[Illustration: THE PASS OUT OF IRELAND FOR WHICH THE AUTHOR, AT GREAT RISK, APPLIED IN PERSON AT DUBLIN CASTLE
Please pass Margaret Skinnider Between Dublin & England Via North Wall [or Kingstown][struck through] [Illustration: Stamp: ASSISTANT PROVOST MARSHAL DUBLIN 2/6/16] [name unclear] Major Asst. provost Marshal]
I did not go directly to Glasgow, however, for I heard that the police were watching all incoming trains. Instead, I went to a little seaside resort to recuperate. My sister, who had come over to Dublin to be with me after I left the hospital, went along, too. She was terrified when we got off the boat because police were watching the gangway. But nothing happened. My mother came to see me, and took it all splendidly, though from the first I had given her an anxious time of it. She is a good rebel.
I was proud that I could tell my mother I had been mentioned three times for bravery in despatches sent to headquarters. The third time was when I was wounded. Commandant Mallin had said then:
"You'll surely be given the republican cross."
But the republic did not last long enough for that. I _was_ given an Irish cross. This was the joint gift of the Cumman-na-mBan girls and the Irish Volunteers of Glasgow. They arranged, as a surprise for me, a meeting with addresses and songs. Since I had no hint of it, I was out of Scotland on the day set. They had to repeat part of the ceremony when I came back. It all was meant to be very solemn, but somehow I felt strange and absurd to be getting a cross for bravery that had led to death or prison so many others.
I had left Scotland very quietly to go to England and see some of our boys being held in Reading Jail without any charge against them. I had had a good talk with them, even though a guard stood near all the time. He was a pleasant-enough person, so we included him in our conversation, explaining the whole rising to him. The boys were in good spirits, too. They laughed when I told them I had always boasted I would never set foot in England. And here, on their account, I was not only in England, but in an English prison.
We had very few Irish revolutionists in the Scotch prisons. Two hundred of them were brought, during August, to Barlinnie Prison, but they were allowed to stay only a short time. Far too much sympathy was expressed for them by the Irish in Glasgow and by Scotch suffragettes, who made a point of going to visit them and taking them comforts. Presently they were removed to the camp at Frongoch, Wales, where several hundred others who had taken part in the rising were interned. As they marched through the streets of Glasgow, we could not help noticing how much larger and finer looking they appeared than the British soldiers guarding them. They were men from Galway,--men who for six long days had put up a memorable fight in that county, and with less than forty rifles had held six hundred square miles! Three thousand of the rifles that went down with the _Aud_ had been promised to Galway. Yet five hundred men had been ready to "go out" when they heard that, despite the countermanding order, Dublin forces were rebelling, no matter what the odds.