140 A GARDEN DIARY 
whose doings I take a natural interest. Plans of 
Invasion are always rather fascinating, whatever 
the realities are likely to be. On this occasion 
I have only allowed myself a very small and 
cheap Invasion, just enough to put our rifle- 
shooting civilian standing in it and asking how 
he is to behave himself. It is not coming off in 
the orthodox place, which I take to be nearly 
opposite the bathing sands of Boulogne, but upon 
quite a new theatre, namely upon the shores of 
Dublin Bay. My invaders are probably French, 
but may be anything else, it does not in the least 
matter. Whoever they are they have succeeded 
in evading the Channel Fleet, have run the gaunt- 
let of the forts—no impossible feat—and have 
disembarked some forty or fifty thousand strong 
somewhere between the Bailey of Howth and the 
foot of Bray Head. 
As for their purpose in landing, so far as my 
information extends, it is simply to do as much 
damage as can be conveniently accomplished 
within a given time. If the defending fleet re- 
mains entangled elsewhere, and they can be 
reinforced, so much the better. In any case 
France can afford to lose some twenty or thirty 
thousand recruits in a good cause. Moreover 
he would be a poor sort of Frenchman who for 
the sake of burning, harassing, shooting, raiding, 
racking, ruining, and generally running amuck, 
amongst British possessions, would not run the 
