on the back of an envelope.  The problem was how his questioner was to get from where he was standing to a street lying at the other side of the river, and the plan as drawn insisted that to cover this quarter of an hour’s distance he must set out on a pilgrimage of more than twenty miles.  Another young boy was standing near embracing a large ham.  He had been trying for three days to convey his ham to a house near the Gresham Hotel where his sister lived.  He had almost given up hope, and he hearkened intelligently to the idea that he should himself eat the ham and so get rid of it.

The rifle fire was persistent all day, but, saving in certain localities, it was not heavy.  Occasionally the machine guns rapped in.  There was no sound of heavy artillery.

The rumour grows that the Post Office has been evacuated, and that the Volunteers are at large and spreading everywhere across the roofs.  The rumour grows also that terms of surrender are being discussed, and that Sackville Street has been levelled to the ground.

At half-past seven in the evening calm is almost complete.  The sound of a rifle shot being only heard at long intervals.

I got to bed this night earlier than usual.  At two o’clock I left the window from which a red flare is yet visible in the direction of Sackville Street.  The morning will tell if the Insurrection is finished or not, but at this hour all is not over.  Shots are ringing all around and down my street, and the vicious crackling of these rifles grow at times into regular volleys.

CHAPTER VII.

Sunday.

The Insurrection has not ceased.

There is much rifle fire, but no sound from the machine guns or the eighteen pounders and trench mortars.

From the window of my kitchen the flag of the Republic can be seen flying afar.  This is the flag that flies over Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, and I will know that the Insurrection has ended as soon as I see this flag pulled down.

When I went out there were few people in the streets.  I met D.H., and, together, we passed up the Green.  The Republican flag was still flying over the College of Surgeons.  We tried to get down Grafton Street (where broken windows and two gaping interiors told of the recent visit of looters), but a little down this street we were waved back by armed sentries.  We then cut away by the Gaiety Theatre into Mercer’s Street, where immense lines of poor people were drawn up waiting for the opening of the local bakery.  We got into George’s Street, thinking to turn down Dame Street and get from thence near enough to Sackville Street to see if the rumours about its destruction were true, but here also we were halted by the military, and had to retrace our steps.