initial commit of ebook 29533HEADmain

10 files changed, 27817 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/29533-8.txt b/29533-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d4c3a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9226 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Hand of Ulster
+
+Author: George A. Birmingham
+
+Release Date: July 29, 2009 [EBook #29533]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED HAND
+ OF ULSTER
+
+ BY
+
+ G. A. BIRMINGHAM
+
+ AUTHOR OF "SPANISH GOLD," "THE MAJOR'S NIECE,"
+ "PRISCILLA'S SPIES," ETC.
+
+ HODDER & STOUGHTON
+
+ NEW YORK
+
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1912,
+
+By George H. Doran Company
+
+
+
+
+ UNIFORM EDITION _of the_ WORKS _of_
+ G. A. BIRMINGHAM
+
+ _Each, net $1.20_
+
+ LALAGE'S LOVERS
+ SPANISH GOLD
+ THE SEARCH PARTY
+ THE SIMPKINS PLOT
+ THE MAJOR'S NIECE
+ PRISCILLA'S SPIES
+ THE RED HAND
+   OF ULSTER
+
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+ NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+
+In a book of this kind some of the characters are necessarily placed
+in the positions occupied by living men; but no character is in any
+way copied from life, and no character must be taken as representing
+any real person. Nor must the opinions of Lord Kilmore of Errigal, the
+imaginary narrator of the tale, be regarded as those of the Author.
+
+G. A. B.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+BY
+
+LORD KILMORE OF ERRIGAL
+
+
+The events recorded in this chapter and the next did not fall under my
+own observation. I derived my knowledge of them from various sources,
+chiefly from conversations with Bob Power, who had, as will appear,
+first-hand knowledge. In the third chapter I begin my own personal
+narrative of the events which led up to the final struggle of Ulster
+against Home Rule and of the struggle itself. Accidents of one kind or
+another, the accidents of the situation of Kilmore Castle, the
+accident of Bob Power's connection with my daughter Marion, the
+accidents of my social position and personal tastes, have placed me in
+a position to give a very full account of what actually happened. The
+first two chapters of this book will therefore be written in the
+impersonal manner of the ordinary history; I myself occupying the
+position of unseen spectator. The rest of the book is largely founded
+upon the diary which I actually kept.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED HAND OF ULSTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was in 1908 that Joseph Peterson Conroy burst upon London in the
+full magnificence of his astounding wealth. English society was, and
+had been for many years, accustomed to the irruption of millionaires,
+American or South African. Our aristocracy has learnt to pay these
+potentates the respect which is their due. Well-born men and women
+trot along Park Lane in obedience to the hooting calls of motor horns.
+No one considers himself degraded by grovelling before a plutocrat.
+
+It has been for some time difficult to startle London by a display of
+mere wealth. Men respect more than ever fortunes which are reckoned in
+millions, though they have become too common to amaze. But Joseph
+Peterson Conroy, when he came, excited a great deal of interest. In
+the first place his income was enormous, larger, it was said, than the
+income of any other living man. In the next place he spent it very
+splendidly. There were no entertainments given in London during the
+years 1909, 1910, and 1911, equal in extravagance to those which
+Conroy gave. He outdid the "freak dinners" of New York. He invented
+freak dinners of his own. His horses--animals which he bought at
+enormous prices--won the great races. His yachts flew the white
+ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron. His gifts to fashionable charities
+were princely. English society fell at his feet and worshipped him.
+The most exclusive clubs were honoured by his desire of membership.
+Women whose fathers and husbands bore famous names were proud to boast
+of his friendship.
+
+It cannot be said that Conroy abused either his position or his
+opportunities. He had won his great wealth honestly--that is to say
+without robbing any one except other robbers, and only robbing them in
+ways permitted by American law. He used what he had won honourably
+enough. He neither bought the favours of the women who thronged his
+entertainments; nor degraded, more than was necessary, the men who
+sought benefits from him. For a time, for nearly four years, he
+thoroughly enjoyed himself, exulting with boyish delight in his own
+splendour. Then he began to get restless. The things he did, the
+people he knew, ceased to interest him. It was early in 1911 that
+the crisis came; and before the season of that year was over Conroy
+had disappeared from London. His name still appeared occasionally
+in the columns which the newspapers devote to fashionable intelligence.
+But the house in Park Lane--the scene of many magnificent
+entertainments--was sold. The dinner parties, balls and card parties
+ceased; and Conroy entered upon what must have been the most exciting
+period of his life.
+
+Bob Power--no one ever called him Robert--belonged to an old and
+respected Irish family, being a younger son of General Power of
+Kilfenora. He was educated at Harrow and afterwards at Trinity
+College. He was called to the Irish bar and might have achieved in
+time the comfortable mediocrity of a County Court judgeship if he had
+not become Conroy's private secretary. The post was secured for him by
+an uncle who had known Conroy in New York in the days before he became
+a millionaire, while it was still possible for an ordinary man to do
+him a favour. Bob accepted the post because everybody said he would be
+a fool to refuse it. He did not much like writing letters. The making
+out of schemes for the arrangements of Conroy's guests at the more
+formal dinner parties worried him. The general supervision of the
+upper servants was no delight to him. But he did all these things
+fairly well, and his unfailing good spirits carried him safely through
+periods of very tiresome duty. He became, in spite of the twenty-five
+years' difference of age between him and his patron, the intimate
+friend of Joseph Peterson Conroy.
+
+It was to Bob that Conroy confided the fact that he was tired of the
+life of a leader of English society. The two men were sitting together
+in the smoking room at one o'clock in the morning after one of
+Conroy's most magnificent entertainments.
+
+"I'm damned well sick of all this," said Conroy suddenly.
+
+"So am I," said Bob.
+
+Bob Power was a man of adventurous disposition. He had a reputation in
+Connacht as a singularly bold rider to hounds. The story of his
+singlehanded cruise round Ireland in a ten tonner will be told among
+yachtsmen until his son does something more extravagantly idiotic.
+The London season always bored him. The atmosphere of Conroy's house
+in Park Lane stifled him.
+
+"Is there any one thing left in this rotten old world," said Conroy,
+"that's worth doing?"
+
+In Bob's opinion there were several things very well worth doing. He
+suggested one of them at once.
+
+"Let's get out the _Finola_," he said, "and go for a cruise. We've
+never done the South Sea Islands."
+
+The _Finola_ was the largest of Conroy's yachts, a handsome vessel of
+something over a thousand tons.
+
+"Cruising in the _Finola_," said Conroy, "is no earthly good to me.
+What I want is something that will put me into a nervous sweat, the
+same as I was when I was up against Ikenstein and the railway bosses.
+My nerves were like damned fiddle strings for a fortnight when I
+didn't know whether I was going to come out a pauper or the owner of
+the biggest pile mortal man ever handled."
+
+Bob knew nothing of Ikenstein or the methods by which the pile had
+been wrested from him and his companions, but he did know the
+sensations which Conroy described. He, himself, arrived at them by
+hanging on to a sea anchor in a gale of wind off the Galway coast, or
+pushing a vicious horse at a nasty jump. Nervous sweat, stretched
+nerves and complete uncertainty about the immediate future afford the
+same delight however you get at them. He sympathized with Conroy.
+
+"You might fit out a ship or two and try exploring round the South
+Pole," Bob said. "They've got the thing itself of course, but there
+must be lots of places still undiscovered in the neighbourhood. I
+should think that hummocking along over the ice floes in a dog sledge
+must be pretty thrilling."
+
+Conroy sighed.
+
+"I'm too fat," he said, "and I'm too darned soft. The kind of life
+I've led for the last four years isn't good training for camping out
+on icebergs and feeding on whale's blubber."
+
+Bob smiled. Conroy was a very fat man. A camping party on an iceberg
+would be likely to end in some whale eating his blubber.
+
+"I didn't mean you to go yourself," said Bob.
+
+"Oh! I see. I'm to fit out the expedition and you are to go in
+command. I don't quite see where the fun would come in for me. It
+wouldn't excite me any to hear of your shooting Esquimaux and
+penguins. I shouldn't care enough whether you lived or were froze to
+get any excitement out of a show of that kind."
+
+"We'd call it 'The Joseph P. Conroy Expedition,'" said Bob; "and the
+newspapers--"
+
+"Thanks. But I'm pretty well fed up with newspaper tosh. The press has
+boosted me ever since I landed in this country, and I'd just as soon
+they stopped now as started fresh."
+
+Bob relinquished the idea of a Polar expedition with a sigh.
+
+It was Conroy himself who made the next suggestion.
+
+"If politics weren't such a rotten game--"
+
+Bob did not feel attracted to political life; but he was loyal to his
+patron.
+
+"Clithering," he said, "was talking to me to-night. You know the man I
+mean, Sir Samuel Clithering. He's not in the Cabinet, but he's what
+I'd call a pretty intimate hanger on; does odd jobs for the Prime
+Minister. He said the interest of political life was absorbing."
+
+"I shouldn't care for it," said Conroy. "After all, what would it be
+worth to me? There's nothing for me to gain, and I don't see how I
+could lose anything. It would be like playing bridge for counters.
+They might make me a lord, of course. A title is about the only thing
+I haven't got, but then I don't want it."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Bob. "I merely mentioned politics
+because Clithering said--"
+
+"Besides," said Conroy, "it wouldn't be my politics. England isn't my
+country."
+
+"It would be rather exciting," said Bob, "to run a revolution
+somewhere. There are lots of small states, in the Balkans, you know,
+which could be turned inside out and upside down by a man with the
+amount of money you have."
+
+"There's something in that notion," said Conroy. "Get a map, will
+you?"
+
+Bob Power did not want to go wandering round the house at half-past
+one o'clock in the morning looking for a map of the Balkan States. It
+seemed to him that the idea--the financing of a revolution was of
+course a joke--might be worked out with reference to some country
+nearer at hand, the geographical conditions of which would be
+sufficiently well known without the aid of a map.
+
+"Why not try Ireland?" he said.
+
+Then a very curious thing happened. Conroy's appearance, not merely
+his expression but his actual features seemed to change. Instead of
+the shrewd face of a successful American financier Bob Power saw the
+face of an Irish peasant. He was perfectly familiar with the type. It
+was one which he had known all his life. He knew it at its best,
+expressive of lofty idealisms and fantastic dreams of things beyond
+this world's experience. He knew it at its worst too, when narrow
+cunning and unquenchable bitterness transform it. The change passed
+over Conroy's face and then quickly passed away again.
+
+"By God!" said Conroy, "it's a great notion. To buck against the
+British Lion!"
+
+Bob remembered the things which he had heard and half heeded about
+Conroy's ancestry. In 1850 another Conroy, a broken peasant, the
+victim of evil fate and gross injustice, had left Ireland in an
+emigrant ship with a ragged wife and four half starved children
+clinging to him, with an unquenchable hatred of England in his heart.
+The hate, it appeared, had lived on in his son, had broken out again
+in a grandson, dominating the cynical cosmopolitanism of the financial
+magnate. Bob was vaguely uneasy. He did not like the expression he had
+seen on Conroy's face. He did not like the tone in which he spoke. But
+it was obviously absurd to suppose that any one could take seriously
+the idea of financing an Irish revolution.
+
+Then Conroy began to talk about Ireland. He knew, it appeared, a great
+deal about the history of the country up to a certain point. He had a
+traditional knowledge of the horrors of the famine period. He was
+intimately acquainted with the details of the Fenian movement. Either
+he or his father had been a member of the Clan na Gael. He understood
+the Parnell struggle for Home Rule. But with the fall of Parnell his
+knowledge stopped abruptly. Of all that happened after that he knew
+nothing. He supposed that the later Irish leaders had inherited the
+traditions of Mitchel, O'Leary, Davitt and the others. Bob laughed at
+him.
+
+"If you're thinking of buying guns for the Nationalists," he said,
+"you may save your money. They wouldn't use them if they had arsenals
+full. They're quite the most loyal men there are nowadays. Why
+wouldn't they? They've got most of what they want and Clithering told
+me the Home Rule Bill was going to knit their hearts to the Empire.
+Awful rot, of course, but his very words."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Conroy.
+
+Bob laughed again. He had all the contempt common in his class for
+those of his fellow-countrymen who professed to be Nationalists. But
+he had rather more intelligence than most Irish gentlemen. He quite
+realized the absurdity of supposing that the Irish Parliamentary party
+consisted of men who had in them the makings of rebels.
+
+"Read their speeches," he said. "Since this talk of Home Rule began
+they've been cracking up the glories of the British Empire like--like
+the Primrose League."
+
+"To-morrow morning," said Conroy, "you'll fetch me along all the books
+and pamphlets you can lay hands on dealing with the present state of
+the Irish question."
+
+"I want a small cart," said Bob.
+
+"Get a four-horse waggon, if you like," said Conroy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+For nearly a week Conroy remained shut up in his study. Bob was kept
+busy. He spent a good deal of time in writing plausible explanations
+of Conroy's failure to keep his social engagements. He ransacked the
+shelves of booksellers for works dealing with contemporary Irish
+politics. He harried the managers of press-cutting companies for
+newspaper reports of speeches on Home Rule. These were things for
+which there was little or no demand, and the press-cutting people
+resented being asked for them. He even interviewed political leaders.
+These gentlemen received him coldly at first, suspecting from his
+appearance that he wanted to get a chance of earning £400 a year as a
+member of Parliament, and hoped to persuade them to find him a
+constituency. When they discovered that he was the private secretary
+of a famous millionaire their manner changed and they explained the
+policies of their various parties in such ways as seemed likely to
+draw large cheques from Conroy.
+
+Bob reported what they said, summarized the letters of the
+disappointed hostesses, and piled Conroy's table with books,
+pamphlets, and newspaper cuttings. The whole business bored and
+worried him. The idea that Conroy actually contemplated organizing a
+rebellion in Ireland never crossed his mind. He hoped that the
+political enthusiasm of his patron would die away as quickly as it had
+sprung up. It was therefore a surprise to him when, after a few
+weeks' hard reading, Conroy announced his decision.
+
+"I'm going into this business," he said.
+
+"Politics?" said Bob.
+
+"Politics be damned! What I'm out for is a revolution."
+
+"You can't do it," said Bob. "I told you at the start that those
+fellows won't fight. They haven't it in them to stand up and be shot
+at."
+
+"I'm thinking of the other fellows," said Conroy.
+
+"What other fellows?" he asked.
+
+"Belfast," said Conroy.
+
+Bob whistled.
+
+"But," he said, "but--but--" The extraordinary nature of the idea made
+him stammer. "But they are Loyalists."
+
+"As I figure it out," said Conroy, "they mean to rebel. That's what
+they say, anyhow, and I believe they mean it. I don't care a cent
+whether they call themselves Loyalists or not. It's up to them to
+twist the British Lion's tail, and I'm with them."
+
+"Do you think they really mean it?" said Bob.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Well," said Bob, after a slight hesitation, "I do. You see I happen
+to know one of them pretty well."
+
+Bob showed political discernment. It was the fashion in England and
+throughout three-quarters of Ireland to laugh at Belfast. Nobody
+believed that a community of merchants, manufacturers and artisans
+actually meant to take up arms, shoot off guns and hack at the bodies
+of their fellow-men with swords and spears. This thing, at the
+beginning of the twentieth century, seemed incredible. To politicians
+it was simply unthinkable. For politics are a game played in strict
+accordance with a set of rules. For several centuries nobody in these
+islands had broken the rules. It had come to be regarded as impossible
+that any one could break them. No one expects his opponent at the
+bridge table to draw a knife from his pocket and run amuck when the
+cards go against him. Nobody expected that the north of Ireland
+Protestants would actually fight. To threaten fighting is, of course,
+well within the rules of the game, a piece of bluff which any one is
+entitled to try if he thinks he will gain anything by it. Half the
+politicians in both countries, and half the inhabitants of England,
+were laughing at the Belfast bluff. The rest of the politicians and
+the other half of the inhabitants of England were pretending to
+believe what Belfast said so as to give an air of more terrific
+verisimilitude to the bluff. Conroy, guided by the instinct for the
+true meaning of things which had led him to great wealth, believed
+that the talk was more than bluff. Bob Power, relying on what he knew
+of the character of one man, came to the same conclusion.
+
+"Who is the man you know?" said Conroy. "Not Babberly, is it?"
+
+"Oh Lord! no," said Bob. "Babberly is--well, Babberly talks a lot."
+
+"That's so," said Conroy. "But if it isn't Babberly, who is it?"
+
+"McNeice," said Bob, "Gideon McNeice."
+
+"H'm. He's something in some university, isn't he?"
+
+Conroy spoke contemptuously. He had a low opinion of the men who win
+honours in universities. They seemed to him to be unpractical
+creatures. He had, indeed, himself founded a university before he
+left America and handsomely endowed several professorial chairs. But
+he did so in the spirit which led Dean Swift to found a lunatic
+asylum. He wanted to provide a kind of hospital for a class of men who
+ought, for the sake of society, to be secluded, lest their theories
+should come inconveniently athwart the plans of those who are engaged
+in the real business of life.
+
+"McNeice," said Bob, "is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He was
+my tutor."
+
+Then he told Conroy the story of Gideon McNeice's life as far as he
+knew it at that time. It was a remarkable story, but not yet, as it
+became afterwards, strikingly singular.
+
+Gideon was the son of Ebenezer McNeice, a riveter in one of the great
+shipbuilding yards in Belfast. This Ebenezer was an Orangeman and, on
+the 12th of July, was accustomed to march long distances over dusty
+roads beating a big drum with untiring vigour. His Protestantism was a
+religion of the most definite kind. He rarely went to church, but he
+hated Popery with a profound earnestness. Gideon was taught, as soon
+as he could speak, to say, "No Pope, no Priest, no Surrender, Hurrah!"
+That was the first stage in his education. The second was taken at a
+National school where he learned the multiplication table and the
+decimal system with unusual ease. The master of a second-rate
+intermediate school heard of the boy's ability. Being anxious to earn
+the fees which a generous government gives to the masters of clever
+boys, this man offered to continue Gideon's education without asking
+payment from Ebenezer. The speculation turned out well. Gideon did
+more than was expected of him. He won all the exhibitions, medals and
+prizes possible under the Irish Intermediate system. At last he won a
+mathematical sizarship in Trinity College.
+
+Belfast--perhaps because of the religious atmosphere of the city,
+perhaps because of the interest taken by its inhabitants in
+money-making--has not given to the world many eminent poets,
+philosophers or scholars. Nor, curiously enough, has it ever produced
+an eminent theologian, or even a heretic of any reputation. But it has
+given birth to several mathematicians of quite respectable standing.
+Gideon McNeice was one of them. After the sizarship he won a
+scholarship, and then, at an unusually early age, a fellowship. It is
+generally believed that the examination for fellowship in Trinity
+College in Dublin is so severe that no one who is successful in it is
+ever good for anything afterwards. Having once passed that examination
+men are said to settle down into a condition of exhausted mediocrity.
+Gideon McNeice proved to be an exception to the rule. Having won his
+fellowship and thereby demonstrated to the world that he knew all that
+there is to know about the science of mathematics, he at once turned
+to theology. Theology, since he lived in Ireland, led him straight to
+politics. He became one of the fighting men of the Irish Unionist
+party. He also, chiefly because of his very bad manners, became very
+unpopular among the fellows and professors of the College.
+
+It must not be supposed that he had the smallest sympathy with the
+unfortunate Irish aristocracy, who, having like the Bourbons failed
+either to learn or to forget, still repeat the watch-words of
+long-past centuries and are greatly surprised that no one can be
+found to listen to them. Gideon McNeice's Unionism was of a much more
+vigorous and militant kind. He respected England and had no objection
+to singing "God save the King" very much out of tune, so long as
+England and her King were obviously and blatantly on the side of
+Protestantism. He was quite prepared to substitute some other form of
+government for our present Imperial system if either the King, his
+representative the Lord Lieutenant, or the Parliament of Westminster,
+showed the smallest inclination to consider the feelings of the Roman
+Catholic hierarchy.
+
+It was thus that Bob Power, who was by no means a fool, described
+McNeice's character. Conroy was interested.
+
+"I should like," he said, "to see that man and talk to him. Suppose
+you go over to Dublin to-morrow and bring him here."
+
+"You won't like him," said Bob. "He's--well, domineering is the only
+word I can think of."
+
+"For that matter," said Conroy, "I am domineering too."
+
+This was true. Conroy had good manners, unusually good manners for a
+millionaire, but underneath the manners lay a determination to get his
+own way in small matters as well as great. Bob, who knew both men,
+expected that they would become deadly enemies in the course of
+twenty-four hours. He was mistaken. To say that they became friends
+would be misleading. They probably disliked each other. But they
+certainly became allies, planned together and worked together the
+amazing scheme which ended in the last--we are justified in assuming
+that it really was the last--rebellion of Irishmen against the power
+of England.
+
+Conroy supplied the money and a great deal of the brains which went to
+the carrying through of the plan. He had, as a financier with
+world-wide interests, a knowledge of European markets and manufactures
+which was very useful if not absolutely necessary. He had, as his
+inspiration, an extraordinarily vivid hatred of England. This was
+partly an inheritance from his Irish ancestors, men who had been
+bullied for centuries and laid the blame of their sufferings on
+England. Partly it was the result of the contempt he learned to feel
+for Englishmen while he held his leading position in London society.
+With McNeice's violent Protestantism he never can have had the
+smallest sympathy. His ancestors were probably, almost certainly,
+Roman Catholics. If he professed any form of Christianity it must have
+been that of some sect unrepresented in England. No one ever heard of
+his attaching himself, even temporarily, to either church or chapel.
+McNeice also supplied brains and enthusiasm. His intelligence was
+narrower than Conroy's, but more intensely concentrated. He knew the
+men with whom he intended to deal. By birth and early education he
+belonged to that north Irish democracy which is probably less
+imaginative and less reasonable but more virile than any other in the
+world. He believed, as his fathers had believed before him and his
+relations believed along with him, that the Belfast man has a natural
+right to govern the world, and only refrains from doing so because he
+has more important matters to attend to. He believed, and could give
+excellent reasons in support of his belief, that the other inhabitants
+of Ireland were meant by providence to be Gibeonites, hewers of wood
+and drawers of water for the people of Antrim and Down. He had quite
+as great a contempt for the Unionist landlords, who occasionally spoke
+beside him on political platforms, as he had for the Nationalist
+tenants who were wrestling their estates from them.
+
+Bob Power went to Dublin, and with great difficulty persuaded McNeice
+to pay Conroy a visit in London. For a fortnight the two men remained
+together, discussing, planning, devising. Others, among them James
+Crossan, manager of the Kilmore Co-operative Stores, and Grand Master
+of the Orangemen of the county, were summoned to the conference.
+
+Then the first steps were taken. McNeice went back to Ireland and
+began, with the aid of James Crossan, his work of organization. Conroy
+sold his house in London, realized by degrees a considerable part of
+his large fortune, placed sums of money to his credit in French and
+German banks and gave over the command of his yacht, the _Finola_, to
+Bob Power. From this time on Conroy disappeared from London society.
+Stories were told in clubs and drawing-rooms about the sayings and
+doings of "His Royal Magnificence J. P. C.," but these gradually grew
+stale and no fresh ones were forthcoming. The newspapers still printed
+from time to time paragraphs which had plainly been sent to them by
+Conroy himself, but no one at the time took very much interest in
+them.
+
+"Mr. J. P. Conroy"--so people read--"has gone for a cruise in
+Mediterranean waters in his steam yacht, the _Finola_." It did not
+seem to matter whether he had or not. "Among his guests are--" Then
+would follow a list of names; but always those of people more eminent
+than fashionable. The Prime Minister went for a short cruise with
+him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went twice. Several admirals, a
+judge or two, and three or four well-known generals were on board at
+different times. Once he had two bishops, an Anglican who was known as
+a profound theologian, and a Roman Catholic prelate from the west of
+Ireland. The names of women rarely appeared on the list, but the
+Countess of Moyne was advertised as having accepted Conroy's
+hospitality twice. She was well placed among the notable men. She was
+a young woman of singular beauty and great personal charm. She might
+have been if she had chosen a leader of the society which lives to
+amuse itself. Her husband's great wealth and high social position
+would have secured her any place in that world which she chose to
+take. Being a woman of brains as well as beauty she chose to work
+instead of play, and had become a force, real though not formally
+recognized, in political life.
+
+It is a curious instance of the careful way in which Conroy worked out
+the details of his plans, that he should have used the _Finola_ in
+this way. The cruises which he took with his eminent guests were
+always well advertised and always short. But the _Finola_ was kept
+continually in commission. Her voyages when there were no great people
+on board were longer, were never advertised, and were much more
+exciting. But no one suspected, or could have suspected, that a
+millionaire's yacht, and it the temporary home of the leading members
+of the governing classes, could have been engaged in a secret trade,
+highly dangerous to the peace and security of the nation. It is
+difficult even now to imagine that after landing the Prime Minister
+and couple of bishops at Cowes the yacht should have started off to
+keep a midnight appointment with a disreputable tramp steamer in an
+unfrequented part of the North Sea; that Bob Power, after making
+himself agreeable for a fortnight to Lady Moyne, should have sweated
+like a stevedore at the difficult job of transhipping a cargo in
+mid-ocean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+I now reach the time when I myself came for the first time in touch
+with Conroy's plans and had my first meeting with Gideon McNeice.
+
+I am an insignificant Irish peer, far from wealthy, with a taste for
+literature, and, I think, a moderate amount of benevolent feeling
+towards those of my fellow-men who do not annoy me in any way. I sold
+the estate, which had long before ceased to be in any real sense my
+property, immediately after the passing of the Land Act of 1903. I
+have lived since then chiefly in Kilmore Castle, a delightfully
+situated residence built by my grandfather, which suits me very well
+indeed. I have occupied my time for years back in gathering materials
+for a history of all the Irish rebellions there have ever been. My
+daughter Marion used to help me in this work, by filing and
+classifying the various slips of paper on which I made notes. Now that
+she has got married and cannot help me any more I have given up the
+idea of finishing my great work. I am satisfying my evil itch for
+writing by setting down an account of the short struggle between
+north-eastern Ulster and the rest of the British Empire.
+
+The 5th of June was the day on which I first met Bob Power, first came
+into contact with McNeice, and first set eyes on the notorious
+_Finola_. It was the day fixed by my nephew Godfrey D'Aubigny for the
+first, for that year, of the series of garden-parties which I give
+annually. I detest these festivities, and I have every reason to
+believe that they must be quite as objectionable to my guests as they
+are to me. It is Godfrey who insists on their being held. He holds
+that I am bound to do some entertaining in order to keep up my
+position in the county. I am not in the least interested in my
+position in the county; but Godfrey is, and, of course, the matter is
+of some importance to him. He is heir to my title. I used to think and
+he used to think that he would ultimately enjoy my income too,
+securing it by marrying my daughter Marion. I am glad to say he has
+not succeeded in doing this. Marion has married a much better man.
+
+I was sitting in my study after breakfast, fiddling with my papers,
+but unable to settle down to work. The prospect of the party in the
+afternoon depressed and irritated me. Godfrey entered the room
+suddenly through the window. The fact that he is my heir does not seem
+to me to entitle him to come upon me like a thief in the night. He
+ought to go to the door of the house, ring the bell, and ask if I am
+willing to see him.
+
+"Good morning, Excellency," he said, "glorious day, isn't it?"
+
+Godfrey always addressed me as "Excellency." I cannot imagine why he
+does so. I have never been and never hope to be a Lord Lieutenant or a
+Colonial Governor. The title is not one which belongs to the office of
+a deputy lieutenant of a county, the only post of honour which I hold.
+
+"I expect we'll have a pretty good crowd this afternoon," he said.
+"Lady Moyne is motoring over. But that's not what I came to say to
+you. The fact is that something rather important has just happened."
+
+"The people in the gate lodge have burst the new boiler I put in for
+them, I suppose?" This is the kind of thing Godfrey considers
+important.
+
+"Not that I know of," he said; "but I'll go down and inquire if you
+think--"
+
+"I don't think anything about the matter," I said. "If it isn't that,
+what is it that you've come to tell me?"
+
+"A big steam yacht has just anchored in the bay," he said, "the
+_Finola_. She belongs to Conroy, the millionaire."
+
+Godfrey is intensely interested in millionaires. He always hopes that
+he may be able in some way to secure for himself some of their
+superfluous cash.
+
+"I think," he said, "you ought to go down and leave a card on him. It
+would only be civil."
+
+"Very well," I said, "you can go and leave my card, if you like."
+
+This was evidently what Godfrey expected me to say. He seemed
+grateful.
+
+"Very well, Excellency, I'll go at once. I'll invite him and his party
+to your menagerie this afternoon. I dare say it will amuse them to see
+the natives."
+
+Godfrey always calls my parties menageries, and my guests natives.
+Lady Moyne and her husband, who sometimes comes with her, are not
+counted as natives. Nor am I. Nor is Marion. Nor is Godfrey himself.
+This illustrates the working of Godfrey's mind. As a matter of fact
+the Moynes and my own family are about the only people of social
+importance in the locality who ought to be called natives. My other
+guests are all strangers, officials of one kind or another,
+stipendiary magistrates, police officers, bank managers, doctors,
+clergymen and others whom an unkind fate has temporarily stranded in
+our neighbourhood; who all look forward to an escape from their exile
+and a period of leisure retirement in the suburbs of Dublin.
+
+Godfrey left me, and I went on fidgetting with my papers until
+luncheon-time.
+
+Marion and I were just finishing luncheon when Godfrey came in again.
+
+"Well," I said, "have you captured your millionaire?"
+
+"He wasn't on board," said Godfrey. "There were two men there, Power,
+who's Conroy's secretary, and a horrid bounder called McNeice. They
+were drinking bottled stout in the cabin with Crossan."
+
+"Under those circumstances," I said, "you did not, I suppose, leave my
+cards."
+
+Godfrey has a standing feud with Crossan, who is not a gentleman and
+does not pretend to be. Godfrey, judged by any rational standard, is
+even less of a gentleman; but as the future Lord Kilmore he belongs to
+the ranks of an aristocracy and therefore has a contempt for Crossan.
+The two come into very frequent contact and quite as frequent
+conflict. Crossan manages the co-operative store which I started, and
+Godfrey regards him as one of my servants. Crossan, who has a fine
+instinct for business, also manages the commercial side of our local
+mackerel fishing. Godfrey thinks he would manage this better than
+Crossan does. Their latest feud was concerned with the service of
+carts which take the fish from our little harbour to the nearest
+railway station. Crossan is politically a strong Protestant and an
+Orangeman of high attainment. Godfrey has no particular religion, and
+in politics belongs to that old-fashioned school of Conservatives who
+think that the lower orders ought to be respectful to their betters.
+Crossan having been taught the Church Catechism in his youth, admits
+this respect as theoretical duty; but gets out of performing it in
+practice by denying that Godfrey, or for the matter of that any one
+else, is his better. Godfrey's constant complaints about Crossan are
+the thorns which remind me that I must not regard my lot in life as
+altogether pleasant. I felt justified in assuming that Godfrey had not
+left my cards on men who degraded themselves so far as to drink
+bottled stout in company with Crossan.
+
+I was wrong. Godfrey did leave my cards. I can only suppose that his
+respect for the private secretary of a millionaire was stronger than
+his dislike of Crossan. He had even, it appeared, invited both Power
+and McNeice to view my "menagerie." For this he felt it necessary to
+offer some excuse.
+
+"He is one of the Powers of Kilfenora," he said, "so I thought it
+would be no harm. By the way, Marion, what are you going to wear? I
+should say that your blue _crêpe de chine_--"
+
+Godfrey is something of an expert in the matter of woman's clothes.
+Marion, I know, frequently consults him and values his opinion highly.
+Unfortunately the subject bores me. I cut him short with a remark
+which was intended for a snub.
+
+"I hope you have a new suit yourself, Godfrey. The occasion is an
+important one. If both Lady Moyne and Conroy's private secretary are
+to be here, you ought to look your best."
+
+But it is almost impossible to snub Godfrey. He answered me with a
+cheerful friendliness which showed that he appreciated my interest in
+his appearance.
+
+"I have a new grey suit," he said. "It arrived this morning, and it's
+a capital fit. That's the advantage of employing really good tailors.
+You can absolutely trust Nicholson and Blackett."
+
+I have often wondered whether Nicholson and Blackett could absolutely
+trust Godfrey. I have several times paid his debts, and I do not
+intend to do so any more. If they were debts of an intelligible kind I
+should not mind paying them occasionally. But Godfrey has no
+ostensible vices. I have never heard of his doing anything wild or
+disreputable. He does not gamble or borrow money in order to give
+jewels to pretty actresses. He owes bills to shop-keepers for ties and
+trousers. His next remark showed me that Nicholson and Blackett were
+becoming uneasy.
+
+"By the way, Excellency," he said, "I'd be glad if you'd be civil to
+the Pringles this afternoon. Get her tea or something."
+
+Mr. Pringle is the manager of the branch of the bank in which Godfrey
+keeps his account. I imagine that he and his wife owe their
+invitations to my garden parties to the fact that Godfrey's account is
+always overdrawn. This demand that I should be especially civil to the
+Pringles suggested to me that Godfrey contemplated sending a cheque to
+Nicholson and Blackett. I have no particular objection to being civil
+to the Pringles. I have to be civil to some one. I readily promised
+to get both tea and an ice for Mrs. Pringle; hoping that Godfrey would
+go away. He did not. He began talking again about Marion's blue dress.
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I got him out of the house
+half an hour later by saying that if he did not go home at once he
+would not have time to dress himself with the care which the new grey
+suit deserved.
+
+It annoys me very much to think Godfrey is heir to my title. It used
+to annoy me still more to think that Marion meant to marry him. She
+assures me now that she never intended to; but she used to take an
+interest in his talk about clothes and he certainly intended to marry
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+There are some churches in which it is considered desirable to keep
+the sexes apart. The men are placed on one side of the central aisle,
+the women on the other. At my garden-parties this separation takes
+place naturally without the intervention of any authority. The men
+gather in a group under a certain chestnut-tree and talk to each other
+gloomily in low tones. The women--there are always more women than
+men--seat themselves in three distinct rows round the sides of the
+tennis-court. The short row across the top of the tennis-court is
+reserved by an unwritten, but apparently very strict law for the
+ladies of the highest social position. The Dean's wife, for instance,
+sits in that row. The seats at the other end of the court are occupied
+by people like the Pringles, those who are just eligible for
+invitations to my parties, but have, so to speak, no social position
+to spare. They always remind me of St. Paul's "righteous" who
+"scarcely are saved." The long side of the tennis-court opposite the
+chestnut-tree, which forms a kind of male seraglio, is given over to
+those of middling station, ladies who are, perhaps, in a position to
+shake hands with Lady Moyne, and who do not, perhaps, call on Mrs.
+Pringle.
+
+To this strictly observed etiquette there are two exceptions. My
+nephew Godfrey does not stand under the chestnut-tree, but keeps close
+to the side of Lady Moyne. The other men make it quite clear that
+they do not want him. No man whom I have ever met can tolerate
+Godfrey's company. He follows Lady Moyne about because he believes her
+to be a lady of political influence, and he hopes she will get him a
+well-paid post under the government. He is one exception. The other is
+Lady Moyne herself. She declines to sit in a row. She walks about,
+sometimes walks away from the rest of the party.
+
+My daughter Marion's duty on these occasions is to drag young men from
+the shelter of the chestnut-tree and make them play tennis with young
+women called from one or other of the rows in which their mothers have
+planted them. Marion finds this a difficult duty, requiring her utmost
+tact. My own duty, which I fulfil in the most conscientious manner, is
+to make as many complete journeys round the tennis-court as possible,
+saying something to every lady in all three rows, and giving a kind of
+general address of a friendly and encouraging kind to the men under
+the chestnut-tree.
+
+On this particular afternoon two unusual incidents broke the monotony
+of my party. Lady Moyne refused to be satisfied with the company of
+Godfrey. She sat down beside the Dean's wife and made herself
+extremely agreeable for nearly ten minutes. Then she crossed the
+corner of the tennis-court, seriously interfering with the game in
+progress, and "cut out" the Dean from the middle of the group of men
+under the chestnut-tree. "Cut out" is strictly the right phrase to
+use. It is applied or used to be applied to the operation of capturing
+and carrying off ships at anchor under the protecting guns of friendly
+forts. It requires great dash and gallantry to "cut out" a ship. The
+whole audience gaped in astonishment at Lady Moyne's daring when she
+captured the Dean. She walked off with him, when she got him, to the
+shrubbery at the far end of the lawn. They were a singularly
+ill-assorted pair. Lady Moyne is invariably exquisite, a small woman
+with dainty ways and great vivacity. The Dean is an ecclesiastic as
+different as possible from the suave dignitaries who lead lives of
+scholarly leisure in cathedral closes. We picture the ideal dean, a
+slender man, slightly stooped, thin-lipped, with a suggestion of mild
+asceticism in his face. He steps slowly through the long window of his
+study. He paces the closely shaven lawn. The crows caw reverently in
+lofty trees. He holds a calf-bound volume of Plato in his hand. From
+time to time he glances from the cramped Greek text to the noble,
+weatherworn towers of his cathedral. His life is delicately scented
+with a fine mixture of classical culture and Tallis' ferial responses.
+Our Dean--he is also rector of our parish--is a man of a wholly
+different kind. He is, for one thing, wholly unconnected with any
+cathedral and has probably never paced a lawn beneath the shadow of
+historic towers in all his life. This kind of detached, independent
+dean is not found, I believe, anywhere except in Ireland. He is tall,
+cadaverous, rugged, and he can open his eyes so wide that the whites
+of them show all round the irises. Besides being a dean and the rector
+of our parish, he is honorary Grand Chaplain to the Black Preceptory
+of the Orange Order. Crossan, a stern judge of ecclesiastics, has the
+highest opinion of him. It was surmised by a lady in the second row to
+whom I happened to be talking at the time, that Lady Moyne wanted to
+consult with him about the best way of defeating the Home Rule Bill.
+Lady Moyne is, of course, a strong Unionist.
+
+The second unusual incident of the afternoon followed the arrival of
+Bob Power. He came late, and Godfrey, driven from the side of Lady
+Moyne, fastened on to him at once. Bob shook him off and joined
+Marion. Marion, who had her duties to do and could not allow Bob to
+take possession of her, introduced him to a humble maiden who sat with
+her mother in the third row. Bob, it appears, selected the damsel
+himself after looking all round the tennis-court. To the great scandal
+of every one present he led her away from the tennis-court, and found
+his way to the garden. There--I judged by the condition of her gloves
+when they returned--they picked strawberries. I have every reason to
+believe that Miss Pringle--the girl was the daughter of Godfrey's
+banker--enjoyed this garden-party as she had never enjoyed one before.
+She was actually laughing, and was looking very pretty when Bob
+brought her back to the refreshment tent for tea.
+
+I felt so pleased with Bob for his audacity that I asked him to dine
+with us. He refused, saying that he would be busy on the yacht, but he
+promised to call on us next morning.
+
+The garden-party wore itself to an end as even the dreariest
+festivities always do. Marion and I dined together in a condition of
+irritable exhaustion. After dinner we played Patience for an hour in
+the library. Then Marion took a novel, and I settled down to read _The
+Times_. The night was very close and we sat with both windows wide
+open.
+
+_The Times_ had articles and letters on two subjects, the Home Rule
+Bill, which was a menace to the Empire and a danger to Irish
+Loyalists; and the German Navy, which was also a menace to the Empire
+and a danger to every one in the United Kingdom whether loyal or not.
+After reading the leading articles I passed on to the letters
+addressed to the editor. These are always, in my opinion, the most
+interesting part of any newspaper. The editor and leader writers are
+no doubt abler men than most of their correspondents; but then they
+write because they must, and they write in a hurry. The correspondents
+on the other hand write because they have something in them--something
+foolish as a rule, but none the less interesting--which is struggling
+for expression in print. They also--being for the most part retired
+military officers--have abundant leisure and are able to take days,
+perhaps weeks, in the preparation of their compositions.
+
+In that particular number of _The Times_, two retired colonels had
+written letters. One of them was disquieted by the growth of the
+German Navy. He was uninteresting. The other--a Colonel Malcolmson,
+whom I meet occasionally at my club--had delivered himself of a plan
+of campaign, an actual fighting programme, which he recommended to the
+Ulstermen, supposing that they meant to declare war against any one
+who wanted them to govern themselves. This letter interested me very
+much. Malcolmson offered his lawn as a parade and drill ground for
+volunteers. He also said that he thoroughly understood modern guns,
+and was prepared to take command of any artillery which Ulster might
+happen to possess. I lay back in my chair and tried to form a mental
+picture of Malcolmson, who is stout and has a bristly white moustache,
+aiming an immense cannon at an income tax collector. The vision was a
+pleasant one to linger over, and I added to the scene before my mind
+the figure of an athletic policeman threatening to smash Malcolmson's
+cannon with a baton. The Nationalist leaders then appeared in the
+background waving Union Jack flags, and urging the policeman to fresh
+exertions in the cause of law and order. I even seemed to hear them
+denouncing Malcolmson as one of those who march through rapine and
+bloodshed to the dismemberment of an Empire.
+
+I was aroused from my agreeable reverie by Marion. She was standing at
+the window looking out across the bay on the far shore of which stands
+the little town of Kilmore, from which my ancestor, who was a Union
+peer, took his title.
+
+"I wonder what they're doing in the village to-night," she said.
+"There are a lot of lights moving about in the harbour and on the
+quay."
+
+I shook myself free of the vision of Malcolmson's artillery duel with
+the tax collector, and joined Marion at the window. A half moon lit
+the scene before me dimly, making patches of silver light here and
+there on the calm waters of the bay. The _Finola_, looking very large,
+lay at anchor, broadside on to us, opposite the pier. On her deck
+lights moved to and fro, yellow stars in the grey gloom. On the pier
+were more lights, lanterns evidently, some stationary, others
+flickering in rapid motion. The night was so still that I could hear
+distinctly the rattle of oars in rowlocks. Boats were plying between
+the _Finola_ and the shore.
+
+"Can they be landing anything from the yacht?" said Marion.
+
+"I don't think so," I said. "Yachts do not carry cargoes, and if they
+did they wouldn't land them in the middle of the night."
+
+I looked at my watch. It was almost twelve o'clock. Then another noise
+was added to the rattling of oars. A cart, unmistakably a cart,
+lumbered across the stones at the end of the pier. After a while this
+cart emerged from the black shadows of the houses and we could see it
+toiling up the hill which leads out of the town. A very slight
+southerly breeze was setting across the bay from the town to us. We
+could hear the driver shouting encouragement to his horse as he
+breasted the hill. The cart was evidently heavily loaded.
+
+"The boats haven't been out," said Marion. "There cannot have been a
+catch of mackerel."
+
+When there is a catch of mackerel the fish are packed in boxes on the
+pier, and carts, laden like the one we watched, climb the hill. There
+is a regularly organized service of those carts under the control of
+Crossan.
+
+"It can't be fish," I said, "unless the _Finola_ has been making a
+catch and has come in here to land them."
+
+Another cart bumped its way off the pier, and in a minute or two we
+saw it climbing the hill. Then the lights on the _Finola's_ deck went
+out one by one. The boats ceased plying between the yacht and the
+shore.
+
+"I don't see why they should land fish in the middle of the night,"
+said Marion.
+
+The activity of the people on the pier increased. More lights appeared
+there and moved very rapidly to and fro.
+
+"Unless they're landing what they're ashamed of," said Marion, "I
+don't see why they're doing it at night."
+
+Mysteries always irritate me. I answered Marion impatiently.
+
+"You can't be so foolish as to suppose that Conroy is smuggling. It
+wouldn't be any temptation to a millionaire to cheat the revenue out
+of the duty on a few pounds of tobacco."
+
+Several more carts followed each other in a slow procession up the
+hill. It seemed as if Crossan's entire staff of men and horses was
+engaged in this midnight transport service.
+
+"Mr. Conroy might not know anything about it," said Marion. "It may be
+done--"
+
+"I don't suppose Bob Power--"
+
+"There was another man on board," said Marion, "and Godfrey seemed to
+think that he was--well, not a very nice kind of man."
+
+"The fact that Godfrey called him a cad," I said, "rather goes to show
+that he is a man with a great deal of good in him. Besides, as it
+happens, I know all about him. His name is McNeice and he is a Fellow
+of Trinity College. It's ridiculous to suppose that he's landing a
+cargo of port wine for consumption in the common room. Fellows of
+College don't do that kind of thing. Besides, he's a good scholar. I
+had some correspondence with him when I was writing my article on St.
+Patrick's birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow."
+
+That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a
+dutiful kiss and went to bed.
+
+I stood at the window and watched until the last cart had mounted the
+hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to
+the _Finola_. The town and bay were still again.
+
+I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of
+working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short
+article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire
+running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind,
+under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind
+refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility
+of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the _Finola_.
+The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand
+it. Marion's smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It
+is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from
+our shores. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were
+pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest
+with any passer-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only
+two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not
+the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the
+revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland
+officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot
+show a respectable past history.
+
+I was driven back finally on my own theory--inherently very
+improbable--that the _Finola_ had, in the course of her voyage, netted
+an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get
+rid of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my
+history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The
+sun, I recollect, was shining so brightly outside that I had the
+blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob's entrance had
+much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the
+sunshine with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but
+tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the
+sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was,
+had not affected his spirits.
+
+As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my literary
+work. I always absolutely hate it when Godfrey is the interrupter. But
+I found myself quite pleased when Bob Power said that we ought not to
+sit indoors on so fine a day. Marion ran off to get her hat and joined
+us on the lawn. Bob Power led us straight to the garden, and when we
+got there, made for the strawberry bed. He owned to a pleasant
+recollection of the feast he had enjoyed the day before.
+
+There is a good deal of the school-boy about Bob Power, and Marion is
+quite young enough to enjoy gorging herself with ripe strawberries. I,
+alas! am nearly sixty years of age. A very small number of
+strawberries satisfies me, and I find that stooping to gather them
+from beneath their nets tires me after a short time. Bob Power and
+Marion wandered far into the remoter parts of my strawberry bed. I
+stayed near the pathway. Their voices reached me and their laughter;
+but I could not hear what they were saying to each other. I felt
+suddenly lonely. They were getting on very well without me. I went on
+by myself and inspected my melon frames. I left them after a while and
+took a look at my poultry yard.
+
+The rearing of poultry is one of the things which I do in order to
+benefit my country. Quite ordinary chickens satisfy my personal
+needs, and the egg of the modest barndoor fowl is all I ask at
+breakfast-time. But an energetic young lady in a short tweed skirt and
+thick brown boots explained to me two years ago that Ireland would be
+a much happier country if everybody in it kept fowls with long
+pedigrees. She must have been right about this, because the government
+paid her a small salary to go round the country saying it; and no
+government, not even ours, would pay people to say what is not true.
+Her plan for introducing the superior hens into the homes of the
+people was that I should undertake the care of such birds as she sent
+me, and give their eggs, under certain conditions, to any one who
+asked for them. This I agreed to do, and my new fowl yard, arranged
+exactly as the young lady in thick boots wished, is my latest effort
+in patriotism.
+
+The hens which inhabited it were very fine-looking birds, and the cock
+who dominated them was a credit to any government. I watched them with
+real pleasure for some time. Then it occurred to me as curious that a
+government which recognized the value of good blood in birds, bulls,
+boars, horses, and even bees--if bees have blood--should be not only
+indifferent but actually hostile to our human aristocracy. For years
+past animals of pedigree have been almost forced upon Ireland. Men of
+pedigree have as far as possible been discouraged from remaining in
+this country. This idea struck me as very suitable for one of my light
+newspaper articles. I was unwilling to lose grip of it and allow it to
+fade away as Malcolmson and his cannons had faded the night before. I
+took a sheet of paper and a pencil from my pocket and sat down on a
+stone to make a rough draft of the article. Before I had written three
+sentences I heard Marion's voice.
+
+"Oh, there you are, father. We were looking for you everywhere. Mr.
+Power and I want you to come and play tennis with us."
+
+I rose and stuffed my paper into my pocket. I felt quite glad that
+they had found me, although I do not care for playing tennis, and, as
+a rule, enjoy writing articles.
+
+"You will get on much better without me," I said.
+
+"Oh no," said Marion; "Mr. Power is sure to beat me in a single; but I
+think I'd have a pretty good chance if you are on his side."
+
+I was to act as a handicap. My efforts to help Power were reckoned to
+be worth one, perhaps two strokes in every game for Marion. This was
+not complimentary to me; but I dare say my tennis deserves no more
+respectful treatment. I agreed to be a handicap, and I was a good one.
+Marion won the first set. I got exceedingly hot, but, up to the middle
+of the second set, I enjoyed myself. Then Godfrey appeared. He watched
+my efforts with an air of cold superiority and contemptuous surprise.
+My heart failed me and I was obliged to ask to be allowed to stop.
+
+Bob Power invited us to lunch on the _Finola_. Marion accepted the
+invitation joyfully. Godfrey also accepted, although I do not think
+Power meant to ask him. But Godfrey is not the kind of man to miss the
+chance of getting into touch, however remotely, with any one as rich
+as Conroy. Power eyed him with an expression of frank dislike.
+Godfrey, it seemed to me, did not much like Power. He was probably
+annoyed at the way in which Power made himself agreeable to Marion.
+Godfrey regarded Marion as, in a sense, his property, although there
+was nothing in the way of an engagement between them.
+
+McNeice, whom I had hoped to meet, was not on the yacht. The steward
+explained to us that he was spending the day with Crossan. I could see
+that the thought of any one spending the day with Crossan outraged
+Godfrey's sense of decency. By way, I suppose, of annoying Power, he
+asked what had been happening on the _Finola_ at twelve o'clock the
+night before.
+
+"I was awakened up," he said, "by the noise of carts going along the
+street and I looked out. I could see lights on the yacht and on the
+pier. What on earth were you doing at that time of night?"
+
+"Coaling," said Power, shortly.
+
+It was plain to me that he disliked being asked questions. It must
+have been plain to Godfrey, too, for he immediately asked another.
+
+"How did you get coal in a place like this?"
+
+"Dear me," said Marion, "how very unromantic! I thought you were
+smuggling!"
+
+Godfrey's face assumed an expression of quite unusual intelligence. He
+suspected Power of evil practices of some sort. Marion's suggestion
+of smuggling delighted him.
+
+"But where did you get the coal?" he persisted.
+
+"My dear Godfrey," I said, "for all you or I know there may be
+hundreds of tons of it piled up in the co-operative store. Crossan has
+a wonderful business instinct. He may have speculated on a visit from
+some large steamer and be making a large profit. I am the principal
+shareholder, and nothing pleases me better than to see the store
+succeeding."
+
+I knew, as a matter of fact, that Crossan had no coal. I also knew
+that the _Finola_ was not coaling. The carts were loaded when they
+were going up the hill. They would have been empty if they had been
+going to get coal for the _Finola_. I made my remark in the hope of
+discouraging Godfrey from asking more questions.
+
+"I wish you would smuggle something," said Marion. "I should love to
+have some French lace laid at my door in a bale in the middle of the
+night."
+
+Marion reads novels, and the smugglers in these import French lace. In
+real life the only people who try to cheat the nation out of its duty
+on lace are tourist ladies, and they would not share their spoils with
+Marion.
+
+"But why did you coal in the middle of the night?" said Godfrey.
+
+One of Godfrey's most striking characteristics is his persistent
+curiosity. There is hardly anything in the world which Godfrey will
+not find out if he is given time. A secret has the same attraction for
+him that cheese has for a mouse. Some day, I hope, he will find a trap
+baited with a seductive mystery.
+
+"We always coal at night," said Power.
+
+"Of course," said Marion, "the dirt shows so much less at night than
+it would in daylight."
+
+"But," said Godfrey, "I don't understand why you--"
+
+I rose and said that we must go ashore. I invited Power to dinner, and
+urged him to bring McNeice with him if possible. I made it quite plain
+that I was not inviting Godfrey. Power accepted the invitation, and
+sent us off in a boat. I said good-bye firmly to Godfrey at the end of
+the pier. I was annoyed with him for cross-questioning our host at his
+own table. Marion and I walked home. Godfrey walked up the hill
+towards the co-operative store. I am sure he did not want to see
+Crossan. I cannot suppose that he would venture to catechise McNeice.
+I expect he meant to prowl round the premises in hopes of discovering
+casks of smuggled brandy or cases full of tobacco.
+
+McNeice came to dinner, and I am bound to say that I found myself very
+nearly in agreement with Godfrey's opinion of him. He was a singularly
+ill-mannered man. Power devoted himself to Marion, and I felt at once
+that their conversation was not of a kind that was likely to be
+interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing
+and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He
+sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared
+at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more
+quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our
+correspondence about St. Patrick. The subject roused him.
+
+"There are," he said, "seventeen different theories about the place of
+that man's birth."
+
+I knew nine myself, my own, of which I was a little proud, being the
+ninth. I did not expect McNeice to deliver a harangue on the whole
+seventeen, but that is what he did. Having bolted his fish, he began
+in a loud, harsh voice to pour contempt on all attempts at
+investigating the early history of our national saint. He delayed our
+progress through dinner a good deal, because he would neither refuse
+nor help himself to the _entrée_ which my butler held at his elbow. It
+was not until he had finished with the whole seventeen theories about
+the saint that he turned his attention to dinner again. I ventured to
+suggest that he had not even mentioned my own theory.
+
+"Oh," he said, "you have a theory too, have you?"
+
+My theory, at the time of its first appearance, occupied ten whole
+pages of the _Nineteenth Century_, and when republished, with notes,
+in pamphlet form, was reviewed by two German papers. I felt hurt by
+his ignorance of it, and reminded him again that we had corresponded
+about the subject while I was writing the article.
+
+"If you've time to waste on that sort of thing," he said, "why not
+devote it to living bishops instead of one who has been dead over a
+thousand years?"
+
+The idea of investigating the origins of our existing bishops was new
+to me but not in the least attractive.
+
+"Wouldn't it be rather waste of labour," I said, "to build up an
+hypothesis about the birthplace of a living bishop when--"
+
+"It's certainly waste of labour to build up an hypothesis about a dead
+one."
+
+"I meant to say," I added, "that if one did want to know such a
+thing--"
+
+"Nobody does," said McNeice.
+
+"It would," I went on, "be much simpler to write and ask him."
+
+I gathered from the way in which he spoke that McNeice did not like
+bishops; but I was not prepared for the violence of the speech which
+he made to me after dinner. Marion and Power were at the piano, which
+stands in a far-off corner of my rather oversized drawing-room.
+McNeice settled himself in front of the fire, his long legs straddled
+far apart, the bow of his white tie twisted under his ear. He is a man
+of singularly ferocious appearance. He has very bushy eyebrows which
+meet across the bridge of his nose, shining green eyes, a large jaw
+heavily underhung, and bright red hair.
+
+He addressed me for more than half an hour on the subject of bishops
+in general. I should be very sorry to write down the things he said.
+Some of them were quite untrue. Others were utterly unjust. It is
+quite wrong, for instance, to impute it as a crime to a whole class of
+men that their heads are bald. Nobody can help being bald if his hair
+will not grow any more than he can help being fat if his stomach will
+swell. Fatness was another of the accusations which McNeice hurled
+against the bishops. I suppose this violent hatred of an inoffensive
+class of men was partly the result of McNeice's tremendous
+Protestantism. The poet Milton, I think, felt in the same way about
+the prelates of his day. Partly it may have been the expression of his
+naturally democratic temperament. Bishops like to be called "my lord"
+by servants and clergymen. McNeice, I imagine, has a quite evangelical
+dislike of such titles. I dare say that it was the fact of my being a
+lord which made him so rude to me.
+
+On the afternoon of my garden-party I happened to be standing close
+beside Lady Moyne when she was saying good-bye to the Dean. Her final
+remark was addressed quite as much to him as to me.
+
+"What we have got to do," she said, "is to make use of this virile
+democracy of ours; to mould it into an instrument for the preservation
+of social order. The introduction of the Home Rule Bill gives us just
+about the chance we want."
+
+I found myself wondering, while the diatribe against the bishops was
+in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice
+into a weapon for her hand. It seemed to me more probable at the
+moment that McNeice would in the end tumble her beautiful head from
+the block of a guillotine into the basket of sawdust which waited
+underneath.
+
+Marion and Bob Power were singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan's
+operas while McNeice preached to me. They at least were having an
+enjoyable evening. I dare say McNeice enjoyed himself too. If so, my
+dinner-party was not given in vain. One cannot reasonably expect more
+than three out of every four people to be happy at the same time. It
+was my misfortune that I happened to be the fourth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The _Finola_ steamed out of our bay next morning. Marion saw her go,
+and became quite lyrical at breakfast about the beauty of her "lines,"
+a word which, as applied to the appearance of a yacht, she can only
+have learned from Bob Power. I was not able to share her rapture
+because the _Finola_ went out at 6 a. m., an hour at which I make it a
+settled rule to be in bed. Marion is generally in bed at 6 a. m. too.
+She made an exceptional effort that morning.
+
+For a week I enjoyed almost unbroken peace, and accumulated quite a
+large sheaf of notes for my work on the Irish Rebellions. Even Godfrey
+refrained from worrying me. But such happiness was too good to last
+long. On Saturday morning three things happened, every one of them of
+a disturbing kind. I received a letter from Lady Moyne in which she
+invited me to spend three days during the following week at Castle
+Affey. Castle Affey is Lord Moyne's chief Irish place. He has three
+others in various parts of the country and one in England. It is about
+ten miles from my home. Lady Moyne invited Marion too; but this was
+evidently an after thought, and she discounted the value of the
+invitation by saying that her party was to consist almost entirely of
+men and might be dull for Marion. I suspected politics at once, and
+advised Marion to refuse the invitation. I accepted it. Politics bore
+me a good deal; but it is interesting to watch politicians at their
+game. It is also pleasant, very pleasant, to be in the company of Lady
+Moyne. The prospect of the visit was as I have said disturbing. I
+prefer monotony. But if things must fall splashing into the pool of my
+life, I would as soon they took the form of visits to Castle Affey as
+any other.
+
+The next thing which happened that morning was a deputation. It
+consisted of six out of the twenty carters whom Crossan has organized
+in the interests of our fishing industry. They made the modest request
+that I should drive my nephew Godfrey out of the neighbourhood. I felt
+the strongest possible sympathy with them. If I were a carter, a
+fisherman, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, and lived in Kilmore, I should
+certainly wish Godfrey to live somewhere else. I did not even question
+the members of the deputation about their special reasons for wanting
+to get rid of Godfrey. They told me in general terms that he was
+interfering in business which was "none of his." I wanted no evidence
+in support of such a statement. Godfrey always interferes in
+everything. A very freckled young man who seemed to be junior member
+of the deputation, added that Godfrey "spied" upon them. Of course
+Godfrey spied on them. He spies on me.
+
+Strong as my sympathy was with the perfectly reasonable request of the
+deputation, I could not act as I was asked. Godfrey is, of course, in
+my employment. He collects the head rents still payable to me from
+some parts of the town which were not sold when I parted with the rest
+of my estate. For this I pay him £200 a year. I could, I suppose,
+dismiss him if I chose; but the plain fact is that if I dismissed
+Godfrey he would immediately starve or go to the workhouse. He is
+quite unfit to earn his living in any way. Once, after great
+exertions, I secured for him a kind of minor clerkship in a government
+office. His duties, so far as I was able to learn, were to put stamps
+on envelopes, and he was provided with a damp sponge to prevent any
+injury which might happen to his tongue through licking the stamps. At
+the end of a year he was dismissed as hopelessly incompetent. He came
+back to me, beautifully dressed, with a small despatch-box full of
+tradesmen's bills, and a grievance against the government. It was
+plain to me after that experiment that Godfrey could never earn his
+own living. I did not see my way to let him drift into the workhouse.
+He is, little as I like him, the heir to my title, and, in mere
+decency, I could not allow the cost of his support to fall on the
+rates.
+
+This is just one of the ways in which the democratic spirit of
+independence has affected us all without our knowing it. In the
+seventeenth century any member of the aristocracy who was afflicted
+with an heir like Godfrey had him shut up in the Bastille, or the
+Tower, by means of _lettres de cachet_ or whatever corresponded to
+such instruments in England. There the objectionable young man ate
+bread and drank water at the expense of the public funds. Nobody seems
+to have suffered any discomfort at the thought that the cost of the
+support of his relative was falling either on the rates or the taxes.
+(I am not sure which it was but it must have been one or the other.)
+Nowadays we are horribly self-conscious in such matters. The
+debilitated labourer began it, objecting, absurdly, to being fed by
+other people in the workhouse. His spirit spread to the upper classes,
+and it is now impossible, morally, for me, a peer, to send my heir to
+the workhouse. Fortunately public opinion is swinging round again. The
+latest type of working-man has no objection to receiving an Old Age
+Pension, and likes to hear of his children being given free breakfasts
+at school. In time this new feeling will soak through to the class to
+which I belong. Then I shall be able, without a qualm, to send Godfrey
+to the workhouse. At present, I regret to say, I cannot.
+
+I explained all this carefully to the deputation. It pained me to have
+to say no to their request, but I said it quite firmly. My decision, I
+think, was understood. My feelings I fear were not.
+
+Very soon after the deputation left, Godfrey himself arrived. He
+wanted me to dismiss Crossan. I am not at all sure that I could
+dismiss Crossan even if I wanted to do so. He is the manager of our
+co-operative store, and although most of the money which went to the
+starting of that enterprise was mine there is a considerable number of
+small shareholders. Crossan also runs the fishing business and our saw
+mill. I capitalized both these industries, lending money to the men to
+buy nets and good boats, and buying the various saws which are
+necessary to the making of planks. This no doubt gives me some hold
+over Crossan, but not enough to enable me to dismiss him as I might a
+cook. Besides, I do not want to dismiss Crossan. He is managing these
+different enterprises in such a way that they earn fair interest on
+the capital I put into them.
+
+"I've been looking into things a bit, Excellency," said Godfrey.
+
+I quite believed that. The deputation of carters said the same thing
+in other words.
+
+"And you'll find yourself in an awkward place one of these days if
+that fellow Crossan is allowed to go on as he's going."
+
+"I hope you're not going to drag up that dispute about the carters,
+Godfrey. I'm sick of it."
+
+The dispute about the carters is really an unpleasant business. As
+originally organized there were eight Protestant carters and four
+Roman Catholics. A year ago Crossan dismissed the four Roman Catholic
+carters, and one of the Protestants who was suspected of religious
+indifference. Their places were filled by five Orangemen of the most
+determined kind. Now the profits of this carting business are
+considerable. The five men who were dismissed appealed to Godfrey.
+Godfrey laid their case before me. I gathered that Godfrey had a high
+opinion of the outcasts who always spoke to him with the respect due
+to his position. He had a low opinion of the five interlopers who were
+men of rude speech and democratic independence of manner. I was
+foolish enough to speak to Crossan about the matter. He met me with a
+blunt assertion that it was impossible to trust what he called
+"Papishes." There, as a lover of peace rather than justice, I wanted
+to let the matter rest; but Godfrey took up the subject again and
+again in the course of the following year. He persisted, not out of
+any love for justice though this once he was on the side of justice,
+but simply out of hatred of Crossan.
+
+"It's not only the dismissal of those carters," said Godfrey. "There's
+a great deal more behind that. There's something going on which I
+don't understand."
+
+"If you don't understand it," I said, "you can't expect me to."
+
+"Look here, Excellency, you remember the time that yacht of Conroy's,
+the _Finola_, was in here?"
+
+"Of course I do. You went and left my cards on Bob Power."
+
+"I'm very sorry now that I did. There's something fishy about that
+yacht. What was she doing on the night she was here?"
+
+"Coaling," I said; "I don't see why I should dismiss Crossan because
+Conroy's yacht came in here for coal."
+
+"She wasn't coaling," said Godfrey.
+
+I knew that, of course; so I said nothing, but left Godfrey to
+develope his grievance whatever it was.
+
+"Ever since that night," said Godfrey, "there has been something or
+other going on in the yard behind the stores. Those carters are in it,
+whatever it is, and a lot more men, fishermen and young farmers.
+They're up there every night."
+
+"Probably dancing," I said.
+
+"Much more likely to be drinking."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense, Godfrey. You know perfectly well
+that the store has not got a licence, and there's no drink sold there.
+Besides Crossan is a fanatical teetotaller."
+
+"That wouldn't stop him," said Godfrey, "if he could sell the stuff
+cheap and make money on it; if"--here he sank his voice--"if it hadn't
+paid duty."
+
+Now Crossan is one of those Christians who has added to the original
+Ten Commandments a Mohammedan prohibition of alcohol in any form.
+Godfrey, I have no doubt, would break any of the commandments which he
+recognized, if he saw his way to making a small profit on the sin. But
+I did not think that even a 25 per cent. dividend would tempt Crossan
+to disregard his self-imposed prohibition of alcohol.
+
+"That's all nonsense," I said. "In the first place the _Finola_ didn't
+come in here to land a cargo of smuggled goods."
+
+"Then what did she come for?"
+
+I did not know, so I ignored Godfrey's question.
+
+"And in the second place Crossan wouldn't debauch the whole place by
+making the men drunk night after night on smuggled spirits. Why, only
+three weeks ago he spoke to me seriously about the glass of claret I
+drink at dinner. He did it quite respectfully and entirely for my
+good. I respected him for it."
+
+"He's up to some mischief," said Godfrey, sulkily, "and it won't be
+too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find
+out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night
+for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark,
+twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of
+the Orange Lodge. I've watched them."
+
+"Did you watch them coming out again?"
+
+"I did, twice," said Godfrey. "They didn't go home till nearly one
+o'clock in the morning. I couldn't stop up every night, so I only saw
+them twice."
+
+"Well," I said, "were they drunk?"
+
+"No," said Godfrey, unwillingly, "they were not. They walked quite
+straight."
+
+"That explodes your theory then. If they had been drinking smuggled
+spirits for hours and hours, they would have been drunk."
+
+"They were at some mischief," said Godfrey.
+
+"They were probably getting up a concert," I said.
+
+"No, they weren't, for--"
+
+"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "I've listened to you pretty patiently
+for a long time; but I really cannot spare you the whole morning. If
+you have anything to do I wish you'd go and do it. If you haven't
+you'd better go to bed and sleep off your absurd suspicions."
+
+One has to speak very plainly to Godfrey. Hints are simply wasted on
+him. Even after my last remark he hesitated for a moment. Then he
+turned and went.
+
+I felt in the mood to write a short story which I have had in my mind
+for some time. I very often write short stories; but have never yet
+got an editor who cares to print any of them. The one I had in my mind
+when Godfrey left me was, however, likely to be particularly good. It
+was to be the autobiography of a murderer; not an ordinary murderer
+who slays through desire of gain or in obedience to an inborn criminal
+instinct. My murderer was to be a highly respectable, God-fearing man,
+a useful citizen, a good father, a man of blameless life and almost
+blameless thoughts, generous, high-principled, beloved. He was to slay
+his victim with one of the fire-irons on his hearth. The murderous
+impulse was to take possession of him quite suddenly but with
+absolutely irresistible force. He was to kill a man who had been
+boring him for hours. My intention was to write the story in such a
+way as to win public sympathy for my murderer and to make every one
+feel that the dead man deserved his fate. I meant to model the dead
+man on my nephew Godfrey.
+
+I still think that a very good short story might be written along
+those lines, but I doubt whether I shall ever write it. I wrote about
+two thousand words that morning before I was interrupted by the
+luncheon gong. I was unable to go on writing after luncheon because
+the conversation I had with Marion distracted my mind and turned my
+thoughts to another subject.
+
+"Father," she said, "do you think that Mr. Power could really have
+been smuggling things in that yacht?"
+
+"No," I said; "he couldn't possibly."
+
+"It's very queer," said Marion.
+
+"What's queer?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Only this morning Rose had a new gold brooch, quite a
+handsome one."
+
+Rose is Marion's maid, a pleasant and I believe efficient girl of
+agreeable appearance.
+
+"Even if Mr. Power was smuggling," I said, "it's exceedingly unlikely
+that he'd bring in a cargo of gold brooches to give to the servants in
+the district."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Marion. "In fact Rose told me that her
+young man gave her the brooch. He's a very nice, steady young fellow
+with a freckly face and he drives one of the carts for Crossan."
+
+He must, I suspect, be the same young man who accused Godfrey of being
+a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection
+of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.
+
+"He promised her a gold bracelet next week," said Marion, "and Rose is
+very mysterious about where he gets the money."
+
+"As long as he doesn't steal it from me," I said, "I don't care where
+he gets it."
+
+"It's very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men
+in the village have heaps of money lately, and I thought it might
+have something to do with smuggling."
+
+This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered
+Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose's young man and the
+others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who
+frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was,
+of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form
+of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one
+of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and
+philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish
+peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of
+kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have
+made Rose's freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch.
+The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the _Finola's_ midnight
+activity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+All competent critics appear to agree that art ought to be kept
+entirely distinct from moral purposes. A picture meant to urge us on
+to virtue--and there are such pictures--is bad art. A play or a novel
+with a purpose stands condemned at once. The same canon of criticism
+must, I suppose, apply to parties of all kinds, dinner-parties,
+garden-parties, or house-parties. A good host or hostess ought, like
+the painter and the novelist, to aim at making her work beautiful in
+itself; and should not have behind the hospitality a cause of any
+kind, charitable or political.
+
+I myself dissent, humbly, of course, from this view. Pictures like
+_Time, Death and Judgment_--I take it as an example of the kind of
+picture which is meant to make us good because I once saw it hung up
+in a church--appeal to me strongly. I do not like novels which aim at
+a reform of the marriage laws; but that is only because sex problems
+bore me horribly. I enjoy novels written with any other purpose. I
+hate parties, such as those which Godfrey instigates me to give, which
+have no object except that of merely being parties, the bare
+collection together of human beings in their best clothes. I was,
+therefore, greatly pleased when I discovered that my original guess
+was right and that Lady Moyne's party was definitely political. I
+found this out when I arrived in the drawing-room before dinner. I was
+a little too early and there was no one in the room except Moyne. He
+shook hands with me apologetically and this gave me a clue to the
+nature of the entertainment before me. He dislikes politics greatly,
+and would be much happier than he is if he were allowed to hunt and
+fish instead of attending to such business as is carried on in the
+House of Lords. But a man cannot expect to get all he wants in life.
+Moyne has a particularly charming and clever wife who enjoys politics
+immensely. The price he pays for her is the loss of a certain amount
+of sport and the endurance of long periods of enforced legislative
+activity.
+
+"I ought to have told you before you came," he said, "that--well, you
+know that my lady is very strongly opposed to this Home Rule Bill."
+
+Moyne is fifteen years or so older than his wife. He shows his respect
+for her by the pretty old-fashioned way in which he always speaks of
+her as "my lady."
+
+"The fact is," he went on, "that the people we have with us at
+present--"
+
+"Babberly?" I asked.
+
+Moyne nodded sorrowfully. Babberly is the most terrific of all
+Unionist orators. If his speeches were set to music, the orchestra
+would necessarily consist entirely of cornets, trumpets and drums. No
+one could express the spirit of Babberly's oratory on stringed
+instruments. Flutes would be ridiculous.
+
+"Of course," said Moyne, still apologetically, "it really is rather a
+crisis you know."
+
+"It always is," I said. "I've lived through seventy or eighty of
+them."
+
+"But this is much worse than most," he said. "A man called Malcolmson
+arrived this afternoon, a colonel of some sort. Was in the artillery,
+I think."
+
+"You read his letter in _The Times_, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I did. But I needn't tell you, Kilmore, that that kind of thing
+is all talk. My wife--"
+
+"I fancy Lady Moyne would look well as _vivandière_," I said,
+"marching in front of an ambulance waggon with a red cross on it."
+
+Moyne looked pained. He is very fond of Lady Moyne and very proud of
+her. This is quite natural. I should be proud of her too if she were
+my wife.
+
+"Her idea," said Lord Moyne, "is--"
+
+Just then our Dean came into the room. His presence emphasised the
+highly political nature of the party. Unless she had asked Crossan,
+Lady Moyne could not have got hold of any one of more influence with
+our north of Ireland Protestant democracy. The Dean cannot possibly be
+accustomed to the kind of semi-regal state which is kept up at Castle
+Affey. I should be surprised to hear that he habitually dresses for
+dinner. It was only natural, therefore, that he should be a little
+overawed by the immensity of the rooms and the number of footmen who
+lurk about the halls and passages. When he began explaining to me the
+extreme iniquity of the recent Vatican legislation about mixed
+marriages, he spoke in a quite low voice. As a rule this subject moves
+the Dean to stridency; but the heavy magnificence of Castle Affey
+crushed him into a kind of whisper. This encouraged me. If the Dean
+had been in his usual condition of vigour, I should not have ventured
+to do anything except agree with him heartily. Feeling that I might
+never catch him in a subdued mood again, I seized a chance of
+expressing my own views on the mixed marriage question. It seems to
+me that the whole difficulty about the validity of these unions might
+be got over by importing a few priests of the Greek Church into
+Ireland. The Vatican, I believe, recognizes that these Orientals
+really are priests. The Protestants could not reasonably object to
+their ministrations since they refuse to acknowledge the jurisdiction
+of the Pope. A mixed marriage performed by one of them would,
+therefore, be valid in the opinion of the ecclesiastical advisers of,
+let us say, the bridegroom. It would be quite unobjectionable to those
+responsible for the soul of the bride. I put my plan as persuasively
+as I could; but the Dean did not seem to see any merit in it. Indeed I
+have never met any one who did. That is the great drawback to trying
+to help the Irish nation out of its difficulties. No one will ever
+agree to a reasonable compromise.
+
+I took Lady Moyne in to dinner and enjoyed myself very much. She
+was--as indeed she always is--beautifully dressed. Although she talked
+a good deal to Babberly who sat on the other side of her, she left me
+with the impression that I was the person who really interested her,
+and that she only turned occasionally to her other neighbour from a
+sense of duty. Babberly talked about Unionist clubs and the vigorous
+way in which the members of them were doing dumb bell exercises, so as
+to be in thoroughly good training when the Home Rule Bill became law.
+The subject evidently interested him very much. He has a long white
+beard of the kind described as patriarchal. When he reaches exciting
+passages in his public speeches, and even when he is saying something
+emphatic in private life, his beard wags up and down. On this occasion
+it rose and fell like a foamy wave. That was what convinced me that
+he was really interested in the activity of the Unionist clubs. Lady
+Moyne smiled at him in her bewilderingly bewitching way, and then
+turned round and smiled at me.
+
+"But," I said, "do you actually mean to go out and do battle?"
+
+"It won't be necessary," said Babberly. "Once the English people
+understand that we mean to die rather than see our lives and
+liberties--"
+
+"Nowadays," said Lady Moyne, "when the industrial proletariate is
+breaking free from all control, it is a splendid thing for us to have
+a cause in which we take the lead, which will bind our working classes
+to us, and make them loyal to those who are after all their best
+friends and their natural leaders."
+
+I quite saw Lady Moyne's point. Crossan would not be at all likely to
+follow her or regard her as his best friend in ordinary matters. He
+might even resent her interference with his affairs. But on the
+subject of Home Rule Crossan would certainly follow any one who took
+his side of the great controversy. If Lady Moyne wore an orange sash
+over her pretty dresses Crossan would cheer her. While Home Rule
+remained a real danger he would refrain from asking why Lord Moyne
+should spend as much on a bottle of champagne for dinner, as would
+feed the children of a labourer for a week. It did not surprise me to
+find that Lady Moyne was clever enough to understand Crossan. I wanted
+to know whether Babberly understood.
+
+"But," I said to him, "suppose that the men you are enrolling take
+what you say seriously--"
+
+"I assure you, Lord Kilmore," said Babberly, "we are quite serious."
+
+I could hear Malcolmson at the other end of the table explaining to
+Moyne a scheme for establishing a number of artillery forts on the
+side of the Cave Hill above Belfast Lough. His idea apparently, was to
+sink any British warship which was ill-advised enough to anchor there
+with a view to imposing Home Rule on us. Malcolmson, at all events,
+was quite serious.
+
+"It will never come to fighting," said Babberly again. "After all, the
+great heart of the English people is sound. They will never consent to
+see their brethren and co-religionists handed over--"
+
+Lady Moyne turned to me and smiled again. I am sixty years of age, but
+her smile gave me so much pleasure that I failed to hear the rest of
+what Babberly said.
+
+When at the end of dinner Lady Moyne left us, we congregated round the
+other end of the table, and everybody talked loud; everybody, that is,
+except Moyne and me. Moyne looked to me very much as if he wanted to
+go to sleep. He blinked a good deal, and when he got his eyes open
+seemed to hold them in that state with considerable effort. I did not
+feel sleepy, and became more and more interested as the conversation
+round me grew more violent. Babberly talked about a campaign among the
+English constituencies. He had a curious and quite pathetic faith in
+the gullibility of the British working-man. Nobody listened much to
+Babberly. The Dean prosed on about the effects of the _Ne Temere_
+decree. We all said that we agreed with him, and then stopped
+listening. Malcolmson got on to field guns, and had an elaborate plan
+for training gunners without actual practice. Babberly did not like
+this talk about artillery. He kept on saying that we should never get
+as far as that. A Mr. Cahoon, who came from Belfast, and spoke with
+the same kind of accent as McNeice, prophesied doleful things about
+the paralyzing of business under a Home Rule Parliament. What
+interested me was, not the conversation which beat fiercely on my
+ears, but the personal question, Why had Lady Moyne invited me to this
+party?
+
+I am constitutionally incapable of becoming excited about politics,
+and have therefore the reputation, quite undeserved, of being that
+singular creature, a Liberal peer. Why, being the kind of Gallio I am,
+I should have been, like a second Daniel, thrown among these lions, I
+could not understand. They were not the least likely to convert me to
+their own desperate intensity of feeling. If Lady Moyne wanted to
+convert me a far better plan would have been to invite me to her house
+after the politicians had gone away. Circe, I imagine, did not attract
+new lovers by parading those whom she had already turned into swine.
+Nor could I suppose that I had been brought to Castle Affey in order
+to convert people like Malcolmson to pacific ways of thought. In the
+first place, Lady Moyne did not want him converted. He and his like
+were a valuable asset to the Conservative party. And even if she had
+wanted them converted I was not the man to do it. I am mildly
+reasonable in my outlook upon life. To reason with Malcolmson is much
+the same as if a man, meaning well, were to offer a Seidlitz powder to
+an enraged hippopotamus.
+
+It was not until next day that I found a solution of my problem. Moyne
+buttonholed me after breakfast, and invited me, rather wistfully I
+thought, to go round the stables with him. He wanted my opinion of a
+new filly. I went, pursued by the sound of the Dean's voice.
+
+He was telling the story of a famous case of wife desertion brought
+about by the _Ne Temere_ decree. He was telling it to Cahoon, the
+Belfast manufacturer, who must, I am sure, have heard it several times
+before.
+
+I used, long ago, to be a good judge of horses. I still retained my
+eye for a neat filly. Moyne's latest acquisition was more than neat. I
+stroked her neck, and patted her flanks with genuine appreciation.
+Moyne looked quite cheerful and babbled pleasantly about hunting. Then
+Lady Moyne came through the door of the stable. I was very glad to see
+her. Her dress, a simple brown tweed, suited her admirably, and her
+smile, less radiant, perhaps, than it was the night before when set
+off by her diamonds, was most attractive. Moyne, too, though I knew
+that he did not want to talk politics, was glad to see her. She came
+into the horse-box, and fondled the filly. Then she sighed.
+
+"What a lot we have to go through for a good cause!" she said. "Those
+terrible men!"
+
+"Heavy going," said Moyne, "that kind of thing at breakfast. Let's
+take out the new car, and go for a spin."
+
+"I should love to," she said, "but I must not. I only ran out to speak
+to you for a minute, Lord Kilmore."
+
+Her eyes led me to believe at dinner the night before that I was the
+one man among her guests that she really wanted to talk to. Now her
+lips said the same thing plainly. I did not believe it, of course;
+but I felt quite as much gratified as if it had been true.
+
+"Mr. Conroy comes this afternoon," she said.
+
+"That millionaire fellow?" said Moyne, who was evidently not well up
+in the list of his visitors.
+
+"And I want you to take him in hand," said Lady Moyne to me--not to
+her husband. "He's very clever, and it's most important to get him
+interested in our movement."
+
+"You'd much better take him in hand yourself," I said. "If any one
+could interest him--"
+
+"I shall, of course; but I can't always be with him. I'm dreadfully
+afraid that if Mr. Babberly talks to him--but you know what Mr.
+Babberly is. He's splendid in Parliament and on a platform; perfectly
+splendid. We've nobody like him. But he might not quite suit Mr.
+Conroy. Then poor dear Colonel Malcolmson does talk such nonsense. Of
+course it's very good in its way, and I do hope the Liberals will lay
+to heart what he says about fighting before it's too late--"
+
+"Mr. Conroy is a business man," I said, "and has a reputation for
+shrewdness."
+
+"That's just it," said Lady Moyne, "and the others--the Dean and that
+curious Mr. Cahoon. They're dears, perfect dears in the way they stand
+up for the Union and the Empire, but--" She shrugged her shoulders,
+and smiled.
+
+"I quite understand," I said; "but, after all, I'm rather an old bore,
+too."
+
+"You!" said Lady Moyne. "You're a literary man, and that's so rare,
+you know, in our class. And, besides, you're a Liberal. I don't mean
+in any offensive sense of the word; only just that you're not a party
+man. I must run away now; but you will do your best with Mr. Conroy,
+won't you? We want a big subscription from him."
+
+The Dean caught me a little later in the morning, and, though I told
+him I had letters to write, he insisted on explaining to me that, as a
+clergyman, he considered it wrong to take any active part in politics.
+
+"The Church," he said, "cannot allow herself to become attached to any
+party. She must stand above and beyond party, a witness to divine and
+eternal righteousness in public affairs."
+
+I am, on the whole, glad that I heard the Dean say this. I should
+certainly have believed he was taking a side in politics, if he had
+not solemnly assured me that he was not. I might even have thought,
+taking at their face value certain resolutions passed by its General
+Synod, that the Church was, more or less, on the side of the
+Unionists, if the Dean had not explained to me that she only appeared
+to be on their side because they happened to be always in the right,
+but that she would be quite as much on the side of the Liberals if
+they would only drop their present programme which happened in every
+respect to be morally wrong. This cleared my mind for me, and I felt
+quite ready to face Conroy at luncheon, and dispel any difficulties he
+might feel about the Church and politics.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Mr. Conroy arrived at luncheon-time, and Lady Moyne took him in hand
+at once. I watched her talking to him during the meal and afterwards
+when they walked together round the lawn. I came to the conclusion
+that Lady Moyne would have no difficulty in obtaining any subscription
+she wanted from the millionaire. They were, of course, intimate with
+each other. Lady Moyne had been Conroy's guest in the days when his
+London house was a centre of social life. She had sailed with him on
+the _Finola_. But this was the first time she had him at Castle Affey;
+and therefore the first time he had seen Lady Moyne in her character
+as hostess. It is not to be wondered at that he yielded to her charm.
+Like all women of real capacity Lady Moyne was at her best in her own
+house.
+
+But she was too clever a hostess to devote herself entirely to one
+guest. She took Babberly for a drive later in the afternoon and I felt
+that my time had come. I determined to be true to my trust and to make
+myself agreeable to Conroy. Unfortunately he did not seem to want my
+company. He went off for a long walk with Malcolmson. This surprised
+me. I should have supposed beforehand that talk about artillery would
+have bored Conroy; and Malcolmson, since this Home Rule struggle
+began, has talked of nothing else.
+
+I spent the afternoon with Mr. Cahoon, and we talked about Home Rule,
+of course.
+
+"What those fellows want," he said, "is to get their hands into our
+pockets. But it won't do."
+
+"Those fellows" were, plainly, the Nationalist leaders.
+
+"Taxation?" I said.
+
+"Belfast will be the milch cow of the Dublin Parliament," said Cahoon.
+"Money will be wanted to feed paupers and pay priests in the south and
+west. We're the only people who have any money."
+
+I had never before come in contact with a man like Cahoon, and I was
+very much interested in him. His contempt, not only for our
+fellow-countrymen in Leinster, Munster and Connacht, but for all the
+other inhabitants of the British Isles was absolute. He had a way of
+pronouncing final judgment on all the problems of life which
+fascinated me.
+
+"That's all well enough in its way," he would say; "but it won't do in
+Belfast. We're business men."
+
+I think he said those words five times in the course of the afternoon,
+and each time they filled me with fresh delight. If the man had been a
+fool I should not have been interested in him. If he had been a simple
+crude money maker, a Stock Exchange Imperialist, for instance, I
+should have understood him and yawned. But he was not a fool. A man
+cannot be a fool who manages successfully a large business, who keeps
+in touch with the swift vicissitudes of modern international commerce,
+who has organized into a condition of high efficiency an industrial
+army of several thousand working-men and women. And Mr. Cahoon, in a
+curious hard way, was touched with idealisms; I discovered,
+accidentally, that he devotes his spare time on Saturdays to the
+instruction of young men in cricket and football. His Sunday
+afternoons he gives to an immense Bible-class for boys of fifteen or
+sixteen. He has built and maintains, on the sole condition that he
+does not actually lose money by it, a kind of model village in a
+suburban district of Belfast. In order to look after this village
+properly he gets up at five o'clock in the morning on three days in
+the week. In winter, when his social work is in full swing, he spends
+almost all his evenings at a large Working-Men's club. He spends his
+summer holidays in the seaside camp of The Boys' Brigade. It would be
+difficult to find a man who crams more work into what are supposed to
+be his leisure hours. He has, of course, little time for reading and
+he never travels. His devotion to good works leaves him no opportunity
+for culture, and accounts for the fact that he believes the things
+which Babberly says on platforms. He would, I did not actually try him
+with the subject, but I have no doubt he would, have brushed the
+philosophy of Emmanuel Kant into the world's waste-basket with his
+unvarying formula: It wouldn't do in Belfast. They are business men
+there.
+
+We worried on about his fear of the over-taxation of Belfast and the
+industrial North. I tried to get from him some definite account of the
+exact taxes which he feared. I tried to get him to explain how he
+proposed to fight, against whom he intended to fight, who might be
+expected to fight on his side. I do not think he got angry with me for
+my persistency, but his contempt for me steadily increased. I am not a
+business man and so I could not possibly, so he hinted, understand how
+they feel about the matter in Belfast.
+
+"But do you think," I said, "that your workmen will go out and be shot
+in order to save you from paying an extra penny in the pound income
+tax? That's what it comes to, you know, and I don't see why they
+should do it. They don't pay income tax, or for that matter death
+duties."
+
+Cahoon looked me full in the face for nearly half a minute without
+replying. Then he took out his watch and looked at it. Then he took me
+by the arm and led me towards the yard.
+
+"Did you ever see the Green Loaney Scutching Mill?" he said.
+
+I had never seen any scutching mill. I have only a vague idea of what
+a scutching mill is.
+
+"It'll not be more than twenty miles from this," said Cahoon. "And in
+my car we'll do it and be back for dinner."
+
+I did not particularly want to spend the rest of the afternoon rushing
+about the country in Cahoon's motor car. I preferred to stay quietly
+on the Castle Affey lawn and talk about Home Rule.
+
+"But about the working-man," I said, "and the prospect of his
+fighting--"
+
+"You'll be better able to talk about that," said Cahoon, "when you've
+seen the man I'm going to take you to. Seeing's believing."
+
+I was, of course, quite willing to go with Cahoon if he would really
+show me a citizen soldier in a scutching mill. We got out the motor
+car and started.
+
+"He's a man by the name of McConkey," said Cahoon.
+
+"A good name," I said. "One expects something from a McConkey."
+
+Cahoon did not say anything for about ten minutes. Then he went on--
+
+"McConkey is foreman in the mill."
+
+"The scutching mill?" I asked.
+
+It was, of course, the scutching mill. I only asked the question in
+order to keep up the conversation. The long silences were
+embarrassing. Cahoon did not answer me. At the end of another quarter
+of an hour of furious driving he gave me a little further information
+about McConkey.
+
+"He neither drinks nor smokes."
+
+This led me to think that he might be some relation to my friend
+Crossan, possibly a cousin.
+
+"I happen to know," said Cahoon a little later, "that he has upwards
+of £500 saved."
+
+Undoubtedly McConkey and Crossan are close relations, brothers-in-law
+perhaps.
+
+We reached the Green Loaney Scutching Mill at about half-past five
+o'clock. Cahoon, who seemed to know all about the establishment, led
+me through some very dusty purlieus. McConkey, when we came upon him,
+did not seem particularly pleased to see Cahoon. He looked at me with
+suspicious malignity.
+
+"There's a gentleman here," said Cahoon, "who wants to know whether
+you mean to fight rather than submit to Home Rule."
+
+"Aye," said McConkey, "I do."
+
+Then he looked me square in the face without winking. Cahoon did the
+same thing exactly. Neither of them spoke. It was clearly my turn to
+say something; but with four hard grey eyes piercing my skin I found
+it difficult to think of a remark. In the end I said:
+
+"Really?"
+
+They both continued to stare at me. Then McConkey broke the silence
+again.
+
+"You'll no be a Papist?" he said.
+
+"Certainly not," I replied. "In fact I am a church-warden."
+
+McConkey thrust his hand deep into a hip pocket in the back of his
+trousers and drew out a somewhat soiled packet of yellow tracing
+paper.
+
+"Look at thon," he said.
+
+I unfolded the tracing paper and found on it drawings of a machine
+gun. Cahoon peered over my shoulder.
+
+"She's a bonny wee thing," said McConkey.
+
+She looked to me large and murderous. Cahoon expressed his admiration
+for her, so I said nothing.
+
+"I'll no be that badly off for something to fight with," said
+McConkey, "when the time comes."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that you've bought that weapon?"
+
+"I haven't her bought yet," said McConkey; "but I have the money by
+me."
+
+"And you actually mean--" I said.
+
+"Ay. I do."
+
+I looked at Cahoon. He was still studying the drawings of the gun.
+
+"It'll be queer," said McConkey, slowly, "if she doesna' land a few of
+them in hell before they have me catched."
+
+I turned to Cahoon again.
+
+"Do you really think," I said, "that he--?"
+
+"We're business men," said Cahoon, "and we don't throw away our
+money."
+
+"But," I said, "who are you going to shoot at? It would be silly to
+attack a tax collector with a gun like that. I don't see who--"
+
+"Oh," said Cahoon, "don't fret about that. We'll find somebody to
+shoot at."
+
+"There'll be plenty," said McConkey, "when the time comes."
+
+"The real difficulty," said Cahoon, "is that--"
+
+"They'll no be wanting to stand up till us," said McConkey.
+
+The relations of Capital with Labour are, I understand, strained in
+other parts of the United Kingdom. Here, with Home Rule on the
+horizon, they seem to be actually cordial. There is certainly a good
+deal to be said for Lady Moyne's policy. So long as Cahoon and
+McConkey have a common taste for making domestic pets of machine guns
+they are not likely to fall out over such minor matters as wages and
+hours of work.
+
+I had a good deal to think of as Cahoon drove me back to Castle Affey.
+My main feeling was one of great personal thankfulness. I shall never,
+I hope, take part in a battle. If I do I hope I shall be found
+fighting against some properly organized army, the men and officers of
+which have taken up the business of killing in a lofty professional
+spirit. I cannot imagine anything more likely to shatter my nerve than
+to be pitted against men like McConkey, who neither drink nor smoke,
+but save and spend their savings on machine guns. The regular soldier
+has his guns bought for him with other people's money. He does not
+mind much if no gory dividend is earned. McConkey, on the other hand,
+spends his own money, and being a business man, will hate to see it
+wasted. He would not be satisfied, I imagine, with less than fifty
+corpses per cent. as a return on his expenditure.
+
+At dinner that evening Conroy made a suggestion for our evening's
+entertainment.
+
+"Lady Moyne," he said, "ought to read us the speech which she is to
+make next week to the Unionist women."
+
+I had never heard of the Unionist women before, and knew nothing of
+their wish to be spoken to. The Dean assured me that they were
+numerous and quite as enthusiastic as their husbands and brothers.
+Cahoon said that he was giving his mill hands a half holiday in order
+that the girls might go to listen to Lady Moyne. Babberly struck in
+with a characteristic speech.
+
+"The influence of women," he said, "can hardly be over-estimated. We
+must never forget that the most impressionable years of a man's life
+are those during which he is learning to say his prayers beside his
+mother's knee."
+
+This, as I recognized was a mere paraphrase of the proverb which
+states that the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. The
+secret of Babberly's great success as an orator is that he has a
+striking power of putting platitudes into new words.
+
+I ventured to suggest that, so far as the present political situation
+was concerned it was hardly worth while trying to get at the children
+who were learning to say their prayers. The Home Rule Bill would be
+either rejected or passed long before any of that generation had
+votes. Lady Moyne was good enough to smile at me; but Babberly felled
+me at once.
+
+"The women whom we expect to influence," he said, "have fathers,
+brothers and husbands as well as young children."
+
+After dinner we had the speech. A secretary, who had once been Lady
+Moyne's governess and still wore pince-nez, brought a quantity of
+type-written matter into the drawing-room. Moyne wanted me to slip
+away with him to the billiard room; but I refused to do so. I wanted
+to watch Lady Moyne making her speech. I am glad that I resisted his
+appeal. Lady Moyne not only read us the speech. She delivered it to
+us, treated us, indeed, to a rehearsal, I might even call it a dress
+rehearsal, for she described at some length the clothes she intended
+to wear. They must have been the most sumptuous in her wardrobe.
+
+"The poor dears," she said, "want something to brighten their lives.
+Besides, they'll take it as a compliment to them if I'm like Solomon
+in all his glory."
+
+I gathered from this remark that the audience was to consist mainly of
+the wives and sisters of McConkey and other men of the same class.
+Cahoon's wife, if he had one, would not require a display of Lady
+Moyne's best clothes to seal her attachment to the Union.
+
+The speech was an uncommonly good one. A phrase in it frequently
+repeated, appealed to me very strongly. Lady Moyne spoke about "our
+men." I do not know why it is, but the phrase "our women" as used for
+instance by military officers who have been to India, always strikes
+me as singularly offensive. It suggests seraglios, purdahs and other
+institutions by which Turks, and Orientals generally, assert and
+maintain the rights of property with regard to the other sex. "Our
+men," on the other hand, is redolent of sentimental domesticity. I
+never hear it without thinking of women who are mothers and makers of
+men; who sew on trouser buttons and cook savoury messes for those who
+are fighting the battle of life for them in a rough world, sustained
+by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It
+is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all
+it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast
+working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun
+bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the
+moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from
+tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened
+him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of
+the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord
+Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and
+the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did miss it, for
+he was nearly asleep in a chair. But McConkey's wife would not. Her
+heart would glow with a sense that she and Lady Moyne were sisters in
+their anxious care for the men entrusted to them.
+
+That single phrase made such a violent emotional appeal to me that I
+missed all the rest of the speech. Each time I began to recover a
+little from hearing it and was prepared to give my attention to
+something else, Lady Moyne used to repeat it, and then I was
+hypnotized again. I have no doubt, however, that the speech was a
+powerful appeal for the maintenance of the Union. Conroy said so
+afterwards and Babberly entirely agreed with him. The Dean suggested
+that something might be put in about the sanctity of the marriage
+tie, a matter of particular importance to women and likely to be
+seriously affected by the passing of a Home Rule Bill. Lady Moyne
+thanked him for calling her attention to the omission. The secretary,
+who had once been a governess, adjusted her pince-nez and took a note.
+
+In the smoking-room that evening Conroy took command of the
+conversation, and for the first time since I arrived at Castle Affey
+we got off politics. He told us a good deal about how he made his
+fortune. Most men who have made fortunes enjoy talking about how they
+made them. But their stories are nearly always most uninteresting. My
+impression is that they do not themselves understand how they came to
+be rich. But Conroy understood, or at all events thought he
+understood, his own success. He believed that he was rich because he
+had, more than other men, a love of the excitement which comes with
+risk. He had the spirit of the true adventurer, the man who pursues
+novelty and danger for their own sakes. Every story he told us
+illustrated and was meant to illustrate this side of his character. He
+despised the rest of us, especially me perhaps. We, Cahoon, the Dean,
+even Malcolmson, though he was a bristly fighting man, certainly Moyne
+who had gone quietly to bed--we were tame barndoor fowls, eating the
+sordid messes spread for us by that old henwife, civilized society.
+Conroy was a free bird of the wild. He snatched golden grain for
+nutriment from the hand of a goddess. These were not his words or his
+metaphors, but they represented the impression which his talk and his
+stories left on my mind.
+
+At twelve o'clock I rose to say good night. As I did so a servant
+entered the room and told Conroy that his motor was ready for him at
+the door. Conroy left the room at once, and left the house a few
+minutes later.
+
+I suppose we ought, all of us, to have been surprised. Motor drives in
+the middle of the night are an unusual form of amusement, and it was
+impossible to suppose that Conroy could have any business requiring
+immediate personal attention in the neighbourhood of Castle Affey. But
+his talk during the evening had left its impression on other minds as
+well as mine. We bid each other good night without expressing any
+astonishment at Conroy's conduct. Cahoon refrained from saying that
+inexplicable midnight expeditions were not the kind of things they
+cared for in Belfast. Even he recognized that a man who had
+accumulated as large a fortune as Conroy's must not be judged by
+ordinary standards.
+
+I, unfortunately, failed to go to sleep. I tried to read the works of
+Alexander Pope, of which I found a well-bound copy in my bedroom. But
+my mind only became more active. I got up at last and covered six
+sheets of the Castle Affey note paper with a character sketch of
+Conroy. I maintained that he was wrong in supposing that a capacity
+for daring is the secret of becoming rich. Bob Power, for instance, is
+as daring as any man living and certainly loves risk for its own sake,
+but Bob will not die a rich man. Nor will Conroy. Wealth falls into
+the hands of such men occasionally, as vast hoards of gold did one
+hundred and fifty years ago into the holds of pirate ships. But no one
+ever heard of a buccaneer who died with a large fortune safely
+invested. Before Conroy dies his fortune will have taken to itself
+wings and fled back to that goddess of his who gave it. This was the
+substance of my article. Marion typed it out for me when I went home,
+but neither of the editors who usually print my articles would have
+it. I suppose that they did not know Conroy personally. If they had
+known him they would have appreciated my character sketch. I called
+it, I remember, "Our Contemporary Pirates," a title which ought to
+have been attractive.
+
+At three o'clock, just as I was finishing my article, I heard Conroy's
+motor on the gravel outside my window.
+
+He appeared at breakfast looking fresh and cheerful. None of us asked
+him where he had been the night before, and he did not offer us any
+information.
+
+After breakfast he asked me to go for a walk with him. Lady Moyne, who
+heard the invitation given, looked pleased, and I recollected at once
+that I had promised to interest Conroy in the Unionist cause and lead
+him on to the point of giving a large subscription to our funds.
+
+These party funds have always been rather a puzzle to me. I have never
+understood why it should be necessary for rich Liberals, rich
+Conservatives and American Irishmen to spend enormous sums of money in
+persuading people to vote. The theory of democratic government is, I
+suppose, that the citizen expresses his opinion freely in a polling
+booth. If he has not got an opinion it would surely be better to leave
+him alone. If he has an opinion and attaches any importance to it he
+will go to the polling booth without being dragged there by a kind of
+special constable hired for the purpose. If the money of the party
+funds were given to the voters in the form of bribes, the expenditure
+would be intelligible. It might even be justified; since an occasional
+tip would be most welcome to nearly every elector. But to spend tens
+of thousands of pounds on what is called organization seems very
+foolish. However I am not a practical politician, and my immediate
+object was not to explain the theory of political finance to Conroy,
+but to work him up into the frame of mind in which he would sign
+cheques.
+
+I cannot flatter myself that I did this or even helped to do it.
+Conroy did not give me a chance. He began to talk about the Irish land
+question, a thing in which I no longer take any but an academic
+interest. He asked me if I still owned a small estate in Co. Galway
+which had belonged to my father. I told him that I had long ago sold
+it and was uncommonly glad to do so.
+
+"Not a paying proposition?" said Conroy.
+
+"Oh," I said, "it paid very well; but the fact is, what with the
+agitation about grazing lands, and the trouble about people in
+congested districts--"
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that your ancestors mismanaged the property
+some."
+
+I expect they did. But I did not expect to have their misdeeds brought
+home to me in a vigorous personal way.
+
+"Your father," said Conroy, "or your grandfather, turned my
+grandfather off a patch of land down there in 1850."
+
+My grandfather had, I have heard, a theory that small holdings of land
+were uneconomic. He evicted his tenants and made large grass farms.
+Nowadays we hold the opposite opinion. We are evicting large tenants
+and establishing small holdings. Our grandsons, I dare say, will go
+back again to the large farms. I explained to Conroy that he ought not
+to blame my grandfather who was acting in accordance with the most
+advanced scientific theories of his time.
+
+Conroy was very nice about the matter. He said he had no grudge
+against either me or my grandfather. He had, however, so he told me
+frankly, a prejudice against everything English; an inherited
+prejudice, and not quite so irrational as it looked. It was after all
+the English who invented the economic theories on which my grandfather
+acted. He talked so much about his dislike of England and everything
+English that I did not like to introduce the subject of the
+subscription to Lady Moyne's political fund. He did, in the end,
+subscribe largely. When I heard about his £1000 cheque I supposed that
+he must have counted the Union with us a misfortune for England and so
+wished to perpetuate it. Either that was his motive, so I thought, or
+else Lady Moyne had captivated him as she always captivates me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+I had no sooner settled down quietly at home and got to work again on
+my history than I was assailed by Godfrey. I wish very much that he
+was Conroy's nephew and not mine. Conroy goes driving in a motor in
+the middle of the night, so he must like disturbances. I hate them.
+
+"I'm sorry, Excellency, but I am afraid I shall have to interrupt
+you."
+
+Godfrey, besides being objectionable in other ways, is a liar. He is
+not sorry, he is very glad, when he gets the chance of interrupting
+me. I should resent the disturbance less if he acknowledged frankly
+that he enjoyed annoying me.
+
+"It can't be time," I said, "for another garden-party yet; but, if it
+is, I'd rather you made out the invitation list yourself. I'm busy.
+Besides making out lists is one of the things you're good at. I should
+be sure to leave out somebody."
+
+"I don't want to talk about garden-parties," said Godfrey. "This is
+something much more serious."
+
+"There's no use coming to me about it," I said. "I told you last time
+that your tailor could bring you into the County Court if he liked. I
+shan't pay him again."
+
+The inference was a natural one. Godfrey had said that he wanted to
+talk about something more important than a garden-party. But the
+inference was wrong. Godfrey looked offended.
+
+"I sent Nicholson and Blackett a cheque last week," he said.
+
+I waited patiently. If Godfrey's business had nothing to do with
+garden-parties or tailors' bills, I could only suppose that he meant
+to make some fresh complaint about Crossan.
+
+"Pringle cashed it all right," said Godfrey, after a short pause. "I
+went in there the day after your party and played tennis with his
+daughter. They were awfully pleased."
+
+I dare say they were. People attach a surprising amount of importance
+to Godfrey's social patronage. I myself should be more inclined to
+cash his cheques for him if he stayed away from my house. But I did
+not want to argue with Godfrey about Pringle's taste in guests.
+
+"What's Crossan been doing to you?" I asked at last.
+
+"He hasn't been doing anything to me."
+
+"Then for goodness' sake, Godfrey, let the man alone."
+
+"I don't like the way he's going on."
+
+"You never did. There's nothing fresh about that. You've complained
+about him regularly every week for five years."
+
+This was an exaggeration. I am sometimes away from home for more than
+a week at a time and Godfrey does not always complain about Crossan in
+his letters.
+
+"Look here, Excellency," said Godfrey, "it's far better for you to
+know what Crossan's doing. He's going about all over the country day
+after day. He's got a motor car."
+
+I can quite understand that Crossan's owning a motor car must have a
+very irritating effect on Godfrey. I cannot afford to keep one. That
+any one else in the district over which I ought, according to
+Godfrey's theory, to be a kind of king, should assume a grandeur
+impossible for me is simply an aggravated kind of insolence. No wonder
+that Godfrey, with the honour of the family at heart, resented
+Crossan's motor car. I tried to soothe him.
+
+"It's probably quite an inferior machine," I said. "It will break down
+soon."
+
+"It's not only that," said Godfrey, "though I think Crossan ought to
+stay at home and mind his business. He must be neglecting things.
+But--I wish you'd walk up to the store with me, Excellency. Crossan's
+away."
+
+"I'd much rather go when Crossan's at home," I said; "but, of course,
+if you won't leave me in peace until I do, I may as well go at once."
+
+I got my hat and walking stick. On the way up to the store Godfrey
+preserved an air of mysterious importance. I had no objection whatever
+to his doing this; because he could not talk and look mysterious at
+the same time, and I particularly dislike being talked to by Godfrey.
+I expect he tried to be dignified with a view to impressing me, but
+just before we reached the store he broke down and babbled fatuously.
+
+"Marion told me yesterday," he said, "that she'd had a letter from
+that fellow Power."
+
+"She told me that too," I said.
+
+"Well, I think you ought to put a stop to it. It's not right."
+
+"My dear Godfrey," I said, "you appear to forget that he's one of the
+Powers of Kilfenora and private secretary to a millionaire."
+
+This twofold appeal to the highest and strongest feelings which
+Godfrey possesses ought to have silenced him. He did, I think, feel
+the force of what I said. But he was not satisfied.
+
+"If you knew all that was going on," he said, "you wouldn't like it."
+
+We reached the store. The young woman who controls the sale of
+miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever
+Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her
+business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to
+the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one of the outhouses.
+
+"That door ought to be locked," he said.
+
+This was true. I was somewhat surprised to find it open.
+
+"I forced the lock this morning," said Godfrey, "with a screw driver."
+
+"In that case," I said, "you can hardly blame Crossan for its being
+open. Why did you do it?"
+
+"I wanted to see what he had inside," said Godfrey, "and I wanted you
+to see."
+
+There was a good deal inside. In fact the outhouse, a large building,
+was filled from floor to ceiling with packing-cases, some of them very
+large indeed. Godfrey pointed to a small one near the door.
+
+"Just lift that up, will you, Excellency?" said Godfrey.
+
+"No, I won't. Why should I? I'm not a railway porter, and it looks
+heavy."
+
+"It is heavy. Just watch me for a moment if you don't want to lift it
+yourself."
+
+Godfrey with evident difficulty lifted the packing-case, staggered a
+few steps with it and then set it down. The packing-case may have been
+heavy but it was quite small. It seemed to me that Godfrey was making
+a rather pitiful exhibition of his physical feebleness.
+
+"You ought to do things with dumb bells," I said. "The muscles of your
+arms are evidently quite soft."
+
+Godfrey took no notice of the taunt. He was in a state of tremendous
+moral earnestness.
+
+"I want your permission to open these cases," he said.
+
+"I won't give you any such permission," I said. "How can I? They're
+not my packing-cases."
+
+Godfrey argued with me for quite a long time, but I remained firm. For
+some reason which I could not understand, Godfrey was unwilling to
+open the packing-cases without permission from somebody. I should have
+supposed that having already forced a door he would not have boggled
+at the lid of a packing-case; but he did. He evidently had some vague
+idea that the law takes a more serious view of smashing packing-cases
+than it does of housebreaking. He may have been right. But my record
+so far was clear. I had not forced the lock of the door.
+
+"What do you suppose is in those cases?" said Godfrey.
+
+"Artificial manure," I said.
+
+Our store does a large business in artificial manure. It generally
+comes to us in sacks, but there is no reason why it should not come
+in packing-cases. It is tremendously heavy stuff.
+
+"Those cases were landed from the _Finola_," said Godfrey. "She
+wouldn't come here with a cargo of artificial manure."
+
+"If you've brought me all the way up here to accuse Conroy of
+smuggling," I said, "you've wasted your own time and mine."
+
+"I don't accuse Conroy of smuggling," said Godfrey. "In fact, I'm
+going to write to him to-night to tell him what's going on."
+
+"Very well," I said. "You can if you like, but don't mix my name up
+with it."
+
+We walked back together as far as the village. Godfrey was silent
+again. I could see that he still had something on his mind, probably
+something which he wanted me to do. He kept on clearing his throat and
+pulling himself together as if he were going to say something of
+importance. I was uncomfortable, for I felt sure that he intended to
+attack me again about Marion's correspondence with Bob Power. I have
+never, since she was quite a little girl, interfered with Marion's
+freedom of action. I had not the smallest intention of making myself
+ridiculous by claiming any kind of authority over her, especially in a
+matter so purely personal as the young man she chose to favour.
+Besides, I like Bob Power. At worst there was nothing against him
+except his smuggling, and smuggling is much less objectionable than
+the things that Godfrey does. I should rather, if it came to that,
+have a son-in-law who went to prison occasionally for importing
+spirits without consulting the government than one who perpetually
+nagged at me and worried me. But I did not want to provoke further
+arguments by explaining my feelings to Godfrey. I was therefore rather
+relieved when he finally succeeded in blurting out what was in his
+mind.
+
+"I hope, Excellency," he said, "that you will take the first chance
+you get of speaking to Crossan."
+
+In sudden gratitude for escaping a wrangle about Marion and Bob Power
+I promised hurriedly that I would speak to Crossan. I was sorry
+afterwards that I did promise. Still, I very much wished to know what
+was in the packing-cases. I did not really believe it was artificial
+manure. I did not believe either that it was smuggled brandy.
+
+My chance came two days later. I met Crossan in the street. He was
+standing beside his motor car, a handsome-looking vehicle. He
+evidently intended to go for a drive. I felt at once that I could not
+ask him a direct question about the packing-cases. I determined to get
+at them obliquely if I could. I began by admiring the motor.
+
+"She's good enough, my lord," said Crossan.
+
+He is a man of few words, and is sparing of his praise. "Good enough"
+is, from Crossan, quite an enthusiastic compliment.
+
+"If your lordship would care about a drive any day," he said, "it'll
+be a pleasure to me."
+
+Crossan always interjects "my lord" and "your lordship" into the
+middle of the remarks he makes to me; but he says the words in a very
+peculiar tone. It always seems to me that he wishes to emphasize the
+difference in our social station because he feels that the advantage
+is all on his side. "The rank," so his tone suggests, "is but the
+guinea stamp. The man"--that is in this case Crossan himself--"is the
+gowd for a' that."
+
+"You can get about the country pretty quickly in that car," I said.
+
+Crossan looked at me with a perfectly expressionless face for some
+time. Then he said said--
+
+"If you think, my lord, that I'm neglecting my work, you've only to
+say so and I'll go."
+
+I hastened to assure him that I had no intention of finding fault with
+him in any way. My apology was as ample as possible. After another
+minute spent in silent meditation Crossan expressed himself satisfied.
+
+"It suits me as little to be running round the country," he said, "as
+it would suit your lordship."
+
+"I quite understand that," I said. "But then I don't do it. You do."
+
+"It has to be," said Crossan.
+
+I did not quite see why it had to be; but Crossan spoke with such
+conviction that I dared not contradict him and did not even like to
+question him. Fortunately he explained himself.
+
+"I'm the Grand Master, as your lordship is aware," he said.
+
+"Worshipful" is the title of courtesy applied to Grand Masters, and
+I'm sure no one ever deserved it better than Crossan.
+
+"If we're not ready for them, my lord, they'll have our throats cut in
+our beds as soon as ever they get Home Rule."
+
+"They," of course were the "Papishes," Crossan's arch enemies.
+
+I wanted very much to hear more of his activities among the Orangemen.
+I wanted to know what steps he, as Grand Master, was taking to
+prevent cut-throats creeping in on us while we slept. I thought I
+might encourage him by telling him something he would be pleased to
+hear.
+
+"McConkey," I said, "who is foreman in the Green Loaney Scutching
+Mill, is buying a splendid quick-firing gun."
+
+The remark did not have the effect I hoped for. It had an exactly
+opposite effect. Crossan shut up like a sea anemone suddenly touched.
+
+"Your lordship's affairs won't be neglected," he said stiffly. "You
+may count on that."
+
+I felt that I could. I have the utmost confidence in Crossan's
+integrity. If a body of "Papishes" of the bloodiest kind were to come
+upon Crossan and capture him; if they were to condemn him to death
+and, being God-fearing men, were to allow him half an hour in which to
+make his soul; he would spend the time, not in saying his prayers, not
+even in cursing the Pope, but in balancing the accounts of the
+co-operative store, so that any auditor who took over the books
+afterwards might find everything in order.
+
+"If you really feel it to be your duty," I said, "to go round the
+district working up--"
+
+"You'll have heard of the Home Rule Bill, maybe," said Crossan.
+
+I had heard of it, several times. After my visit to Castle Affey I
+even understood it, though it was certainly a measure of great
+complexity. I think I appreciated the orthodox Protestant view of it
+since the day I talked to McConkey. I wanted Crossan to realize how
+fully I entered into his feelings, so I quoted a phrase from one of
+Babberly's speeches.
+
+"In this supreme crisis of our country's destiny," I said, "it is the
+duty of every man to do his uttermost to avert the threatened ruin of
+our common Protestantism."
+
+That ought to have pacified Crossan even if it did not rouse him to
+enthusiasm. Huge crowds have cheered Babberly for saying these moving
+words. But Crossan received them from me in sullen silence.
+
+"It would be well," he said at last, "if your lordship and others like
+you were more in earnest."
+
+Crossan is not by any means a fool. I have occasionally been tempted
+to think he is, especially when he talks about having his throat cut
+at night; but he has always shown me in the end that he has in him a
+vein of strong common sense. He recognized that I was talking bombast
+when I spoke about the supreme crisis; but, curiously enough, he is
+quite convinced of Babberly's sincerity when he says things of that
+sort.
+
+It was nearly an hour after Crossan left me when I recollected that I
+had not found out anything about the packing-cases. The subject
+somehow had not come up between us, though I fully intended that it
+should. Our talk about Home Rule gave me no clue to what was in the
+cases. I could scarcely suppose that they were full of gorgets for
+distribution among Orangemen, defensive armour proof against the
+particular kind of stabs which Crossan anticipated.
+
+Godfrey called on me the next morning in a white heat of righteous
+indignation. He had received an answer to the letter which he wrote to
+Conroy. Before showing it to me he insisted on my reading what he
+called his statement of the case. It occupied four sheets of quarto
+paper, closely type-written. It accused Bob Power and McNeice of
+using the _Finola_ for smuggling without the owner's knowledge. It
+made out, I am bound to say, quite a good case. He had collected every
+possible scrap of evidence, down to Rose's new brooch. I suppose
+Marion told him about that. He said at the end of the letter that he
+had no motive in writing it except a sincere wish for Conroy's
+welfare. This was quite untrue. He had several other motives. His love
+of meddling was one. Hatred of Crossan was another. Jealousy of Bob
+Power was a third.
+
+"Now is there anything objectionable in that letter? Anything that one
+gentleman would not write to another?"
+
+I admitted that on the whole it was a civil letter.
+
+"Now look at his answer," said Godfrey.
+
+Conroy's answer was on a post-card. It consisted of six words only.
+
+"Do not be a damned fool."
+
+"Well," I said, "that's sound advice even if it's not very politely
+expressed."
+
+"Conroy's in it too," said Godfrey, vindictively, "and I'll make them
+all sorry for themselves before I've done with them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+I find by consulting my diary that it was on the 30th of June that I
+went to Dublin. I am not often in Dublin, though I do not share the
+contempt for that city which is felt by most Ulstermen. Cahoon, for
+instance, will not recognize it as the capital of the country in which
+he lives, and always speaks of Dublin people as impractical, given
+over to barren political discussion and utterly unable to make useful
+things such as ships and linen. He also says that Dublin is dirty,
+that the rates are exorbitantly high, and that the houses have not got
+bath-rooms in them. I put it to him that there are two first-rate
+libraries in Dublin.
+
+"If I want a book," he said, "I buy it. We pay for what we use in
+Belfast. We are business men."
+
+"But," I explained, "there are some books, old ones, which you cannot
+buy. You can only consult them in libraries."
+
+"Why don't you go to London, then?" said Cahoon.
+
+The conversation took place in the club. I lunched there on my way
+through Belfast, going on to Dublin by an afternoon train. I was, in
+fact, going to Dublin to consult some books in the College Library.
+Marion and I had been brought up short in our labours on my history
+for want of some quotations from the diary of a seventeenth-century
+divine, and even if I had been willing to buy the book I should have
+had to wait months while a second-hand bookseller advertised for it.
+
+Trinity College, when I entered the quadrangle next day, seemed
+singularly deserted. The long vacation had begun a week before.
+Fellows, professors and students had fled from the scene of their
+labours. Halfway across the square, however, I met McNeice. He seemed
+quite glad to see me and invited me to luncheon in his rooms. I
+accepted the invitation and was fed on cold ham, stale bread and
+bottled stout.
+
+Thackeray once hinted that fellows of Trinity College gave their
+guests beer to drink. Many hard words have been said of him ever since
+by members of Dublin University. I have no wish to have hard things
+said about me; so I explain myself carefully. McNeice's luncheon was
+an eccentricity. It is not on cold ham solely, it is not on stale
+bread ever, that guests in the Common Room are fed. If, like Prince
+Hal, they remember amid their feasting "that good creature, small
+beer," they do not drink it without being offered nobler beverages.
+When the University, in recognition of my labours on the Life of St.
+Patrick, made me a doctor of both kinds of law, I fared sumptuously in
+the dining hall and afterwards sipped port rich with the glory of suns
+which shone many many years ago on the banks of the upper Douro.
+
+After luncheon, while I was still heavy with the spume of the stout,
+McNeice asked me if I had seen the new paper which was being published
+to express, I imagine also to exacerbate, the opinions of the Ulster
+Unionists. He produced a copy as he spoke. It was called _The
+Loyalist_.
+
+"We wanted something with a bite in it," he said. "We're dead sick of
+the pap the daily papers give us in their leading articles."
+
+Pap is, I think, a soft innocuous food, slightly sugary in flavour,
+suitable for infants. I should never have dreamed of describing the
+articles in _The Belfast Newsletter_ as pap. An infant nourished on
+them would either suffer badly from the form of indigestion called
+flatulence or would grow up to be an exceedingly ferocious man. I
+felt, however, that if McNeice had anything to do with the editing of
+_The Loyalist_ its articles would be of such a kind that those of the
+_Newsletter_ would seem, by comparison, papescent.
+
+"We're running it as a weekly," said McNeice, "and what we want is to
+get it into the home of every Protestant farmer, and every working-man
+in Belfast. We are circulating the first six numbers free. After that
+we shall charge a penny."
+
+I looked at _The Loyalist_. It was very well printed, on good paper.
+It looked something like _The Spectator_, but had none of the pleasant
+advertisements of schools and books, and much fewer pages of
+correspondence than the English weekly has.
+
+"Surely," I said, "you can't expect it to pay at that price."
+
+"We don't," said McNeice. "We've plenty of money behind us.
+Conroy--you know Conroy, don't you?"
+
+"Oh," I said, "then Lady Moyne got a subscription out of him after
+all. I knew she intended to."
+
+"Lady Moyne isn't in this at all," said McNeice. "We're out for
+business with _The Loyalist_. Lady Moyne's--well, I don't quite see
+Lady Moyne running _The Loyalist_."
+
+"She's a tremendously keen Unionist," I said. "She gave an address to
+the working-women of Belfast the week before last, one of the most
+moving--"
+
+"All frills," said McNeice, "silk frills. Your friend Crossan is
+acting as one of our agents, distributing the paper for us. That'll
+give you an idea of the lines we're going on."
+
+Crossan, I admit, is the last man I should suspect of being interested
+in frills. The mention of his name gave me an idea.
+
+"Was it copies of _The Loyalist_," I asked, "which were in the
+packing-cases which you and Power landed that night from the
+_Finola_?"
+
+McNeice laughed.
+
+"Come along round with me," he said, "and see the editor. He'll
+interest you. He's a first-rate journalist, used to edit a rebel paper
+and advocate the use of physical force for throwing off the English
+rule. But he's changed his tune now. Just wait for me one moment while
+I get together an article which I promised to bring him. It's all
+scattered about the floor of the next room in loose sheets."
+
+I read _The Loyalist_ while I waited. The editor was unquestionably a
+first-rate journalist. His English was of a naked, muscular kind,
+which reminded me of Swift and occasionally of John Mitchel. But I
+could not agree with McNeice that he had changed his tune. He still
+seemed to be editing a rebel paper and still advocated the use of
+physical force for resisting the will of the King, Lords and Commons
+of our constitution. It is the merest commonplace to say that Ireland
+is a country of unblushing self-contradictions; but I do not think
+that the truth of this ever came home to me quite so forcibly as when
+I read _The Loyalist_ that it would be better, if necessary, to
+imitate the Boers and shoot down regiments of British soldiers than to
+be false to the Empire of which "it is our proudest boast that we are
+citizens." The editor--such was the conclusion I arrived at--must be a
+humorist of a high order.
+
+His name was Diarmid O'Donovan and he always wrote it in Irish
+characters, which used to puzzle me at first when I got into
+correspondence with him. We found him in a small room at the top of a
+house in a side street of a singularly depressing kind.
+
+McNeice explained to me that _The Loyalist_ did not court notoriety,
+and preferred to have an office which was, as far as possible, out of
+sight. He said that O'Donovan was particularly anxious to be
+unobtrusive. He had, before he became connected with _The Loyalist_,
+been editor of two papers which had been suppressed by the Government
+for advocating what the Litany calls "sedition and privy conspiracy."
+He held, very naturally, that a paper would get on better in the world
+if it had no office at all. If that was impossible, the office should
+be an attic in an inaccessible slum.
+
+O'Donovan, when we entered, was seated at a table writing vigorously.
+I do not know how he managed to write at all. His table was covered
+with stacks of newspapers, very dusty. He had cleared a small, a very
+small space in the middle of them, and his ink-bottle occupied a kind
+of cave hollowed out at the base of one of the stacks. It must have
+been extremely difficult to put a pen into it. The chairs--there were
+only two of them besides the editorial stool--were also covered with
+papers. But even if they had been free I should not have cared to sit
+down on them. They were exceedingly dirty and did not look safe.
+
+McNeice introduced me and then produced his own article. O'Donovan,
+very politely, offered me his stool.
+
+"McNeice tells me," he said, "that you are writing a history of Irish
+Rebellions. I suppose you have said that Nationalism ceased to exist
+about the year 1900?"
+
+"I hadn't thought of saying that," I said. "In fact--in view of the
+Home Rule Bill, you know--I should have said that Irish Nationalism
+was just beginning to come to its own."
+
+O'Donovan snorted.
+
+"There's no such thing as Irish Nationalism left," he said. "The
+country is hypnotized. We've accepted a Bill which deprives us of the
+most elementary rights of freemen. We've licked the boots of English
+Liberals. We've said 'thank you' for any gnawed bones they like to
+fling to us. We've--"
+
+It struck me that O'Donovan was becoming rhetorical. I interrupted
+him.
+
+"Idealism in politics," I said, "is one of the most futile things
+there is. What the Nationalist Party--"
+
+"Don't call them that," said O'Donovan. "I tell you they're not
+Nationalists."
+
+"I'll call them anything you like," I said, "but until you invent some
+other name for them I can't well talk about them without calling them
+Nationalists."
+
+"They--" said O'Donovan.
+
+"Very well," I said. "_They._ So long as you know who I mean, the
+pronoun will satisfy me. They had to consider not what men like you
+wanted, but what the Liberal Party could be induced to give. I don't
+say they made the best bargain possible, but--"
+
+"Anyhow," said McNeice, "we're not going to be governed by those
+fellows. That's the essential point."
+
+I think it is. The Unionist is not really passionately attached to the
+Union. He has no insuperable antipathy to Home Rule. Indeed, I think
+most Unionists would welcome any change in our existing system of
+government if it were not that they have the most profound and deeply
+rooted objection to the men whom McNeice describes as "those fellows,"
+and O'Donovan indicates briefly as "they."
+
+"And so," I said, turning to O'Donovan, "in mere despair of
+nationality you have gone over to the side of the Unionists."
+
+"I've gone over," said O'Donovan, "to the side of the only people in
+Ireland who mean to fight."
+
+Supposing that Ulster really did mean to fight O'Donovan's position
+was quite reasonable. But Babberly says it will never come to
+fighting. He is quite confident of his ability to bluff the
+conscientious Liberal into dropping the Home Rule Bill for fear of
+civil war. O'Donovan, and possibly McNeice, will be left out in the
+cold if Babberly is right. The matter is rather a tangled one. With
+Babberly is Lady Moyne, working at her ingenious policy of dragging a
+red herring across the path along which democracy goes towards
+socialism. On the other hand there is McNeice with fiery intelligence,
+and O'Donovan, a coldly consistent rebel against English rule in any
+shape and form. They have their little paper with money enough behind
+it, with people like Crossan circulating it for them. It is quite
+possible that they may count for something. Then there is Malcolmson,
+a man of almost incredible stupidity, but with a knowledge, hammered
+into him no doubt with extra difficulty, of how to handle guns.
+
+O'Donovan and McNeice were bending over some proof sheets and talking
+in low whispers; there was a knock at the office door, and a moment
+later Malcolmson entered. He looked bristlier than ever, and was
+plainly in a state of joyous excitement. He held a copy of the first
+number of _The Loyalist_ in his hand. He caught sight of me at once.
+
+"I'm damned," he said, "if I expected to see you here, Kilmore. You're
+the last man in Ireland--"
+
+"I'm only here by accident," I said, "and I'm going away almost at
+once. Let me introduce you to Mr. McNeice and Mr. O'Donovan."
+
+Malcolmson shook hands with the two men vigorously. I never shake
+hands with Malcolmson if I can possibly help it, because he always
+hurts me. I expect he hurt both McNeice and O'Donovan. They did not
+cry out, but they looked a good deal surprised.
+
+"I happened to be in Dublin," said Malcolmson, "and I called round
+here to congratulate the editor of this paper. I only came across it
+the day before yesterday, and--"
+
+"You couldn't have come across it any sooner," I said, "for it's only
+just published."
+
+"And to put down my name as a subscriber for twenty copies. If you
+want money--"
+
+"They don't," I said, "Conroy is financing them."
+
+"Conroy has some sound ideas," said Malcolmson.
+
+"You approve of the paper, then?" said McNeice.
+
+"I like straight talk," said Malcolmson.
+
+"We aim at that," said O'Donovan.
+
+"I'm dead sick of politics and speech making," said Malcolmson. "What
+I want is to have a slap at the damned rebels."
+
+"Mr. O'Donovan's point of view," I said, "is almost the same as yours.
+What he wants--"
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said Malcolmson, "and I need only say that when
+the time comes, gentlemen, and it won't be long now if things go on as
+they are going--you'll find me ready. What Ireland wants--"
+
+Malcolmson paused. I waited expectantly. It is always interesting to
+hear what Ireland wants. Many people have theories on the subject, and
+hardly any one agrees with any one else.
+
+"What Ireland wants," said Malcolmson dramatically, "is another Oliver
+Cromwell."
+
+He drew himself up and puffed out his chest as he spoke. He must, I
+think, have rather fancied himself in the part of a twentieth century
+Puritan horse soldier. I looked round at O'Donovan to see how he was
+taking the suggestion. Oliver Cromwell I supposed, could not possibly
+be one of his favourite heroes. But I had misjudged O'Donovan. His
+sympathy with rebels of all nations was evidently stronger than his
+dislike of the typical Englishman. After all, Cromwell, however
+objectionable his religious views may have been, did kill a king.
+O'Donovan smiled quite pleasantly at Malcolmson. I dare say that even
+the idea of a new massacre of Drogheda was agreeable enough to him,
+provided the inhabitants of the town were the people to whom he denied
+the title of Nationalists and Malcolmson wanted to have a slap at
+because they were rebels.
+
+Then McNeice got us all back to practical business in a way that would
+have delighted Cahoon. McNeice, though he does live in Dublin, has
+good Belfast blood in his veins. He likes his heroics to be put on a
+business basis. The immediate and most pressing problem, he reminded
+us, was to secure as large a circulation as possible for _The
+Loyalist_.
+
+"You get the paper into the people's hands," he said to Malcolmson,
+"and we'll get the ideas into their heads."
+
+Malcolmson, who is certainly prepared to make sacrifices in a good
+cause, offered to hire a man with a motorcycle to distribute the paper
+from house to house over a wide district.
+
+"I know the exact man we want," he said. "He knows every house in
+County Antrim, and the people like him. He's been distributing Bibles
+and selling illuminated texts among the farmers and labourers for
+years. He's what's called a colporteur. That," he turned to O'Donovan
+with his explanation, "is a kind of Scripture reader, you know."
+
+If any one in the world except Malcolmson had suggested the employment
+of a Scripture reader for the distribution of _The Loyalist_, I should
+have applauded a remarkable piece of cynicism. But Malcolmson was in
+simple earnest.
+
+"Will you be able to get him?" I said. "The society which employs him
+may perhaps--"
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," said Malcolmson. "There can't be any
+objection. But if there is--I happen to be a member of the committee
+of the society. I'm one"--he sunk his voice modestly--"of the largest
+subscribers."
+
+I am inclined to forget sometimes that Malcolmson takes a leading part
+in Church affairs. At the last meeting of the General Synod of the
+Church of Ireland he said that the distribution of the Bible among the
+people of Ireland was the surest means of quenching the desire for
+Home Rule. Free copies of _The Loyalist_ for the people who already
+have Bibles and a force of artillery are, so to speak, his reserves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The 12th of July, was, of course, indicated by nature itself as a day
+in every way suitable for a great Unionist demonstration. Babberly and
+Lady Moyne were not the people to neglect an opportunity. They
+organized a demonstration. Then somebody--I think it must have been
+McNeice in the pages of _The Loyalist_--suggested that the thing
+should be called a review and not a demonstration. Malcolmson took the
+idea up warmly and forced Babberly's hand. English journalists of the
+Conservative kind--journalists of every kind swarmed over Belfast for
+a week beforehand--were delighted and trumpetted the thing as a
+review. Liberal journalists lost their tempers--the clever ones losing
+theirs most hopelessly--and abused the Orangemen in finely pointed
+paradoxical epigrams, which I dare say excited the admiration of
+sentimental Nationalists in Chelsea, but had not the smallest effect
+of any kind on the people of Belfast. They, just then, had no leisure
+time to spend in reading epigrams, and never at any time appreciated
+paradox. An English statesman of great ability announced to the world
+at large that a demonstration was one thing, and a review was quite a
+different thing. He went no further than to point out the fact that
+there was a distinction between the two things; but everybody
+understood that a demonstration was, in his opinion, quite harmless,
+whereas a review might end in getting somebody into trouble.
+
+The Nationalist leaders--"those fellows" as McNeice called
+them--issued a kind of manifesto. It was a document which breathed the
+spirit of moderate constitutionalism, and spoke the words of grave,
+serious patriotism. It made a strong appeal to the people of Belfast
+not to injure the cause of liberty, law and order by rash and
+ill-considered action. It said that no Nationalist wanted to see
+Babberly and Lord Moyne put into prison; but that most Nationalists
+had been made to sleep on plank beds for utterances much less
+seditious than this advertisement of a review. O'Donovan and McNeice
+tore this manifesto to pieces with jubilant scorn in the next number
+of _The Loyalist_.
+
+A Roman Catholic bishop issued a kind of pastoral to his flock urging
+them to remain at home on the 12th of July, and above all things not
+to attempt a counter demonstration in Belfast. It was a nice pastoral,
+very Christian in tone, but quite unnecessary. No sane Roman Catholic,
+unless he wanted a martyr's crown, would have dreamed of demonstrating
+anywhere north of the Boyne on that particular day.
+
+The newspapers were very interesting at this time, and I took in so
+many of them that I had not time to do anything except read them. I
+had not even time to read them all, but Marion used to go through the
+ones I could not read. With a view to writing an essay--to be
+published in calmer times--on "Different Points of View" we cut out
+and pasted into a book some of the finer phrases. We put them in
+parallel columns. "Truculent corner boys," for instance, faced "Grim,
+silent warriors." "Men in whom the spirit of the martial psalms still
+survives," stood over against "Ruffians whose sole idea of religion is
+to curse the Pope." "Sons of unconquerable colonists, men of our own
+race and blood," was balanced by "hooligans with a taste for rioting
+so long as rioting can be indulged in with no danger to their own
+skins." We were interrupted in this pleasant work by the arrival of a
+letter from Lady Moyne. She summoned me--invited would be quite the
+wrong word--to Castle Affey. I went, of course.
+
+Babberly was there. He and Lady Moyne were shut up in the library
+along with Lady Moyne's exhausted secretary. They were writing letters
+which she typed. I saw Moyne himself before I saw them.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said, "I'm very much afraid that some of our people
+are inclined to go too far. Malcolmson, for instance. I can't
+understand Malcolmson. After all the man's a gentleman."
+
+"But," I said, "Malcolmson wants to fight. He always said so."
+
+"Quite so, quite so. We all said so. I've said so myself; but it was
+always on the distinct understanding--"
+
+"That it would never come to that. I've heard Babberly say so."
+
+"But--damn it all, Kilmore!--it doesn't do to push things to these
+extremes. The whole business has been mismanaged. The people have got
+out of hand; and there's Malcolmson, a man who's dined at my table a
+score of times, actually egging them on. Now, what do you think we
+ought to do?"
+
+"The Government is threatening you, I suppose?"
+
+"It's growling," said Moyne. "Not that I care what the Government
+does to me. It can't do much. But I do not want her ladyship mixed up
+in anything unpleasant. It won't do, you know. People don't like it. I
+don't mind for myself, of course. But still it's very unpleasant. Men
+I know keep writing to me. You know the sort of thing I mean."
+
+I did. The members of the English aristocracy still preserve a curious
+sentiment which they call "loyalty." It is quite a different thing
+from the "loyalty" of Crossan, for instance, or McNeice. I fully
+understood that there were men in clubs in London who would look
+coldly at poor Moyne (men of such importance that their wives'
+treatment of Lady Moyne would matter even to her) if he were
+discovered to be heading an actual rising of Ulster Protestants. I
+promised to do what I could to get Moyne out of his difficulty.
+
+I found that Babberly and Lady Moyne had worked out a very feasible
+plan without any help from me.
+
+"That fellow Malcolmson has rushed things," said Babberly, "and
+there's an abominable rag called _The Loyalist_--"
+
+"By the way," I said, "I hear that the Nationalists at their last
+meeting in Dublin joined in singing 'God Save the King.'"
+
+I wanted to hear what Babberly thought of this. I was disappointed.
+The fact did not seem to interest him.
+
+"I don't know who edits the thing," he went on, still referring to
+_The Loyalist_.
+
+"Conroy is behind it," I said. "I happen to know that."
+
+"But surely," said Lady Moyne, "Mr. Conroy cannot want to encourage
+violence. He has just as much to lose as any of us--more than most of
+us--by any kind of outbreak of the democracy."
+
+"Lady Moyne has suggested to Malcolmson," said Babberly, "that he
+should agree to call this 12th of July business a March Past."
+
+"Is that any improvement on Review?" I asked.
+
+"Of course," said Lady Moyne, "the Government doesn't want to be
+driven to take steps against us. There would be horrible rioting
+afterwards if they struck Moyne's name off the Privy Council or did
+anything like that. It would be just as unpleasant for them as it
+would be for us, more so in fact."
+
+"Your idea," I said, "is to give the Government a loophole of escape."
+
+"Malcolmson has agreed all right," said Babberly, "and if only that
+wretched little paper--did you say Conroy was in it?"
+
+"I'll write to Mr. Conroy at once," said Lady Moyne. "I'm sure his
+connection with a paper of that kind is simply a mistake."
+
+She turned to the table and began to write her letter. The secretary
+in a distant corner of the room was still typing out a long
+pronouncement which Babberly intended to forward to _The Times_. A
+minute or two later Lady Moyne turned to me with one of her brightest
+smiles.
+
+"We want you to be with us on the 12th," she said.
+
+In England or Scotland a countess who gives an invitation for "the
+12th" is understood to mean the 12th of August, and her guest must be
+ready to shoot grouse. In North-Eastern Ulster "the 12th" meant the
+12th of July, and the party, in this case at all events, was likely to
+end in the shooting of policemen.
+
+"At the Review?" I said, "I mean to say the March Past? But I never go
+to political meetings. I'm no good at all as a speaker."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter about your speaking. We should love to hear
+you, of course. But if you'd really rather not--!"
+
+I think Lady Moyne was relieved when I assured her that I really would
+rather not.
+
+"But you'll be on the platform," she said. "We want you very much
+indeed."
+
+"I don't see," I said, "that I'll be the least use to you."
+
+"The point is," said Babberly, "that you're a Liberal."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't say that," said Lady Moyne. "That's only foolish
+gossip. I'm perfectly certain that Lord Kilmore never was--"
+
+"Never," I said. "But then I never was a Conservative either."
+
+"That's just it," said Lady Moyne. "Don't you see?"
+
+"The point is," said Babberly, "that if you are on the platform it
+will be quite clear--I mean to say as it's generally understood that
+you're inclined to Liberalism--"
+
+I began to understand a little. Last time I was at Castle Affey Lady
+Moyne made a great point of my associating myself with her party in
+opposing Home Rule. The fact that I was a Liberal (though not in any
+offensive sense of the word) gave weight to the opposition; and I
+might help to make the other Liberals (who were Liberals in the most
+offensive possible sense) take the threats of Babberly seriously. This
+time I was to sit on the platform side by side with Malcolmson and
+Cahoon, because, being a Liberal, or rather suspected of being
+inclined to Liberalism, my presence might induce the other Liberals,
+who were Liberals indeed, not to take Babberly's remarks at their face
+value. That is the drawback to the kind of detached position which I
+occupy. I am liable to be used for such various purposes that I get
+confused. However, I ought, no doubt, to be very thankful that I am
+useful in any way.
+
+"If you think, my dear Lady Moyne," I said, "that my presence at the
+March Past will be of the slightest service to you--"
+
+"It will," she said. "It will, indeed, of the very greatest service,
+and Moyne will be delighted."
+
+I was thinking of Moyne when I made the promise. I do not mean to say
+that I should have undertaken to perch myself like a fool on a wooden
+platform in the middle of a mob simply out of friendship for Moyne. I
+would not have done it unless Lady Moyne had looked at me with a
+particular expression in her eyes, unless I had hoped that she would
+give my hand a little squeeze of intimate friendship when I was
+bidding her good night. Still I did think of Moyne too, and was quite
+genuinely pleased that I was able to help him out of a difficult
+position.
+
+I found him later on roaming about among the cucumber frames in a
+desolate corner of the garden. A man who was digging potatoes directed
+me to that curious retreat.
+
+"It's all right, Moyne," I said. "We've got the whole thing settled
+most satisfactorily. You needn't be afraid of any disagreeable public
+scandal."
+
+"Thank God!" said Moyne, fervently. "How did you manage it?"
+
+"I can't take any credit for the arrangement," I said. "Lady Moyne and
+Babberly had it all cut and dried before they consulted me at all."
+
+"What are they going to do?"
+
+"Well, in the first place they've got Malcolmson and the rest of that
+lot to stop calling the thing a Review. It's to be officially known
+for the future as a March Past."
+
+"Who is to march past what?" said Moyne.
+
+"I forgot to ask that," I said, "but I rather fancy the audience is to
+march past you."
+
+"I don't see," said Moyne, "that there's much difference between
+calling it a March Past and calling it a Review. They're both military
+terms; and what I object to is being associated with--"
+
+"Lady Moyne seemed to think," I said, "that it made all the difference
+in the world; and that the Government would grasp at the olive
+branch."
+
+"I suppose it will be all right," said Moyne doubtfully.
+
+"The next part of the plan," I said, "is that I am to be on the
+platform."
+
+"You'll rather hate that, won't you, Kilmore?"
+
+"I shall detest it."
+
+"And I don't see what good it will do."
+
+"Nor do I; but Lady Moyne and Babberly both say that as I'm a
+Liberal--"
+
+"Surely to God you're not that!" said Moyne.
+
+"No, I'm not. But I'm suspected of being inclined that way. Therefore
+my being on the platform will prove to the world that you're not
+nearly so much of a Unionist as you've been trying to make out."
+
+"But I am," said Moyne.
+
+"I know that, of course; but Lady Moyne wants to persuade people that
+you're not, just for the present, till this fuss about the Review
+wears off."
+
+"I suppose it will be all right," said Moyne, again.
+
+It was all right. An announcement was made in all the leading papers
+that no one had ever intended to hold a Review on the 12th of July,
+but that the Unionist leaders had expressed their unalterable
+determination to have a March Past. The Liberal papers said that this
+abandonment of the principal item on their programme showed more
+distinctly than ever that the Ulster Unionists were merely swaggering
+cowards who retreated before the firm front showed by the Government
+in face of their arrogant claims. The Unionist papers said that
+Belfast by insisting on the essential thing while displaying a
+magnanimous disregard for the accidental nomenclature, had
+demonstrated once and for ever the impossibility of passing the Home
+Rule Bill.
+
+A few days later my name appeared amongst those of other gentlemen who
+intended to take seats on the platform in Belfast. The Unionist papers
+welcomed the entry into public life of a peer of my well-known
+intellectual powers and widely recognized moderation. The Liberal
+papers said that the emptiness of Ulster's opposition to Home Rule
+might be gauged by the fact that it had welcomed the support of a
+dilettante lordling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Our meeting on the 12th of July was held in the Botanic Gardens, and
+nobody marched past anything. A platform, not unlike the Grand Stand
+at a country race meeting, was built on the top of a long slope of
+grass. At the bottom of the slope was a level space, devoted at
+ordinary times to tennis-courts. Beyond that the ground sloped up
+again. The botanists who owned the gardens must, I imagine, have
+regretted that our meeting was a splendid success. I did not see their
+grounds afterwards, but there cannot possibly have been much grass
+left. The poor tennis-players must have been cut off from their game
+for the rest of the summer. The space in front of the platform was
+packed with men, and the air was heavy with the peculiarly pungent
+smell of orange peel. I cannot imagine how any one in the crowd
+managed to peel an orange. The men seemed to be so tightly packed as
+to make the smallest movement impossible. Possibly the oranges were
+deliberately peeled beforehand by the organizers of the meeting with a
+view to creating the proper atmosphere for the meeting. There
+certainly is a connection between the smell of oranges and political
+enthusiasm. I felt a wave of strong feeling come over me the moment I
+climbed to my seat; and as no one had at that time made a speech, it
+can only have been the oranges which affected me. I wish some
+philosopher would work out a theory of oranges. The blossom of the
+tree is used at weddings as a symbol of enduring love, perhaps as an
+aid to affection. The mature fruit pervades political meetings, which
+are all called together with a view to promoting strife and general
+ill feeling. What would happen if any one came to a meeting crowned
+with the blossoms? What would become of a bride if she were decked
+with the fruit? Is there any connection whatever between the fruit and
+the lily? It is certainly associated with political action of the most
+violent kind.
+
+Poor Moyne, who took the chair, wore one of the lilies, a very small
+one, in the lapel of his coat. Lady Moyne carried a large bouquet of
+them. Babberly wore one. So did Malcolmson. Our Dean would have worn
+one if he could; but it is impossible to fix a flower becomingly into
+the button-hole of a clerical coat. We began by singing a hymn. The
+Dean declaimed the first two lines of it, and then the bands took up
+the tune. Considering that there must have been at least forty bands
+present, all playing, I think we got through the hymn remarkably well.
+We certainly made an impressive amount of noise. I think it was
+Babberly who suggested the hymn. He had an idea that it would impress
+the English Nonconformists. I do not think it did; but, so far as our
+meeting was concerned, that did not matter. We were not singing
+it--any of us, except Babberly--with a view to impressing other
+people. We were singing with the feeling in our breasts, that we were
+actually marching to battle under the divine protection. The reporters
+of the Unionist papers made the most of the prevailing emotion. They
+sent off telegrams of the most flamboyant kind about our Puritan
+forefathers.
+
+Poor Moyne, who is a deeply religious man, did not sing the hymn. He
+has a theory that hymns and politics ought not to be mixed. I heard
+him arguing the position afterwards with the Dean who maintained that
+the question of Home Rule was not a political one. Political questions
+are those, so he argued, with regard to which there is a possibility
+of difference of opinion among honest men. But all honest men are
+opposed to Home Rule, which is therefore not a political question.
+
+My seat was in the very front of the platform, and when we had
+finished the hymn I noticed that the smell of perspiration was
+beginning to overpower the oranges. It is my misfortune to have an
+unusually acute sense of smell. No one afflicted with such an
+infirmity ought to take any part in the politics of a modern
+democratic state.
+
+Moyne introduced Babberly to the audience, and everybody cheered,
+although no one heard a word he said. Moyne has not a good voice at
+any time, and his objection to the hymn had made him nervous.
+
+Babberly was not nervous, and he has a very good voice. I imagine that
+at least half the audience heard what he said, and the other half knew
+he was saying the right things because the first half cheered him at
+frequent intervals.
+
+He began, of course, by saying that our forefathers bled and died for
+the cause which we were determined to support. This, so far as my
+forefathers and Moyne's are concerned, is horribly untrue. The
+ancestors of both of us commanded regiments of the volunteers who
+achieved the only Home Rule Parliament which ever sat in Ireland. My
+own great grandfather afterwards exchanged his right to legislate in
+Dublin for the peerage which I now enjoy. But Moyne and I were no
+doubt in a minority in that assembly. Babberly's forefathers may
+possibly have bled and died for the Union; but I do not think he can
+be sure about this. His father lived in Leeds, and nobody, not even
+Babberly himself, knows anything about his grandfather.
+
+When the audience had stopped cheering Babberly's forefathers, he went
+on to tell us that Belfast had the largest shipbuilding yard, the
+largest tobacco factory, the largest linen mill, and the second
+largest School of Art Needlework in the United Kingdom. These facts
+were treated by everybody as convincing reasons for the rejection of
+the Home Rule Bill, and a man, who was squeezed very tight against the
+platform just below me, cursed the Pope several times with singular
+vindictiveness.
+
+Babberly's next statement was that he defied the present Government to
+drive us out of the British Empire, which we had taken a great deal of
+trouble in times past to build up. This was, of course, a perfectly
+safe defiance to utter; for no one that I ever heard of had proposed
+to drive Babberly, or me, or Moyne out of the Empire.
+
+Then we got to the core of Babberly's speech. Some fool, it appeared,
+wanted to impeach Babberly, and Babberly said that he wanted to be
+impeached. I am a little hazy about the exact consequences of a
+successful impeachment. There has not been one for a long time; but I
+have an idea that the victim of the process is called before the House
+of Lords and beheaded. How far recent legislation may have curtailed
+the powers of the House of Lords in the matter I do not know; but
+even under our new constitution impeachment must remain a very serious
+matter. It was, we all felt, most heroic of Babberly to face this kind
+of undefined doom in the way he did.
+
+This was the last thing which Babberly said in his speech. He talked a
+great deal more, but he did not say anything else which it is possible
+to write down. I do not think I have ever heard any public speaker
+equal to Babberly in eloquence. He gave one incontestable proof of his
+power as an orator that day in Belfast. He must have spoken for very
+nearly an hour, and yet no one noticed that he was not saying anything
+for the greater part of the time. I did not notice it, and probably
+should never have found it out if I had not tried afterwards to write
+down what he said.
+
+After Babberly came the Dean. I suffer a great deal from the Dean's
+sermons on Sundays; but I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. He is not
+Babberly's rival in eloquence; but he has a knack of saying the kind
+of things which people listen to. He began by telling us what he would
+do if he found himself in command of the forces of Ulster at the
+beginning of a great war. "Lord Moyne," he said, "should organize my
+transport and commissariat."
+
+I cannot imagine any job at which Moyne would be more certain to fail
+totally. But the Dean justified himself.
+
+"I have stopped in Lord Moyne's house," he said, "and I know how well
+he manages the food supply of a large establishment. My friend Mr.
+Babberly should draw up the plan of campaign. His cautious intellect
+should devise the schemes for circumventing the wiles and stratagems
+of the enemy. He should map out the ambuscades into which the
+opposing troops should fall. You have listened to Mr. Babberly to-day.
+You will agree with me about his fitness for the work to which I
+should put him."
+
+I had listened to Babberly and I did not agree with the Dean. But I
+formed one of a very small minority. Moyne began to look uneasy. It
+seemed to me that he did not much like this military metaphor of the
+Dean's. I imagine that he would have been still more uncomfortable if
+he had been obliged to take an active part in a campaign planned by
+Babberly.
+
+"For the command of a forlorn hope," said the Dean, "for the leading
+of a desperate charge, for the midnight dash across the frontier--"
+
+Some one in the audience suggested the Boyne as the boundary of the
+frontier.
+
+"I should select Colonel Malcolmson."
+
+The audience highly approved of his choice. It seemed to me that the
+people did not quite grasp the fact that the Dean was speaking only
+metaphorically. Some thought of the same kind struck Moyne. He
+fidgetted uneasily, Babberly made an effort to stop the Dean, but that
+was impossible.
+
+"For settling the terms of peace with the beaten enemy--"
+
+"We'll beat them," said several people in the crowd.
+
+"I should call upon my good friend Lord Kilmore."
+
+This gave me a severe shock. For a moment I thought of standing up and
+refusing to act as military ambassador of the Ulster army. Then I
+recollected that if Moyne managed the transport and Babberly planned
+the campaign it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any
+beaten enemy. I kept my seat and watched Babberly whispering
+earnestly to Lady Moyne.
+
+Malcolmson followed the Dean. Moyne leaned over to me and expressed a
+hope that Malcolmson was not going to commit us to anything
+outrageous. From the look of Malcolmson's eye as he rose I judged that
+Moyne's hope was a vain one.
+
+"The Dean," said Malcolmson, "has spoken to you about the campaign. I
+ask you, are you prepared to undertake one?"
+
+"Good Heavens!" said Moyne.
+
+Babberly squeezed his way past Lady Moyne.
+
+"This won't do," he said to Moyne, "Malcolmson mustn't go too far."
+
+"The Dean," said Malcolmson, "has told us where to find our
+commanders. Looking round upon this vast assembly of determined men I
+can tell the Dean where to look for the rank and file of the army."
+
+"You'll have to stop him," said Babberly.
+
+I dare say the thought of the impeachment which was hanging over his
+head made him nervous.
+
+"I can't," said Lord Moyne.
+
+"I ask those present here," said Malcolmson, "who, when the supreme
+moment comes are prepared to step forward into the ranks, to hold up
+their hands and swear."
+
+Malcolmson did not make it quite clear what oaths we were to employ.
+But his audience appeared to understand him. Thousands of hands were
+held up and there was a kind of loud, fierce growl, which I took to be
+the swearing. Lord Moyne turned to me.
+
+"What am I to do, Kilmore?"
+
+"I don't know," I said.
+
+Malcolmson and the ten or twelve thousand men in front of him were
+still growling like a very angry thunderstorm at a distance. The thing
+was exceedingly impressive. Then some one started the hymn again. I
+never heard a hymn sung in such a way before. If the explosions of
+large guns could be tuned to the notes of an octave the effect of
+firing them off, fully loaded with cannon balls, would be very much
+the same. Malcolmson, beating time very slowly with his hand from the
+front of the platform, controlled this human artillery. Lady Moyne
+came to me and shouted in my ear. It was necessary to shout on account
+of the terrific noise made by Malcolmson's hymn.
+
+"As soon as he sits down you'll have to get up and say something."
+
+"I can't," I yelled. "I'm no good at all as a public speaker."
+
+The beginning of Lady Moyne's next shout I could not hear at all. Only
+the last words reached me.
+
+"--on account of your being a Liberal, you know."
+
+For the first time since I have known her I refused to do what Lady
+Moyne asked me. Very likely I should have given in at last and made an
+indescribable fool of myself; but before she succeeded in persuading
+me, Malcolmson's hymn stopped. Malcolmson himself, apparently
+satisfied with his performance, sat down.
+
+"What on earth am I to do?" said Moyne.
+
+"You can write to the papers, to-morrow," I said.
+
+"But now?" said Moyne, "now."
+
+"The only thing I can think of," I said, "is to start them singing
+'God Save the King.' That will commit them more or less--at least it
+may."
+
+Moyne rose to his feet and asked all the bands present to play "God
+Save the King." Babberly backed him and the bands struck up.
+
+Considering that the audience had just pledged themselves with
+inarticulate oaths and most terrifying psalmody to march in
+Malcolmson's army, their enthusiasm for the King was striking. They
+sang the National Anthem quite as whole-heartedly as they had sung the
+hymn. They are a very curious people, these fellow-countrymen of mine.
+
+Moyne cheered up a little when we got back to the club.
+
+"That was a capital idea of yours, Kilmore," he said. "I don't see how
+they can very well accuse us of being rebels after the way we sang the
+National Anthem."
+
+"I wonder if they'll impeach Babberly," I said.
+
+"Oh, that's only a Labour Member," said Moyne. "He doesn't really mean
+it. Those fellows never do."
+
+"Do you think our people really meant it to-day?" I said.
+
+"Meant what? God Save the King? Of course they did."
+
+"I was thinking of the hymn," I said.
+
+"I hope to God," said Moyne, "they didn't mean that."
+
+This is a curious view of hymn-singing for a religious man to take.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+I cannot make out why everybody thinks I am a Liberal. Lady Moyne was
+the first who mentioned to me this slur on my character. Babberly
+evidently believed it. Then, shortly after the Belfast meeting, I had
+a letter, marked "Private and Confidential," from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. Although Clithering is not a member of the Government, he
+is in close touch with several very important Ministers. Under
+ordinary circumstances I should not mention Clithering's name in
+telling the story of his letter. I know him to be a conscientious,
+scrupulously honourable man, and I should hate to give him pain. Under
+ordinary circumstances, that is, if things had gone in Ulster in the
+way things usually do go, Clithering would have felt it necessary to
+assert publicly in the papers that he did not write the letter. This
+would have been very disagreeable for him because he does not like
+telling lies; and the unpleasantness would certainly be aggravated by
+the fact that nobody would believe him. So many important and exciting
+things, however, have happened in Ulster since I got the letter that I
+do not think Clithering will now want to deny that he wrote it. I
+have, therefore, no hesitation in mentioning his name.
+
+This letter was written in the best politico-diplomatic style. I had
+to read it nine times before I could find out what it was about. When
+I did find out I made a translation of it into the English of ordinary
+life, so as to make quite sure of not acting beyond my instructions.
+I was first of all complimented on not being a party politician. This,
+coming from one of the Government wire-pullers, meant, of course, that
+I was in his opinion a strong Liberal. I have noticed for years that
+the only party politicians in these islands are the people who are
+active on the other side; and that party politics are the other side's
+programme. My correspondent evidently agreed with Lady Moyne and
+Babberly that as I was not a Conservative, I must be a supporter of
+the Government.
+
+Having made this quite unwarranted assumption, the letter went on to
+suggest that I should ask Conroy if he would like a peerage. The point
+was not made quite clear, but I gathered that Conroy could have any
+kind of title that he liked, up to an earldom. I know, of course, that
+peerages are given in exchange for subscriptions to party funds, by
+the party, whichever it may be, which receives the subscriptions. I
+did not know before that peerages were ever given with a view to
+inducing the happy recipient not to subscribe to the funds of the
+other party. But in Conroy's case this must have been the motive which
+lay behind the offer. He had certainly given Lady Moyne a handsome
+cheque. He was financing McNeice's little paper in the most liberal
+way. He had, I suspected, supplied Crossan with the motor car in which
+he went about the country tuning up the Orange Lodges. It seemed quite
+likely it was his money with which Rose's young man bought the gold
+brooch which had attracted Marion's attention. Conroy was undoubtedly
+subsidizing Ulster Unionism very generously. I suppose it must have
+been worth while to stop this flow of money. Hence the suggestion
+that Conroy might be given a peerage. This, at least, was the
+explanation of the letter which I adopted at the time. I have since
+had reason to suppose that the Government knew more than I did about
+the way Conroy was spending his money, and was nervous about something
+more important than Babberly's occasional demonstrations.
+
+My first impulse was to burn the letter and tell my correspondent that
+I was not a politician of any sort, and did not care for doing this
+kind of work. Then my curiosity got the better of my sense of honour.
+A man cannot, I think, be both an historian and a gentleman. It is an
+essential part of the character of a gentleman that he should dislike
+prying into other people's secrets. The business of the historian, on
+the other hand, is to rake about if necessary through dust-bins, until
+he finds out the reasons, generally disreputable, why things are done.
+A gentleman displays a dignified superiority to the vice of curiosity.
+For the historian curiosity is a virtue. I am, I find, more of an
+historian than a gentleman. I wanted very much to find out how Conroy
+would take the offer of a peerage. I also wanted to understand
+thoroughly why the offer was made.
+
+Some weeks were to pass before I learned the Government's real reason
+for wanting to detach Conroy from the Unionist cause; but luck
+favoured me in the matter of sounding Conroy himself. I had a letter
+from him in which he said that he was coming to our neighbourhood for
+a few days. I immediately asked him to stay with me.
+
+Then I tried, very foolishly, to make my nephew Godfrey feel
+uncomfortable.
+
+"Conroy," I said, "is coming here to stay with me next Tuesday."
+
+"How splendid!" said Godfrey. "I say, Excellency, you will ask me up
+to dinner every night he's here, won't you?"
+
+"I thought," I said, "that you wouldn't like to meet Conroy."
+
+"Of course I'd like to meet him. He might give me a job of some kind
+or get me one. A man like that with millions of money must have plenty
+of jobs to give away."
+
+When Godfrey speaks of a job he means a salary. Nearly everybody does.
+
+"If I can only get the chance of making myself agreeable to him," said
+Godfrey, "I'm sure I'll be able to get something out of him."
+
+"I'm surprised," I said, "at your wanting to meet him at all. After
+the post-card he wrote you--"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind that in the least," said Godfrey. "I never take
+offence."
+
+This is, indeed, one of Godfrey's chief vices. He never does take
+offence. It was Talleyrand, I think, who said that no man need ever
+get angry about anything said by a woman or a bishop. Godfrey improves
+on this philosophy. He never gets angry with any one except those whom
+he regards as his inferiors.
+
+"It would be a good opportunity," said Godfrey, "for your second
+menagerie party. We've only had one this year. I expect it would amuse
+Conroy."
+
+"I'm nearly sure it wouldn't."
+
+"We'll have to do something in the way of entertaining while he's
+here," said Godfrey. "I suppose you'll have the Moynes over to
+dinner?"
+
+I knew that the Moynes were in London, so I told Godfrey that he could
+write and ask them if he liked. I tried to be firm in my opposition to
+the garden-party, but Godfrey wore me down. It was fixed for
+Wednesday, and invitations were sent out. I discovered afterwards that
+Godfrey told his particular friends that they were to have the honour
+of meeting a real millionaire. In the case of the Pringles he went so
+far as to hint that Conroy was very likely to give him a lucrative
+post. On the strength of this expectation, Pringle, who is an easy man
+to deceive, allowed Godfrey to cash a cheque for £10.
+
+Conroy arrived on Sunday afternoon, travelling, as a millionaire
+should, in a motor car. Godfrey dined with us that night, and made
+himself as agreeable as he could. Conroy had, apparently, forgotten
+all about the post-card. I did not get a minute alone with my guest
+that night and so could do nothing about the peerage. I thought of
+approaching him on the subject next morning after breakfast, though
+that is not a good hour for delicate negotiations. But even if I had
+been willing to attack him then, I hardly had the chance. Godfrey was
+up with us at half-past ten. He wanted to take Conroy on a personally
+conducted tour round the objects of interest in the neighbourhood.
+Conroy said he wanted to go to the house of a man called Crossan who
+lived somewhere near us, and would be very glad if Godfrey would act
+as guide. It is a remarkable proof of Godfrey's great respect for
+millionaires that he consented to show Conroy the way to Crossan's
+house. They went off together, and I saw no more of Conroy till
+dinner-time.
+
+He deliberately avoided my garden-party, although Godfrey had
+explained to him the night before that my guests would be "quite the
+funniest lot of bounders to be found anywhere."
+
+The Pringles must have been disappointed at not meeting Conroy. Miss
+Pringle, whose name I found out was Tottie, looked quite pretty in a
+pink dress, and smiled almost as nicely as she did when Bob Power took
+her to gather strawberries. Mrs. Pringle asked Godfrey to dine with
+them that night, and Tottie looked at him out of the corner of her
+eyes so as to show him that she would be pleased if he accepted the
+invitation. Pringle himself joined in pressing Godfrey. I suppose he
+must really have believed in the salary which Godfrey expected to get
+from Conroy.
+
+Godfrey promised to dine with them. He explained his position to me
+afterwards.
+
+"I needn't tell you, Excellency," he said, "that I don't want to go
+there. I shall get a rotten bad dinner and Mrs. Pringle is a rank
+outsider."
+
+"Miss Pringle," I said, "seems a pleasant girl. She's certainly
+pretty."
+
+"Poor little Tottie!" said Godfrey. "That sort of girl isn't bad fun
+sometimes; but I wouldn't put up with boiled mutton just for the sake
+of a kiss or two from her. The fact is--"
+
+"Your banking account," I said.
+
+"That's it," said Godfrey. "Pringle's directors have been writing
+rather nasty letters lately. It's perfectly all right, of course, and
+I told him so; but all the same it's better to accept his invitation."
+
+Godfrey is the most unmitigated blackguard I've ever met.
+
+"I hardly see Tottie Pringle as the next Lady Kilmore," said Godfrey;
+"but, of course, that's the game."
+
+I do not believe it. Tottie Pringle--I do not for a moment believe
+that she ever allowed Godfrey to kiss her--does not look the kind of
+girl who--
+
+"You'll make my excuses to Conroy, won't you, Excellency? Tell him--"
+
+"What is the exact amount of the over-draft?" I said; "he'll probably
+want to know."
+
+"Better not say anything about that," said Godfrey. "Tell him I had a
+business engagement."
+
+Godfrey's necessity gave me my opportunity. I had Conroy all to myself
+after dinner, and I sounded him very cautiously about the title. The
+business turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. At
+first Conroy was singularly obtuse. He did not seem to understand what
+I was hinting at. There was really no excuse for him. Our surroundings
+were very well suited for delicate negotiations. I had given him a
+bottle of champagne at dinner. I had some excellent port on the table
+afterwards. My dining-room is a handsome apartment, a kind of large
+hall with a vaulted roof. The light of the candles on the table
+mingled in a pleasantly mysterious way with the twilight of the summer
+evening. The long windows lay wide open and a heavy scent of lilies
+crept into the room. The lamp on the sideboard behind me lit up the
+impressive portrait of my great grandfather in the uniform of a
+captain of volunteers, the Irish volunteers of 1780. Any one, I should
+have supposed, would have walked delicately among hints and
+suggestions in such an atmosphere, among such surroundings. But Conroy
+would not. I was forced at last to speak rather more plainly than I
+had intended to. Then Conroy turned on me.
+
+"What does your Government think I should want the darned thing for?"
+he said.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the usual reasons."
+
+"What are they?" said Conroy, "for I'm damned if I know."
+
+"Well," I said, "when you put it that way I don't know that I can
+exactly explain. But most people like it. I like it myself, although
+I'm pretty well used to it. I imagine it would be much nicer when you
+came to it quite fresh. If you happen to be going over to London, you
+know, it's rather pleasant to have the fellow who runs the
+sleeping-car bustling the other people out of the way and calling you
+'my lord.'"
+
+Conroy sat in grim silence.
+
+"There's more than that in it," I said. "That's only an example, quite
+a small example of the kind of thing I mean. But those little things
+count, you know. And, of course, the extra tip that the fellow expects
+in the morning wouldn't matter to you."
+
+Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and
+flurried.
+
+"There are other points, too," I went on. "For instance a quite pretty
+girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew Godfrey--at least
+he says she does--simply because he'll be Lord Kilmore when I'm dead.
+You've met my nephew Godfrey, so you'll realize that she can't
+possibly have any other motive."
+
+"What," said Conroy, "does your Government expect me to do in return
+for making me attractive to Tottie Pringle?"
+
+"It's not my Government," I said. "I'm not mixed up with it or
+responsible for it in any way."
+
+"I always understood," said Conroy, "that you are a Liberal."
+
+"Everybody understands that," I said, "and it's no use my
+contradicting it. As for what the Government wants you to do, I
+haven't been actually told; but I fancy you'd be expected to stop
+giving subscriptions to Lady Moyne."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all I can think of. But, of course, there may be other
+things."
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that your Government can't be quite fool
+enough to mind much about what Lady Moyne does with my money. The
+pennies she drops into the slot so as to make Babberly talk won't hurt
+them any."
+
+This was very much my own opinion. If I were a member of the
+government--I rather think I actually was, a few weeks later--Babberly
+would merely stimulate me.
+
+"You can tell your Government from me--" said Conroy.
+
+"It's not my Government."
+
+"Well tell _that_ Government from me, that when I want a title I'll
+put down the full market price. At present I'm not taking any."
+
+Next day Conroy went off with Crossan in his motor car. He did not
+come back. I got a telegram from him later in the afternoon asking me
+to forward his luggage to Belfast. I forget the excuse he made for
+treating me in this very free and easy way; but there was an excuse, I
+know, probably quite a long one, for the telegram filled three sheets
+of the paper which the post-office uses for these messages.
+
+Conroy's sudden departure was a bitter sorrow and disappointment to
+Godfrey. He came up to dinner that night with three new pearl studs in
+the front of his shirt.
+
+"What I can't understand," he said, "is why a man like Conroy should
+spend his time with your upper servants; people like Crossan, whom I
+shouldn't dream of shaking hands with."
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that he's not going to give you that job you
+hoped for."
+
+"He may," said Godfrey. "I think he liked me right enough. If only he
+could be got to believe that Power is robbing him right and left."
+
+"But is he?"
+
+"He's doing what practically comes to the same thing. Once Conroy
+finds out--and he will some day--I should think I'd have a middling
+good chance of getting his secretaryship. He must have a gentleman for
+that job, otherwise he'd never be able to get along at all. I don't
+suppose he knows how to do things a bit. He evidently doesn't know how
+to behave. Look at the way he's gone on with Crossan since he's been
+here. Now if I were his secretary--"
+
+Godfrey mumbled on. He evidently has hopes of ousting Bob Power. He
+may possibly succeed in doing so. Godfrey has all the cunning
+characteristic of the criminal lunatic.
+
+Three days later he got his chance of dealing with Bob Power. The
+_Finola_ anchored in our bay again and Bob Power was in command of
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Bob Power spent the afternoon with us. Strictly speaking, I ought to
+say he spent the afternoon with Marion. I only saw him at tea-time. He
+let me understand then that he would like to stay and dine with us. I
+felt that I ought to be vexed at the prospect of losing another quiet
+evening. Conroy had cost me two evenings. My visit to Castle Affey, my
+political March Past, and my expedition to Dublin had robbed me of
+nine others. I could ill afford to spare a twelfth to Bob Power. Yet I
+felt unreasonably pleased when he promised to dine with us. There is a
+certain flavour of the sea about Bob, a sense of boisterous good
+fellowship, a joyous irresponsibility, which would have been
+attractive to me at any time, and were singularly pleasant after my
+political experiences. I was not at all so well pleased when a note
+arrived from Godfrey in which he asked whether he too could dine with
+us.
+
+He arrived long before dinner, before I had gone upstairs to dress,
+and explained himself.
+
+"I heard," he said, "that Power was up here, so I thought I'd better
+come too."
+
+"How lucky it is," I said, "that Pringle didn't invite you to-night."
+
+"I shouldn't have gone if he had. I should have considered it my duty
+to come here. After all, Excellency, some one ought to look after
+Marion a bit."
+
+"For the matter of that," I said, "some one ought to look after Tottie
+Pringle."
+
+"You never can tell," said Godfrey, "what silly fancy a girl will take
+into her head, and that fellow Power is just the sort who might--"
+
+Godfrey nodded sagaciously. It has always been understood that Godfrey
+is to marry Marion at some future time. I have always understood this
+and, on personal grounds, dislike it very much; though I do not deny
+that the arrangement is convenient. My title is not a very ancient or
+particularly honourable one, but I do not like to think of its being
+dragged in the gutter by a pauper. If Godfrey married Marion he would
+have the use of her income. Godfrey has certainly understood this plan
+for the future. He may treat himself occasionally to the kisses of
+Tottie Pringle, but he is not the man to allow kissing to interfere
+with his prospect of earning a competence. Whether Marion understood
+her fate or not, I do not know. She always endured Godfrey with
+patience. I suppose that this condition of affairs gave Godfrey a
+certain right to nod sagaciously when he spoke of looking after
+Marion. But I resented both his tone and the things he said. I left
+him and went up to dress.
+
+Marion's behaviour during the evening fully justified Godfrey's fears,
+though I do not think that anything would have excused him for
+expressing them to me. She was amazingly cheerful during dinner, and
+in so good a temper, that she continued smiling at Godfrey even when
+he scowled at her. Bob Power was breezily agreeable, and I should have
+thoroughly enjoyed the stories he told us if I had not been conscious
+all the time that Godfrey was frowning at my right ear. He sat on
+that side of me and Bob Power on the other, so my ear was, most of the
+time, the nearest thing to my face that Godfrey could frown at.
+
+After dinner Bob and Marion behaved really badly; not to Godfrey, but
+to me. No one could behave badly to Godfrey because he always deserves
+worse than the worst that is done to him. But I am not a very
+objectionable person, and I have during the last twenty-two years
+shown a good deal of kindness to Marion. I do not think that she and
+Bob ought to have slipped out of the drawing-room window after singing
+one short song, and left me to be worried by Godfrey for the whole
+evening. Only one way of escape presented itself to me. I pretended to
+go to sleep. That stopped Godfrey talking after a time; but not until
+I had found it necessary to snore. I heard every word he said up to
+that point. I woke up with a very good imitation of a start when Bob
+and Marion came in again. That happened at ten o'clock, and Bob
+immediately said good night. Under ordinary circumstances Godfrey
+stays on till nearly eleven; but that night he went away five minutes
+after Bob left.
+
+Next morning there was trouble. It began with Marion's behaviour at
+breakfast. As a rule she is a young woman of placid and equable
+temper, one who is likely in the future to have a soothing effect on
+her husband. That morning she was very nearly hysterical. When we went
+into my study after breakfast she was quite incapable of work, and
+could not lay her hands on any of the papers which I particularly
+wanted. I was irritated at the moment, but I recognized afterwards
+that she had some excuse, and in any case my morning's work would have
+been interrupted.
+
+At half-past ten I got a note from Godfrey--written in pencil and
+almost illegible--in which he asked me to go down to see him at once.
+He said that he was in severe pain and for the time confined to bed.
+
+"You're sure," he said, "to have heard a garbled account of what
+happened, before you get this letter. I want to tell you the _facts_
+before I take further action."
+
+The word "facts" was underlined shakily. I had, of course, heard no
+account of anything which had happened. I handed the letter to Marion.
+
+"Do you know what this means?" I asked.
+
+Marion read it.
+
+"Rose told me this morning," she said, "that there had been some kind
+of a row last night. She said Godfrey was killed."
+
+"That isn't true at all events," I said. "He's still alive."
+
+"Of course I didn't believe her," said Marion.
+
+"But I think you ought to have told me at breakfast," I said. "I hate
+having these things sprung on me suddenly. At my time of life even
+good news ought to be broken to me gradually. Any sudden shock is bad
+for the heart."
+
+"I thought there might be no truth in the story at all," said Marion,
+"and you know, father, that you don't like being worried."
+
+I don't. But I am worried a great deal.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that I'd better go down and see him. He says
+he's in great pain, so he's not likely to be agreeable; but still I'd
+better go."
+
+"Do," said Marion; "and, of course, if there's anything I can do,
+anything I can send down to him--"
+
+"I don't expect he's as bad as all that," I said. "Men like Godfrey
+are never seriously hurt. But if he expresses a wish for chicken jelly
+I'll let you know at once."
+
+I started at once. I met Bob Power just outside my own gate. He was
+evidently a little embarrassed, but he spoke to me with the greatest
+frankness.
+
+"I'm extremely sorry, Lord Kilmore," he said, "but I am afraid I hurt
+your nephew last night."
+
+"Badly?"
+
+"Not very," said Bob. "Collar bone and a couple of ribs. I saw the
+doctor this morning."
+
+"Broken?"
+
+"Yes. It wasn't altogether my fault. I mean to say--"
+
+"I'm sure it was altogether Godfrey's," I said. "The thing which
+surprises me is that nobody ever did it before. Godfrey is nearly
+thirty, so for twenty years at least every man he has met must have
+been tempted to break his ribs. We must, in spite of what everybody
+says, be a Christian nation. If we were not--"
+
+"He would keep following me about," said Bob. "I told him several
+times to clear away and go home. But he wouldn't."
+
+"He has a fixed idea that you're engaged in smuggling."
+
+"Even if I was," said Bob, "it would be no business of his."
+
+"That's just why he mixes himself up in it. If it had been his
+business he wouldn't have touched it. There's nothing Godfrey hates
+more than doing anything he ought to do."
+
+"I'm awfully glad you take it that way," said Bob. "I was afraid--"
+
+"My dear fellow," I said, "I'm delighted. But you haven't told me yet
+exactly how it happened."
+
+"I was moving a packing-case," said Bob, "a rather large one--"
+
+He hesitated. I think he felt that the packing-case might require some
+explanation, especially as it was being moved at about eleven o'clock
+at night. I hastened to reassure him.
+
+"Quite a proper thing for you to be doing," I said, "and certainly no
+business of Godfrey's. Every one has a perfect right to move
+packing-cases about from place to place."
+
+"He told me he was going for the police, so--"
+
+"I don't think you need have taken any notice of that threat. The
+police know Godfrey quite well. They hate being worried just as much
+as I do."
+
+"So I knocked him down."
+
+"You must have hit him in several places at once," I said, "to have
+broken so many bones."
+
+"The fact is," said Bob, "that he got up again."
+
+"That's just the sort of thing he would do. Any man of ordinary good
+feeling would have known that when he was knocked down he was meant to
+stay down."
+
+"Then the two other men who were with me, young fellows out of the
+town, set on him."
+
+"Was one of them particularly freckly?" I asked.
+
+"I didn't notice. Why do you ask?"
+
+"If he was it would account for my daughter's maid getting hold of an
+inaccurate version of the story this morning. But it doesn't matter.
+Go on with what you were saying."
+
+"There isn't any more," said Bob. "They hammered him, and then we
+carried him home. That's all."
+
+"I am going down to see him now," I said. "He's thinking of taking
+further action."
+
+"Let him," said Bob. "Is Miss D'Aubigny at home?"
+
+"Yes, she is. If you're going up to see her--"
+
+"I would," said Bob, "if I thought she wouldn't be angry with me."
+
+"She's nervous," I said, "and excited; but she didn't seem angry."
+
+Just outside the town I met Crossan and, very much to my surprise,
+McNeice walking with him. Crossan handed me a letter. I put it into my
+pocket and greeted McNeice.
+
+"I did not know you were here," I said. "When did you come?"
+
+"Last night," said McNeice. "Crossan brought me on his motor."
+
+"Were you in time for the scrimmage?"
+
+"You'd maybe better read the letter I've given you, my lord," said
+Crossan.
+
+"If I'd been there," said McNeice, "your nephew would probably be dead
+now. In my opinion he ought to be."
+
+"The letter I've just given your lordship," said Crossan, "is an
+important one."
+
+"I'm sure it is," I said. "But I haven't time to read it now."
+
+"What's in it, my lord, is this. I'm resigning the management of your
+business here, and the sooner you're suited with a new man the
+better."
+
+"If my nephew Godfrey has been worrying you, Crossan," I said, "I'll
+take steps--"
+
+"It's not that, my lord. For all the harm his talk ever did me I'd
+stay on. But--"
+
+He looked at McNeice as if asking permission to say more.
+
+"Political business," said McNeice.
+
+"Of course," I said, "if it's a matter of politics, everything must
+give way to politics. But I'm very sorry to lose you, Crossan. My
+business affairs--"
+
+"You'll have no business affairs left, my lord, if the Home Rule Bill
+passes."
+
+"But you're going to stop it," I said.
+
+"We are," said Crossan.
+
+He certainly believed that he was. At the present moment he believes
+that he did stop it.
+
+I found Godfrey propped up in bed. His face had a curiously unbalanced
+appearance owing to the way in which one side of his jaw was swollen.
+Bob Power's original blow must have been a hard one. I noticed when he
+spoke that one of his eye teeth was broken off short. He began to pour
+out his complaint the moment I entered the room.
+
+"A murderous assault was made on me last night," he said. "After I
+left your house I walked down--"
+
+"Don't talk if it hurts you, Godfrey," I said.
+
+He was speaking in a muffled way which led me to think that the inside
+of his mouth must be nearly as much swollen as the outside.
+
+"That fellow Power had a band of ruffians with him. If he had fought
+fair I shouldn't have minded, but--"
+
+"What were you doing," I said, "to make him attack you? He must have
+had some reason."
+
+"I wasn't doing anything. I was simply looking on."
+
+"That may have been the most objectionable thing possible," I said. "I
+don't say that his violence was justified; but it may have been quite
+excusable if you insisted on looking on at something which he didn't
+want you to see."
+
+Godfrey actually tried to smile. He could not do so, of course, on
+account of the condition of his mouth, but I judged by the expression
+of his eyes that he was trying to. Godfrey's smiles are always either
+malicious or idiotic. This one, if it had come off, would have been
+malicious.
+
+"I saw all I wanted to," he said, "before they attacked me. In fact, I
+was just going for the police--"
+
+"I suppose you sent for the police this morning?" I said.
+
+"No, I didn't. I don't trust the police. I wouldn't trust the
+magistrates here, except you, of course, Excellency. What I'm going to
+do is write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"Good gracious, Godfrey! Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What
+interest can you expect him to take in your fights? If you are going
+to make a political matter of it at all, you'd far better try the
+Secretary of State for War. It's much more in his line."
+
+"But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the man who's responsible for
+the revenue, isn't he?"
+
+"You can't expect him to give you a pension simply because Power
+knocked out your teeth."
+
+"He'll stop Power smuggling," said Godfrey.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that it's no use my telling you that he was not
+smuggling?"
+
+"I saw him at it," said Godfrey, "and I'm going to write to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"What on earth do you expect to gain by that?" I asked.
+
+"He ought to be grateful to me for putting him on the track of the
+smuggling," said Godfrey. "I should think he'd want to do something
+for me afterwards. He might--"
+
+"Give you a job," I said.
+
+"Yes," said Godfrey. "I always heard that fellows in the Treasury got
+good salaries."
+
+I was greatly relieved when I left Godfrey. I expected that he would
+want to take some sort of legal proceedings against Bob Power which
+would have involved us all in a great deal of unpleasantness. I should
+not have been surprised if he had tried to blackmail Bob or Conroy, or
+both, and I should have disliked that very much. But his letter to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be merely foolish. In the first
+place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer would never see Godfrey's letter. It would be opened, I
+supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it
+and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the
+spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the
+waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever would happen.
+
+I was, I own, entirely wrong. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did see
+the letter. I take that for granted, because the Prime Minister saw
+it, and I cannot see how it could have got to him except through the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The spelling may have been as bad as
+Godfrey's spelling usually is, but the letter evidently gave a
+detailed account of what had happened, the kind of account which
+impresses people as being true. The letter was, in fact, the first
+direct evidence the Government got about what Conroy and McNeice and
+Bob were doing. I dare say there were suspicions abroad before. The
+offer of a peerage to Conroy showed that there was good reason to
+placate him. But it was Godfrey's absurd letter which first suggested
+to the minds of the Cabinet that Conroy was using his yacht, the
+_Finola_, for importing arms into Ulster. Even then I do not think
+that anybody in authority suspected how thoroughly Conroy and Bob were
+doing the work. They may have thought of a cargo of rifles, and a few
+thousand cartridges. The existence of the Ulster artillery was a
+surprise to them at the very moment when the guns first opened fire.
+
+So far from having no consequences at all, Godfrey's ridiculous letter
+actually precipitated the conflict which took place. I do not think
+that it made any difference to the result of the fighting. That would
+have been the same whether the fighting came a little sooner or a
+little later. But the letter and the action of the Government which
+followed it certainly disorganized Conroy's plans and hustled McNeice.
+
+I found McNeice in my study when I got home. I told him, by way of a
+joke, about the letter which Godfrey intended to write. To my surprise
+he did not treat it as a joke. I suppose he realized at once what the
+consequences of such a letter might be.
+
+"They ought to have put him past writing letters," he growled, "when
+they had him."
+
+Then, without even saying good-bye to me, he got up and left the room.
+In less than an hour he and Crossan were rushing off somewhere in
+their motor car. They may have gone to hold a consultation with
+Conroy. He was in Belfast at the time.
+
+I found Bob Power and Marion in the garden, but not, as I expected,
+eating gooseberries. They were sitting together on a seat opposite a
+small artificial pond in which I try to keep gold fish. When I came
+upon them they were sitting up straight, and both of them were gazing
+intently into the pond. This surprised me, because all the last
+consignment of gold fish had died, and there was nothing in the pond
+to look at.
+
+I told Bob about Godfrey and the letter to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. His reception of the news was even more disappointing than
+McNeice's was. He neither laughed, as I hoped, nor even scowled. In
+fact, if I had not spoken quite distinctly, I should have thought that
+he did not hear what I said.
+
+"Lord Kilmore," he said, "I think I ought to tell you at once--"
+
+Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face.
+
+"Father," she said, "Bob and I--"
+
+Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did
+more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion's hand and held it
+tight. I thought it better to try to help them out.
+
+"I don't know," I said, "whether I've guessed rightly--"
+
+"Of course you have, father," said Marion.
+
+"If not," I said, "it'll be very embarrassing for all of us when I
+tell you what my guess is."
+
+"Marion and I--" said Bob.
+
+"Have spent the morning," I said, "in finding out that you want to
+marry each other?"
+
+"Of course we have," said Marion.
+
+"Of course," said Bob.
+
+The discovery that they both wanted the same thing made them
+ridiculously happy. Marion kissed me with effusive ardour, putting her
+left arm tight round my neck, but still holding on to Bob with her
+right hand. Bob, after our first raptures had subsided a little,
+insisted on going down to Godfrey's lodgings, and apologizing for
+breaking his ribs. I told him that an apology delivered in that spirit
+would merely intensify Godfrey's wish to write to the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer. But nothing I said moved Bob in the least. He was so
+happy that he wanted to abase himself before some one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Babberly is in some ways a singularly unlucky man. A place for him,
+and that a high one, ought to have been quite secure in the next
+Unionist Cabinet. Now he will never hold office under any government,
+and yet no one can say that his collapse was in any way his own fault.
+
+On the very day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received
+Godfrey's letter, Babberly announced his intention of holding another
+Unionist demonstration in Belfast. He did not mean any harm by this.
+He intended nothing worse than another eloquent speech and expected
+nothing more serious than the usual cheers. He regards demonstrations
+very much as my nephew Godfrey does garden-parties. They are
+troublesome functions, requiring a good deal of labour and care for
+their successful accomplishment, but they are necessary. People expect
+something of the kind from time to time; and--if I do not give
+garden-parties, I should not, so Godfrey says, keep up my position in
+the county. If Babberly did not, so to speak, give demonstrations he
+would lose his position in the political world. Babberly's position
+is, of course, vastly more important than mine.
+
+Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the
+papers--perhaps I should say published a manifesto--urging the extreme
+importance of Babberly's demonstration. This was necessary because
+McNeice and O'Donovan, in _The Loyalist_, had lately adopted a
+sneering tone about demonstrations. And _The Loyalist_ was becoming an
+effective force in the guidance of Ulster opinion. Thanks to the
+exertions of Crossan, Malcolmson and some others the paper was very
+widely circulated and wherever it went it was read. Lady Moyne, I
+knew, disliked _The Loyalist_ and was uneasy about the tone of its
+articles. She felt it necessary to stimulate the popular taste for
+demonstrations, and wrote Moyne's manifesto for him. It was a very
+good manifesto, full of weighty words about the present crisis and the
+necessity of standing shoulder to shoulder against the iniquitous plot
+of the Government for the dismemberment of the Empire.
+
+Very much to my surprise, and I am sure to Lady Moyne's, _The
+Loyalist_ printed a strong article in support of the proposed
+demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering than its
+reference to Babberly and Lord Moyne; nothing better calculated to
+insure the success of the performance than the way in which it urged
+all Unionists to attend it. "Assemble in your Thousands" was the
+phrase used four times over in the course of the article. There was
+only one sentence in it which could cause any one the slightest
+uneasiness.
+
+"Previous demonstrations," so the article concluded, "have served
+their purpose as expressions of our unalterable convictions. This one
+must do something more. _It must convince the world that we mean what
+we say._"
+
+That, of course, was nothing more than Babberly had proclaimed a dozen
+times in far more eloquent language. Nor was the fact that McNeice
+printed the last sentence in italics particularly startling. Babberly
+had emphasized the same statement with all the violence possible. But,
+so tense was the public mind at this time, everybody was vaguely
+anxious and excited. We felt that McNeice attached more meaning to the
+words than Babberly did.
+
+A member of the Cabinet happened to be speaking two days later at a
+large public meeting in Croydon. He was supposed to be explaining the
+advantages of the new Insurance Act to the mistresses and servants of
+the smaller middle-class households. There were, I believe, very few
+people with sufficient faith in his power of apology to go to hear
+him; but, of course, there were plenty of newspaper reporters. The
+Cabinet Minister addressed them, and, ignoring for the time the
+grievances of the British house-and-parlourmaid, he announced that the
+Government was going to stand no nonsense from Ulster.
+
+"The leaders," he said, "of the unfortunate dupes who are to assemble
+next week in Belfast, must understand once for all that in a
+democratically governed country the will of the majority must prevail,
+and His Majesty's Government is fully determined to see that it does
+prevail, at any cost."
+
+This, again, was nothing more than the usual thing. Only the last
+three words conveyed anything in the nature of a threat, and many
+papers did not report the last three words. Babberly, I think, was
+quite justified in supposing that the Cabinet Minister was saying no
+more than, according to the rules of the game, he was bound to say;
+that he was, in fact, giving a garden-party of his own to keep up his
+position in the county. At all events Babberly replied to the
+Government's pronouncement with a defiance of the boldest possible
+kind. _The Loyalist_, in a special number, published in the middle of
+the week, patted Babberly on the back, and said that the men of Ulster
+would, if necessary, assert their right of public meeting with rifles
+in their hands.
+
+This was not going much further than Babberly himself had often gone
+in earlier stages of the controversy. It is true that he had always
+spoken of "arms" which is a vague word and might mean nothing worse
+than the familiar paving stones. _The Loyalist_ specified the kind of
+arms, mentioned rifles, which are very lethal weapons. Still, viewed
+from a reasonable standpoint, there was nothing very alarming in the
+word rifles.
+
+Two days later Moyne motored over to my house. He seemed greatly
+disturbed, so I took him into my study and gave him tea. While we were
+drinking it he told me what was the matter with him.
+
+"Look here, Kilmore," he said, "do you know anything about a rumour
+that's flying about?"
+
+"There are so many," I said.
+
+"About the importation of arms into this country."
+
+I had my suspicions, rather more than suspicions, for I had been
+thinking over the somewhat remarkable performances of Bob Power and
+the _Finola_. I did not, however, want to say anything definite until
+I knew how much information Moyne had. After all Bob Power had now
+arranged to be my son-in-law. I do not know what the law does to
+people who import arms into a peaceful country; but the penalty is
+sure to be severe, and I did not want Marion's wedding-day to be
+blighted by the arrest of the bridegroom.
+
+"They say," said Moyne, "that some of the cargoes have been landed
+here under your windows."
+
+"I can only assure you," I said, "that I have never in my life
+imported so much as a pocket pistol."
+
+"I had a long letter from Babberly this morning," said Moyne. "He had
+an interview with the Prime Minister yesterday. It appears that the
+Government has some information."
+
+"Why doesn't the Government act upon it then?"
+
+"They are acting. They want me and Babberly to come out and denounce
+this kind of thing, to discountenance definitely--"
+
+"That's all well enough," I said, "but I don't see why you and
+Babberly should be expected to get the Government out of a hole. In
+fact it's your business to keep them in any holes they fall into."
+
+"Under ordinary circumstances," said Moyne, "we shouldn't, of course,
+stir hand or foot. We'd let them stew in their own juice. And I may
+tell you that's the line Babberly thinks we ought to take. But I don't
+know. If there's any truth in these rumours, and there may be, you
+know, it seems to me that we are face to face with a very serious
+business. Party politics are all right, of course; and I'm just as
+keen as any man to turn out this wretched Government. They've done
+mischief enough, but--well, if there's any truth in what they say, it
+isn't exactly a question of ordinary politics, and I think that every
+loyal man ought to stand by--"
+
+"If there's any truth in the rumours--" I said.
+
+"The country's in a queer state," said Moyne. "I don't understand
+what's going on."
+
+"If the people have got rifles," I said, "they're not likely to give
+them up because you and Babberly tell them to."
+
+"Babberly says there's nothing in it," said Moyne, doubtfully, "and
+her ladyship agrees with him. She thinks it's simply a dodge of the
+Government to spike our guns."
+
+It is curious that Moyne cannot help talking about guns, even when
+he's afraid that somebody or other may really have one. He might,
+under the circumstances, have been expected to use some other
+metaphor. "Cook our goose," for instance, would have expressed his
+meaning quite well, and there would have been no suggestion of
+gunpowder about the words.
+
+"I don't see," I said, "how you can very well do anything when both
+Lady Moyne and Babberly are against you."
+
+"I can't--I can't, of course. And yet, don't you know, Kilmore, I
+don't know--"
+
+I quite appreciated Moyne's condition of mind. I myself did not know.
+I felt nearly certain that Bob Power had been importing arms in the
+_Finola_. I suspected that Crossan and others had been distributing
+them. And yet it seemed impossible to suppose that ordinary people,
+the men I lunched with in the club, like Malcolmson, the men who
+touched their hats to me on the road, like Rose's freckly-faced lover,
+the quiet-looking people whom I saw at railway stations, that those
+people actually meant to shoot off bullets out of guns with the
+intention of killing other people. Of course, long ago, this sort of
+killing was done, but then, long ago, men believed things which we do
+not believe now. Perhaps I ought to say which I do not believe now.
+Malcolmson may still believe in what he calls "civil and religious
+liberty." Crossan certainly applies his favourite epithet to the
+"Papishes." He may conceivably think that they would put him on a rack
+if they got the chance. If he believed that he might fight. And yet
+the absurdity of the thing prevents serious consideration.
+
+The fact is that our minds are so thoroughly attuned to the
+commonplace that we have lost the faculty of imaginative vision of
+unusual things. Commonplace men--I, for instance, or Babberly--can
+imagine a defeat of the Liberal Government or a Unionist victory at
+the General Election, because Liberal Governments have been defeated
+and Unionist victories have been won within our own memories. We
+cannot imagine that Malcolmson and Crossan and our large Dean would
+march out and kill people, because we have never known any one who did
+such things. Men with prophetic minds can contemplate such
+possibilities, because they have the power of launching themselves
+into the unseen. We cannot. This is the reason why cataclysms, things
+like the Flood recorded in the Book of Genesis, and the French
+Revolution, always come upon societies unprepared for them. The
+prophets foretell them, but the common man has not the amount of
+imagination which would make it possible for him to believe the
+prophets. "They eat and drink, marry, and are given in marriage,"
+until the day when the thing happens.
+
+Looking back now and considering, in the light of what actually
+happened, my own frame of mind while I was talking to Moyne, I can
+only suppose that it was my lack of imagination which prevented my
+realizing the meaning of what was going on around me.
+
+The next event which I find it necessary to chronicle is Conroy's
+visit to Germany. I heard about it from Marion. She got a letter
+almost every day from Bob Power, and it was understood that he was to
+pay us a short visit at the end of that week. He explained, much to
+Marion's disappointment and mine, that this visit must be postponed.
+
+"The chief," it was thus he wrote of Conroy, "has gone over to
+Germany. He's always going over to Germany. I fancy he must have
+property there. But it doesn't generally matter to me whether he goes
+or not. This time--worse luck--he has taken it into his head to have
+the yacht to meet him at Kiel. I have to go at once."
+
+At the moment I attached no importance whatever to Conroy's visit to
+Germany. Now I have come to think that he went there on a very serious
+business indeed. His immense financial interests not only kept him in
+touch with all the money markets of the world. They also gave him a
+knowledge of what was being done everywhere by the great manufacturers
+and the inventors. Moreover Conroy's immense wealth, when he chose to
+use it, enabled him to get things done for him very quietly. He could
+secure the delivery of goods which he ordered in unconventional ways,
+in unusual places. He could, for instance, by means of lavish
+expenditure and personal interviews, arrange to have guns put
+unobtrusively into innocent looking tramp steamers and transhipped
+from them in lonely places to the hold of the _Finola_. Whether the
+German Government had any idea of what was going on I do not know.
+Foreign governments are supposed to be well supplied with information
+about the manufacture and destination of munitions of war. The English
+Government, I am sure, had not up to the last moment any definite
+information. Its suspicions were of the very vaguest kind before the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer received Godfrey's letter.
+
+The Belfast demonstration--Babberly's defiance of the Government's
+warning--was fixed for the first Monday in September. On the 24th of
+August, ten days before the demonstration, _The Loyalist_ became a
+daily instead of a weekly paper. Its circulation increased
+immediately. It was on sale everywhere in the north of Ireland, and it
+was delivered with striking regularity in out of the way places in
+which it was almost impossible to get any other daily paper. It
+continued to press upon its readers the necessity of attending
+Babberly's demonstration in Belfast. It said, several times over, that
+the demonstration was to be one of armed men. Parliament was sitting
+late, debating wearily the amendments proposed by Unionists to the
+Home Rule Bill. A Nationalist member arrived at Westminster one day
+with a copy of _The Loyalist_ in his pocket. He called the attention
+of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the language used in one of the
+leading articles, and asked what steps were being taken to prevent a
+breach of the peace in Belfast on the first Monday in September.
+Before the Chief Secretary could answer Babberly burst in with another
+question.
+
+"Is it not a fact," he asked, "that the paper in question is edited by
+a notorious Nationalist, a physical force man, a declared rebel, one
+of the chosen associates of the honourable gentleman opposite?"
+
+The Chief Secretary replied that he had no knowledge of the political
+opinions of the editor in question further than as they obtained
+expression in his paper. He appeared to be a strong Unionist.
+
+Considering that O'Donovan had been in prison three times, and that
+papers edited by him had been twice suppressed by the Government, the
+Chief Secretary must have meant that he had no official knowledge of
+O'Donovan's opinions. The distinction between knowledge and official
+knowledge is one of the most valuable things in political life.
+
+Babberly displayed the greatest indignation at this answer to his
+question.
+
+"Is the fair fame of the men of Ulster," he asked, "to be traduced, is
+their unswerving loyalty to the Crown and Constitution to be
+impeached, on the strength of irresponsible scribblings emanating from
+a Dublin slum?"
+
+The office of _The Loyalist_ is in a slum. So far Babberly was well
+informed. He cannot have known that the "scribblings" were by the pen
+of an eminent fellow of Trinity College, or that the money which paid
+for printing and circulation was Conroy's.
+
+The Nationalist member pressed for a reply to his original question.
+He said that he desired nothing except that the Government should
+perform the elementary duty of preserving law and order.
+
+That particular Nationalist member had, in the days past, been put
+into prison with the utmost regularity whenever a government undertook
+to perform the elementary duty he now desired to see undertaken. And
+no government ever, in old times, undertook such work except when
+goaded to desperation by Babberly. The seething of a kid in its
+mother's milk is forbidden by the law of Moses, which shows that it
+must be a tempting thing to do. That Nationalist member felt the
+temptation strongly. He evidently had hopes of sacrificing Babberly on
+the altar of the twin gods so long worshipped by the Ulster members,
+incarcerating him in the sacred names of law and order. But the Chief
+Secretary did not see his way to make Babberly the hero of a state
+trial. He replied that the Government was fully alive to the duty of
+preserving order in Belfast, and refused to commit himself to any
+definite plan for dealing with Babberly.
+
+The newspapers made the most of the incident, and O'Donovan's record
+was scrutinized by both parties. A lively discussion ensued as to
+whether a "Hill-sider"--some one discovered that picturesque
+description of O'Donovan--could become a militant Unionist. The text
+from the prophet Jeremiah about the spots on the leopard was quoted
+several times with great effect.
+
+McNeice's name was not mentioned, nor was Conroy's. We may suppose
+that his connection with the University saved McNeice. Trinity College
+has, of late years, displayed such a capacity for vigorous
+self-defence, that the boldest politician hesitates to attack it or
+any one under its immediate protection. Conroy escaped because no one,
+not even an Irish member, cares to ride atilt against a millionaire.
+We respect little else in heaven or earth, but we do, all of us,
+respect money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+On the Wednesday before the day fixed for the Belfast demonstration, a
+meeting of the Ulster Unionist leaders was held in London. Moyne was
+at it. Lady Moyne, although the absurd conventions of our political
+life prevented her being present in person, was certainly an influence
+in the deliberations. She gave a dinner-party the night before in
+Moyne's town house. Babberly, of course, was at the dinner, and with
+him most of the small group of Ulster Members of Parliament. Three or
+four leading members of the Opposition, Englishmen who had spoken on
+Ulster platforms and were in full sympathy with the Ulster dislike of
+Home Rule, were also present. Cahoon was not. He travelled from
+Belfast during the night of the dinner-party and only reached London
+in time for the meeting of the Party next day. I do not know whether
+Cahoon was invited to the dinner or not. Malcolmson was invited. He
+told me so himself, but he did not accept the invitation. He said he
+had business in Belfast and he went to London with Cahoon. The Dean
+was at the dinner-party. His name appeared in the newspaper lists of
+guests next morning. McNeice was not there. Lady Moyne did not like
+McNeice, and, although he was a member of the "Ulster Defence
+Committee," he was never admitted to what might be called the social
+gatherings of the party.
+
+The newspapers, in their columns of fashionable intelligence, printed
+a full list of the guests at this dinner, and even noted the dresses
+worn by some of the chief ladies. It was described as a brilliant
+function, and Lady Moyne figured as "one of the most successful of our
+political hostesses." I have no doubt that she was successful in
+impressing her views on Babberly and the others. Whether she thought
+it worth while to spend time that night in talking to the Dean I do
+not know. Immediately under the account of the dinner-party there was
+a short paragraph which stated that Conroy, "the well-known
+millionaire yachtsman," had returned from a cruise in the Baltic Sea,
+and that the _Finola_ was lying off Bangor in Belfast Lough.
+
+In quite a different part of the papers there were comments and
+articles on the meeting of the Ulster leaders to be held that
+afternoon. The articles in Liberal papers oscillated between
+entreaties and threats. One of them, in a paper supposed to be more or
+less inspired by the Government, pleased me greatly. It began with a
+warm tribute to the loyalty which had always characterized the men of
+Ulster. Then it said that troops were being moved to Belfast in order
+to overcome a turbulent populace. It went on from that to argue that
+troops were entirely unnecessary, because Ulstermen, though pig-headed
+almost beyond belief in their opposition to Home Rule, would not
+hesitate for a moment when the choice was given them of obeying or
+defying the law. They would, of course, obey the law. But, so the
+article concluded, if they did not obey the law the resources of
+civilization were by no means exhausted.
+
+As no law had, up to that time, been made forbidding the holding of
+the Belfast demonstration, this article was perhaps premature in its
+attempt to impale Babberly and his friends on the horns of a dilemma.
+
+The Conservative papers assumed an air of calm confidence. One of
+them, the editor of which was in close touch with Babberly, said
+plainly that dear as the right of free speech was to the Unionist
+leaders they would cheerfully postpone the Belfast demonstration
+rather than run the smallest risk of causing a riot in the streets.
+Political principles, it is said, were sacred things, but the life of
+the humblest citizen was far more sacred than any principle, and the
+world could confidently rely on Babberly's being guided in his
+momentous decision by considerations of the loftiest patriotism.
+
+I have no doubt that Babberly fully intended to do as that paper said
+he would do. I feel certain that the informal consultation of the
+politicians at Lady Moyne's dinner-party had ended in a decision to
+postpone the demonstration. But things had passed beyond the control
+of Babberly and Lady Moyne. No newspaper was able to give any report
+of the proceedings of the meeting held that afternoon. But Malcolmson,
+Cahoon and McNeice were all present, and the Dean, having escaped the
+overpowering atmosphere of Moyne House, was able to express his
+opinions freely and forcibly. On the other hand Lady Moyne was not
+there, and Moyne, when it comes to persuading men, is a very poor
+substitute for her. The English Unionists could not be there, so the
+weight of their moderation was not felt. The meeting broke up without
+reaching any decision at all; and the Belfast demonstration remained
+on the list of fixtures for the next week.
+
+Sir Samuel Clithering, originally a manufacturer of hosiery in the
+midlands, was at this time acting regularly as an official ambassador
+of the Cabinet. The fact that he was a leading Nonconformist was, I
+fancy, supposed to commend him in some obscure way to the Ulster
+party. He spent the evening after the meeting in flying about in his
+motor between the House of Commons where Babberly was proposing
+amendments to the Bill, Moyne House where Lady Moyne and her secretary
+sat over her typewriter, a military club in St. James' Street where
+Malcolmson sat smoking cigars, and a small hotel in the Strand where
+McNeice and Cahoon were stopping. The Dean had left London for Belfast
+immediately after the meeting. I have no doubt that Sir Samuel
+Clithering did his best; but diplomacy applied to men like McNeice and
+Malcolmson is about as useful as children's sand dykes are in checking
+the advance of flowing tides.
+
+It is a source of regret to me that my account of what happened in
+London is meagre and disjointed. I was not there myself and events
+became so much more exciting afterwards that nobody has any very clear
+recollection of the course of these preliminary negotiations.
+
+My own personal narrative begins again two days after the London
+meeting, that is to say on the Friday before the Belfast
+demonstration.
+
+Godfrey came up to see me at eleven o'clock with his arm in a sling.
+
+"Excellency," he said, "the Dean has just hoisted a large flag on the
+tower of the church. I'm sure you don't approve of that."
+
+It is, I hope, unnecessary to say that Godfrey is at feud with the
+Dean. The Dean is a straightforward and honourable man. He and Godfrey
+live in the same town. A quarrel between them was therefore
+inevitable.
+
+As a matter of fact I do not approve of the hoisting of flags on the
+church tower. In Ireland we only hoist flags with a view to irritating
+our enemies, and--I am not an expert in Christian theology but it
+seems to me that church towers are not the most suitable places for
+flaunting defiances. The Dean and I argued the matter out years ago
+and arrived at a working compromise. I agreed to make no protest
+against flags on the 12th of July. The Dean promised not to hoist them
+on any other day. This is fairly satisfactory to the Dean because he
+can exult over his foes on the day of the year on which it is most of
+all desirable to do so. It is fairly satisfactory to me because on
+three hundred and sixty-four days out of every year the church
+remains, in outward appearance at least, a house of prayer, and I am
+not vexed by having to regard it as a den of politicians. That is as
+much as can be expected of any compromise, and I was always quite
+loyal to my share of the bargain. The Dean, it now appeared, was not;
+and Godfrey saw his chance of stirring up strife.
+
+"I don't think," I said, "the Dean can have anything to do with the
+flag. He is in London."
+
+"He came back yesterday," said Godfrey, "and the flag he has hoisted
+is a large Union Jack."
+
+Now the Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other
+flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without
+giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses
+the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool flew a
+Union Jack out of the window of a Dublin house underneath which the
+Irish leader happened at the moment to be proclaiming his loyalty to
+the Empire and his ungovernable love for the English people. The fool
+who hoisted the flag was afterwards very properly denounced for having
+gone about to insult the Irish nation. The Dean might, I think, have
+set floating a banner with three Orange lilies emblazoned upon it like
+the fleur-de-lys of ancient France. No one's feelings would have been
+much hurt and no one's enthusiasm unusually stirred. But it is
+characteristic of the Dean that when he does a thing at all he does it
+thoroughly.
+
+"Just come and look at it," said Godfrey. "It's enormous."
+
+We went into the library, from the windows of which a clear view can
+be obtained of the town and the church which stands above it. There
+certainly was a flag flying from the church tower. I took a pair of
+field-glasses and satisfied myself that it was the Union Jack.
+
+"Would you like me to speak to the Dean about it?" said Godfrey.
+
+"Certainly not," I said. "Any interference on your part would
+merely--and these are rather exciting times. The Dean is entitled, I
+think, to a little license. I don't suppose he means to keep it there
+permanently."
+
+Then, borne to us by a gentle breeze across the bay, came the sound of
+the church bells. We have a fine peal of bells in our church,
+presented to the parish by my father. They are seldom properly rung,
+but when they are--on Christmas Day, at Easter and on the 12th of
+July--the effect is very good.
+
+"Surely," I said, "the Dean can't be having a Harvest Thanksgiving
+Service yet? It's not nearly time."
+
+Then I noticed that instead of one of the regular chimes the bells
+were playing a hymn tune. It was, as I might have guessed, the tune
+to which "O God, our help in ages past" is sung in Ireland. The hymn,
+since Babberly's first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of
+battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants
+that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn. Elsewhere, in
+England, in Scotland, in the United States and the Colonies this
+metrical version of the 90th Psalm is sung to a fine simple tune
+called St. Ann. But we are not and never have been as other men are.
+Without a quiver of our nerves we run atilt at the most universally
+accepted traditions. The very fact that every one else who uses the
+hymn sings it to the tune called St. Ann would incline us to find some
+other tune if such a thing were obtainable. We found one which
+musicians, recognizing that we had some right to claim it as ours,
+called "Irish" or "Dublin." This tune emerged suddenly from nowhere in
+response to no particular demand in the middle of the eighteenth
+century. It is anonymous, but it was at once wedded to the words of
+that particular hymn, and we have used it ever since. It is difficult
+to give an opinion on the comparative merits of two hymn tunes, and I
+hesitate to say that ours is a finer one than that used by the rest of
+the English-speaking world. I am, however, certain that there is in
+our tune an unmistakable suggestion of majestic confidence in an
+eternal righteousness, and that it very well expresses the feeling
+with which we sing the hymn at political demonstrations and elsewhere.
+It came to me that day across the waters of the bay, hammered slowly
+out by the swinging bells, with a tremendous sense of energy. The
+English St. Ann seemed lilty and almost flippant in comparison.
+
+I raised my glasses again and took another look at the Union Jack,
+blown out from its flag-post and displaying plainly its tangled
+crosses. Then I noticed that men were entering the churchyard singly,
+in pairs and in little groups of three and four.
+
+"The Dean," I said, "must have some sort of service in church to-day.
+If it isn't the Harvest Thanksgiving it must be an anniversary of
+something. What happened at this time of year, Godfrey? I can't
+remember anything."
+
+I still stared through my glasses. I was struck by the unusual fact
+that only men were going into the church. Then, quite suddenly, I saw
+that every man was carrying a gun. I laid down my glasses and turned
+to Godfrey.
+
+"I wish," I said, "that you'd go down to the town--not to the church,
+mind, Godfrey, but into the town, and ask somebody--ask the police
+sergeant at the barrack what is going on in the church."
+
+Godfrey is always at his very best when he has to find out something.
+He would have made almost an ideal spy. If any one is ever wanted by
+the nation for the more disagreeable part of secret service work I can
+confidently recommend Godfrey.
+
+Half an hour later he returned to me hot and breathless.
+
+"The police sergeant told me, Excellency, that the Dean's going to
+march all the Orangemen and a lot of other men along with them to
+Belfast for the Unionist demonstration. They are having service in the
+church first and they've all got rifles."
+
+I have all my life steadily objected to politics being mixed with
+religion. I hold most strongly that the Church ought not to be
+dominated by politicians. The Church is degraded and religion is
+brought into contempt when they are used by party leaders. But--the
+bells had ceased ringing. The hymn was now, no doubt, being sung by
+the men within. It occurred to me suddenly that on this occasion it
+was not the politicians who were taking possession of religion, but
+religion which was asserting its right to dominate politics. This is
+plainly quite a different matter. I can even imagine that politics
+might be improved if religion asserted itself a little more frequently
+than it does. I still maintain that it is only right and fair to keep
+politics out of the Church. I am not at all sure that it is right to
+keep the Church out of politics.
+
+"I told the sergeant," said Godfrey, "that he had better go and stop
+them at once."
+
+"Oh, did you?" I said. "Do you know, Godfrey, that's just the kind of
+suggestion I'd expect you to make under the circumstances."
+
+"Thanks awfully, Excellency," said Godfrey. "I'm awfully glad you're
+pleased."
+
+There are besides the sergeant three constables in our police barrack.
+They are armed as a rule with short round sticks. On very important
+occasions they carry an inferior kind of firearm called a carbine.
+There were, I guessed about three hundred men in the church, and they
+were armed with modern rifles. Godfrey's faith in the inherent majesty
+of the law was extremely touching.
+
+"Did he go?" I asked.
+
+"I don't think he intends to," said Godfrey, "but he did not give me a
+decided answer."
+
+Our police sergeant is a man of sense.
+
+"Did you say," I asked, "that they're going to march to Belfast?"
+
+"That's what the sergeant told me," said Godfrey.
+
+"Actually walk the whole way?"
+
+Belfast is a good many miles away from us. It would, I suppose, take a
+quick walker the better part of two days to accomplish the journey.
+
+"He said 'march,'" said Godfrey. "I suppose he meant to walk."
+
+This is, as we are constantly reminded, the twentieth century. I
+should have supposed that any one who wanted to get from this place to
+Belfast would have gone in a train. Our nearest railway station is
+some way off, but one might walk to it in an hour and a half. Once
+there, the journey to Belfast can be accomplished in another two
+hours. It seems rather absurd to spend two days over it, but then the
+whole thing is rather absurd. The rifles are absurd. The gathering of
+three hundred men into a church to indulge in a kind of grace before
+meat as preparation for a speech from Babberly is rather absurd. To
+set a peal of bells playing--but I am not quite sure about the hymn
+tune. It did not sound to me absurd as it came across the bay. I am, I
+trust, a reasonable man, not peculiarly liable to be swept off my feet
+by waves of emotion; but there was something in the sound of that hymn
+tune which prevented me from counting it, along with our other
+performances, as an absurdity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The Dean and his men did actually march to Belfast. I saw them there
+two days later. I also saw them start, ranged in very fair order with
+the Dean at their head. The most surprising thing about their march
+was that they had no band. There are at least two bands in the town. I
+subscribe to both of them regularly and have occasionally given a
+donation to a third which enjoys an intermittent existence, springing
+into sudden activity for a week or two and then disappearing for
+months. I asked the police sergeant, who is a South of Ireland man and
+very acute of mind, why none of the bands accompanied the army. The
+explanation he gave me was interesting and suggestive.
+
+"There isn't as much as a boy in the district," he said, "who'd
+content himself with a drum when he might have the handling of a
+rifle."
+
+And yet an excessive fondness for drums has been reckoned--by English
+politicians--one of the failings of the Ulster man.
+
+I went to Belfast next morning quite unexpectedly. No peal of bells
+heartened me for my start, partly because all the bell-ringers and
+nearly all the able-bodied members of the church in the parish had
+marched forth with the Dean. Partly also, I suppose, because I did not
+travel in a heroic way. I am much too old to undertake a two-days'
+walking tour, so I went by train. Godfrey saw me off. I owed this
+attention, I am sure, to the fact that Marion was with me. She told
+Godfrey that she was going to marry Bob Power, but Godfrey did not on
+that account cease to regard her as his property. He had hopes, I
+fancy, that Bob Power would be killed in some fight with a Custom
+House officer. Marion, on the other hand, was vaguely afraid that
+either Bob or I would get injured while rioting in Belfast. That was
+her reason for going with me.
+
+I went because I received on Friday evening a very urgent letter from
+Lady Moyne. She and Lord Moyne had just arrived in Belfast, and her
+letter was sent to me by a special messenger on a motor bicycle. She
+wished me to attend an extraordinary meeting of the "Ulster Defence
+Committee" which, in defiance of our strong sabbatarian feeling, was
+to be held on Sunday afternoon.
+
+"We elected you a member of the committee at a meeting held yesterday
+in London," she wrote, "so you have a perfect right to be present and
+to vote."
+
+That meeting must have been held after McNeice, Malcolmson and Cahoon
+returned to Ireland. They regard me as a Laodicean in the matter of
+Home Rule, and would never have consented to my sitting on a committee
+which controlled, or at all events was supposed to control, the
+actions of the Ulster leaders.
+
+"It's most important, dear Lord Kilmore," the letter went on, "that
+you should be present on Sunday. Your well-known moderation will have
+a most steadying influence, and if it should come to a matter of
+voting, your vote may be absolutely necessary."
+
+After getting a letter of that kind I could not well refuse to go to
+Belfast. Even without the letter I should, I think, have gone. I was
+naturally anxious to see what was going to happen.
+
+I spent my time in the train reading several different accounts of an
+important Nationalist meeting held the day before in a village in
+County Clare, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten. Three
+of the chief Nationalist orators were there, men quite equal to
+Babberly in their mastery of the art of public speaking. I read all
+their speeches; but that was not really necessary. None of them said
+anything which the other two did not say, and none of them left out
+anything which the other two had said.
+
+They all began by declaring that under Home Rule all Irishmen should
+receive equal consideration and be treated with equal respect. They
+all looked forward to the day when they would be walking about the
+premises at present occupied by the Bank of Ireland in Dublin with
+their arms round Babberly's neck. The dearest wish of their hearts--so
+they all said, and the people of County Clare cheered heartily--was to
+unite with Lord Moyne, Babberly, Malcolmson and even the Dean in the
+work of regenerating holy Ireland. Any little differences of religious
+creed which might exist would be entirely forgotten as soon as the
+Home Rule Bill was safely passed. They then went on to say that the
+Belfast people, and the people of County Antrim and County Down
+generally, were enthusiastically in favour of Home Rule. The fact that
+they elected Unionist members of Parliament and held Unionist
+demonstrations was accounted for by the existence of a handful of
+rack-renting landlords, a few sweating capitalists and some clergymen
+whose churches were empty because the people were tired of hearing
+them curse the Pope.
+
+Poor Moyne has sold every acre of his property and the Dean's only
+difficulty with the majority of his large congregation is that he does
+not curse the Pope often enough to please them. Cahoon, I am told,
+only sweats in the old-fashioned intransitive sense of the word. He is
+frequently bathed in perspiration himself. I never heard of his
+insisting on his workmen getting any hotter than was natural and
+necessary. But these criticisms are beside the mark. No one supposes
+that a political orator means to tell the truth when he is making a
+speech. Politics could not be carried on if he did. What the public
+expects and generally insists on is that the inevitable lies should
+have their loins girt about with a specious appearance of
+truthfulness. Every speaker must offer distinct and convincing proofs
+that his statements are strictly accurate reflections of fact. The
+best and simplest way of doing this is by means of bold challenge. The
+speaker offers to deposit a large sum of money with the local mayor to
+be paid over to a deserving charity, if any opponent of the speaker
+can, to the satisfaction of twelve honourable men, generally named,
+disprove some quite irrelevant truism, or can prove to the
+satisfaction of the same twelve men the falsity of some universally
+accepted platitude. This method is very popular with orators, and
+invariably carries conviction to their audiences.
+
+The Nationalist members in County Clare broke away into a variant of
+the familiar plan. They challenged the Government.
+
+"Let the Government," they said, all three of them, "proclaim the
+meeting to be held in Belfast on Monday next, and allow the public to
+watch with contempt the deflation of the wind-distended bladder of
+Ulster opposition to Home Rule. We venture to say that the little
+group of selfish wire-pullers at whose bidding the meeting has been
+summoned, will sneak away before the batons of half a dozen policemen,
+and their followers will be found to be non-existent."
+
+The Government, apparently, believed the Nationalist orators, or half
+believed them. Sir Samuel Clithering was sent over to Belfast, to
+report, confidentially, on the temper of the people. He must have sent
+off his despatch before the Dean's army marched in, before any of the
+armies then converging on the city arrived, before the Belfast people
+had got out their rifles. The Government in the most solemn and
+impressive manner, proclaimed the meeting. That was the news with
+which we were greeted when our train drew up at the platform in
+Belfast.
+
+The proclamation of meeting is one of the regular resources of
+governments when Irish affairs get into a particularly annoying
+tangle. There have been during my time hundreds of meetings proclaimed
+in different parts of the country. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief
+Secretary never get any thanks for their action. The people who want
+to hold the meeting always accuse the Government of violating the
+right of free speech and substituting a military tyranny for the Magna
+Charta. The other people who do not want the meeting to be held always
+say that the Government ought to have proclaimed it much sooner than
+it did, and ought to have imprisoned, perhaps beheaded, the men who
+intended to speak at the meeting.
+
+Bob Power met us on the platform, which was horribly crowded, and
+immediately conducted Marion to a motor car which he had in waiting
+outside the station. Then he came back to me and we went together in
+search of Marion's luggage. It was while we were pushing our way
+through the crowd that he told me the great news. I said that the
+failure of the demonstration would be a disappointment to the Dean and
+his riflemen who would have to walk all the way home again without
+hearing Babberly's speech.
+
+"I'm not so sure about that," said Bob. "We may have the meeting in
+spite of their teeth."
+
+"You can't possibly," I said, "hold a meeting when--dear me! Who are
+those?"
+
+There was a crowd round the luggage van where we were trying to
+discover Marion's trunk. An unmannerly porter shoved me back, and I
+bumped into a man who had something hard and knobby in his hand. I
+looked round. He was a soldier in the regular khaki uniform with a
+rifle in his hand. The bayonet was fixed. I felt deeply thankful that
+it was pointing upwards and not in a horizontal direction when the
+porter charged me. It might quite easily have gone through my back.
+This man appeared to be a kind of outpost sentry. Behind him, all
+similarly armed, were twenty or thirty more men drawn up with their
+backs to the wall of the station. A youth, who looked bored and
+disgusted, was in command of them and stood at the end of the line.
+His sword struck me as being far too big for him.
+
+"Who on earth are those?" I said.
+
+"Those," said Bob, "are the troops who are overawing us. Some of them.
+There are lots more. You'll see them at every street corner as we go
+along. By jove! I believe that's Nosey Henderson in command of this
+detachment. Excuse me one moment, Lord Kilmore. Henderson was with me
+at Harrow. I'll just shake hands with him."
+
+He turned to the young officer as he spoke.
+
+"Hullo Nosey," he said, "I didn't know you were in these parts."
+
+"Ordered up from the Curragh," said Henderson. "Damned nuisance this
+sort of police duty. We oughtn't to be asked to do it."
+
+"Your particular job," said Bob, "is to overawe the railway porters, I
+suppose."
+
+"Been here since nine o'clock this morning," said Henderson, "and
+haven't had a blessed thing to eat except two water biscuits. What's
+the row all about? That's what I can't make out."
+
+"Oh! It's quite simple," said Bob. "Our side wants to hold a
+meeting--"
+
+"You are on a side then, are you?"
+
+"Of course I am," said Bob. "I'm in command of a company of
+volunteers. We don't run to khaki uniforms and brass buttons, but
+we've got guns all right."
+
+"I say," said Henderson, "tell me this now. Any chance of a scrap?
+Real fighting, you know? I've been asking all sorts of fellows, and
+nobody seems to be able to say for certain."
+
+"We shan't begin it," said Bob; "but, of course, if you get prodding
+at us with those spikes you have at the end of your guns--"
+
+"There are a lot of fellows in this town that would be all the better
+of being prodded. Every porter that walks along the platform spits
+when he passes us in a damned offensive way. You would think they
+were looking for trouble."
+
+The crowd round the luggage van cleared away a little and we found
+Marion's trunk. Bob handed it over to a porter and we joined Marion in
+the motor car.
+
+The scene outside the station was striking. A considerable body of
+dragoons, some mounted, some on foot beside their horses, were grouped
+together near the great gate which led into the railway company's
+yard. Their accoutrements and the bridles of their horses jangled at
+every movement in a way very suggestive of military ardour. The
+trappings of horse soldiers are evidently made as noisy as possible.
+Perhaps with the idea of keeping up the spirits of the men. Some
+Highlanders, complete in their kilts, stood opposite the dragoons at
+the other end of the yard. A sergeant was shouting explosive
+monosyllables at them in order to make them turn to the left or to the
+right as he thought desirable. Behind them were some other soldiers,
+Englishmen I presume, who wore ordinary trousers. They were sitting on
+a flight of stone steps eating chunks of dry bread. Their rifles were
+neatly stacked behind them. Round the motor car were about thirty men
+whom I hesitate to call civilians, because they had rifles in their
+hands; but who were certainly not real soldiers, for they had no
+uniforms. They looked to me like young farmers.
+
+"My fellows," said Bob, pointing to these men. "Pretty tidy looking
+lot, aren't they? I brought them along as a sort of guard of honour
+for Marion. They're not really the least necessary; but I thought you
+and she might be pleased to see them."
+
+Here and there, scattered among the military and Bob's irregular
+troops, were black uniformed policemen, rosy-faced young men, fresh
+from a healthy life among the cattle ranches of Roscommon, drafted to
+their own immense bewilderment into this strange city of Belfast,
+where no one regarded them with any reverence, or treated them with
+the smallest respect. The motor car started, creeping at a walking
+pace through the mingled crowd of armed men who thronged the entrance
+to the station. Our guard of honour, some of them smoking, some
+stopping for a moment to exchange greetings with acquaintance, kept up
+with us pretty well. Then, as we got clear of the station and went
+faster, we left our guard behind. One man indeed, with a singular
+devotion to duty, poked his rifle into the car and then ran alongside
+of us with his hand on the mudguard. He carried Marion's trunk into
+the hotel when we got there.
+
+Our drive was an exciting one. At every street corner there were
+parties of soldiers. Along every street stalwart policemen strolled in
+pairs. There were certainly hundreds of armed irregulars. For the most
+part these men seemed to be under no control; but occasionally we met
+a party marching in something like military formation, led by an
+officer, grave with responsibility. One company, I remember, got in
+our way and for a long time could not get out of it. Their officer had
+been drilling them carefully and they were all most anxious to obey
+his orders. The difficulty was that he could not recollect at the
+moment what orders he ought to give to get them out of our way. He
+halted them to begin with. Then in firm tones, he commanded a
+half-right turn and a quick march. We had to back our car to avoid
+collision with the middle part of the column. Their officer halted
+them again. We offered to go back and take another route to our hotel;
+but the officer would not hear of this. He told his men to stand at
+ease while he consulted a handbook on military evolutions. In the end
+he gave the problem up.
+
+"Get out of the way, will you," he said, "and form up again when the
+car is past."
+
+This was unconventional, but quite effective. The men--and it is to
+their credit that not one of them smiled--broke their formation,
+scattered to right and left and reformed after we had passed. This
+took place in a narrow side street in which there was very little
+traffic. I recognized the wisdom of the officer in choosing such a
+place for his manoeuvres.
+
+In the main streets the business of the town seemed to be going on
+very much as usual. It was Saturday afternoon. Shops and offices were
+closing. Young men and girls passed out of them and thronged the trams
+which were leaving the centre of the city. They took very little
+notice of the soldiers or the police. In the poorer streets women with
+baskets on their arms were doing their weekly shopping at the stalls
+of small butchers and greengrocers. Groups of factory girls marched
+along with linked arms, enjoying their outing, unaffected apparently
+by the unusual condition of their streets. The newspaper boys did a
+roaring trade, shrieking promises of sensational news to be found in
+the pages of the _Telegraph_ and _Echo_.
+
+Marion became intensely excited.
+
+"Doesn't it look just as if the town had been captured by an enemy,"
+she said, "after a long siege?"
+
+"It hasn't been captured yet," said Bob.
+
+I have often tried to understand how it was that Bob Power came to
+take the active part he did in the fighting which followed, and how he
+came to be in command of a body of volunteers. He had not, so far as I
+know, any actual hatred of the idea of Home Rule. He was too
+light-hearted to be in full sympathy with fanatical Puritans like
+Crossan and McNeice. He certainly had no hatred of the British Empire
+or the English army. He was, up to the last moment, on friendly terms
+with those of the army officers whom he happened to know. He chatted
+with them and with detached inspectors of police in the same friendly
+way as he did with Henderson at the railway station.
+
+I can only suppose that he regarded the whole business--to begin with
+at all events--as a large adventure of a novel and delightful kind. He
+went into it very much as many volunteers went into the Boer War,
+without any very strong convictions about the righteousness of the
+cause in which he fought, certainly without any realization of the
+horror of actual bloodshed.
+
+There are men of this temperament, fortunately a good many of them. If
+they did not exist in large numbers the world's fighting would be very
+badly done. The mere mercenary--uninspired by the passion for
+adventure--will at the best do as little fighting as possible, and do
+it with the smallest amount of ardour. Fanatics cannot be had to
+order. Some kind of idea--in most cases a religious idea--is necessary
+to turn the ordinary church-going business man or farmer into an
+efficient fighting unit. The kind of patriotism which is prepared to
+make sacrifices, to endure bodily pain and risk death, is very rare.
+It is on the men who enjoy risk, who love struggle, who face death
+with a laugh, the men of Bob Power's reckless temperament, that the
+world must rely when it wants fighting done. Hitherto men of this kind
+have been plentiful. Whether our advancing civilization is going to
+destroy the breed is a question which, I am pleased to say, need not
+be answered by my generation. There are enough Bob Powers alive to
+last my time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+I fully intended to go to church on Sunday morning. I was, in fact,
+waiting for Marion at the door of the hotel, when Sir Samuel
+Clithering came to see me.
+
+"I shall be so much obliged," he said, "if you will spare me a few
+minutes."
+
+I did not want to spare any minutes to Sir Samuel Clithering. In the
+first place I had promised to take Marion to the cathedral. "A Parade
+Service"--I quote the official title of the function--was to be held
+for the benefit of the volunteers and Marion naturally wanted to see
+Bob Power at the head of his men. I wanted to hear the men singing
+that hymn again, and I wanted to hear what sort of sermon the
+Dean--our Dean, not the Dean of the cathedral--would preach on such an
+occasion. He was advertised to preach, as "Chaplain General of the
+Loyalists." These were three good reasons for not giving Sir Samuel
+Clithering the few minutes he demanded. I had, also, a fourth. I had
+held, as I have related, previous communications with Clithering. I
+suspected him of having more peerages in his pocket for distribution,
+and I did not want to undertake any further negotiations like that
+with Conroy. He might even--and I particularly disliked the idea--be
+empowered to offer our Dean an English bishopric.
+
+I kept this last reason to myself, but I stated the other three fully
+to Sir Samuel. He seemed dissatisfied.
+
+"Everybody's going to church," he complained. "I can't get Lord Moyne.
+I can't get Babberly. I can't get Malcolmson, and it's really most
+important that I should see some one. Going to church is all very
+well--"
+
+"As a leading Nonconformist," I said.
+
+"Free Churchman," said Sir Samuel.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Free Churchman. You ought not to object to people
+going to church. I've always understood that the Free Churchmen are
+honourably distinguished from other Christians by their respect for
+the practice of Sunday worship."
+
+"Of course, I don't object to people going to church. I should be
+there myself if it were not that--"
+
+He hesitated. I thought he might be searching for an appropriate text
+of Scripture so I helped him.
+
+"Your ass," I said, "has fallen into a pit, and you want--"
+
+This was evidently not exactly the text he wanted. He seemed
+astonished when I quoted it.
+
+"Ass!" he said. "What ass?"
+
+"The Government," I said. "It is in rather a hole, isn't it?"
+
+"Capital," said Clithering, laughing without the smallest appearance
+of mirth, "capital! I didn't catch the point for a moment, but I do
+now. My ass has fallen into a pit. You put the matter in a nutshell,
+Lord Kilmore. I don't mind confessing that a pit of rather an
+inconvenient size does lie in front of us. I feel sure that you, as a
+humane man, won't refuse your help in the charitable work of helping
+to get us out."
+
+Marion came downstairs in her best hat. It was not for nothing that
+Bob Power and I and the running volunteer had struggled with her
+trunk. Her frock, also, was charming.
+
+"Your daughter," said Clithering. "Now my dear young lady, you must
+spare your father to me for an hour. Affairs of state. Affairs of
+state. But you'll allow me to send you to church in my car. My private
+secretary is in it, and I shall tell him to see you safely to church,
+to secure a seat for you--"
+
+"The Dean has reserved seats for us," I said.
+
+"Capital, capital. We can regard that as settled then. My private
+secretary--an excellent young fellow whom I picked up at Toynbee
+Hall--a student of our social problems--a man whom I'm sure you'll
+like."
+
+He conducted Marion to the door and handed her over to the private
+secretary from Toynbee Hall. I resigned myself and led Clithering to a
+deserted smoking-room.
+
+"I never saw so much church-going anywhere," he said. "It's most
+remarkable. I don't think the Government quite appreciates--"
+
+As a matter of fact the percentage of church-going men on that
+particular Sunday was considerably over the average. On the other hand
+there were much fewer women than usual. Every church of every
+Protestant denomination was holding a "Parade Service" for volunteers,
+and most of the women who tried to get in had to be turned away from
+the doors. I thought it well to rub the facts in a little.
+
+"Rack-renting landlords," I said. "Sweating capitalists, and clergymen
+whose churches are empty because their congregations are tired of
+hearing them curse the Pope!"
+
+"Eh?" said Clithering, "what's that? what's that?"
+
+"Only a quotation," I said. "I forget if it was a Cabinet Minister--"
+
+"Not at all," said Clithering. "I recollect the words now. It was one
+of the Irish Members. No Cabinet Minister would dream of saying such
+things. We have a high sense of the importance of the Ulster problem.
+Nothing, I assure you, is further from our minds than the desire to
+minimize or treat with undue flippancy the conscientious objections,
+even the somewhat unreasonable fears of men whom we recognize as--"
+
+Clithering paused. I had not anything particular to say, so I waited
+for him to begin again.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that a meeting of the Unionist Defence
+Committee is to be held this afternoon."
+
+"Yes," I said. "I'm going to it. I'm not really a member of the
+committee, at least I wasn't until yesterday; but--"
+
+"I quite understand, quite understand. In fact--speaking now in the
+strictest confidence--I may say that the suggestion to add your name
+to the committee was made--well it was made to Lady Moyne by a very
+important person. It was generally recognized that a man of your
+well-known moderation--"
+
+I was beginning to dislike being called a man of moderation nearly as
+much as I disliked being called a Liberal.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
+
+"The situation--the very difficult and distressing situation is this,"
+said Clithering, "stated roughly it is this. The Government has
+proclaimed to-morrow's meeting."
+
+"That," I said, "is the pit into which--I don't want to be
+offensive--I'll say, your ox has fallen."
+
+"And the town is full of troops and police. Any attempt to hold the
+meeting can only result in bloodshed, deplorable bloodshed, the lives
+of men and women, innocent women sacrificed."
+
+"The strength of Babberly's position," I said, "is that he doesn't
+think bloodshed deplorable."
+
+"But he does. He told me so in London. He repeated the same thing this
+morning."
+
+"I don't mean Babberly personally," I said, "I mean his party;
+Malcolmson, you know, and our Dean. If you'd only gone to hear the
+Dean preach this morning you'd know what he thinks about blood. I've
+often heard him say that the last drop of it--mind that now, Sir
+Samuel--the last drop ought to be shed. That's going as far as any one
+very well could, isn't it?"
+
+"But he must," said Clithering, "he must think bloodshed deplorable."
+
+"No, he doesn't," I said. "You mustn't think everybody is like your
+Government. It's humanitarian. We're not. We're business men."
+
+Clithering caught at the last phrase. It appealed to him. He did not
+know the meaning attached to it by Cahoon.
+
+"That's just it," he said. "We want to appeal to you as business men.
+We want to suggest a reasonable compromise."
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that you've come to the wrong place. I'm not
+the least averse to compromises myself, in fact I love them. But the
+Belfast business man--You don't quite understand him, I'm afraid, Sir
+Samuel. Have you heard him singing his hymn?"
+
+"No. What hymn? But leaving the question of hymns aside for the
+moment--"
+
+"You can't do that," I said, "the hymn is the central fact in the
+situation."
+
+Clithering thought this over and evidently failed to understand it.
+
+"What I am empowered to suggest," he said, "is a compromise so very
+favourable to the Ulster claims that I can hardly imagine your
+rejecting it. The Government will allow the meeting to be held this
+day week if your committee will agree to the postponement."
+
+"If," I said, "you will also withdraw your Home Rule Bill--"
+
+"But we can't," said Clithering. "We can't do that. We'll insert any
+reasonable safeguards. We'll concede anything that Ulster likes to
+ask, but we're pledged, absolutely pledged, to the Bill."
+
+"Well," I said, "as far as pledges are concerned, we're pledged
+against it."
+
+"What we deprecate," said Sir Samuel, "is violence of any kind.
+Constitutional agitation, even if carried on with great bitterness is
+one thing. Violence--but I'm sure, Lord Kilmore, that we can rely on
+you to use your influence at the meeting this afternoon to secure the
+acceptance of the terms we offer. I'm sure we can count on you. You
+can't _want_ bloodshed."
+
+I did not want bloodshed, of course. I do not suppose that anybody
+did. What Clithering could not understand was that some
+people--without wanting bloodshed--might prefer it to Home Rule. He
+left me, still I fancy relying on my well-known moderation. No man
+ever relied on a more utterly useless crutch. Moderation has never
+been of the slightest use anywhere in Ireland and was certainly a vain
+thing in Belfast that day.
+
+I walked round to the club and found nobody in it except Conroy. He
+alone, among the leading supporters of the Loyalist movement, had
+failed to go to church. I thought I might try how he would regard the
+policy of moderation.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that you'll have to give up this meeting
+to-morrow."
+
+"I don't think so," said Conroy.
+
+"I've just been talking to Sir Samuel Clithering," I said, "and he
+thinks there'll be bloodshed if you don't."
+
+"I reckon he's right there. We're kind of out for that, aren't we?"
+
+"It won't be so pleasant," I said, "when it's your blood that's shed.
+I don't mean yours personally, I mean your friends."
+
+"The other side will do some of the bleeding," said Conroy.
+
+"Still," I said, "in the end they'll win."
+
+"I wouldn't bet too heavy on that," said Conroy.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you think that a handful of north of
+Ireland farmers and mechanics can stand up against the British
+Empire?"
+
+"It's fixed in my mind," said Conroy, "that the British lion will get
+his tail twisted a bit before he's through with this business. I don't
+say that he won't make good in the end. Nobody but God Almighty can
+tell this minute whether he will or not; but he'll be considerable
+less frisky when he's finished than he is to-day."
+
+"But," I said, "even supposing you clear the streets of the soldiers
+and police to-morrow--I do not see how you can; but if you do the
+Government will simply anchor a battleship off Carrickfergus and shell
+the whole town into a heap of ruins."
+
+"I'm calculating on their trying that," said Conroy.
+
+That was all I could get out of Conroy. I left him, feeling uneasily
+that his vote would certainly go against Clithering's compromise. His
+confidence in the fighting powers of the raw men whom Bob and others
+had taken to church with them struck me as absurd. His cool assumption
+of power to deal with the British fleet was arrogance run mad.
+
+On my way back to my hotel I ran into a congregation which had just
+got out of some church or other. In the first rank--they were marching
+in very fair order--was Crossan. He saluted me and stopped.
+
+"I'm thinking," he said, "that you won't have seen them."
+
+He pointed to a small group of men who were bringing up the rear of
+the congregation's march. They were dragging a heavy object along with
+two large ropes. I recognized the leader of them at once. He was
+Cahoon's foreman friend, McConkey. I was pleased to find that he
+recognized me.
+
+"I have her safe," he said. "Would you like to take a look at her?"
+
+I did. She was a machine gun of a kind quite unknown to me; but her
+appearance was very murderous. McConkey led me up to her. He stroked
+her black side lovingly and patted her in various places.
+
+"I was trying her yesterday," he said, "down on the slob land under
+the Shore Road. Man o' man, but she shoots bonny!"
+
+I had no doubt of it. She was likely to be accountable for a good deal
+of bloodshed if there was any street fighting next day. The record of
+her bag would, I should think, haunt Sir Samuel Clithering for the
+rest of his life.
+
+"I've a matter of five thousand cartridges," said McConkey in a hoarse
+whisper, "and there's another five thousand ordered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The committee met at three o'clock in the afternoon. Sir Samuel
+Clithering was not, of course, a member of it; but he lurked about
+outside and waylaid us as we went in. He was in a condition of pitiful
+bewilderment. Alice whose adventures in Wonderland have been very dear
+to me since I first read them aloud to Marion, was once placed in a
+difficult and awkward position by the kings, queens and knaves of the
+pack of cards with which she was playing coming to life. This was
+sufficiently embarrassing. But Clithering was much worse off than
+Alice. In her story all the cards came to life, and though the
+unexpectedness of their behaviour made things difficult for her there
+was a certain consistency about the whole business. A card player
+might in time adjust himself to a game played with cards which
+possessed wills of their own. But poor Clithering had to play with a
+pack in which one suit only, and it not even the trump suit, suddenly
+insisted that the game was a reality. The other three suits, the
+Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Irish Nationalists still behaved
+in the normal way, falling pleasantly on top of each other, and
+winning or losing tricks as the rules of the game demanded. The Ulster
+party alone--Clubs, we may call them--would not play fairly. They
+jumped out of the player's hand and obstinately declared that the
+green cloth was a real battlefield. The higher court cards of the
+suit--Lady Moyne for instance, and Babberly--Clithering felt himself
+able to control. It was the knaves--I am sure he looked on McNeice as
+a knave--the tens, the sevens and the humble twos which behaved
+outrageously.
+
+And Clithering was not the only player who was perplexed. I had been
+to luncheon with the Moynes. Babberly was there of course. So was
+Malcolmson. Clithering sat next but one to Lady Moyne. Malcolmson was
+between them. It was a curious alliance. The emissary of the
+Government, which had passed measures which all good aristocrats
+disliked intensely, joined hands for the moment with the lady whose
+skill as a political hostess had frequently been troublesome to
+Clithering's friends. I do not suppose that such an alliance could
+possibly last long. Those whom misfortune, according to the old
+proverb, forces into bed together, always struggle out again at
+opposite sides when the clouds cease to be threatening. But while it
+lasted the alliance was firm enough. They were both bent on pressing
+the advantages of moderation on Malcolmson. They produced very little
+effect. Malcolmson is impervious to reason. He kept falling back, in
+replying to their arguments, on his original objection to Home Rule.
+
+"I shall never consent," he said, "to be governed by a pack of
+blackguards in Dublin."
+
+It was really a very good answer, for every time he made it he drove a
+wedge into the coalition against him. Lady Moyne was bound to admit
+that all Irishmen outside Ulster are blackguards, and that the
+atmosphere of Dublin is poisonous. Clithering, on the other hand, was
+officially committed to an unqualified admiration for everything south
+of the Boyne. I do not think that Malcolmson appreciated his dialectic
+advantage. His mind was running on big guns rather than arguments.
+
+Lady Moyne squeezed my hand as we parted after luncheon, and I think I
+am not exaggerating in saying that there were tears in her eyes. She
+succeeded at all events in giving me the impression that her future
+happiness depended very largely on me. I determined, as I had
+determined several times before, to be true to the most charming lady
+of my acquaintance.
+
+Moyne took the chair at our meeting. Next him sat Babberly. Cahoon,
+McNeice and Malcolmson sat together at the bottom of the table. I was
+given a chair on Moyne's other side. Conroy would not sit at the table
+at all. He had two chairs in a corner of the room. He sat on one of
+them and put his legs on the other. He also smoked a cigar, which I
+think everybody regarded as bad form. But nobody liked to protest,
+because nobody, except me and McNeice, knew which side Conroy was
+going to take in the controversy before us. Babberly, I feel sure,
+would have objected to the cigar if he had thought that Conroy
+favoured extreme defiance of the Government. Malcolmson, like many
+military men, is a great stickler for etiquette. He would have snubbed
+the cigar if he thought Conroy was inclined to moderation. As things
+were, we all warmly invited Conroy to desert his private encampment
+and join us round the table.
+
+"I guess I'm here as an onlooker," said Conroy. "You gentlemen can
+settle things nicely without me, till it comes to writing cheques.
+Then I chip in."
+
+Moyne murmured a compliment about Conroy's extreme generosity in the
+past, and Babberly said that further calls on our purses were, for the
+present, unnecessary. Then we all forgot about Conroy. The Dean sat
+half way down the table on my side. There was also present a Member of
+Parliament, a man who had sat by Babberly's side in the House of
+Commons all through the dreary months of June, July and August,
+supporting consistently every move he made towards wrecking the Home
+Rule Bill. There ought to have been several others of the moderate
+party at the meeting. Their letters of apology were read to us. They
+all had urgent business either in England or Scotland, which prevented
+their being in Belfast. I do not think their absence made much
+difference in the result of our deliberations. We had got beyond the
+stage at which votes matter much.
+
+Moyne was pitifully nervous. He stated our position very fairly. It
+was, he said, a hateful thing to have to give in to the Government. He
+did not like doing it. On the other hand he did not like to take the
+responsibility of urging the people of Belfast to commit a breach of
+the peace. Lives, he said, would certainly be lost if we attempted to
+hold our meeting in the face of the force of armed men which the
+Government had collected in our streets. He would feel himself guilty
+of something little short of murder if he did not advise the
+acceptance of the compromise offered by Clithering. It was, after all,
+a fair, more than a fair compromise. Nothing would be lost by
+postponing the meeting for a week.
+
+It was rather a feeble speech. Nobody offered any interruption, but
+nobody expressed any approval of what he said. When he sat down
+Babberly rose at once.
+
+Now Babberly is no fool. He knows that florid orations are out of
+place at committee meetings. He did not treat us to any oratory. He
+gave us tersely and forcibly several excellent reasons for postponing
+our demonstration.
+
+"The Government," he said, "is weakening. Its offer of a compromise
+shows that it is beginning at last to feel the full force of the
+Ulster objection to Home Rule."
+
+Here McNeice interrupted him.
+
+"If that's so," he said, "we must make our objection more unmistakably
+obvious than before."
+
+"Quite so," said Babberly; "but how? Is it--"
+
+"By fighting them," said McNeice.
+
+"If by fighting them," said Babberly, "you mean asking the unarmed
+citizens of Belfast to stand up against rifles--"
+
+"Unarmed?" The word came from Conroy in his corner. Every one was
+startled. We had not expected Conroy to take any part in the
+discussion.
+
+"Undrilled, undisciplined," said Babberly. "What can be the result of
+such a conflict as you suggest? Our people, the men who have trusted
+us, will be mowed down. We shall place ourselves hopelessly in the
+wrong. We shall alienate the sympathies of our friends in England."
+
+A large crowd had gathered in the street outside the windows of the
+room in which we were sitting. I suppose that the men found waiting a
+tiresome business. By way of passing the time they began to sing "O
+God, our help in ages past."
+
+"It is of the utmost importance to us," said Babberly, "to retain the
+sympathies of the English constituencies. Any illegal violence on our
+part--"
+
+"You should have thought of that before you told the English people
+that we meant to fight," said McNeice.
+
+"If you follow my advice to-day," said Babberly, "there will be no
+necessity for fighting."
+
+The hymn outside gathered volume. It seemed to me that thousands of
+voices were joining in the singing of it. It became exceedingly
+difficult to hear what Babberly was saying. I leaned forward and
+caught his next few sentences.
+
+"By keeping within the limits of constitutional action at this crisis
+we shall demonstrate that we are, what we have always boasted
+ourselves, the party of law and order. We shall win a bloodless
+victory. We shall convince the Government that we possess self-control
+as well as determination."
+
+Then the noise of the singing outside became so great that it was
+impossible to hear Babberly at all. McNeice tilted his chair back and
+began to hum the tune. Malcolmson beat time to the singing with his
+forefingers. Their action seemed to me to be intentionally insulting
+to Babberly. The crowd outside reached the end of a verse and there
+was a pause.
+
+"Damn that hymn!" said Babberly.
+
+This roused the Dean. It would have roused any dean with a particle of
+spirit in him. After all, a high ecclesiastic cannot sit still and
+listen to profane condemnation of one of the Psalms of David, even if
+it has undergone versification at the hands of Dr. Watts. The conduct
+of McNeice and Malcolmson was offensive and provocative. The noise
+made by the crowd was maddening. There is every excuse for Babberly's
+sudden loss of temper. But the Dean's anger was more than excusable.
+It was justified. He sprang to his feet, and I knew at once that he
+was very angry indeed. I could see a broad white rim all round the
+irises of his eyes, and a pulse in his temples was throbbing visibly.
+I recognized the symptoms. I had seen them once before at a vestry
+meeting when some ill-conditioned parishioner said that the Dean's
+curate was converting to his own uses the profits of the parish
+magazine. The periodical, as appeared later on, was actually run at a
+loss, and the curate had been seven-and-ninepence out of pocket the
+previous year.
+
+The Dean said something to Babberly, but the crowd had begun the
+fourth verse of the hymn, and we could not hear what he said. I got up
+and shut both windows. The atmosphere of our committee-room was hot,
+and likely to become hotter; but it is better to do business in a
+Turkish bath than not to do it at all. There was plainly no use our
+talking to each other unless we were able to hear. My action gave
+Babberly time to regain his temper.
+
+"I apologize," he said. "I apologize to all of you, and especially to
+you, Mr. Dean, for an intemperate and uncalled-for exclamation."
+
+The Dean sat down. The pulse in his forehead was still throbbing, but
+the irises of his eyes ceased to look like bulls' eyes in the middle
+of targets.
+
+"I have been a consistent supporter of the Union," said Babberly, "for
+twenty years. In season and out of season I have upheld the cause we
+have at heart on English platforms and in the House of Commons. I
+know better than you do, gentlemen, what the temper of the English
+people is. I know that we shall sacrifice their friendship and
+alienate their sympathy if we resort to the argument of lawlessness
+and violence."
+
+"It's the only argument they ever listen to," said McNeice. "Look at
+the Nationalists. What arguments did they use?"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Babberly, "are you going to ask Ulstermen to fire on
+the King's troops?"
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that we mean to use our guns now we've got
+them."
+
+Babberly made a curious gesture with his hands. He flung them out from
+him with the palms upwards and then sat down. McNeice rose next.
+
+"For the last two years," he said, "we've been boasting that we meant
+to resist Home Rule with force if necessary. That's so, isn't it?"
+
+Malcolmson growled an assent.
+
+"English politicians and Irish rebels said we were bluffing. Our own
+people--the men outside there in the street--thought we were in
+earnest. The English went on with their Bill. Our people drilled and
+got rifles. Which of the two was right about us? Were we bluffing or
+were we in earnest? We've got to answer that question to-morrow, and
+we'll never get another chance. If we don't fight now, we'll never
+fight, for there won't be a man left in Ulster that will believe in us
+again. I don't know that there's any more to be said. I propose that
+Lord Moyne puts the question to the meeting and takes a vote."
+
+Then Cahoon rose to his feet.
+
+"Before you do that, my lord," he said, "I'd like to say a word. I'm a
+business man. I've as much at stake as any one in this room. My
+fortune, gentlemen, is in bricks and mortar, in machinery and plant
+not ten miles from this city. I've thought this matter out, and I came
+to a conclusion years ago. Home Rule won't do for Belfast, and Belfast
+isn't going to have it. If I saw any way of stopping it but the one
+I'd take it. There are thousands, yes, gentlemen, thousands of men,
+women, and children depending on my business for their living. Home
+Rule means ruining it and starving them. I don't like fighting, but,
+by God, I'll fight before I submit to Home Rule."
+
+Lord Moyne looked slowly round the room. His face was quite pale. It
+seemed to me that his eyes had grown larger. They had a look of terror
+in them. His hands trembled among the papers in front of him. He saw
+at once what the result of a vote would be. He looked at me. I shook
+my head. It was quite plain that nothing I could say would influence
+the meeting in the least.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Moyne, "are we to attempt to hold our meeting
+to-morrow? Those who are in favour of doing so say 'Aye.'"
+
+Cahoon, McNeice, Malcolmson, the Dean and Conroy voted "aye."
+
+"The 'ayes' have it," said Moyne.
+
+"Before we part," said Babberly, "I wish to say that I leave Belfast
+to-night--"
+
+Malcolmson muttered something. Babberly held up his hand.
+
+"No," he said. "You are wrong. I'm not afraid. I'm not taking care of
+my own skin. But I have lived a loyal man and I mean to die a loyal
+man. I decline to take part in the rebellion."
+
+I have heard Babberly speak on various occasions and admired his
+eloquence. This time I recognized his sincerity. He was speaking the
+truth.
+
+"I shall go back to England," he said, "and, of this you may rest
+assured, that I shall do what can be done in Parliament and elsewhere
+to save you and the men whom I must call your victims from the
+consequences of to-day's madness and to-morrow's crime."
+
+He left the room. The five men who had voted "Aye" were gathered in a
+knot talking eagerly. I took Moyne's arm and we went out together.
+
+"Her ladyship must be got away," he said. "And your daughter, Kilmore.
+She's here, isn't she? This town will be no place for women to-morrow.
+Luckily I have the car. You'll take them, won't you? Castle Affey will
+be the best place for the present."
+
+"What are you going to do yourself?" I asked.
+
+We passed through the door and down the flight of steps to the street.
+The crowd outside caught sight of us at once. Some one shouted aloud.
+
+"More traitors!"
+
+The news of the result of the meeting and the part we took in it had
+somehow reached the people already. An angry roar went up from the
+crowd. Those who were nearest to us cursed us. A police-officer with
+eight men forced a way through the crowd. At a word from their officer
+the men drew their batons and stood in front of us.
+
+"I think, my lord," said the officer to Moyne, "that you'd better go
+back. We had the greatest difficulty in getting Mr. Babberly through,
+and the crowd is angrier now."
+
+"I'm going on," said Moyne.
+
+"I cannot be responsible," said the officer. "I haven't enough men to
+control this crowd. If you go on--"
+
+Moyne pushed his way through the cordon of police. I followed him. At
+first the people drew back a little and let us pass into the middle of
+the crowd. Then one man after another began to hustle us. Moyne linked
+his arm in mine and helped me along. A man struck him in the face with
+the flat of his hand. It was a sharp slap rather than an actual blow.
+Moyne flushed deeply, but he neither spoke nor struck back. Then
+suddenly the people seemed to forget all about us. A wild cheer burst
+from them. Hats were flung into the air. Sticks were waved. Some one
+began firing shots from a revolver in rapid succession. It was a
+fusillade of joy, a kind of salute to McNeice who appeared at the
+window of the committee-room. Moyne and I pushed our way on. When we
+were clear of the crowd Moyne spoke to me again.
+
+"You'd better take them at once," he said. "It's impossible to know
+what'll happen here to-night."
+
+"But you?" I said.
+
+"Oh, I shall stay."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Moyne," I said. "You're the one of all others who
+ought not to stay. Don't you see that whatever way things go you're in
+for it? The mob thinks you're a traitor. I wouldn't trust those
+fellows we've just left not to kill you. And when the soldiers have
+shot them down and the subsequent investigation begins, the Government
+is bound to fix on you as a ringleader. There'll be panic to-morrow
+and savage vindictiveness the next day. McNeice and Malcolmson will
+frighten the Government and the Government will have you hanged or
+beheaded afterwards for causing the trouble. The English people will
+clamour for a victim, and you're exactly the sort of victim they'll
+like. Your one chance is to get out of this. Go to Castle Affey
+to-night, and telegraph to _The Times_ to-morrow to say that you
+dissociate yourself--"
+
+Moyne stopped me.
+
+"Look here, Kilmore," he said. "I've heard all you have to say, and I
+agree with it, more or less. I don't suppose I'll be either murdered
+by the mob or shot by the military, but--"
+
+"You will," I said, "if you stay here."
+
+"Even if I am," he said, "I'll have to stay."
+
+"In the name of goodness, why?"
+
+"You know the way we've been talking for the last two years--our side,
+I mean."
+
+I knew the way Babberly had been talking. I knew the way Lady Moyne
+had goaded him and others to talk, but poor Moyne hardly ever talked
+at all. All he ever wanted was to be left alone.
+
+"Well, I can't exactly go back on them now when they're doing what we
+said they ought to do. I've got to see the thing through. After all
+it's my fault that those poor fellows are in this horrible mess."
+
+He glanced back as he spoke. He was thinking of the angry crowd we had
+left behind us.
+
+"So you'll take care of the ladies," he said. "Run them down to Castle
+Affey and make yourself as comfortable as you can. They won't be
+expecting you, but they'll manage some sort of dinner."
+
+"I'm not going," I said. "I'm staying on in Belfast."
+
+"But why should you? You've no responsibility. You've never taken any
+part in our--It's very good of you to think of staying. It really is.
+And I appreciate the spirit in which--But--"
+
+"For goodness' sake, Moyne," I said, "don't give me credit for any
+kind of heroism. That _noblesse oblige_ attitude of yours doesn't suit
+me a bit. It isn't in my line."
+
+"But hang it all, Kilmore, you can't be staying here for the fun of
+it."
+
+"I've often told you," I said, "that I'm writing a history of the
+Irish Rebellions. I naturally want to see one, and there isn't likely
+to be another in my time. That's my only reason for staying in
+Belfast."
+
+We found Lady Moyne waiting for us when we reached the hotel. She was
+wearing a long cloak, and had a motor-veil tied over her head. She was
+evidently prepared to start at once.
+
+"I've ordered the car," she said. "It ought to be round now. Marion's
+coming with me, Lord Kilmore. I think she'd be better out of Belfast
+for the next few days."
+
+The news of the decision of our committee seemed to have spread with
+quite unexampled rapidity. We came straight from the meeting, and we
+found that Lady Moyne had already recognized the necessity for flight.
+
+"I'm glad you're going," said Moyne, "and I'm glad you're taking
+Marion with you. But how did you know? Who told you what--?"
+
+"That young man who's Mr. Conroy's secretary," said Lady Moyne. "I
+forget his name."
+
+"Bob Power," I said.
+
+"He came in to see Marion, and he told us."
+
+Bob must have known beforehand what the committee's decision was to
+be. I realized that Conroy must have had the whole plan cut and dried;
+that the meeting at which Moyne presided was simply a farce. However,
+there was nothing to be gained by discussing that.
+
+"I think," I said, "that Moyne ought to go with you. I don't think
+Belfast is particularly safe for him just now; and--"
+
+"Moyne must stay, of course," said Lady Moyne.
+
+"There'll be trouble afterwards," I said. "He ought not to be mixed up
+in it. If he clears out at once--"
+
+Lady Moyne looked at me with an expression of wonder on her face. Her
+eyes opened very wide.
+
+"Surely," she said, "you don't expect him to run away."
+
+"Of course not," said Moyne; "of course not. And there's really no
+risk. I'll--"
+
+"That's not the kind of people we are," said Lady Moyne.
+
+"I'll join you at Castle Affey in a couple of days," said Moyne.
+
+"Castle Affey," said Lady Moyne. "I'm not going to Castle Affey. I'm
+going to London."
+
+"What for?" I said. "And how are you going to get there? There are no
+steamers on Sunday night."
+
+"I'm taking possession of Mr. Conroy's yacht," said Lady Moyne. "She's
+lying off Bangor, and that young man, Mr. Power, said we could have
+her. We'll get across to Stranraer this evening, and I'll have a
+special train and be in London to-morrow morning."
+
+"London!" said Moyne. "But why London? Surely Castle Affey--"
+
+"I must see the Prime Minister early to-morrow. He must be
+persuaded--he must be forced if necessary--to telegraph orders to
+Belfast. Don't you realize? I don't blame you, I don't blame either of
+you for the failure of your meeting this afternoon. I'm sure you did
+your best. But--but what will happen here to-morrow? We can't leave
+the people to be shot down like dogs. After all, they're _our_
+people."
+
+"But what can you do?" said Moyne. "The Prime Minister won't see you."
+
+"If necessary I shall force him," said Lady Moyne. "He shall see me."
+
+Lady Moyne is, as I have always said, a remarkable woman. Many members
+of her sex have been trying for years to force their way into the
+presence of the Prime Minister. They have hitherto failed.
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "that Marion won't be much use to you if you're
+going to come into collision with the police in any way."
+
+Lady Moyne smiled.
+
+"I hope I shan't be reduced to those methods," she said; "but if I am
+I shall leave Marion at home."
+
+I had not the slightest doubt that Lady Moyne would succeed in seeing
+the Prime Minister. He has probably sense enough to know that though
+he may resist other women successfully, he cannot possibly make head
+against her.
+
+"If there is no rioting here to-night," said Lady Moyne, "I shall be
+in time. That young man, Mr. Power, seemed to think that everything
+would be quiet until to-morrow. I hope he's right."
+
+"He's sure to be," I said. "Conroy is running the revolution and
+settles exactly what is to happen."
+
+"He was very confident," said Lady Moyne. "Ah! here's Marion. Now we
+can start. Good-bye, Lord Kilmore. Do your best here. I'll make the
+best arrangement I can with the Prime Minister."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Moyne and I dined together in the hotel. We should have got a better
+dinner at the club, and I wanted to go there. But Moyne was afraid of
+the other men's talk. It was likely that there would be some very
+eager talk at the club; and Moyne, whose name still figured on
+placards as chairman of next day's meeting would have been a butt for
+every kind of anxious inquiry.
+
+We did not altogether escape talk by staying in the hotel.
+
+Just as we were sitting down to dinner I was told that Bob Power
+wished to see me. Moyne wanted me to send him away; but I could not
+well refuse an interview to the man who was to be my son-in-law. I
+gave that as my excuse to Moyne. In reality I was filled with
+curiosity, and wanted to hear what Bob would say to us. I told the
+waiter to show him in. He carried no visible weapon of any kind, but
+he was wearing a light blue scarf round his left arm. I suppose I
+stared at it.
+
+"Our nearest approach to a uniform," he said. "Something of the sort
+was necessary."
+
+"But why light blue?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It's a good colour, easily seen. The men are to
+wear orange, of course. I'm an officer."
+
+"Captain or Colonel or Knight at Arms?" I asked.
+
+"We haven't bothered about titles," said Bob, who did not seem to
+recognize the question. "We haven't had time to settle details of any
+sort. In fact I haven't much time now. I just dropped in to tell you
+that you needn't be nervous about to-night. We have our men well under
+control, and the police ought to be able to deal with the rabble. If
+they can't--if there's any sign of rioting--we step in and stop it at
+once."
+
+He pulled a revolver from his coat pocket as he spoke. It gave us the
+necessary information about the way in which rioting was to be
+stopped.
+
+"I shall be on patrol all night," he said. "My orders--"
+
+"By the way," I said, "excuse my asking a stupid sort of question. But
+who gives you your orders? Who is Commander-in-Chief?"
+
+"Conroy, of course. Didn't you know? He organized the whole thing.
+Wonderful head Conroy has. I don't wonder he became a millionaire. He
+has his men under perfect control. They may not look starchy when you
+see them in the streets, but they'll do what they're told. I thought
+you and Lord Moyne would be glad to know, so I dropped in to tell you.
+I must be off now."
+
+He got as far as the door and then turned.
+
+"Marion and Lady Moyne got away all right," he said. "I saw them off."
+
+Then he left us.
+
+"That's good news as far as it goes," I said.
+
+"I'm not sure," said Moyne. "I'm not at all sure. If there had been a
+riot to-night, the ordinary sort of riot--but I don't know. It's very
+hard to know what to hope for."
+
+If there had been an ordinary riot that night, and if it had been
+sternly and promptly suppressed, there would perhaps have been no
+battle next day. If, on the other hand, Conroy and Bob and the others
+could keep their men under control, if they could secure the peace of
+the city for the night, then the fighting next day was likely to be
+serious. As Moyne said, it was very hard to know what to hope for.
+
+The waiter brought in our fish, and with it a message from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. He wanted to see Moyne. I had had enough of Clithering for
+one day, so I made no objection when Moyne flatly refused to see him.
+
+I suppose a man cannot be a successful manufacturer of hosiery in the
+English midlands without possessing the quality of persistence.
+Clithering had it. He sent another message to say that his business
+was very important. Moyne said that he and his business might go to
+hell together. I hope the waiter translated this message into
+parliamentary language. Clithering is a Nonconformist, and therefore a
+man of tender conscience. I should not like him to be shocked.
+
+The hotel cook was doing his best for us. He sent us up an _entrée_.
+With it came a note from Clithering.
+
+"I'm sending a telegram to the Prime Minister describing the condition
+of affairs here. May I say that you have refused to preside at the
+meeting to-morrow?"
+
+Moyne showed me the note. Then he scribbled an answer on the back of
+it.
+
+"You may tell the Prime Minister that if a meeting is held I shall
+preside. The announcements made in the papers and posters stand good."
+
+"Do you think that's wise?" I asked.
+
+"I think it's right," said Moyne.
+
+It is a great pity that right things very seldom are wise. I have
+hardly ever met anything which could possibly be called prudent which
+was not also either mean or actually wrong.
+
+Our next interruption was due to a newspaper reporter. He represented
+several papers, among others one in New York. He had the names of all
+of them printed on his card, but they did not impress Moyne. Our
+waiter, who was beginning to swell with a sense of his own importance,
+drove off that newspaper reporter. Three others, all of them
+representing papers of high standing, sent in their cards in quick
+succession. Moyne laid a sovereign on the table and told the waiter
+that he could have it as a tip on condition that no one got into the
+room while we were at dinner.
+
+The waiter got the sovereign in the end; but he did not deserve it.
+While we were drinking our coffee a young man overwhelmed our waiter
+and forced his way into the room. There were two doors in our room,
+which is one of what is called a suite. As the young man entered by
+one, Moyne, leaving his coffee and his sovereign behind him, left by
+the other. He shut it with a slam and locked it.
+
+"Lord Moyne, I presume?" said the young man.
+
+"Lord Moyne," I said, "has just left."
+
+"May I ask," he said, "if I have the honour of addressing Mr.
+McNeice?"
+
+I explained that I was not McNeice. Then, in order to get him to go
+away, if possible, I added that I was not Malcolmson, or Cahoon, or
+Conroy, or the Dean.
+
+"If you'll pardon my curiosity," he said, "I should like to ask--"
+
+I saw that I should be obliged to tell him who I was in the end. I
+told him at once, adding that I was a person of no importance
+whatever, and that I had no views of any kind on what he would no
+doubt want to call "the situation."
+
+"May I ask you one question?" he said. "Is Lord Moyne going to take
+the chair to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "he is. But if you're going to print what I say in any
+paper I won't speak another word."
+
+"As a matter of fact," he said, "the wires are blocked. There's a man
+in the post office writing as hard as he can and handing one sheet
+after another across the counter as quick as he can write them. Nobody
+else can send anything."
+
+"Clithering, I expect."
+
+"Very likely. Seems to fancy himself a bit, whoever he is. Nobody else
+can get a message through."
+
+He seemed an agreeable young man. Moyne had probably gone to bed and I
+did not want to spend a lonely evening.
+
+"Have a glass of claret," I said.
+
+He sat down and poured himself off half a tumbler-full. Then it struck
+him that he owed me some return for my hospitality.
+
+"My name," he said, "is Bland. I was with Roberts' column in the
+Orange Free State."
+
+"Ah!" I said. "A war correspondent."
+
+"I did the Greek War, too," he said. "A poor affair, very. Looks to me
+as if you were going to do better here. But it's a curious situation."
+
+"Very," I said, "and most unpleasant."
+
+"From my point of view," said Bland, "it's most interesting. The usual
+thing is for one army to clear out of a town before the other comes
+in or else to surrender after a regular siege. But here--"
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that our proceedings are frightfully
+irregular."
+
+"None the worse for that," said Bland kindly. "But they _are_ a bit
+peculiar. I've read up quite a lot of military history and I don't
+recollect a single case in which two hostile armies patrolled the
+streets of the same city without firing a shot at one another. By the
+way, have you been out?"
+
+"Not since this afternoon," I said.
+
+"It would be quite worth your while to take a stroll round," said
+Bland. "There's not the slightest risk and you may never have a chance
+of seeing anything like it again."
+
+I quite agreed with Bland. The odds are, I suppose, thousands to one
+against my ever again seeing two hostile armies walking up and down
+opposite sides of the street. I got my hat and we went out together.
+
+We were almost immediately stopped by a body of lancers. Their leader
+asked us who we were and where we were going.
+
+"Press correspondents," said Bland, "on our way to the telegraph
+office."
+
+This impressed the officer. He allowed us to go on without ordering
+his men to impale us. I was glad of this. I am not particularly afraid
+of being killed, but I would rather meet my end by a sword cut or a
+bullet than by a lance. I should feel like a wild pig if a lancer
+speared me. No one could die with dignity and self-respect if he felt
+like a wild pig while he was passing away.
+
+"In ordinary wars," said Bland, "the best thing to say is that you
+are a doctor attached to the Ambulance Corps. But that's no use here.
+These fellows don't want doctors!"
+
+Then we met a party of volunteers. They stopped us too, and challenged
+us very sternly. Bland gave his answer. This time it did not prove
+wholly satisfactory.
+
+"Protestant or Papist?" said the officer in command.
+
+"Neither," said Bland, "I'm a high caste Brahmin."
+
+Fortunately I recognized the officer's voice. It was Crossan who
+commanded this particular regiment. It never was safe, even in the
+quietest times, to be flippant with Crossan. On a night like that and
+under the existing circumstances, Bland might very well have been
+knocked on the head for his joke if I had not come to his rescue.
+
+"Crossan," I said, "don't make a fuss. Mr. Bland and I are simply
+taking a walk round the streets."
+
+"If he's a Papist," said Crossan, "he'll have to go home to his bed.
+Them's my orders. We don't want rioting in the streets to-night."
+
+I turned to Bland.
+
+"What is your religion?" I asked.
+
+"Haven't any," he said. "I haven't believed any doctrine taught by any
+Church since I was six years old. Will that satisfy you?"
+
+"I was afeard," said Crossan, "that you might be a Papist. You can go
+on."
+
+This shows, I think, that the charges of bigotry and intolerance
+brought against our Northern Protestants are quite unfounded. Crossan
+had no wish to persecute even a professed atheist.
+
+We did not go very far though we were out for nearly two hours. The
+streets were filled with armed men and everybody we met challenged
+us. The police were the hardest to get rid of. They were no doubt
+soured by the treatment they received in Belfast. Accustomed to be
+regarded with awe by rural malefactors and denounced in flaming
+periods, of a kind highly gratifying to their self-importance, by
+political leaders, they could not understand a people who did not
+mention them in speeches but threatened their lives with paving
+stones. This had been their previous experience of Belfast and they
+were naturally suspicious of any stray wayfarers whom they met. They
+were not impressed when Bland said he was a newspaper reporter. They
+did not seem to care whether he believed or disbelieved the Apostles'
+Creed. One party of them actually arrested us and only a ready lie of
+Bland's saved us from spending an uncomfortable night. He said, to my
+absolute amazement, that we were officials of an exalted kind, sent
+down by the Local Government Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the
+condition of Belfast. This struck me at the time as an outrageously
+silly story, but it was really a rather good one to tell. The Irish
+police are accustomed to sworn inquiries as one of the last resorts of
+harassed Governments. It seemed to the sergeant quite natural that
+somebody should be in Belfast to hold one.
+
+We came across McConkey with his machine gun at a street corner. He
+had got a new crew to pull it along. I suppose the first men were
+utterly exhausted. But McConkey himself was quite fresh. Enthusiasm
+for the weapon on which he had spent the savings of a lifetime kept
+him from fatigue.
+
+The experience was immensely interesting; but I began to get tired
+after a time. The necessity for explaining what we were--or rather
+what we were not--at the end of every fifty yards, began to make me
+nervous. Bland's spirits kept up, but Bland is a war correspondent and
+accustomed to being harried by military authorities. I am not. It was
+a comfort to me when we ran into Bob Power's regiment outside the
+Ulster Hall.
+
+"Bob," I said, "I want to get back to my hotel. I wish you'd see me
+safe, chaperone me, convoy me, or whatever you call the thing I want
+you to do."
+
+Bland tugged at my sleeve.
+
+"Get him to take me to the post-office," he said. "I'll have another
+go at getting a telegram through."
+
+"Bob," I said, "this is my friend Mr. Bland. He's a war correspondent
+and he wants to get to the post-office."
+
+My return to the hotel was simple enough. The police kept out of the
+way of Bob's men. The other soldiers let him and his regiment pass
+without challenge. Bland, faithful to his professional duties, poured
+out questions as we went along.
+
+"How's it managed?" he said. "Why aren't you at each other's throats?"
+
+"So far as we're concerned," said Bob, "there's nothing to fight
+about. We don't object to the soldiers or the police. We're loyal
+men."
+
+"Oh, are you?" said Bland.
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Unless our meeting's interrupted to-morrow," I said.
+
+"Of course," said Bob.
+
+"That explains your position all right," said Bland. "But I don't
+quite understand the others. I should have thought--"
+
+"The soldiers," said Bob, "have strict orders not to provoke a
+conflict. I met Henderson just now and he told me so. You remember
+Henderson, Lord Kilmore? The man I was talking to at the railway
+station. He'd only had two water biscuits to eat all day yesterday.
+When I met him just now he told me he'd had nothing since breakfast
+to-day but one bit of butterscotch. He said he wished we'd fight at
+once if we were going to fight and get it over."
+
+"But the police--" said Bland, still trying to get information. "I
+should have thought the police--"
+
+"They tried to arrest us," I said. "In fact they did arrest us but
+they let us go again."
+
+"I dare say they'd like to arrest us," said Bob, "but you see we've
+all got guns."
+
+"Ah," said Bland, "and the ordinary inhabitants of the city--?"
+
+"They're in bed," said Bob, "and we've all agreed that they'd better
+stay there. Nobody wants a riot."
+
+"Thanks," said Bland. "If I can get my wire through I'll let the world
+know the exact position of affairs."
+
+"If you are wiring," said Bob, "you might like to mention that there
+was jolly nearly being a fight at the gasworks. The military people
+got it into their heads that we intended to turn off the gas and
+plunge the town into darkness so as to be able to murder people
+without being caught. They took possession of the works and put a
+party of Royal Engineers in charge. Fairly silly idea! But some fool
+on our side--a fellow who's been dragging a quick-firing gun about
+the streets all day--"
+
+"McConkey," I said. "I know him."
+
+"I didn't hear his name," said Bob, "but he got it into his head that
+the Royal Engineers were going to turn off the gas so that the
+soldiers could make short work of us. He wanted to wipe out those
+engineers with his gun. I don't suppose he'd have hit them, but he'd
+certainly have tried if some one hadn't run and fetched Conroy. He
+settled the matter at once."
+
+"How?" said Bland. "This story will be a scoop for me. I don't expect
+any one else knows it."
+
+"He handed the gasworks over to the police," said Bob.
+
+"But did that satisfy any one?" I asked. "I should have thought that
+both the original parties would have fallen upon the police."
+
+"Not at all," said Bob. "The police are so much the weakest party in
+the town that it's plainly to their interest to keep the gas burning.
+Even the man with the machine gun saw that."
+
+I found Moyne waiting for me when I got back to the hotel. He was very
+depressed and took no more than a mere sip of the whisky and soda
+which I ordered for him. I made an effort to cheer him a little before
+I went to bed.
+
+"I don't think," I said, "that there'll be a battle to-morrow."
+
+"I am sure there will. What's to stop it?"
+
+"The fact is," I said, "that everybody will be too exhausted to fight.
+McConkey, for instance, is still hauling that field gun of his about
+the streets. He simply won't have strength enough left to-morrow to
+shoot it off. All the soldiers and all the volunteers are marching up
+and down. They mean to keep it up all night. I should say that you and
+I and three or four other sensible people who have gone to bed will
+have the town entirely to ourselves to-morrow."
+
+Moyne smiled feebly.
+
+"I wish it was all well over," he said. "I hope the Prime Minister
+won't be disagreeable to--. It would have been better, much better, if
+she'd gone to Castle Affey."
+
+"You needn't be a bit afraid of that," I said.
+
+This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be
+disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left
+Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would
+certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister.
+
+"I don't know," said Moyne. "He may hold her responsible to some
+extent. And she is, you know. That's the worst of it, she is. We all
+are."
+
+"Not at all," I said.
+
+"Oh, but we are," said Moyne. "I feel that. I wish to goodness we'd
+never--"
+
+"What I mean is that the Prime Minister won't hold her responsible.
+After all, Moyne, he's a politician himself. He'll understand."
+
+"But we said--we kept on saying--Babberly and all of us--"
+
+Moyne was becoming morbid.
+
+"Don't be a fool," I said. "Of course we said things. Everybody does.
+But we never intended to do them. Any one accustomed to politics will
+understand that. I expect the Prime Minister will be particularly
+civil to Lady Moyne. He'll see the hole she's in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+I went down to the club next morning at about half-past ten o'clock,
+hoping to see Conroy. He, so I thought, might be able to tell me what
+was likely to happen during the day. Moyne could tell me nothing. I
+left him in the hotel, desperately determined to take the chair at any
+meeting that might be held; but very doubtful about how he was to do
+it.
+
+The streets were much less obviously martial than they had been the
+night before. There were no soldiers to be seen. There were only a
+very few volunteers, and they did not seem to be doing anything
+particular. The police--there were not even many of them--looked quite
+peaceable, as if they had no more terrific duties to perform than the
+regulation of traffic and the arrest of errant drunkards. I began to
+think that I had accidentally told Moyne the truth the night before.
+All our warriors seemed to be in bed, exhausted by their marching and
+counter-marching. I did not even see McConkey with his machine gun.
+This disappointed me. I thought McConkey was a man of more grit. One
+night's work ought not to have tired him out.
+
+Clithering was in the club. He, at all events, was still active. Very
+likely he was caught the night before by some patrolling party and
+forced to go to bed. Unless he happened to be carrying some sort of
+certificate of his religious faith in his pocket, Crossan would almost
+certainly have put him to bed. The moment he saw me he came fussing
+up to me.
+
+"I'm very glad to be able to tell you," he said, "that the troops are
+to be kept in barracks to-day unless they are urgently required. I'm
+sure you'll agree with me that's a good plan."
+
+"It depends," I said, "on the point of view you take. It won't be at
+all a good plan for the police if there's any fighting."
+
+"I telegraphed to the Prime Minister last night," said Clithering; "I
+sent a long, detailed message--"
+
+"I heard about that," I said, "from one of the war correspondents, a
+man called Bland. You rather blocked the wires, and he couldn't get
+his messages through."
+
+"It was of the utmost possible importance," said Clithering, "that the
+Prime Minister should thoroughly understand the situation. Our
+original idea was that the appearance of large bodies of troops in the
+streets would overawe--"
+
+"They weren't overawing any one," I said.
+
+"So I saw. So I saw yesterday afternoon. I telegraphed at once. I gave
+it as my opinion that the troops, so far from overawing, were
+exasperating the populace. I suggested--I'm sure you'll agree with me
+that the suggestion was wise--in fact I urged very strongly that the
+troops should be kept out of sight to-day--under arms and ready for
+emergencies--but out of sight. I am in great hopes that the people
+will settle down quietly. Now, what do you think, Lord Kilmore?"
+
+"They'll be quite quiet," I said, "if you let them hold their
+meeting."
+
+"Oh, but that's impossible," said Clithering. "I quite agree with the
+Prime Minister there. Any sign of weakness on the part of the
+Government at the present crisis would be fatal, absolutely fatal. The
+Belfast people must understand that they cannot be allowed to defy the
+law."
+
+"Then you'd better trot out your soldiers again, all you've got."
+
+Clithering did not seem at all pleased with this suggestion.
+
+"We shall rely upon the police," he said, "to put a stop to the
+meeting. I do not anticipate that there will be any organized--"
+
+"On the whole," I said, "I'm very glad I'm not a policeman."
+
+"Surely," said Clithering, "the responsible leaders of the Unionist
+party will understand the criminal folly of--You don't anticipate--"
+
+"I'm nothing of a prophet," I said; "but if you ask my opinion I'd say
+that the police will be wiped out in about ten minutes. They're a very
+fine body of men; but there aren't nearly enough of them. If you
+really want to stop the meeting you'll have to get out the soldiers,
+and even with them--"
+
+"But we want to avoid bloodshed," said Clithering. "We cannot have the
+citizens of Belfast shot down by the military. Think of the
+consequences, the political consequences. A Tory Government might--but
+we! Besides, the horrible moral guilt."
+
+"It's no affair of mine," I said; "but I should have thought--I dare
+say I am wrong. There may be no moral guilt about killing policemen."
+
+
+"But they won't be killed," said Clithering. "Our one aim is to avoid
+bloodshed."
+
+"You're trying the police rather high," I said. "They'll do what you
+tell them, of course. But I don't think it's quite fair to ask them to
+face ten times their own number of men all armed with magazine rifles
+when they have nothing but those ridiculous little carbines."
+
+"Oh, but the police are not to have firearms," said Clithering.
+"Strict orders have been given--batons ought to be quite sufficient.
+We must avoid all risk of bloodshed."
+
+"Good gracious!" I said. "Do you expect a handful of police with
+small, round sticks in their hands--Oh! go away, Clithering. You mean
+well, I dare say, but you're absurd."
+
+It is very seldom that I lose my temper in this sudden way. I was
+sorry a moment afterwards that I had given way to my feelings. Poor
+Clithering looked deeply hurt. He turned from me with an expression of
+pained astonishment and sat down by himself in a corner. I pitied him
+so much that I made an effort to console him.
+
+"I dare say it will be all right," I said. "The police will probably
+have sense enough to go away before they're shot. Then the meeting
+will be held quite peaceably. I don't know what the political
+consequences of that may be, but you'll get off the moral guilt, and
+there'll be no bloodshed."
+
+This ought to have cheered and consoled Clithering; but it did not. It
+made him more nervous than ever.
+
+"I must go at once," he said, "and see the General in command.
+Everything must be--"
+
+He left the room hurriedly without finishing his sentence. This
+annoyed me. I wanted to know what everything must be.
+
+The reading-room of the club is on the first floor, and the window
+commands an excellent view of Donegal Place, one of the principal
+thoroughfares of Belfast. The club stands right across the eastern end
+of the street, and the traffic is diverted to right and left along
+Royal Avenue and High Street. At the far, the western end, of Donegal
+Place, stands the new City Hall, with the statute of Queen Victoria in
+front of it. There again the traffic is split at right angles. Some of
+the best shops in the town lie on either side of this street. A
+continuous stream of trams passes up and down it, to and from the
+junction, which is directly under the club windows, and is the centre
+of the whole Belfast tramway system. It is always pleasant to stand at
+the reading-room window and watch the very busy and strenuous traffic
+of this street. As a view point on that particular morning the window
+was as good as possible. Donegal Place is the chief and most obvious
+way from the northern and eastern parts of the city to the place where
+the meeting was to be held.
+
+Between eleven o'clock and twelve the volunteers began to appear in
+considerable numbers. I saw at once that I had been wrong in supposing
+that they meant to spend the day in bed. One company after another
+came up Royal Avenue or swung round the corner from High Street, and
+marched before my eyes along Donegal Place towards the scene of the
+meeting. Small bodies of police appeared here and there, heading in
+the same direction. Now and then a few mounted police trotted by,
+making nearly as much jangle as if they had been regular soldiers.
+The hour fixed for the meeting was one o'clock, but at noon the number
+of men in the street was so great that ordinary traffic was stopped. A
+long line of trams, unable to force their way along, blocked the
+centre of the thoroughfare. The drivers and conductors left them and
+went away. Crowds of women and children collected on the roofs of
+these trams and cheered the men as they marched along.
+
+At half-past twelve Moyne drove along in a carriage. The Dean was
+beside him, and Cahoon had a seat with his back to the horses. The
+progress of the carriage was necessarily very slow. I could not see
+Moyne's face, but he sat in a hunched-up attitude suggestive of great
+misery. The Dean sat bolt upright, and kept taking off his hat to the
+crowd when cheers broke out. Cahoon, whose face I could see, seemed
+cheerful and confident.
+
+At the back of the carriage, perched on a kind of bar and holding on
+tightly to the springs, was Bland. Barefooted urchins often ride in
+this way, and appear to enjoy themselves until the coachman lashes
+backwards at them with his whip. I never saw a grown man do it before,
+and I should have supposed that it would be most uncomfortable. Bland,
+however, seemed quite cheerful, and I admired the instinct which led
+him to attach himself to Moyne's carriage. He made sure of being
+present at the outbreak of hostilities, since the meeting could
+neither be held nor stopped till Moyne arrived; and he had hit upon
+far the easiest way of getting through the crowd which thronged
+Donegal Place.
+
+At a quarter to one Bob Power and his company arrived. Instead of
+marching to the scene of the meeting Bob halted and drew his men
+across the end of the street right underneath the club windows.
+Crossan, with another company of volunteers, joined him.
+
+Bob and Crossan consulted together, and Bob gave an order which I
+could not hear. Two of his men laid down their rifles and ran along
+the street, one taking each side of the line of trams. They shouted to
+the people on the roofs of the trams as they passed them. The orders,
+if they were orders, were obeyed. There was a hurried stampede of
+women and children. They climbed down from the trams and ran along the
+street towards my end of it. Bob's men opened their ranks and let them
+go through.
+
+One after another the shops in the streets were closed. Roller blinds
+and shutters covered the windows. A telegraph boy on a red bicycle
+rode through Bob's lines into the empty street. He stopped and
+dismounted, evidently puzzled by the deserted appearance of the
+street. Two of the volunteers seized him and took the envelope from
+his wallet. They sent him back to the post-office. The poor boy was so
+frightened that he left his bicycle behind him.
+
+Bob gave an order and one of his men took the bicycle and rode off in
+the direction of the meeting. A few minutes later one of the club
+waiters brought the telegram to me. It was from Lady Moyne.
+
+"Saw the Prime Minister this morning. He is taking all possible
+measures to avoid bloodshed. Has telegraphed instructions to the
+military authorities. Tell Moyne. Am sending duplicate message to him.
+Want to make sure of reaching him."
+
+I glanced at my watch. It was five minutes past one; evidently too
+late to tell Moyne anything. Whatever was happening at the scene of
+the meeting had begun to happen at one o'clock. I waited.
+
+Ten minutes later a motor car, driven at a furious pace, dashed round
+the corner at the far end of the street, and sped towards us. A single
+passenger sat beside the driver. I recognized him at once. It was
+Clithering. Halfway down the street he suddenly caught sight of Bob's
+volunteers. He clutched the driver by the arm. The car stopped
+abruptly, backed, turned round and sped back again. I lost sight of it
+as it swept round the corner.
+
+Then followed another period of waiting in tense silence. The men
+beneath me--there must have been about five hundred of them--did not
+speak. They scarcely moved. Bob and Crossan stood in front of them,
+rigid, silent.
+
+Bob's scout, the man who had mounted the telegraph boy's red bicycle,
+appeared in front of the Town Hall and came tearing along the street.
+He sprang to the ground in front of Bob and Crossan and spoke to them
+eagerly. They turned almost at once and gave an order. Their men lay
+down. I heard the rattle of their rifles on the pavement. I could see
+their hands fiddling with the sights, slipping along the barrels and
+stocks, opening and snapping shut the magazines. The men were nervous,
+but, except for the movements of their hands, they showed no signs of
+great excitement. One man, near the end of the line, deliberately
+unbuttoned his collar and threw it away. Another took off his coat,
+folded it up carefully, and laid it on the ground behind him. It
+struck me that it was his vest coat, a Sunday garment which he was
+unwilling to soil. Bob walked slowly along the line, speaking in low
+tones to the men. Crossan stood rigidly still a few paces in front of
+the line, watching the far end of the street.
+
+Another cyclist appeared and rode towards us. One of the men fired his
+rifle. Crossan turned round, walked back to the man, and struck him on
+the head. Then he wrenched the rifle from his hands, threw it into the
+street, and kicked the man savagely. The man made no resistance. He
+got up and slowly left the ranks, walking away shamefacedly with
+hanging head. I do not think that Crossan had spoken to him, nor did
+he speak to any one else. His action explained itself. He turned his
+back on the men and once again stared down the empty street.
+Discipline was evidently to be strictly preserved in the ranks of the
+volunteers. There was to be no shooting until the order was given.
+
+When Crossan's proceedings ceased to be interesting I looked round to
+see what had become of the cyclist. I caught sight of him in the
+custody of two volunteers. He was shoved through the door of the club.
+I could only see the top of his head, and so failed to recognize him
+until he entered the room and came over to me.
+
+"Bland," I said. "How did you get here?"
+
+"I spotted this window," said Bland, "as I rode along, and I asked
+them to put me in here. Is it a club?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "What happened at the meeting?"
+
+"Get me a whisky and soda," said Bland, "if you're a member."
+
+I rang the bell.
+
+"What happened?" I said. "Did they hold the meeting?"
+
+"They were holding it," said Bland, "when I left. But it wasn't much
+of a meeting."
+
+I ordered a whisky and soda from a terrified waiter.
+
+"What about the police?" I asked.
+
+"They ran over the police," said Bland. "I don't think they killed
+many. There wasn't any shooting. The whole thing was done with a rush.
+Damned well done. You couldn't call it a charge. The police were drawn
+up in the middle of an open space where four or five roads met. The
+men kind of flowed over them. When the place was clear again, there
+weren't any police. That's all. Ah! here's the whisky!"
+
+He was evidently thirsty for he drank the whole tumbler-full at a
+draught.
+
+"What about Moyne?" I said. "What did he do?"
+
+"Oh! He stood up on the back seat of a carriage and began to make a
+speech. But that didn't matter."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't stay to listen. I expect he urged them not to
+kill any one. But it does not matter what he said. The men with
+rifles, the volunteers, began to march off at once, in good order,
+some in one direction, some in another. In five minutes there wasn't
+anybody left to listen to Lord Moyne except a few corner boys. I can
+tell you this, Lord Kilmore, there's a man with a head on his
+shoulders behind this insurrection. He has those men of his holding
+all the most important parts of the town. I got hold of a bicycle--"
+
+"How?" I said. "You're very wonderful, Bland. How did you get a
+bicycle in the middle of a battlefield?"
+
+"Stole it," said Bland. "It belonged to a policeman, but he is
+probably dead, so he won't mind. I rode after two or three different
+parties of volunteers just to see where they were going. When I got
+back to the place of the meeting there was a body of cavalry trotting
+up. I had a sort of feeling that the battle would come this way. It
+ought to. This is the most important place in the town. All lines of
+communication meet here. Your side has brains enough to see that. The
+question is, will the soldiers attack them here? I chanced it. If
+there's any good fighting to-day it ought to be here."
+
+I am not sure whether the General in command of the troops had the
+brains to recognize that the post which Bob Power held was the key to
+the whole situation. He did a good deal of desultory street fighting
+in other places, and though he made a strong show of attacking Bob
+Power in the end I think he was drawn into it by accident.
+
+Bland lit a cigarette, and he and I stood at the window watching.
+
+A crowd of men appeared at the far end of the street, running in wild
+disorder. They ran quite silently with bent heads and outstretched
+hands. Behind them, immediately behind them, came a squadron of
+dragoons galloping. As the fugitives turned into the street the
+soldiers overtook them and struck right and left with their swords.
+They were using the flats, not the edges of the blades. The fugitives
+staggered under the blows. Some of them stumbled and fell; but I do
+not think that any one was seriously hurt.
+
+"Lord Moyne's audience," said Bland. "The corner boys. There's not an
+armed man among them."
+
+I noticed that when he pointed it out to me. The flying men, wild
+with terror, rushed into the empty trams. For the moment they were
+safe enough. The dragoons could not get at them without dismounting.
+They pulled up their horses.
+
+Bob Power gave an order. Rifles cracked all along his line. The men
+must have emptied their magazines before they stopped firing. The
+officer of the dragoons gave an order. His squadron wheeled and
+galloped back the way they came. Five horses lay plunging on the
+ground. Four men dragged themselves clear of their saddles and ran
+after their comrades. The other lay where he fell.
+
+Six men detached themselves from Bob's lines and ran forward. In a few
+minutes they were dragging the terrified fugitives from the trams and
+driving them along the street. They came towards us, wailing aloud in
+high shrill voices, like women. Behind them came Bob's volunteers,
+carrying the wounded dragoon, and supporting a couple of the fugitives
+who had been knocked down by the soldiers. The howling men were pushed
+through the ranks to the rear. The volunteers closed up again in
+silence. Not even when the dragoons turned and galloped away did they
+break their silence. I have heard of soldiers going into battle with
+shouts and greeting moments of success with cheers. These men fired on
+their enemies without a shout and saw them fly without a cheer. Five
+minutes later a company of infantry marched into the street, extended
+into open order, and fired. Bob's men fired. More infantry came. They
+deployed along the front of the City Hall. The rifle fire from both
+ends of the street was rapid and continuous. It was the first time in
+my life that I had ever been in danger of being killed by a bullet. I
+confess that for a few minutes I was so nervous that I was unable to
+give any attention to the fighting going on in front of me. So many
+rifles were going off at the far end of the street that it seemed
+certain that not only Bland and I but every one of Bob's men must
+necessarily die at once. To my very great surprise I was not hit. My
+nervousness began to disappear. I peered out of the window and noticed
+that none of Bob's men were either killed or wounded.
+
+"I suppose," I said to Bland, "that this is a regular battle. You've
+had some experience so you ought to know."
+
+"Oh yes," said Bland, "it's a battle right enough--of sorts."
+
+A bullet snicked through the window glass above my head and buried
+itself in the wall at the far end of the room. I looked at the
+volunteers again. They did not seem to be suffering. I took a glance
+at the soldiers at the far end of the street. The firing did not seem
+even to annoy them.
+
+"There seems to me," I said, "to be very little damage done. Don't
+they usually kill each other in battles?"
+
+"The shooting's damned bad," said Bland, "damned bad on both sides. I
+never saw worse. I wonder if they mean to shoot straight."
+
+Bob's men, I think, were doing their best; but they were certainly
+making very bad practice. It did not seem to me that during the first
+twenty minutes they hit a single living thing except the four dragoon
+horses. The walls of the houses on both sides of the street were
+filled with bullet marks. A curious kind of shallow furrow appeared
+about halfway down the street. At first it seemed a mere line drawn on
+the ground. Then it deepened into a little trench with a ridge of dust
+beyond it.
+
+"There must be a ton or two of good bullets buried there," said Bland.
+"They haven't sighted for the distance."
+
+"I don't blame the volunteers," I said, "but the soldiers really ought
+to shoot better. A lot of money is spent on that army every year, and
+if they can't hit a single enemy at that distance--"
+
+"I rather think," said Bland, "that the soldiers are firing up into
+the air on purpose. That bullet which came through our window is the
+only one which hit anything. It's shocking waste of ammunition."
+
+The door of the reading-room opened behind me. I turned and saw Sir
+Samuel Clithering. He staggered into the room and looked deadly white.
+For a moment I thought he must be blind. He plunged straight into a
+table which stood in the middle of the room in front of him.
+
+"My God! My God!" he cried.
+
+Then he was violently sick. He must have got into the club somehow
+from the back. I went over to him, intending to get him out of the
+room before he was sick again. He clutched my arm and held me tight.
+
+"Stop it," he said. "Stop it. Promise them anything, anything at all;
+only get them to stop."
+
+I did not quite know what Clithering wanted me to do. It seemed absurd
+to go down to Bob Power and offer, on behalf of the Government, to
+introduce amendments into the Home Rule Bill. Yet something of the
+sort must have been in Clithering's mind when he urged me to promise
+anything. He probably had some vague idea of consulting the wishes of
+the electorate. That is the sort of thing Clithering would think of
+doing in an emergency.
+
+"It's horrible, too horrible," he said. "Oh God! Bloodshed!
+Bloodshed!"
+
+"Cheer up," I said, "I don't think a single man on either side has
+been hit yet."
+
+"I say," said Bland from the window, "did the soldiers get orders to
+fire over the people's heads?"
+
+"Yes," said Clithering. "Strict orders. The Cabinet was unanimous. The
+Prime Minister telegraphed this morning."
+
+"Rather rough on the peaceable inhabitants of the town," said Bland,
+"the men who have kept out of the battle. I suppose you forgot that
+bullets come down again somewhere."
+
+"I was in one of the back streets," wailed Clithering, "far away--"
+
+"Exactly," said Bland, "it's just in back streets that those things
+happen."
+
+"It was a woman," said Clithering, "a girl with a baby in her arms. I
+did not know what had happened. I ran over to her. She and the
+baby--both of them. I shall never forget it. Oh!"
+
+Then he was sick again. Clithering is a highly civilized man. I
+suppose one must be highly civilized if one is to keep pace with the
+changing fashions in stockings. It was out of what is called "Fancy
+Hosiery" that Clithering made most of his money. I felt very sorry for
+him, but his performances were making me feel sick too. I joined Bland
+again at the window.
+
+"They've got a machine gun," said Bland. "Things will get brisker
+now."
+
+I looked out anxiously and saw with a sense of relief that it was
+Bob's side which had got the new gun. McConkey and his assistants had
+turned up from somewhere and were dragging their weapon into position
+under the window of a large jeweller's shop on the left flank of Bob's
+firing line. This was bad enough. In street fighting at close quarters
+a gun of this kind is very murderous and ought to do a terrible amount
+of destruction. But things would have been much worse if the soldiers
+had had it. They, I suppose, would have known how to use it. I doubted
+McConkey's skill in spite of his practice on the slob lands below the
+Shore Road.
+
+"The soldiers will have to shoot in earnest now," said Bland. "If that
+fellow can handle his gun he'll simply mow them down."
+
+It looked at first, I am bound to say, as if McConkey had really
+mastered his new trade. He got his weapon into position and adjusted a
+belt of cartridges, working as coolly as if he were arranging the
+machinery of the Green Loaney Scutching Mill. He seemed to find a
+horrible satisfaction in what he was doing. Twice I saw him pat the
+muzzle of the thing as if to give it encouragement. I dare say he
+talked to it.
+
+"He's damned cool," said Bland. "I've seen fellows who'd been fighting
+for months not half so--"
+
+Then McConkey started his infernal machine. The effect was most
+surprising. Two tramcars, which were standing close to the far end of
+the street, simply disappeared. There was a kind of eruption of
+splintered wood, shattered glass and small fragments of metal. When
+that subsided there was no sign of there ever having been tramcars in
+that particular spot. McConkey evidently noticed that he had not aimed
+his pet quite straight. He stopped it at once.
+
+An officer--I think it was Bob's friend Henderson--sprang to his feet
+at the far end of the street and ran along the line of soldiers
+shouting an order.
+
+"They'll begin in earnest now," said Bland. "Why doesn't he rattle
+them again with the gun?"
+
+McConkey had the best will in the world, but something had gone wrong
+with his gun; it was a complicated machine, and he had evidently
+jammed some part of it. I saw him working frenziedly with a large iron
+spanner in his hand; but nothing he could do produced the least
+effect. It would not go off.
+
+In the meantime Henderson's soldiers stood up and stopped firing. The
+volunteers stopped firing too. The soldiers formed in a line. There
+was silence in the street for a moment, dead silence. I could hear
+McConkey's spanner ringing against the iron of his gun. Then Bob Power
+shouted.
+
+"They're going to charge us. Up, boys, and come on! We'll meet them
+halfway."
+
+"They're all gone mad together," said Bland. "You can't charge down
+magazine rifles. It's impossible."
+
+"It seems to me," I said, "that if this battle is ever to be finished
+at all they'll have to get at each other with their fists. So far
+weapons have been a total failure."
+
+Clithering crawled across the room while we were speaking and clutched
+me by the legs. I do not think it was fear of the bullets which made
+him crawl. He had been so very sick that he was too weak to walk.
+
+"What's happening?" he said. "For God's sake tell me. Are there many
+killed?"
+
+"No one yet on this side," I said. "There may be a few soldiers hit,
+but I don't suppose you mind about them. There's just going to be a
+charge. Get up and you'll be able to see it."
+
+Clithering caught the edge of the window-sash and dragged himself to
+his feet. He was just in time to see Bob's men rush along the street.
+They did not charge in any sort of order. They simply spread out and
+ran as fast as they could, as fast as I ever saw men run. Some of them
+took their rifles with them. Others, evidently agreeing with me that
+they would do more destruction with their fists, left their rifles
+behind. They covered fifty or sixty yards, and were still going fast
+when they discovered that the soldiers were not waiting for them.
+Henderson walked alongside the leading men of the column with his
+ridiculously long sword in his hand. Two mounted officers brought up
+the rear. Two men, with their rifles sloped over their shoulders,
+marched briskly across the end of the street. In the middle of the
+column were eight stretchers carried along. Bob's men, in spite of
+their bad shooting, had wounded that number of their enemies. I found
+out afterwards that they had killed three others outright. The
+discipline of the British army must be remarkably good. In spite of
+this heavy loss the soldiers obeyed orders, and steadily refrained
+from trying to kill Bob's men. Their final disappearance was a
+crowning proof of their obedience. I watched this body of infantry
+march out of sight into the next street. They were not running away.
+They were not even retreating. They gave me the impression of having
+stopped the battle in a way that was quite customary because it was
+time for them to do something else--get some dinner perhaps.
+
+This performance produced, as might be expected, a most disconcerting
+effect upon Bob's warriors. They stopped running and stared at their
+departing foes. Then they turned round and gaped at each other. Then
+they applied to Bob Power for information. They wanted to know,
+apparently, whether they had gained a great and glorious victory, or
+were to regard the departure of the enemy as some subtle kind of
+strategy. Bob seemed as much puzzled as every one else. Even Bland, in
+spite of his experience of battles in two great wars, was taken aback.
+
+"Well, I'm damned," he said.
+
+"Thank God, thank God!" said Clithering.
+
+Then he crumpled up and fainted. He meant, I think, to express the
+relief he felt at the cessation of hostilities. He had not heard, or
+if he heard, had not heeded, Bland's remark. Clithering is not the
+type of man to thank God for any one's damnation, and he had no
+special dislike of Bland.
+
+"I'm damned," said Bland again.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that it's rather unusual in battles to do that
+sort of thing--march off, I mean--without giving some sort of notice
+to the other side. It strikes me as rather bad form. There ought to be
+a rule against it."
+
+Bob's men returned, sheepishly and dejectedly, to their original
+posts. Crossan was arguing with McConkey about the condition of the
+machine gun. The young man who had taken off his coat before the
+battle picked it up from the ground, brushed it carefully, and put it
+on. Bob Power walked along the street with a note-book in his hands.
+He appeared to be writing down the names of the shop-keepers whose
+windows were broken. He is a young man of active and energetic
+disposition. I suppose he felt that he must do something.
+
+Bland stared through the window for some time. He hoped, I dare say,
+that the soldiers would come back, with reinforcements, perhaps with
+artillery. At last he gave up this idea.
+
+"Let's have a drink," he said. "We want one."
+
+He turned abruptly and stumbled over Clithering, who had fallen just
+beside him. I got hold of a waiter, the only one left in the club, and
+made him bring us a whisky and soda. Bland squirted the syphon into
+Clithering's face, and I poured small quantities of whisky into his
+mouth. Clithering is a rigid teetotaller, and has for years been
+supporting every Bill for the suppression of public houses which has
+been brought before Parliament. The whisky which he swallowed revived
+him in the most amazing way.
+
+"Have they gone?" he asked.
+
+"If you mean the soldiers," said Bland, "they have. I can't imagine
+why, but they have."
+
+"I telegraphed to the Prime Minister," said Clithering. "It was hours
+and hours ago. Or was it yesterday? It was just before I saw the woman
+shot. I told him that--that the soldiers--they were only meant to
+overawe the people--not to kill them--I said the soldiers must be
+withdrawn to barracks--I said they must not be allowed--"
+
+I do not know whether it was exhaustion after nervous strain or the
+whisky which affected Clithering. Whisky--and he had swallowed nearly
+a glassful--does produce striking effects upon teetotallers; so it may
+have been the whisky. Clithering turned slowly over on his side and
+went sound asleep. Bland and I carried him upstairs to a bedroom on
+the top storey of the club. There were, Bland said, three bullets
+buried in the mattress, so it was fortunate that we had not carried
+Clithering up earlier in the day.
+
+"Let's get the waiter," said Bland, "if he hasn't gone away, and tell
+him to undress this fool!"
+
+"It's hardly necessary to undress him, is it?"
+
+"Better to," said Bland, "and take away his clothes. Then he'll have
+to stay there, and won't be able to send any more telegrams."
+
+"It's rather a good thing he sent that last one," I said. "If he
+hadn't, somebody would certainly have been killed in the charge."
+
+"I suppose that telegram accounts for it," said Bland. "I mean for the
+behaviour of the soldiers. Orders sent straight from Downing Street. I
+say, what a frightful temper the Commanding Officer must be in this
+minute! I wonder if I could get an interview with him."
+
+He looked questioningly at me. I fancy he hoped that I would give him
+a letter of introduction to the General in command of the district.
+
+"His language," said Bland, "would be a tremendous scoop for me. Could
+you--?"
+
+"No," I said, "I couldn't. I don't know him, and even if I did--"
+
+"Oh, well," said Bland, "it can't be helped. And, any way, I dare say
+I shouldn't have been able to get my telegram through. The wires are
+sure to be blocked."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+I looked at my watch and found that it was three o'clock. The battle
+had lasted more than two hours.
+
+"I had no idea," I said to Bland, "that fighting was such interesting
+work. The time has flown."
+
+"I'm uncommonly hungry," said Bland. "Let's try and find something to
+eat."
+
+When he mentioned the subject of eating I found that I too was very
+hungry. I felt, however, that it was scarcely right, certainly it was
+not suitable to sit down to luncheon in a club while a revolution was
+in full swing under the windows. People ought to be serious
+immediately after battles.
+
+"Oughtn't we to be doing something?" I asked.
+
+"Doing what?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Seeing after the wounded, perhaps."
+
+Attending to wounded men is properly speaking work for women; but both
+Lady Moyne and Marion were in London.
+
+"There are sure to be a few somewhere," I said. "They've been fighting
+all over the town, and I don't suppose the soldiers were as careful
+everywhere else as they were here."
+
+"Are you a surgeon as well as a lord?" asked Bland.
+
+"Oh no. I don't know anything about surgery. My idea--"
+
+"Then I expect the wounded, if there are any, would rather you left
+them alone. Besides, a town like this must have hundreds of doctors in
+it. They'll all be out after the wounded by this time as keen as
+vultures. It isn't every day that an ordinary practitioner gets the
+chance of gouging out bullets. They wouldn't let you interfere with
+their sport even if you paid them. There won't, as a matter of fact,
+be nearly enough wounded to go round the profession. They'd hate to
+have an amateur chipping in. Let's forage about a bit and get some
+food."
+
+It was not very easy to find food in the club, and the only surviving
+waiter was still undressing Clithering. But Bland is a good forager.
+He found two dressed crabs somewhere, and then came upon a game pie. I
+let him have the dressed crabs all to himself. He is a much younger
+man than I am and is a war correspondent. He ought to be able to
+digest anything.
+
+I fully intended to eat three helpings of game pie, for I was very
+hungry; but before I had finished the first of them I was interrupted.
+Crossan stalked into the room. He was the last man I wanted to see.
+His appearance and manner are, at the best of times, tragic.
+Clithering had been with me, off and on, most of the day, so I had got
+rather tired of tragedy.
+
+"I think it right to inform your lordship," said Crossan, "that Mr.
+Godfrey D'Aubigny has just been arrested in the streets."
+
+"Good!" I said. "I hope that whoever has him won't let him go."
+
+"He's to be tried by court martial," said Crossan, "on suspicion of
+being a spy."
+
+Godfrey actually haunts me. No sooner have I achieved a moment's
+peace and quietness--with the greatest difficulty in the middle of a
+rebellion--than Godfrey breaks in on me. How he came to be in Belfast
+I could only dimly guess. It seemed likely that, having heard that a
+battle was going on, he came to the scene of it in the hope of
+pillage.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "they won't actually hang him?"
+
+"It was him, as your lordship is aware," said Crossan, "that gave the
+first information to the Government."
+
+Crossan, in spite of the fact that he was a victorious general,
+preserved his peculiar kind of respect for my title. He did not,
+indeed, take off his hat when he entered the room, but that was only
+because soldiers, while on duty, never take off their hats.
+
+"Don't be absurd, Crossan," I said. "You know perfectly well that he
+hasn't intelligence enough to give anything but wrong information to
+any Government. What he told the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he
+wrote to him was that you were smuggling."
+
+"If your lordship doesn't care to interfere--," said Crossan.
+
+"Can I help in any way?" said Bland.
+
+He had been eating steadily and had finished the two crabs. I had not
+eaten more than three or four mouthfuls of game pie. I felt I might
+accept his offer.
+
+"If you've any experience of courts martial," I said, "I haven't--and
+if you really don't mind trotting off--"
+
+"Not a bit," said Bland. "In fact a court martial would be rather a
+scoop for me. I'm sure the public would want to know how it's run."
+
+"I shall feel greatly obliged to you," I said. "The fact is that a
+nephew of mine is going to be hanged as a spy. You said you were going
+to hang him, didn't you, Crossan?"
+
+"I think it likely, my lord," said Crossan.
+
+"Of course," I said, "he richly deserves it; and so far as my own
+personal feelings go I should be very glad if he were hanged. But, of
+course, he's my nephew and people might think I'd been unkind to him
+if I made no effort to save him. One must consider public opinion more
+or less. So if you could arrange to rescue him--"
+
+While I was speaking Clithering shambled into the room. He was wearing
+a suit of pyjamas not nearly big enough for him. The waiter who put
+him to bed was quite a small man. The pyjamas must have been his. He
+asked us to find his clothes for him, and said that he wanted to go to
+the post-office.
+
+"I must send a telegram to the Prime Minister," he said. "I must send
+it at once."
+
+Crossan eyed him very suspiciously.
+
+"It strikes me," said Bland, "that if you're caught sending telegrams
+to the Prime Minister you'll be hanged too."
+
+"They're just going to hang a nephew of mine," I explained, "for
+writing a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You can see for
+yourself that a telegram to the Prime Minister is much worse. I really
+think you'd better stay where you are."
+
+But Clithering was, unfortunately, in a mood of hysterical heroism. He
+said that he did not value his life, that lives were only given to men
+in order that they might lay them down, and that the noblest way of
+laying down a life was in the service of humanity.
+
+I could see that Crossan was getting more and more suspicious every
+minute.
+
+"It is in order to save the lives of others," he said, "that I want to
+send my telegram to the Prime Minister."
+
+Crossan actually scowled at Clithering. I expected that he would
+arrest him at once. There might have been, for all I knew, a Committee
+of Public Safety sitting in the Town Hall. I could imagine Crossan
+hauling the unfortunate Clithering before it on a charge of
+communicating with the Prime Minister. I could imagine Clithering,
+heroic to the last, waving his incriminating telegram in the faces of
+his judges. Bland saved the situation.
+
+"Come along, Colonel," he said. "Show me where that court martial of
+yours is sitting. Lord Kilmore will restrain this lunatic till we get
+back."
+
+Crossan may have been pleased at being addressed as Colonel. Or he may
+have trusted that I would prevent any telegram being sent to the Prime
+Minister. At all events, he stopped scowling at Clithering and went
+off with Bland. I offered Clithering some of the game pie, but he
+refused to touch it. He sat down at a corner of the table and asked me
+to lend him a pencil and some paper. I did so, and he composed several
+long telegrams. The writing evidently soothed him. When he had
+finished he asked me quite calmly whether I thought he would really be
+hanged if he went to the post-office. I was not at all sure that he
+would not. Clithering sighed when he heard my opinion. Then he sat
+silent for a long time, evidently trying to make up his mind to the
+hanging.
+
+"If I could get the telegram through first," he said at last, "I
+shouldn't so much mind--"
+
+"But you wouldn't," I said; "and what is the good of throwing away
+your life without accomplishing anything?"
+
+"It's terrible," said Clithering, "terrible."
+
+It was terrible, of course; but I was beginning to get tired of
+Clithering. Besides, he looked very ridiculous in pyjamas which only
+reached halfway down his legs and arms.
+
+"Don't you think," I said, "that it would be better for you to go back
+to bed? You'll be safe there, and it won't really matter much whether
+your telegram goes to the Prime Minister or not. A little sleep will
+do you all the good in the world."
+
+"We have murdered sleep," said Clithering.
+
+I never realized the full immensity of Clithering's fatuousness until
+he uttered that mangled quotation from Macbeth in the tone of an
+old-fashioned tragedian. I believe the man actually revelled in
+harrowing emotion. It would not have surprised me to hear him assure
+me that the "multitudinous seas" would not wash out the blood-stains
+from his hands. He might very well have asked for "some sweet
+oblivious antidote." If he had known the passages I am sure he would
+have quoted them.
+
+"Do go to bed," I said.
+
+Then Bland came in leading Godfrey with him.
+
+"I rescued him," said Bland, "without very much difficulty."
+
+"I call it frightful cheek," said Godfrey, "fellows like that who
+ought to be touching their hats to me and saying 'Sir' when they speak
+to me--Fancy them daring--"
+
+This view of the matter was very characteristic of Godfrey. I really
+believe that he would dislike being hanged much less if the
+executioner were one of the small class of men whom he recognizes as
+his social equals.
+
+"They gave him quite a fair trial," said Bland, "and had just
+condemned him when--"
+
+"That fellow Crossan in particular," said Godfrey.
+
+"The Colonel ran round to tell you," said Bland. "I rather fancy they
+wanted to get off carrying out the sentence if they could."
+
+"A lot of fellows," said Godfrey sulkily, "who ought to be wheeling
+barrows! But it's very largely your fault, Excellency. You always
+encouraged that class. If you'd kept them in their proper places--"
+
+"What on earth brought you to Belfast?" I said. "Why didn't you stay
+at home? Nobody wants you here. Why did you come?"
+
+Godfrey looked uneasily at Bland. He evidently did not want to make
+his reason for coming to Belfast public property. Godfrey is usually
+quite shameless. I could only imagine that he had done something of a
+peculiarly repulsive kind.
+
+"Well," I said, "why did you come?"
+
+He looked at Bland again, and then nodded sideways at me.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that you thought there might be some assessment
+made by the Government of the amount of damage done in the town, and
+that if you started valuing things at once on your own hook, you might
+possibly get a job out of it."
+
+"But is there?" said Godfrey eagerly; "for if there is--"
+
+"So far as I know there isn't," I said.
+
+"Anyhow it wasn't that which brought me to Belfast. The fact is,
+Excellency, I couldn't very well stay at home. You remember,"--here
+his voice sunk to a whisper--"what I told you about the Pringles."
+
+"Your bank account?"
+
+"No. Not that. The girl, I mean. Tottie Pringle."
+
+"Oh yes, I remember."
+
+"Well, old Pringle began to get offensive. He seemed to think that I
+ought to--you know."
+
+"Marry her? I expect you ought."
+
+"Excellency?" said Godfrey in genuine horror and amazement.
+
+"By the way," said Bland, "I forgot to mention that I promised the
+court martial to get your nephew out of Belfast before to-morrow
+morning. I hope you don't mind. They wouldn't let him go on any other
+condition."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "Godfrey shall start to-night."
+
+"I don't see why I should," said Godfrey. "I don't think it's at all
+nice of you, Excellency, to--"
+
+"And while we're at it," I said, "we may as well ship off Clithering.
+Godfrey let me introduce you to--"
+
+I looked round and discovered that Clithering was not in the room.
+
+"I hope to goodness," I said, "that he's not gone out to get himself
+hanged. He rather wanted to a few minutes ago."
+
+"It's all right," said Bland. "I saw him going upstairs. I expect he's
+looking for his clothes."
+
+"Godfrey," I said. "I'm going to offer you a great chance. Sir Samuel
+Clithering is in every way a very big man. In the first place he's
+very rich. In the next place he's on intimate terms with the Prime
+Minister. In fact he's been sending him telegrams every hour or so for
+the last two days. You go upstairs and help him to find his clothes.
+Then take him over to London. The Fleetwood steamer is still running.
+If you can get him out of Belfast and lay him down safe and sound on
+his own doorstep the Government will be so grateful that they'll very
+likely make you a stipendiary magistrate."
+
+"But supposing he doesn't want to go?"
+
+"You'll have to make him," I said.
+
+"How?" said Godfrey. "How can I?"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Godfrey," I said. "Nag at him. You've got more than
+two hours before you, and nagging is a thing you're really good at."
+
+Bland took Godfrey by the arm and led him up to Clithering's bedroom.
+He locked them in together, and did not open the door again until half
+an hour before the steamer started. Then he took up Clithering's
+clothes to him. Godfrey had evidently spent the time as I advised.
+Clithering deserved it, of course; but he certainly looked as if he
+had been through a bad time when Bland let him out.
+
+There was a meeting of the Ulster Defence Committee at seven o'clock.
+It was summoned, so the notice which I received informed me, in order
+to make arrangements for preserving the peace of the town. This, I
+thought, was very proper work for the committee. The Cabinet was
+probably making other arrangements with the same object. Between them
+the committee and the Government had destroyed what little peace
+Belfast ever had. The least they could do was to restore it.
+
+Moyne took the chair as usual. He opened our proceedings by saying
+firmly and decisively, that he intended to surrender himself at once
+to the authorities.
+
+"We're the only authorities there are at present," said McNeice, "so
+if you want to surrender--"
+
+"We must resolve ourselves into a Provisional Government," said the
+Dean, who always likes to do things constitutionally.
+
+"The police," said Moyne feebly.
+
+"There aren't any," said McNeice.
+
+"Wiped out," said Malcolmson.
+
+"The General in command of the troops--" said Moyne.
+
+"The troops are shut up in their barracks," said McNeice.
+
+"Licked," said Malcolmson.
+
+"Say," said Conroy, "are you dead sure you whipped them?"
+
+"They bolted," said Malcolmson.
+
+"I don't reckon to be a military expert," said Conroy, "but it kind of
+occurs to me that those troops weren't doing all they knew. I don't
+say but you're quite right to boost your men all you can; but we'll
+make a big mistake if we start figuring on having defeated the British
+army."
+
+"I happen to know," I said, "that Mr. Conroy is quite right.
+Clithering--"
+
+"That spaniel!" said McNeice.
+
+"He told me," I said, "that the troops had orders to fire over our
+men's heads. The idea, I think, was not so much to injure as to
+overawe us."
+
+"It was a damned foolish idea," said McNeice sulkily.
+
+"You cannot," said the Dean, "overawe the men of Ulster."
+
+This is one of the Dean's most cherished opinions. I have heard him
+express it a great many times. I do not know whether the Dean had
+actually been fighting during the afternoon. I am sure he wanted to;
+but he may have considered it his duty to do no more than look on. Our
+Dean is particularly strong on Old Testament history. I am sure he
+recollected that Moses sat on the top of an adjacent hill while Joshua
+was fighting the Amalekites.
+
+"If you want to surrender yourself," said Conroy to Moyne, "I reckon
+you'll have the chance of handing yourself over to a British Admiral
+before long."
+
+"Have you any reason to suppose that the Fleet--?" said Moyne.
+
+"We're ready for them," said Malcolmson. "If the Government thinks it
+can force Home Rule on Ulster with the guns of the Channel Fleet, it's
+making a big mistake. It'll find that out before long."
+
+"If you like, Lord Moyne," said Conroy, "we'll put you under arrest
+and then nobody will be able to hold you responsible afterwards for
+anything that happens. You'll be quite safe."
+
+Whatever Moyne's motives may have been in wishing to surrender
+himself, I am perfectly sure that a desire for his own safety was not
+one of them. I imagine that he hoped, in a confused and troubled way,
+to get himself somehow on the side of law and order again. Moyne was
+never meant to be a rebel.
+
+Conroy's words were insulting, intentionally so, I think. He wished to
+get rid of Moyne before the committee discussed the defence of Belfast
+against the Fleet. He may have wished to get rid of me too. He
+succeeded. Moyne is not nearly so thorough-going a patrician as his
+wife; but he has sufficient class pride to dislike being insulted by a
+millionaire. He got up and left the room. He looked so lonely in his
+dignified retirement that I felt I ought to give him such support as I
+could. I rose too, took his arm, and went out with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+People who organize and carry through revolutions generally begin by
+cutting the telegraph wires, with a view to isolating the scene of
+action. I cannot help thinking that this is a mistake. We kept our
+telegraph offices open day and night, and I am strongly of opinion
+that we gained rather than lost by our departure from the established
+ritual of revolutions. The news which came to us from England was
+often encouraging, and generally of some value. Nor do I think that
+the Government gained any advantage over us by the messages which
+Clithering as their agent, or Bland and others in their capacity of
+public entertainers, sent from Belfast to London.
+
+When Moyne and I got back to our hotel we found two long telegrams and
+one short one waiting for us. The first we opened was from Lady Moyne.
+She had, it appeared, spent a very strenuous day. She caught the Prime
+Minister at breakfast in his own house, and probably spoiled his
+appetite. She ran other members of the Cabinet to earth at various
+times during the day. One unfortunate man she found playing a mixed
+foursome on a suburban golf links. She impressed upon him, as she had
+upon all his colleagues the appalling wickedness of shooting the
+citizens of Belfast. Every one, it appeared, agreed with her on this
+point. The Government's policy, so they told her and she told us, was
+to cow, not to kill, the misguided people who were rioting in
+Belfast. She besought Moyne to use all his influence to moderate the
+anti-Home Rule enthusiasm of Malcolmson and the Dean.
+
+Moyne smiled in a sickly way when we came to this advice.
+
+The other long telegram was from Babberly. I must say that Babberly at
+this crisis displayed immense energy and something like political
+genius. Having been all his life a strong Conservative, and a
+supporter of force as a remedy for every kind of social
+unpleasantness, he turned a most effective somersault and appealed
+suddenly to the anti-militarist feelings of the Labour Party. He
+succeeded--I cannot even imagine how--in organizing a mass meeting in
+Trafalgar Square to protest against the murder of the working-men of
+Belfast in the streets of their own city, by the hired mercenaries of
+the capitalist classes. The meeting was actually engaged in making its
+protest while Moyne and I were reading the telegrams. Babberly's case
+was really extraordinarily strong. Soldiers were shooting off guns in
+Belfast, and the people they fired at--or as we knew, fired over--were
+working-men. There was occasion for a strong and eloquent appeal to
+the sentiment of the solidarity of labour. Babberly was just the man
+to make it with the utmost possible effectiveness. I pictured him
+perched on the head of one of the British lions which give its quite
+peculiar dignity to Trafalgar Square, beseeching a crowd of confused
+but very angry men not to allow the beast to open its mouth or show
+its teeth. I could easily imagine that the news of Babberly's
+exertions, dribbling in during the day to the offices of harassed
+Ministers, might have reinforced with grave political considerations
+the hysterical humanitarian telegrams which Clithering was shooting
+off from the seat of war. A Tory Government might survive a little
+bloodshed. A Liberal Government convicted of having incited a soldier
+to shoot a working-man would be in a perilous position.
+
+"I must say," I said, "that Babberly is infernally clever. I don't
+quite know where he'll find himself afterwards, but--"
+
+"What does it matter about afterwards?" said Moyne, "if only we get
+out of the mess we're in, nothing that happens afterwards need trouble
+us in the least."
+
+"If this meeting of his is really a success," I said, "we may feel
+pretty confident that there'll be no more shooting anyhow."
+
+The next telegram, the short one, rather dashed our hopes of immediate
+peace. It was from Lady Moyne.
+
+"The Channel Fleet," she said, "has been ordered to Belfast Lough.
+Expected to arrive to-morrow morning. Advise unconditional surrender."
+
+Moyne is very fond of his wife, and has a sincere admiration for her
+abilities; but on the receipt of this telegram he lost his temper.
+
+"What on earth," he said, "is the use of advising unconditional
+surrender when Conroy and Malcolmson are engaged at this moment in
+making plans for sinking the Fleet with rifles?"
+
+"I quite agree with you," I said. "There's no kind of use our going to
+them again. But I don't expect they're relying entirely on rifles.
+Malcolmson always said he understood explosives. He may be laying
+submarine mines opposite Carrickfergus."
+
+Lady Moyne's telegram was not the only warning we received of the
+approaching visit of the Channel Fleet. Our system of leaving the
+telegraph wires intact proved to be an excellent one. Everybody in
+Belfast learnt that the Fleet was coming. Everybody, so far as I could
+learn, received the news with joy. Bland was tremendously excited. He
+called on me next morning, and invited me to go with him to see the
+British Fleet in action. He had been up very early and found a place,
+so he said, from which we could have a capital view of the bombardment
+of the town.
+
+"I've got two pairs of field-glasses," he said, "Zeiss prism
+binoculars. We'll see the whole show capitally."
+
+"Was there much other looting last night?" I asked.
+
+"There was none," said Bland. "I hired the glasses. I got them for
+five shillings. Cheap, I call it; but the optician who owned them
+seemed to think they'd be safer if I had them than they would be in
+his shop. More out of the way of shells, I expect."
+
+Moyne refused to come with us. He still cherished the hope of being
+able to surrender himself during the day to some one in recognizable
+authority. Bland and I set out together.
+
+We hurried along High Street, past the Albert Memorial and crossed the
+bridge to the south side of the river. The streets were full of
+volunteers, marching about, all in the highest spirits. The prospect
+of being shelled by the Fleet did not frighten them in the least.
+Having, as they believed, defeated the Army the day before, it seemed
+quite a simple matter to deal with the battleships.
+
+We made our way along the quays, passed through a shipbuilding yard,
+deserted by its workers, and came to a long muddy embankment which
+stretched out on the south side of the channel leading into the
+harbour. On the end of this embankment was a small wooden lighthouse.
+
+"That's our spot," said Bland. "I've got the key of the door."
+
+I will always say for Bland that he has the true instinct of a war
+correspondent. From the top of our tower we saw the Fleet far out in
+the offing. There were not nearly so many ships as I expected. I
+counted seven; disagreeable looking monsters with smoke pouring out of
+their funnels. They were too far off for us to see much of them even
+with the aid of our excellent glasses; but what I did see I did not
+like. Fighting against men requires courage, no doubt, especially when
+they have magazine rifles. But men are after all flesh and blood.
+Fighting against vast iron machines seems to me a much more terrifying
+thing. I wondered whether Malcolmson were also watching the ships and
+whether he were any more inclined than he had been the night before to
+unconditional surrender.
+
+While I was gazing out to sea, Bland tapped me on the arm and drew my
+attention to the fact that a company of volunteers was marching out
+along our muddy causeway. They were Bob Power's men and they came
+along whistling "The Protestant Boys," a tune which makes an excellent
+quick-step march. They had spades with them as well as rifles, and
+they set to work at once to entrench themselves.
+
+"They're going to dispute a landing," said Bland, "but I don't see
+what use that is. The Fleet can shell the whole place into ruins in
+two hours without coming within range of their rifles--and--however
+we'll see. The fellow who's running this revolution--Conroy, isn't
+it?--may have something up his sleeve."
+
+One of the battleships detached herself from her fellows and steamed
+rapidly into the Lough. Opposite Carrickfergus her engines were
+stopped, and she turned slowly in a half circle till she lay broadside
+on to us. I could see her distinctly, and I confess that the look of
+her terrified me.
+
+"Cleared for action," said Bland.
+
+A boat was lowered, a steam launch. In a minute or two she was
+speeding towards us, her white ensign trailing astern. Bob Power stood
+up outside his entrenchment and peered at her. As she drew closer we
+could see behind the shelter hood, the young officer who steered her.
+As she swerved this way and that, following the windings of the
+channel, we caught glimpses of a senior officer, seated in the stern
+sheets. Pushing through the calm water at high speed she threw up
+great waves from her bows. Her stern seemed curiously deep in the
+water. When she was almost abreast of our lighthouse Bob hailed her.
+Her engines were stopped at once. A sailor with a boathook in his hand
+sprang into her bow and stood there motionless while the boat glided
+on. I could see the young officer who steered gazing curiously at
+Bob's entrenchments. Then the senior officer stood up.
+
+"An Admiral," said Bland.
+
+He hailed Bob.
+
+"Are you in command here?" he said.
+
+As he spoke the launch stopped abreast of the entrenchments and lay
+motionless in the water.
+
+"I am in command of this detachment," said Bob.
+
+"Then," said the Admiral, "you are to lay down your arms at once."
+
+"You'd better come ashore," said Bob, "and see our commanding officer
+if you want to make terms with us."
+
+The Admiral flushed. He was quite close to us and we could see his
+face distinctly. He looked as if he wanted to say something explosive.
+The idea of being invited to make terms with rebels was evidently very
+objectionable to him. I suppose he must have had strict and binding
+orders from somebody. He did not say any of the things he wanted to.
+The launch's propeller gave a few turns in the water. Then the boat
+slipped up to the shore. The sailor with the boathook held her fast
+while the Admiral stepped out of her. Bob received him most
+courteously. The Admiral glared at Bob. The riflemen, crouched behind
+their mud bank, scowled at the Admiral. The young officer in the
+launch gave an order and his boat was pushed off from the shore. Bob
+and the Admiral walked off together towards the town.
+
+For an hour and a half the launch lay opposite us in the middle of the
+channel. Occasionally, as the ebbing tide carried her down, she
+steamed a little and regained her position opposite the entrenchments.
+Bob's men, realizing that there would be no shooting till the Admiral
+returned, rose from their trench. They strolled about the embankment,
+chatted, smoked, stared at the launch, stared at the battleship from
+which she came, and peered at the more distant fleet which lay hull
+down far out towards the entrance of the lough.
+
+"Unless Mr. Conroy has some game on that we know nothing about," said
+Bland, "he'd better climb down and make the best terms he can."
+
+I think that Bland was nervous. He made that remark or others like it
+several times while we were waiting for the Admiral's return. I
+candidly confess that I was more than nervous. I was desperately
+frightened. I am not, I hope, a coward. I believe that I was not
+afraid of being killed, but I could not take my eyes off the great
+iron ship which lay motionless, without a sign of life about her, a
+black, menacing monster on the calm water of the lough. I was seized,
+obsessed, with a sense of her immense power. She would destroy and
+slay with a horrible, unemotional, scientific deliberation.
+
+"Conroy had better surrender," said Bland. "He can't expect--"
+
+"He won't surrender," I said; "and if he wanted to, the men would not
+let him."
+
+"Damn it," said Bland. "He must. I've seen war, and I tell you he
+must."
+
+At last the Admiral returned. Bob was with him, and was evidently
+trying to make himself agreeable. He was chatting. Occasionally he
+laughed. The Admiral was entirely unresponsive. When he got close
+enough for us to see his face I saw that he looked perplexed and
+miserable. I was miserable and frightened, but the Admiral looked
+worse.
+
+Behind them there was an immense crowd of people; men, armed and
+unarmed, women, even children. It was a mere mob. There was no sign of
+discipline among them. Some young girls, mill-workers with shawls over
+their heads, pressed close on the Admiral's heels. Bob gave an order
+to his men, and they drew up across the end of our embankment. Bob and
+the Admiral passed through the line. The crowd stopped.
+
+The launch drew to shore again. The Admiral stepped on board her, and
+she steamed away.
+
+The crowd hung around the end of our embankment. Some children began
+chasing each other in and out among the men and women. A few girls
+went down to the water's edge and threw in stones, laughing at the
+splashes they made. Then a young man found an empty bottle and flung
+it far out into the channel. Fifty or sixty men and women threw stones
+at it, laughing when shots went wide, cheering when some well-aimed
+stone set the bottle rocking. Further back from the water's edge young
+men and girls were romping with each other, the girls crying shrilly
+and laughing boisterously, the men catching them round their waists or
+by their arms. It might have been a crowd out for enjoyment of a Bank
+Holiday.
+
+The launch reached the battleship, was hoisted and stowed on board.
+Almost immediately a long line of signal flags fluttered from the
+squat mast. Smoke began to pour from the funnels. The flags were
+hauled down and another festoon of them was hoisted in their place. I
+could see an answering stream of flags fluttering from one of the
+ships further out.
+
+Then, very slowly, the great steamer began to move. She went at a
+snail's pace, as it seemed to me, across the lough to the County Down
+coast. Very slowly she swept round in a wide circle and steamed back
+again northward. There was something terrifying in the stately
+deliberation with which she moved. It was as if some great beast of
+prey paced as a sentinel in front of his victim, so conscious of his
+power to seize and kill that he could afford to wait before he sprang.
+
+The crowd behind us was silent now. The laughter and the play had
+ceased. Children were crowding round the women seeking for hands to
+hold. Some of the women, vaguely terror-stricken, looked into the
+faces of the men. Others had drawn a little apart from the rest of the
+crowd and stood in a group by themselves, staring out at the
+battleship. There were middle-aged women and quite young women in this
+group. I raised my field-glasses and scanned their faces. There was
+one expression on them, and only one--not fear, but hatred. Women
+fight sometimes in citizen armies when such things have been called
+into existence. But it is not their fighting power which makes them
+important. That is, probably, always quite inconsiderable. What makes
+them a force to be reckoned with in war is their faculty for hating.
+They hate with more concentration and intensity than men do. These
+women were mindful, perhaps, of the girl with the baby whom Clithering
+had seen shot. They realized, perhaps, the menace for husbands,
+lovers, and sons which lay in the guns of the black ironclad parading
+sluggishly before their eyes. Remembering and anticipating death, they
+hated the source of it with uncompromising bitterness. The men in the
+crowd seemed crushed into silence by mere wonder and expectation of
+some unknown thing. They were not, so far as I could judge, afraid.
+They were not excited. They simply waited to see what was to happen to
+them and their town.
+
+Once more a string of flags fluttered from the ship's mast. Once more
+the answer came from her consorts. Then for the third time she swept
+round. We saw her foreshortened; then end on; then foreshortened again
+as her other side swung into view. At that moment--just before the
+whole length of her lay flat before our eyes she fired. At first I
+scarcely realized that she had fired. There was a small cloud of white
+smoke hanging over her near the bow. That was all for the moment. Then
+came the horrible sound of the great projectile racing through the
+air. Then it was past.
+
+Some women in the crowd, a few, shrieked aloud. Some girls ran wildly
+towards the town, driven, I suppose, to seek shelter of some kind.
+Most of the crowd stood silent. Then from some young men who stood
+together there came a kind of moaning sound. It gathered volume. It,
+as it were, took shape. Voice after voice took it up. The whole
+crowd--many hundreds of men and women--sang together the hymn they had
+all been singing for months past, "O God, our help in ages past." I do
+not know how far back towards the town the singing spread, but it
+would not surprise me to hear that ten thousand voices joined in it.
+
+Bland had his glasses raised. He was still gazing at the battleship.
+
+"A strange answer," I said, "to make to the first shell of a
+bombardment."
+
+"Yes," said Bland. "It reminds me of a profane rhyme which I used to
+hear:
+
+     "'There was a young lady of Zion
+     Who sang Sunday-school songs to a lion.'
+
+"But hers, I should say, was the more sensible proceeding of the two."
+
+I was not sure. It is just conceivable--it seemed to me at that
+moment even likely--that a hymn, sung as that one was, may be the most
+effective answer to a big gun. There are only certain things which
+guns can do. When they have destroyed life and ruined buildings their
+power is spent. But the singing of hymns may, and sometimes does,
+render men for a time at least, indifferent to the loss of their lives
+and the ruin of their houses. Against men in the frame of mind which
+hymn-singing induces the biggest guns are powerless. The original
+singers fall, perhaps, but the spirit of their singing survives. For
+each voice silenced by the bursting shells ten voices take up the
+song.
+
+The battleship, after firing the gun, swung round and once more slowly
+steamed across the lough. I waited, tense with excitement, for her to
+turn again. At the next turn, I felt sure, another shell would come. I
+was wrong. She turned, more slowly than ever as it seemed. No white
+smoke issued from her. Again she steamed northwards. Again, opposite
+Carrickfergus, close to the northern shore, she turned. Right in front
+of her bows the water was suddenly broken. It was as if some one had
+dropped a huge stone close to her. The spray of the splash must have
+fallen on her fore deck.
+
+"My God!" said Bland, "they're firing at her. Look! From the hill
+above the town."
+
+I could not look. My eyes were on the ship as she slowly turned. Her
+side came gradually into view. Then, quite suddenly and for no
+apparent reason, she staggered. I saw her list over heavily, right
+herself again, and steam on.
+
+"Hit!" said Bland. "Hit! Hit!"
+
+He danced beside me with excitement.
+
+Two puffs of smoke hung over the ship's decks, one forward, one aft,
+and blew clear again. But this time we heard no shrieking shells. She
+was firing, not at the town, but at the guns on the hill which
+threatened and wounded her. Then her signal flags ran up again. Before
+the answer came from the other ships the sea was broken twice close to
+her. I looked to see her stagger from another blow, heel over, perhaps
+sink. Her speed increased. In a minute she was rushing towards us,
+flinging white waves from her great bows. Then she swept round once
+more. Fire as well as smoke poured from her funnels. She steamed
+eastwards down the lough. We saw her join the other ships far out. She
+and they lay motionless together.
+
+The crowd behind us began to sing their hymn again.
+
+Bland and I left our lighthouse and went back towards the town. We
+passed Bob and his men in their trench but they scarcely noticed us.
+We pushed our way through the crowd. We passed the shipbuilding yard,
+now full of eager people, discussing the departure of the ship,
+canvassing the possibility of her coming back again.
+
+"What guns have they on the Cave Hill?" said Bland.
+
+"I don't know," I said. "I did not know that they had any guns."
+
+"I wonder where they got them," said Bland. "I wonder who has command
+of them."
+
+I could answer, or thought I could answer, both questions. As we
+struggled through the crowds which thronged the quay I told Bland of
+the visits of the _Finola_ to our bay and of the piles of huge
+packing-cases which Godfrey had shown me in the sheds behind the
+store.
+
+"But who fired them?" said Bland. "Who have you got who understands
+them? Those were big guns."
+
+"Malcolmson," I said, "always said he understood guns."
+
+"He does," said Bland. "If he'd shot just the least shade better he'd
+have sunk that ship."
+
+On the bridge we met McConkey, sweating profusely, taking his
+favourite weapon along at a rapid trot. He stopped when he saw us and
+halted his breathless team.
+
+"I have her working again," he said, "and she'll shoot the now."
+
+"You're too late," said Bland.
+
+"Is she sunken?" said McConkey. "Man o' man but I'm sorry for it. I
+wanted sore to have a shot at her."
+
+"She's not sunk," said Bland, "but she's gone. Steamed clean out of
+range of your gun."
+
+"I'd have liked well to have got to her before she quit," said
+McConkey. "Did you hear tell what she did with that shell she fired
+into the town?"
+
+"No," I said. "Did it kill many people?"
+
+"Sorra the one," said McConkey. "But I'll tell you what it did do."
+His voice sank to a hoarse but singularly impressive whisper. "It made
+flitters of the statue of the old Queen that was sitting fornint the
+City Hall. The like of thon is nice work for men that's wearing the
+King's uniform."
+
+Bland burst into a sudden fit of boisterous laughter.
+
+"You may laugh if it pleases you," said McConkey, "but I'm thinking
+it's time for loyal men to be getting guns of their own when the
+Government is that thick with rebels and Papishes that they'd go
+shooting at the ould Queen who was always a decent woman, so she was,
+and too good for the like of them."
+
+McConkey's story was perfectly true. The solitary shell which was
+fired into Belfast fell just outside the City Hall. It injured that
+building a good deal; and it entirely destroyed the statue of Queen
+Victoria. It is a curious evidence of the amazing loyalty of the
+people of Belfast that many of them were more angry at this insult to
+Majesty than they would have been if the shell had killed half a dozen
+volunteers. McConkey was not by any means the only man who saw in the
+accident evidence of an unholy alliance between the Liberal Government
+and the men whom Babberly was accustomed to describe as "Steeped to
+the lips in treason."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Bland and I stood together outside the City Hall and surveyed the
+shattered fragments of the statue. The shell must have exploded quite
+close to it, and I was immensely impressed at first with the terrific
+power of modern artillery. Then I began to think about the moral
+effects of the bombardment, and I saw my way to helping Bland in his
+profession. He had been very kind to me and very helpful. I wanted to
+do him a good turn if I could.
+
+"This," I said, "is a magnificent opportunity for you. You'll be able
+to send off a telegram to your newspaper which will make your fortune
+as a correspondent."
+
+"I don't see that," said Bland. "If there'd been a little slaughter I
+might have made something out of it. But a statue! Hang it all! One
+statue is rather a poor bag for the British Fleet. The people are
+proud of their navy. They've spent a lot of money on it, and they
+won't like being told that it has hit nothing but a statue, after a
+long morning's shooting."
+
+Bland had not grasped my idea. For a moment I was inclined to keep it
+for my own use and work it up into an article when I got time. But
+Bland deserved something from me. I resisted the temptation and gave
+him the idea.
+
+"I wish," I said, "that I were a special correspondent. I'd--"
+
+"Well," said Bland. "What would you say?"
+
+"I should take that New Zealander who stood on the broken arch of
+Westminster Bridge and--"
+
+"Macaulay's," said Bland. "I don't think that the public would stand
+him again. He's played out."
+
+"Not in the way I mean to use him. I should, so to speak, spiritualize
+him, and--"
+
+"Hold on a minute," said Bland.
+
+He got out a note-book and a pencil and prepared to write.
+
+"Now," he said, "go on."
+
+Bland's expectant attitude, and the fact that he was evidently going
+to take down what I said in shorthand, embarrassed me. When I write
+essays I like to work deliberately and to correct carefully. I aim at
+a polished elegance of style. I do not care for the kind of offhand
+composition Bland asked for.
+
+"'Interview with a Revolutionary Peer,'" said Bland, "'Lord Kilmore on
+the Ulster Situation.' You were just going to say--"
+
+"Oh, nothing much. Only that the feelings of that New Zealander--"
+
+"Meditating on the ruins of a shattered civilization," said Bland. "I
+can put in that part myself."
+
+"--Are nothing to yours--" I said.
+
+"_Yours_," said Bland.
+
+"Well, mine, if this must be an interview; but I'd rather you had the
+whole credit.--Are nothing to mine when I survey the vacant pedestal
+of that statue. You catch the idea now?"
+
+"No," said Bland. "I don't. Is there one?"
+
+"Yes, there is. These unrecognizable fragments of stone, the once
+majestic statue, Ulster's loyalty."
+
+"Good," said Bland. "I have it now." He began to write rapidly. "'To
+the thoughtful mind there was something infinitely tragic in the
+shattered statue of the great queen, symbol of the destruction of an
+ideal. England bought the friendship of Nationalist Ireland at a heavy
+price when the guns of her Fleet annihilated the loyalty of Ulster.'
+That's your idea."
+
+"You've got it exactly," I said.
+
+"I'll send it off at once."
+
+"Yes. You'd better hurry. It's almost certain to occur to Babberly,
+and the moment it does he'll put it into a speech. If he does, the
+whole credit will go to him."
+
+This impressed Bland. He hurried away towards the post-office. I felt
+that I was not likely to get anything more out of the statue. I put a
+small bit of it in my pocket to keep as a souvenir, and then strolled
+along Donegal Place.
+
+I met Crossan, who saluted me gravely.
+
+"The provisional Government," he said, "desires your lordship's
+presence in the City Hall."
+
+"I'm glad there's a provisional Government," I said. "We want
+something of the sort. Do you happen to know if I'm a member of it?"
+
+"I've been looking for you, my lord," said Crossan, severely, "for
+over an hour, and there's no time to waste."
+
+I hurried off. The Government, after driving off the British Fleet,
+was likely to be in a good temper, but I did not wish to keep it
+waiting for me too long.
+
+When I entered the room I found Conroy, McNeice, Malcolmson, Cahoon
+and the Dean seated at the table. Moyne was not there.
+
+"I congratulate you, gentlemen," I said, "on the result of the
+naval engagement. Malcolmson was perfectly magnificent. It was you,
+wasn't it, who--?"
+
+"I didn't see anything magnificent about it," said Malcolmson,
+sulkily.
+
+"We're damned well sick of being played with," said McNeice.
+
+"If the English Government means to fight us--" said the Dean,
+speaking explosively.
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that you think the Admiral was not in
+earnest in that bombardment?"
+
+"No more than the soldiers were yesterday," said McNeice. "They fired
+over our heads."
+
+"And we're not going to stand any more fooling," said Malcolmson.
+
+"We're business men," said Cahoon, "and this sort of play-acting won't
+do for Belfast."
+
+"Your boss politicians," said Conroy, "have been flooding us out with
+telegrams."
+
+There was a large pile of telegrams in front of him and some forty or
+fifty loose sheets of flimsy yellow paper were scattered about the
+table.
+
+"Their notion," said Conroy, "is that we should send a man over to
+negotiate."
+
+"An ambassador," I said, "Plenipotentiary?"
+
+"Lord Moyne won't go," said the Dean.
+
+"He's the proper man," I said. "Let's try to persuade him."
+
+"He's up at the barracks," said McNeice. "He's been there all morning
+trying to get the General to arrest him."
+
+"It would be far better," I said, "if he went to London and handed
+himself over to the Prime Minister."
+
+"European convention," said Conroy, "makes it necessary, so I am
+informed, that this particular kind of job should be done by a member
+of your aristocracy."
+
+I was, I think, with the exception of Moyne, the only member of the
+House of Lords in Belfast at the moment. The committee had evidently
+fixed on me as an ambassador.
+
+"There is," I said, "a tradition that the Diplomatic Service should
+be--but our circumstances are so very peculiar--I am not sure that we
+ought to feel bound--"
+
+"Will you go?" said Conroy.
+
+"Of course, I'll go," I said. "There's nothing I should like better."
+
+"The _Finola_ is lying off Bangor," said Conroy. "I'll run you and
+Power down there in my motor. He'll land you wherever you like."
+
+"Good," I said. "I suppose I'll go in my shirt with a rope round my
+neck, like the burghers of Calais."
+
+"If that's the regular costume," said Conroy.
+
+He spoke so severely that I thought I had better drop the subject of
+clothes.
+
+"Now, as to the terms which you are prepared to offer the Government,"
+I said.
+
+"We will not have Home Rule," said the Dean and Malcolmson together.
+
+"Of course not," I said. "That will be understood at once. Shall I
+demand Mr. Redmond's head on a charger? I don't suppose you want it,
+but it's always well to ask for more than you mean to take. It gives
+the other side a chance of negotiating."
+
+"All we ask," said McNeice, "is that the English clear out of this
+country, bag and baggage, soldiers, policemen, tax collectors, the
+whole infernal crew, and leave us free hand to clean up the mess
+they've been making for the last hundred years."
+
+"Either that," said Malcolmson, "or fight us in earnest."
+
+"They'll clear out, of course," I said. "If it's a choice between that
+and fighting. But what about governing the country afterwards?"
+
+"We'll do that," said Conroy, "and if we can't do it better than they
+did--"
+
+"Oh, you will," I said. "Anyhow, you can't do it worse. But--there's
+just one point more. What about the Lord Lieutenant?"
+
+"I don't know that he matters any," said Conroy.
+
+"He doesn't," I said, "not a bit. But he's there at present, and some
+arrangement will have to be made about him."
+
+"If the Dublin people like airing their best clothes before an
+imitation king," said Cahoon, "let them. It won't matter to us."
+
+This showed me that Cahoon, at least, has a statesman's mind. In
+unessential matters he is ready to yield to the sentiments of his
+inferiors.
+
+"I understand then," I said, "that the Lord Lieutenant with the purely
+ornamental part of the Viceregal staff is to be allowed to remain on
+the condition that he gives--shall we say eight balls and eight
+dinner-parties every year?--and that every other Englishman leaves the
+country at once. Those are your terms."
+
+"And no more talk about Home Rule," said the Dean firmly.
+
+"Very well," I said, "I'll start at once."
+
+Bob Power was waiting for me in Conroy's motor when I had packed my
+bag. The streets were very crowded as we drove through them, and the
+people cheered us tremendously. It was the first time I had ever been
+cheered, and I found the sensation agreeable. Besides cheering, the
+crowd sang a great deal. Some one had composed a song especially for
+the occasion, which had caught the fancy of the Belfast people, and
+spread among them with wonderful rapidity. The tune, I am told, dates
+from the days of the eighteenth-century volunteer movement.
+
+      "Do you think I'm a fool
+       To put up with Home Rule?
+     For I'm not, as you'll quickly discover, discover.
+       For soldier and rebel
+       I'm equally able;
+     I'll neither have one nor the t'other, the t'other."
+
+As poetry this is scarcely equal to Dr. Isaac Watts' version of the
+ninetieth of David's psalms. The rhyme of "rebel" with "able" is
+defective, and "discover" and "other" jar rather badly; but poets of
+high reputation have done worse in times of patriotic excitement, and
+the thing expressed the feelings of the Belfast people with perfect
+accuracy. A better poet might very well have failed to understand
+them.
+
+Bob and I made the sea-passage as short as possible by steaming to
+Port Patrick. I spent an anxious half-hour while we passed through the
+squadron of warships. Bob assured me that they would not do anything
+to us. When I complained that they had a truculent and angry look
+about them he said that that was nothing out of the common. All
+warships look truculent. I dare say they do. Warfare has become much
+more civilized and scientific than it used to be; but we cannot any
+of us afford as yet to neglect the wisdom of the mediæval Chinese.
+They wore masks in order to terrify their foes. Our battleships are
+evidently designed with the same object.
+
+I reached London next morning, and at once sent word to the Prime
+Minister that I was ready to make a treaty with him. He sent Sir
+Samuel Clithering to act as an intermediary. We met in the library of
+Moyne House, which was neutral ground. Lady Moyne had been one of the
+original syndicate which, so to speak, placed our insurrection on the
+market. Her house was therefore friendly soil for me. She had
+afterwards disassociated herself, more or less, from Conroy and
+McNeice; while Moyne had been trying for two days to surrender
+himself. The Prime Minister's ambassador could therefore go to Moyne
+House without loss of dignity.
+
+Clithering brought my nephew Godfrey with him.
+
+"Mr. D'Aubigny," he said, "is acting for the present as one of my
+private secretaries."
+
+Clithering is a man who accumulates private secretaries rapidly. It
+would not have surprised me to hear that he had a dozen.
+
+"I brought him," Clithering went on, "to take notes of our
+conversation. I thought that you would prefer him to a stranger."
+
+I should very much have preferred the young man from Toynbee Hall who
+escorted Marion to the cathedral. I should, in fact, have preferred
+any other private secretary. But I had not the heart to say so. The
+experience of the last few days had softened me, and Godfrey looked
+immensely pleased with himself. He had on a new frock coat,
+beautifully cut, and a pair of trousers of an exquisite shade of grey.
+He also had a pale mauve tie with a pearl pin in it.
+
+Clithering began rather pompously. I dare say he really thought that
+he was in a position to dictate terms.
+
+"I hope," he said, "I sincerely hope that you fully realize the
+extraordinary forbearance with which the Government has treated
+this--this--"
+
+"Don't say rebellion," I said; "we're thoroughly loyal men and always
+have been."
+
+Clithering hesitated. He wanted to say rebellion, but he remembered
+that he was engaged in a game of diplomacy.
+
+"This _émeute_," he said at last.
+
+French is, after all, a greater language than English. I could not
+object to _émeute_. I should have objected to any English description
+of our rising.
+
+"We might," said Clithering, "have shot the people down. We might have
+bombarded the town. I am sure that you realize that."
+
+"We realize it," I said, "but we don't altogether appreciate it. In
+fact, we feel that your way of conducting the war has been rather
+insulting to us."
+
+"You don't mean to say," said Clithering, "that you really wanted
+us--to--to shoot in earnest?"
+
+"We did. In fact one of the alternatives which I am empowered to offer
+you--"
+
+"Offer us! But we--we are--I mean to say that the terms of settlement
+must, of course, be dictated by us."
+
+"Not at all," I said. "Godfrey, you can't write shorthand, I know; but
+you must try and take down what I'm going to say now as accurately as
+possible. I'll speak quite slowly. The Government--I mean, of course,
+so far as Ulster is concerned, the late Government--your
+Government--must either conduct the war in a proper business-like
+way--have you got that down, Godfrey?"
+
+"Do you mean," said Clithering, "that you want us--?"
+
+"I mean," I said, "that we have put our money into it. Conroy, in
+particular, has spent huge sums on cannons. We are determined to have
+a show of some sort. Your Government must therefore either agree to
+fight properly and not keep running away every time we get a shot in,
+or--"
+
+"Yes," said Clithering, "go on."
+
+"I'm waiting," I said, "till Godfrey gets that written down. Have you
+finished, Godfrey? Very well. Or--now take this down carefully--you
+English clear out of Ireland altogether, every man of you, except--"
+
+"But--but--but--" said Clithering.
+
+"And leave us to manage Ireland ourselves. Got that, Godfrey?"
+
+"But," said Clithering; "but--I thought you didn't want Home Rule."
+
+"We don't. We won't have it at any price."
+
+"But that is Home Rule of the most extreme kind."
+
+"There's no use splitting hairs," I said, "or discussing finicking
+points of political nomenclature. The point for you to grasp is that
+those are our terms."
+
+"Will you excuse me?" said Clithering. "This is all rather surprising.
+May I call up the Prime Minister on the telephone?"
+
+"Certainly," I said. "I'm in no hurry. But be sure you put it to him
+distinctly. I don't want to have any misunderstanding."
+
+There was no telephone in the library of Moyne House. Clithering had
+to ring for a servant who led him off to another room. Godfrey seized
+the opportunity of his absence to confide in me.
+
+"Poor old Clithering is a bit of a bounder," he said. "Makes
+stockings, you know, Excellency. And Lady Clithering is a fat
+vulgarian. It's all she can do to pick up her aitches. I shouldn't
+think of stopping in their house if--"
+
+"If any one else would give you food and pocket money."
+
+"There's that, of course," said Godfrey. "But what I was thinking of
+is the daughter. There is a daughter and she ought to have a tidy
+little pile. Now do you think it would be worth my while to marry into
+a family like that for forty thou.? Clithering ought to run to forty
+thou., with the title in sight. I wonder if you would mind sounding
+him, Excellency?"
+
+"At present," I said, "I'm arranging about the fate of Belfast, which
+is rather an important matter in some ways. But--"
+
+Godfrey did not seem to care much about the fate of Belfast.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that it really is settled about Marion and that
+fellow Power."
+
+"Quite," I said; "they're to be married at once."
+
+"Then I think, Excellency, if you don't mind speaking to old
+Clithering--I wouldn't like to commit myself until I was pretty sure
+of the money. There's only one daughter, so he can hardly offer less
+than forty thou."
+
+I fully intended to tell Godfrey what I thought of him; but words were
+not easy to find. I was still searching for a noun to go along with
+"damnable" when Clithering came back. He seemed greatly excited.
+
+"The Prime Minister," he blurted out, "is quite ready--He says he has
+no objection--In fact it's what we've been trying to do all along. Our
+Home Rule Bill was simply an attempt--"
+
+"Do try to be coherent," I said. "What did the Prime Minister say?"
+
+"He said we'd leave Ireland with the greatest pleasure," said
+Clithering.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+Something in the way Clithering spoke made me think the Prime Minister
+must have said more than that.
+
+"He added," said Clithering, "that--"
+
+Then he paused nervously.
+
+"Out with it," I said. "It's far better to have no secrets. Godfrey,
+take down the Prime Minister's words."
+
+"He added," said Clithering, "that there is only one thing which would
+please him better than to see the back of the last Irishman leaving
+Westminster, and that is--"
+
+"Go on," I said.
+
+"To hear that at the end of three weeks you'd all torn each other to
+pieces, and that there was nothing but a lot of trouser buttons left
+to show that Ireland had ever been an inhabited country. Of course he
+didn't mean it. If there was the least chance of any internecine
+strife our conscience would not allow us--after all we have a duty, as
+Englishmen--but there's no risk of bloodshed, is there, Lord Kilmore?"
+
+"Not the slightest. I may take it then that your Government agrees to
+our terms. You cart away your army and all your officials, except the
+Lord Lieutenant. We want him. He's to give parties for the Dublin
+doctors and the smaller landed gentry."
+
+"But about his salary," said Clithering. "Is that to be an Imperial
+charge, or are you--?"
+
+"I forgot to ask about that," I said, "but if there's any difficulty I
+expect Conroy will agree to pay it. It's not much, is it?"
+
+"I'm not sure of the exact figure; but I know it's never supposed to
+be enough."
+
+"I've no actual authority for saying so," I said, "but I expect we'll
+want to do the thing decently if we do it at all. Cahoon has the mind
+of a statesman, and in his opinion something will have to be done to
+soothe the Dublin public. A first-rate Viceregal establishment was his
+idea. However, we needn't go into details. The main thing is that we
+want a Lord Lieutenant. If your Government undertakes to supply
+suitable men from time to time I think I may promise that we'll find
+the money. Write that down, Godfrey."
+
+"When you speak of the English clearing out of Ireland," said
+Clithering, "and leaving you the country to yourselves, you don't of
+course mean absolute fiscal independence."
+
+"We do," I said.
+
+"You can't mean that," said Clithering. "It's costing us nearly two
+millions a year to run the country, and if that's withdrawn you will
+go bankrupt."
+
+"What McNeice said," I replied, "was that you were to clear out, bag,
+baggage, soldiers, police, tax-collectors, and the whole--"
+
+"Tax-collectors!" said Clithering. "I'm not sure--"
+
+"Didn't your Prime Minister say he'd be glad to get rid of us? What's
+the use of your arguing on about every little point?"
+
+"But," said Clithering, "the collection of the revenue! Between
+ourselves now, Lord Kilmore, do you think there would be any risk of
+your imposing a tariff on--"
+
+"Certain to," I said. "It will be one of the first things we do."
+
+"We can't agree to that," said Clithering. "Free Trade is a principle,
+a sacred principle with us. You can't expect--We are a Free Trade
+Government. Our consciences--"
+
+"Very well," I said. "Go on with the war. Bombard Belfast. Kill
+another woman. Smash the Albert Memorial with a shell."
+
+"Our consciences--" said Clithering.
+
+"Your consciences," I said, "will have to let you do one thing or the
+other."
+
+"Now take my own case," said Clithering. "I am interested, deeply
+interested, in hosiery. We do a big business in stockings."
+
+Godfrey winced. I do not wonder. The future Lady Kilmore must, of
+course, wear stockings, but it is not pleasant for Godfrey to think of
+her supply coming straight from the paternal factory.
+
+"The Irish trade," said Clithering, "is not among the most
+remunerative, but--"
+
+"We can only afford to wear the cheaper sorts," I said; "and a great
+many of us can't buy any at all. I don't think you need bother about
+the Irish trade."
+
+"Still, it is substantial. Now, a hostile tariff--or a bounty on
+Balbriggan--"
+
+"You'll have to establish a factory in Ireland," I said, "and dodge
+the tariff. Tipperary now. Labour is comparatively cheap, and--After
+all, it's a choice between that and letting the Fleet loose at Belfast
+again."
+
+Clithering thought this over. I think the idea of cheap labour in
+Tipperary cheered him up. When he next spoke it was in a most friendly
+tone.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that the shells which were fired--"
+
+"There was only one," I said.
+
+"I heard that no lives were lost," said Clithering. "I hope that the
+damage done to property was not serious."
+
+"One statue," I said, "was smashed to bits."
+
+"I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed. Now I wonder if you would allow
+me--I mean if the people of Belfast would allow me--as a personal
+expression of the warm feeling of friendliness I've always felt for
+the Irish people, _all_ the Irish people--I wonder if I might offer to
+replace the statue. I should esteem it an honour."
+
+"It was a very large statue," I said, "and must have cost--"
+
+"Oh, I should not allow considerations of money to stand in my way."
+
+This was handsome. I looked at Godfrey to see how he liked to hear his
+future wife's dowry being frittered away on statues. I could see that
+he was anything but pleased.
+
+"I shall convey your offer," I said, "to the people of Belfast. They
+may not want that exact statue again. We're not quite as keen on Kings
+and Queens as we were. But I feel quite sure something symbolic would
+appeal to us strongly. What would you think now of Ulster as an infant
+Hercules strangling a snake representing Home Rule? Any good sculptor
+would knock off something of that sort for you; about twelve feet by
+nine feet, not counting the pedestal. By the way, did we do much
+damage to your ship? The one Malcolmson hit with his cannon ball?"
+
+"I don't know," said Clithering. "I did not hear any details."
+
+"Because," I said, "if she is injured in any way--But perhaps she was
+insured?"
+
+"I don't think men-of-war are insured."
+
+"Well, they ought to be. But if that one wasn't I'm sure we'd like to
+make good any damage we did. Conroy has lots of money, and he'd be
+sorry if the English people were put to any expense in repairing a
+battleship we injured."
+
+I am not a practised ambassador, but I have always understood that
+diplomacy is a trade in which politeness pays. I was not going to be
+outdone by Clithering. When he offered Belfast a new statue I could
+hardly do less than promise that Conroy would mend the ship. I was
+very glad afterwards that I thought of it. Clithering was tremendously
+pleased, and made me quite a long speech. He said that he looked upon
+my offer as a kind of first-fruit of the new spirit of amity which
+was coming into existence between England and Ireland.
+
+This ended our negotiations to the satisfaction of every one
+concerned.
+
+Lady Moyne returned at once to Castle Affey and spent the summer in
+planning new ways of keeping the insurgent industrial democracy from
+invading the rights and privileges of the propertied classes. Last
+time I dined there she explained to me a scheme for developing the Boy
+Scout movement, which would, she thought, distract the attention of
+the public and push social questions into the background. Babberly
+escaped having to address a labour meeting in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He
+had promised to do this, but there was no necessity for him to keep
+his promise once the troops were withdrawn from Belfast. He returned
+to his duties in Parliament, and, as I gathered from the papers,
+harassed the Government successfully all through the autumn session.
+The Dean and Crossan played their hymn tune on our church bells every
+day for a fortnight. They still--and I am writing several months after
+the new Irish Government has been firmly established--congratulate
+each other on the way in which the third Home Rule Bill was defeated
+by the unfaltering attitude of the Ulster Loyalists.
+
+Godfrey, I regret to say, failed to marry Miss Clithering. She took a
+violent dislike to him after he had spent three weeks in her father's
+house. Not even the prospect of becoming Lady Kilmore would reconcile
+her to the marriage. I am therefore still responsible for his
+maintenance.
+
+I have, unfortunately, been obliged to give up writing my "History of
+Irish Rebellions." I do not understand Marion's system of filing, and
+I cannot find any of the papers I want. I cannot get Marion to explain
+things to me, or to take any trouble to help me. Since she married Bob
+Power she has lost all interest in my literary work.
+
+                         THE END
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
+intent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29533-8.txt or 29533-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/3/29533/
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/29533-8.zip b/29533-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4c8278
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533-8.zip
diff --git a/29533-h.zip b/29533-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9639673
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533-h.zip
diff --git a/29533-h/29533-h.htm b/29533-h/29533-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f869e6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533-h/29533-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,9349 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of  The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    td  {vertical-align: top;}
+
+    hr.large          {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+
+    div.centered {text-align:center;} /*work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */
+    div.centered table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align:left;} /* work around for IE problem part 2 */
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+    .double     {display: block;   /* fake hr for double rules */
+                 width: 100%;
+                 height: 3px;
+                 line-height: 3px;
+                 color: black;
+                 margin: 10px auto 10px auto;
+                 padding: 0;
+                 border-top: 1px solid black;
+                 border-bottom: 1px solid black; }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+    .n        {text-indent:0%;}
+    .right    {text-align: right;}
+    .bbox     {border: solid 2px;}
+    .bbox2    {border: none;}
+
+    .centerbox  {width: 18em;        /* heading box */
+                 margin: 0 auto;
+                 text-align: center;}
+    .centerbox2 {width: 23em;        /* heading box */
+                 margin: 0 auto;
+                 text-align: center;}
+    .centerbox3 {width: 25em;        /* heading box */
+                 margin: 0 auto;
+                 text-align: center;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+    .gap      {margin-top: 3em;}
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Hand of Ulster
+
+Author: George A. Birmingham
+
+Release Date: July 29, 2009 [EBook #29533]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>THE RED HAND<br />
+OF ULSTER</h1>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>G. A. BIRMINGHAM</h2>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF &#8220;SPANISH GOLD,&#8221; &#8220;THE MAJOR&#8217;S NIECE,&#8221;<br />
+&#8220;PRISCILLA&#8217;S SPIES,&#8221; ETC.</p>
+
+<p class="gap">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 101px;">
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="101" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="gap">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>HODDER &amp; STOUGHTON<br />
+NEW YORK<br />
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1912,</p>
+
+<p class="center">By George H. Doran Company</p>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="60%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="10" summary="CONTENTS">
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER I.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#THE_RED_HAND_OF_ULSTER">1</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER II.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">9</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER III.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">19</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">26</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER V.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">35</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER VI.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">44</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER VII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">54</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER VIII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">64</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER IX.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">79</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER X.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">90</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XI.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">101</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">110</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XIII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">119</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XIV.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">129</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XV.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">142</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XVI.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">153</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XVII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">163</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">175</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XIX.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">184</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XX.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">200</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XXI.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">212</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XXII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">233</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XXIII.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">245</a></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td align="left">CHAPTER XXIV.</td>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">260</a></td></tr>
+
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>UNIFORM EDITION <i>of the</i> WORKS <i>of</i></h4>
+
+<h2>G. A. BIRMINGHAM</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Each, net $1.20</i></p>
+
+<p class="double">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">LALAGE&#8217;S LOVERS</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">SPANISH GOLD</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">THE SEARCH PARTY</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">THE SIMPKINS PLOT</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">THE MAJOR&#8217;S NIECE</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">PRISCILLA&#8217;S SPIES</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">THE RED HAND</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">OF ULSTER</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="double">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3>
+
+<h4>NEW YORK</h4></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h2>PREFATORY NOTE</h2>
+
+<p>In a book of this kind some of the characters are necessarily placed
+in the positions occupied by living men; but no character is in any
+way copied from life, and no character must be taken as representing
+any real person. Nor must the opinions of Lord Kilmore of Errigal, the
+imaginary narrator of the tale, be regarded as those of the Author.</p>
+
+<p class="right">G. A. B.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h2>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">LORD KILMORE OF ERRIGAL</p>
+
+<p>The events recorded in this chapter and the next did not fall under my
+own observation. I derived my knowledge of them from various sources,
+chiefly from conversations with Bob Power, who had, as will appear,
+first-hand knowledge. In the third chapter I begin my own personal
+narrative of the events which led up to the final struggle of Ulster
+against Home Rule and of the struggle itself. Accidents of one kind or
+another, the accidents of the situation of Kilmore Castle, the
+accident of Bob Power&#8217;s connection with my daughter Marion, the
+accidents of my social position and personal tastes, have placed me in
+a position to give a very full account of what actually happened. The
+first two chapters of this book will therefore be written in the
+impersonal manner of the ordinary history; I myself occupying the
+position of unseen spectator. The rest of the book is largely founded
+upon the diary which I actually kept.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_RED_HAND_OF_ULSTER" id="THE_RED_HAND_OF_ULSTER"></a>THE RED HAND OF ULSTER</h2>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span>t was in 1908 that Joseph Peterson Conroy burst upon London in the
+full magnificence of his astounding wealth. English society was, and
+had been for many years, accustomed to the irruption of millionaires,
+American or South African. Our aristocracy has learnt to pay these
+potentates the respect which is their due. Well-born men and women
+trot along Park Lane in obedience to the hooting calls of motor horns.
+No one considers himself degraded by grovelling before a plutocrat.</p>
+
+<p>It has been for some time difficult to startle London by a display of
+mere wealth. Men respect more than ever fortunes which are reckoned in
+millions, though they have become too common to amaze. But Joseph
+Peterson Conroy, when he came, excited a great deal of interest. In
+the first place his income was enormous, larger, it was said, than the
+income of any other living man. In the next place he spent it very
+splendidly. There were no entertainments given in London during the
+years 1909, 1910, and 1911, equal in extravagance to those which
+Conroy gave. He outdid the &#8220;freak dinners&#8221; of New York. He invented
+freak dinners of his own. His horses&mdash;animals which he bought at
+enormous prices&mdash;won the great races. His yachts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>flew the white
+ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron. His gifts to fashionable charities
+were princely. English society fell at his feet and worshipped him.
+The most exclusive clubs were honoured by his desire of membership.
+Women whose fathers and husbands bore famous names were proud to boast
+of his friendship.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be said that Conroy abused either his position or his
+opportunities. He had won his great wealth honestly&mdash;that is to say
+without robbing any one except other robbers, and only robbing them in
+ways permitted by American law. He used what he had won honourably
+enough. He neither bought the favours of the women who thronged his
+entertainments; nor degraded, more than was necessary, the men who
+sought benefits from him. For a time, for nearly four years, he
+thoroughly enjoyed himself, exulting with boyish delight in his own
+splendour. Then he began to get restless. The things he did, the
+people he knew, ceased to interest him. It was early in 1911 that
+the crisis came; and before the season of that year was over Conroy
+had disappeared from London. His name still appeared occasionally
+in the columns which the newspapers devote to fashionable intelligence.
+But the house in Park Lane&mdash;the scene of many magnificent
+entertainments&mdash;was sold. The dinner parties, balls and card parties
+ceased; and Conroy entered upon what must have been the most exciting
+period of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power&mdash;no one ever called him Robert&mdash;belonged to an old and
+respected Irish family, being a younger son of General Power of
+Kilfenora. He was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>educated at Harrow and afterwards at Trinity
+College. He was called to the Irish bar and might have achieved in
+time the comfortable mediocrity of a County Court judgeship if he had
+not become Conroy&#8217;s private secretary. The post was secured for him by
+an uncle who had known Conroy in New York in the days before he became
+a millionaire, while it was still possible for an ordinary man to do
+him a favour. Bob accepted the post because everybody said he would be
+a fool to refuse it. He did not much like writing letters. The making
+out of schemes for the arrangements of Conroy&#8217;s guests at the more
+formal dinner parties worried him. The general supervision of the
+upper servants was no delight to him. But he did all these things
+fairly well, and his unfailing good spirits carried him safely through
+periods of very tiresome duty. He became, in spite of the twenty-five
+years&#8217; difference of age between him and his patron, the intimate
+friend of Joseph Peterson Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>It was to Bob that Conroy confided the fact that he was tired of the
+life of a leader of English society. The two men were sitting together
+in the smoking room at one o&#8217;clock in the morning after one of
+Conroy&#8217;s most magnificent entertainments.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m damned well sick of all this,&#8221; said Conroy suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So am I,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power was a man of adventurous disposition. He had a reputation in
+Connacht as a singularly bold rider to hounds. The story of his
+singlehanded cruise round Ireland in a ten tonner will be told among
+yachtsmen until his son does something more extravagantly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>idiotic.
+The London season always bored him. The atmosphere of Conroy&#8217;s house
+in Park Lane stifled him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is there any one thing left in this rotten old world,&#8221; said Conroy,
+&#8220;that&#8217;s worth doing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In Bob&#8217;s opinion there were several things very well worth doing. He
+suggested one of them at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s get out the <i>Finola</i>,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and go for a cruise. We&#8217;ve
+never done the South Sea Islands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Finola</i> was the largest of Conroy&#8217;s yachts, a handsome vessel of
+something over a thousand tons.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Cruising in the <i>Finola</i>,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;is no earthly good to me.
+What I want is something that will put me into a nervous sweat, the
+same as I was when I was up against Ikenstein and the railway bosses.
+My nerves were like damned fiddle strings for a fortnight when I
+didn&#8217;t know whether I was going to come out a pauper or the owner of
+the biggest pile mortal man ever handled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob knew nothing of Ikenstein or the methods by which the pile had
+been wrested from him and his companions, but he did know the
+sensations which Conroy described. He, himself, arrived at them by
+hanging on to a sea anchor in a gale of wind off the Galway coast, or
+pushing a vicious horse at a nasty jump. Nervous sweat, stretched
+nerves and complete uncertainty about the immediate future afford the
+same delight however you get at them. He sympathized with Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You might fit out a ship or two and try exploring round the South
+Pole,&#8221; Bob said. &#8220;They&#8217;ve got the thing itself of course, but there
+must be lots of places still undiscovered in the neighbourhood. I
+should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>think that hummocking along over the ice floes in a dog sledge
+must be pretty thrilling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Conroy sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m too fat,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and I&#8217;m too darned soft. The kind of life
+I&#8217;ve led for the last four years isn&#8217;t good training for camping out
+on icebergs and feeding on whale&#8217;s blubber.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob smiled. Conroy was a very fat man. A camping party on an iceberg
+would be likely to end in some whale eating his blubber.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t mean you to go yourself,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I see. I&#8217;m to fit out the expedition and you are to go in
+command. I don&#8217;t quite see where the fun would come in for me. It
+wouldn&#8217;t excite me any to hear of your shooting Esquimaux and
+penguins. I shouldn&#8217;t care enough whether you lived or were froze to
+get any excitement out of a show of that kind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;d call it &#8216;The Joseph P. Conroy Expedition,&#8217;&#8221; said Bob; &#8220;and the
+newspapers&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thanks. But I&#8217;m pretty well fed up with newspaper tosh. The press has
+boosted me ever since I landed in this country, and I&#8217;d just as soon
+they stopped now as started fresh.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob relinquished the idea of a Polar expedition with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>It was Conroy himself who made the next suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If politics weren&#8217;t such a rotten game&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob did not feel attracted to political life; but he was loyal to his
+patron.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Clithering,&#8221; he said, &#8220;was talking to me to-night. You know the man I
+mean, Sir Samuel Clithering. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>He&#8217;s not in the Cabinet, but he&#8217;s what
+I&#8217;d call a pretty intimate hanger on; does odd jobs for the Prime
+Minister. He said the interest of political life was absorbing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t care for it,&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;After all, what would it be
+worth to me? There&#8217;s nothing for me to gain, and I don&#8217;t see how I
+could lose anything. It would be like playing bridge for counters.
+They might make me a lord, of course. A title is about the only thing
+I haven&#8217;t got, but then I don&#8217;t want it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite agree with you,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I merely mentioned politics
+because Clithering said&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Besides,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;it wouldn&#8217;t be my politics. England isn&#8217;t my
+country.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be rather exciting,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;to run a revolution
+somewhere. There are lots of small states, in the Balkans, you know,
+which could be turned inside out and upside down by a man with the
+amount of money you have.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something in that notion,&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;Get a map, will
+you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power did not want to go wandering round the house at half-past
+one o&#8217;clock in the morning looking for a map of the Balkan States. It
+seemed to him that the idea&mdash;the financing of a revolution was of
+course a joke&mdash;might be worked out with reference to some country
+nearer at hand, the geographical conditions of which would be
+sufficiently well known without the aid of a map.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not try Ireland?&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then a very curious thing happened. Conroy&#8217;s appearance, not merely
+his expression but his actual features seemed to change. Instead of
+the shrewd face <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>of a successful American financier Bob Power saw the
+face of an Irish peasant. He was perfectly familiar with the type. It
+was one which he had known all his life. He knew it at its best,
+expressive of lofty idealisms and fantastic dreams of things beyond
+this world&#8217;s experience. He knew it at its worst too, when narrow
+cunning and unquenchable bitterness transform it. The change passed
+over Conroy&#8217;s face and then quickly passed away again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By God!&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;it&#8217;s a great notion. To buck against the
+British Lion!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob remembered the things which he had heard and half heeded about
+Conroy&#8217;s ancestry. In 1850 another Conroy, a broken peasant, the
+victim of evil fate and gross injustice, had left Ireland in an
+emigrant ship with a ragged wife and four half starved children
+clinging to him, with an unquenchable hatred of England in his heart.
+The hate, it appeared, had lived on in his son, had broken out again
+in a grandson, dominating the cynical cosmopolitanism of the financial
+magnate. Bob was vaguely uneasy. He did not like the expression he had
+seen on Conroy&#8217;s face. He did not like the tone in which he spoke. But
+it was obviously absurd to suppose that any one could take seriously
+the idea of financing an Irish revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Then Conroy began to talk about Ireland. He knew, it appeared, a great
+deal about the history of the country up to a certain point. He had a
+traditional knowledge of the horrors of the famine period. He was
+intimately acquainted with the details of the Fenian movement. Either
+he or his father had been a member of the Clan na Gael. He understood
+the Parnell struggle for Home Rule. But with the fall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>of Parnell his
+knowledge stopped abruptly. Of all that happened after that he knew
+nothing. He supposed that the later Irish leaders had inherited the
+traditions of Mitchel, O&#8217;Leary, Davitt and the others. Bob laughed at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re thinking of buying guns for the Nationalists,&#8221; he said,
+&#8220;you may save your money. They wouldn&#8217;t use them if they had arsenals
+full. They&#8217;re quite the most loyal men there are nowadays. Why
+wouldn&#8217;t they? They&#8217;ve got most of what they want and Clithering told
+me the Home Rule Bill was going to knit their hearts to the Empire.
+Awful rot, of course, but his very words.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you mean?&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>Bob laughed again. He had all the contempt common in his class for
+those of his fellow-countrymen who professed to be Nationalists. But
+he had rather more intelligence than most Irish gentlemen. He quite
+realized the absurdity of supposing that the Irish Parliamentary party
+consisted of men who had in them the makings of rebels.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Read their speeches,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Since this talk of Home Rule began
+they&#8217;ve been cracking up the glories of the British Empire like&mdash;like
+the Primrose League.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow morning,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;you&#8217;ll fetch me along all the books
+and pamphlets you can lay hands on dealing with the present state of
+the Irish question.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want a small cart,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get a four-horse waggon, if you like,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">F</span>or nearly a week Conroy remained shut up in his study. Bob was kept
+busy. He spent a good deal of time in writing plausible explanations
+of Conroy&#8217;s failure to keep his social engagements. He ransacked the
+shelves of booksellers for works dealing with contemporary Irish
+politics. He harried the managers of press-cutting companies for
+newspaper reports of speeches on Home Rule. These were things for
+which there was little or no demand, and the press-cutting people
+resented being asked for them. He even interviewed political leaders.
+These gentlemen received him coldly at first, suspecting from his
+appearance that he wanted to get a chance of earning &pound;400 a year as a
+member of Parliament, and hoped to persuade them to find him a
+constituency. When they discovered that he was the private secretary
+of a famous millionaire their manner changed and they explained the
+policies of their various parties in such ways as seemed likely to
+draw large cheques from Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>Bob reported what they said, summarized the letters of the
+disappointed hostesses, and piled Conroy&#8217;s table with books,
+pamphlets, and newspaper cuttings. The whole business bored and
+worried him. The idea that Conroy actually contemplated organizing a
+rebellion in Ireland never crossed his mind. He hoped that the
+political enthusiasm of his patron would die away as quickly as it had
+sprung up. It was therefore a surprise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>to him when, after a few
+weeks&#8217; hard reading, Conroy announced his decision.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going into this business,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Politics?&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Politics be damned! What I&#8217;m out for is a revolution.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t do it,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I told you at the start that those
+fellows won&#8217;t fight. They haven&#8217;t it in them to stand up and be shot
+at.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m thinking of the other fellows,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What other fellows?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Belfast,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>Bob whistled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but&mdash;but&mdash;&#8221; The extraordinary nature of the idea made
+him stammer. &#8220;But they are Loyalists.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As I figure it out,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;they mean to rebel. That&#8217;s what
+they say, anyhow, and I believe they mean it. I don&#8217;t care a cent
+whether they call themselves Loyalists or not. It&#8217;s up to them to
+twist the British Lion&#8217;s tail, and I&#8217;m with them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think they really mean it?&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Bob, after a slight hesitation, &#8220;I do. You see I happen
+to know one of them pretty well.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob showed political discernment. It was the fashion in England and
+throughout three-quarters of Ireland to laugh at Belfast. Nobody
+believed that a community of merchants, manufacturers and artisans
+actually meant to take up arms, shoot off guns and hack at the bodies
+of their fellow-men with swords and spears. This thing, at the
+beginning of the twentieth century, seemed incredible. To politicians
+it was simply unthinkable. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>For politics are a game played in strict
+accordance with a set of rules. For several centuries nobody in these
+islands had broken the rules. It had come to be regarded as impossible
+that any one could break them. No one expects his opponent at the
+bridge table to draw a knife from his pocket and run amuck when the
+cards go against him. Nobody expected that the north of Ireland
+Protestants would actually fight. To threaten fighting is, of course,
+well within the rules of the game, a piece of bluff which any one is
+entitled to try if he thinks he will gain anything by it. Half the
+politicians in both countries, and half the inhabitants of England,
+were laughing at the Belfast bluff. The rest of the politicians and
+the other half of the inhabitants of England were pretending to
+believe what Belfast said so as to give an air of more terrific
+verisimilitude to the bluff. Conroy, guided by the instinct for the
+true meaning of things which had led him to great wealth, believed
+that the talk was more than bluff. Bob Power, relying on what he knew
+of the character of one man, came to the same conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who is the man you know?&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;Not Babberly, is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh Lord! no,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;Babberly is&mdash;well, Babberly talks a lot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s so,&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;But if it isn&#8217;t Babberly, who is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McNeice,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;Gideon McNeice.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;H&#8217;m. He&#8217;s something in some university, isn&#8217;t he?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Conroy spoke contemptuously. He had a low opinion of the men who win
+honours in universities. They seemed to him to be unpractical
+creatures. He had, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>indeed, himself founded a university before he
+left America and handsomely endowed several professorial chairs. But
+he did so in the spirit which led Dean Swift to found a lunatic
+asylum. He wanted to provide a kind of hospital for a class of men who
+ought, for the sake of society, to be secluded, lest their theories
+should come inconveniently athwart the plans of those who are engaged
+in the real business of life.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McNeice,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He was
+my tutor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he told Conroy the story of Gideon McNeice&#8217;s life as far as he
+knew it at that time. It was a remarkable story, but not yet, as it
+became afterwards, strikingly singular.</p>
+
+<p>Gideon was the son of Ebenezer McNeice, a riveter in one of the great
+shipbuilding yards in Belfast. This Ebenezer was an Orangeman and, on
+the 12th of July, was accustomed to march long distances over dusty
+roads beating a big drum with untiring vigour. His Protestantism was a
+religion of the most definite kind. He rarely went to church, but he
+hated Popery with a profound earnestness. Gideon was taught, as soon
+as he could speak, to say, &#8220;No Pope, no Priest, no Surrender, Hurrah!&#8221;
+That was the first stage in his education. The second was taken at a
+National school where he learned the multiplication table and the
+decimal system with unusual ease. The master of a second-rate
+intermediate school heard of the boy&#8217;s ability. Being anxious to earn
+the fees which a generous government gives to the masters of clever
+boys, this man offered to continue Gideon&#8217;s education without asking
+payment from Ebenezer. The speculation turned out well. Gideon did
+more than was expected <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>of him. He won all the exhibitions, medals and
+prizes possible under the Irish Intermediate system. At last he won a
+mathematical sizarship in Trinity College.</p>
+
+<p>Belfast&mdash;perhaps because of the religious atmosphere of the city,
+perhaps because of the interest taken by its inhabitants in
+money-making&mdash;has not given to the world many eminent poets,
+philosophers or scholars. Nor, curiously enough, has it ever produced
+an eminent theologian, or even a heretic of any reputation. But it has
+given birth to several mathematicians of quite respectable standing.
+Gideon McNeice was one of them. After the sizarship he won a
+scholarship, and then, at an unusually early age, a fellowship. It is
+generally believed that the examination for fellowship in Trinity
+College in Dublin is so severe that no one who is successful in it is
+ever good for anything afterwards. Having once passed that examination
+men are said to settle down into a condition of exhausted mediocrity.
+Gideon McNeice proved to be an exception to the rule. Having won his
+fellowship and thereby demonstrated to the world that he knew all that
+there is to know about the science of mathematics, he at once turned
+to theology. Theology, since he lived in Ireland, led him straight to
+politics. He became one of the fighting men of the Irish Unionist
+party. He also, chiefly because of his very bad manners, became very
+unpopular among the fellows and professors of the College.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed that he had the smallest sympathy with the
+unfortunate Irish aristocracy, who, having like the Bourbons failed
+either to learn or to forget, still repeat the watch-words of
+long-past centuries and are greatly surprised that no one can be
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>found to listen to them. Gideon McNeice&#8217;s Unionism was of a much more
+vigorous and militant kind. He respected England and had no objection
+to singing &#8220;God save the King&#8221; very much out of tune, so long as
+England and her King were obviously and blatantly on the side of
+Protestantism. He was quite prepared to substitute some other form of
+government for our present Imperial system if either the King, his
+representative the Lord Lieutenant, or the Parliament of Westminster,
+showed the smallest inclination to consider the feelings of the Roman
+Catholic hierarchy.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that Bob Power, who was by no means a fool, described
+McNeice&#8217;s character. Conroy was interested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should like,&#8221; he said, &#8220;to see that man and talk to him. Suppose
+you go over to Dublin to-morrow and bring him here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t like him,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;He&#8217;s&mdash;well, domineering is the only
+word I can think of.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For that matter,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;I am domineering too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was true. Conroy had good manners, unusually good manners for a
+millionaire, but underneath the manners lay a determination to get his
+own way in small matters as well as great. Bob, who knew both men,
+expected that they would become deadly enemies in the course of
+twenty-four hours. He was mistaken. To say that they became friends
+would be misleading. They probably disliked each other. But they
+certainly became allies, planned together and worked together the
+amazing scheme which ended in the last&mdash;we are justified in assuming
+that it really was the last&mdash;rebellion of Irishmen against the power
+of England.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p><p>Conroy supplied the money and a great deal of the brains which went to
+the carrying through of the plan. He had, as a financier with
+world-wide interests, a knowledge of European markets and manufactures
+which was very useful if not absolutely necessary. He had, as his
+inspiration, an extraordinarily vivid hatred of England. This was
+partly an inheritance from his Irish ancestors, men who had been
+bullied for centuries and laid the blame of their sufferings on
+England. Partly it was the result of the contempt he learned to feel
+for Englishmen while he held his leading position in London society.
+With McNeice&#8217;s violent Protestantism he never can have had the
+smallest sympathy. His ancestors were probably, almost certainly,
+Roman Catholics. If he professed any form of Christianity it must have
+been that of some sect unrepresented in England. No one ever heard of
+his attaching himself, even temporarily, to either church or chapel.
+McNeice also supplied brains and enthusiasm. His intelligence was
+narrower than Conroy&#8217;s, but more intensely concentrated. He knew the
+men with whom he intended to deal. By birth and early education he
+belonged to that north Irish democracy which is probably less
+imaginative and less reasonable but more virile than any other in the
+world. He believed, as his fathers had believed before him and his
+relations believed along with him, that the Belfast man has a natural
+right to govern the world, and only refrains from doing so because he
+has more important matters to attend to. He believed, and could give
+excellent reasons in support of his belief, that the other inhabitants
+of Ireland were meant by providence to be Gibeonites, hewers of wood
+and drawers of water for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>the people of Antrim and Down. He had quite
+as great a contempt for the Unionist landlords, who occasionally spoke
+beside him on political platforms, as he had for the Nationalist
+tenants who were wrestling their estates from them.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power went to Dublin, and with great difficulty persuaded McNeice
+to pay Conroy a visit in London. For a fortnight the two men remained
+together, discussing, planning, devising. Others, among them James
+Crossan, manager of the Kilmore Co-operative Stores, and Grand Master
+of the Orangemen of the county, were summoned to the conference.</p>
+
+<p>Then the first steps were taken. McNeice went back to Ireland and
+began, with the aid of James Crossan, his work of organization. Conroy
+sold his house in London, realized by degrees a considerable part of
+his large fortune, placed sums of money to his credit in French and
+German banks and gave over the command of his yacht, the <i>Finola</i>, to
+Bob Power. From this time on Conroy disappeared from London society.
+Stories were told in clubs and drawing-rooms about the sayings and
+doings of &#8220;His Royal Magnificence J. P. C.,&#8221; but these gradually grew
+stale and no fresh ones were forthcoming. The newspapers still printed
+from time to time paragraphs which had plainly been sent to them by
+Conroy himself, but no one at the time took very much interest in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. J. P. Conroy&#8221;&mdash;so people read&mdash;&#8220;has gone for a cruise in
+Mediterranean waters in his steam yacht, the <i>Finola</i>.&#8221; It did not
+seem to matter whether he had or not. &#8220;Among his guests are&mdash;&#8221; Then
+would follow a list of names; but always those of people more eminent
+than fashionable. The Prime Minister went <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>for a short cruise with
+him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went twice. Several admirals, a
+judge or two, and three or four well-known generals were on board at
+different times. Once he had two bishops, an Anglican who was known as
+a profound theologian, and a Roman Catholic prelate from the west of
+Ireland. The names of women rarely appeared on the list, but the
+Countess of Moyne was advertised as having accepted Conroy&#8217;s
+hospitality twice. She was well placed among the notable men. She was
+a young woman of singular beauty and great personal charm. She might
+have been if she had chosen a leader of the society which lives to
+amuse itself. Her husband&#8217;s great wealth and high social position
+would have secured her any place in that world which she chose to
+take. Being a woman of brains as well as beauty she chose to work
+instead of play, and had become a force, real though not formally
+recognized, in political life.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious instance of the careful way in which Conroy worked out
+the details of his plans, that he should have used the <i>Finola</i> in
+this way. The cruises which he took with his eminent guests were
+always well advertised and always short. But the <i>Finola</i> was kept
+continually in commission. Her voyages when there were no great people
+on board were longer, were never advertised, and were much more
+exciting. But no one suspected, or could have suspected, that a
+millionaire&#8217;s yacht, and it the temporary home of the leading members
+of the governing classes, could have been engaged in a secret trade,
+highly dangerous to the peace and security of the nation. It is
+difficult even now to imagine that after landing the Prime Minister
+and couple of bishops at Cowes the yacht should have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>started off to
+keep a midnight appointment with a disreputable tramp steamer in an
+unfrequented part of the North Sea; that Bob Power, after making
+himself agreeable for a fortnight to Lady Moyne, should have sweated
+like a stevedore at the difficult job of transhipping a cargo in
+mid-ocean.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> now reach the time when I myself came for the first time in touch
+with Conroy&#8217;s plans and had my first meeting with Gideon McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>I am an insignificant Irish peer, far from wealthy, with a taste for
+literature, and, I think, a moderate amount of benevolent feeling
+towards those of my fellow-men who do not annoy me in any way. I sold
+the estate, which had long before ceased to be in any real sense my
+property, immediately after the passing of the Land Act of 1903. I
+have lived since then chiefly in Kilmore Castle, a delightfully
+situated residence built by my grandfather, which suits me very well
+indeed. I have occupied my time for years back in gathering materials
+for a history of all the Irish rebellions there have ever been. My
+daughter Marion used to help me in this work, by filing and
+classifying the various slips of paper on which I made notes. Now that
+she has got married and cannot help me any more I have given up the
+idea of finishing my great work. I am satisfying my evil itch for
+writing by setting down an account of the short struggle between
+north-eastern Ulster and the rest of the British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The 5th of June was the day on which I first met Bob Power, first came
+into contact with McNeice, and first set eyes on the notorious
+<i>Finola</i>. It was the day fixed by my nephew Godfrey D&#8217;Aubigny for the
+first, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>for that year, of the series of garden-parties which I give
+annually. I detest these festivities, and I have every reason to
+believe that they must be quite as objectionable to my guests as they
+are to me. It is Godfrey who insists on their being held. He holds
+that I am bound to do some entertaining in order to keep up my
+position in the county. I am not in the least interested in my
+position in the county; but Godfrey is, and, of course, the matter is
+of some importance to him. He is heir to my title. I used to think and
+he used to think that he would ultimately enjoy my income too,
+securing it by marrying my daughter Marion. I am glad to say he has
+not succeeded in doing this. Marion has married a much better man.</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting in my study after breakfast, fiddling with my papers,
+but unable to settle down to work. The prospect of the party in the
+afternoon depressed and irritated me. Godfrey entered the room
+suddenly through the window. The fact that he is my heir does not seem
+to me to entitle him to come upon me like a thief in the night. He
+ought to go to the door of the house, ring the bell, and ask if I am
+willing to see him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, Excellency,&#8221; he said, &#8220;glorious day, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey always addressed me as &#8220;Excellency.&#8221; I cannot imagine why he
+does so. I have never been and never hope to be a Lord Lieutenant or a
+Colonial Governor. The title is not one which belongs to the office of
+a deputy lieutenant of a county, the only post of honour which I hold.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I expect we&#8217;ll have a pretty good crowd this afternoon,&#8221; he said.
+&#8220;Lady Moyne is motoring over. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>that&#8217;s not what I came to say to
+you. The fact is that something rather important has just happened.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The people in the gate lodge have burst the new boiler I put in for
+them, I suppose?&#8221; This is the kind of thing Godfrey considers
+important.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that I know of,&#8221; he said; &#8220;but I&#8217;ll go down and inquire if you
+think&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think anything about the matter,&#8221; I said. &#8220;If it isn&#8217;t that,
+what is it that you&#8217;ve come to tell me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A big steam yacht has just anchored in the bay,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the
+<i>Finola</i>. She belongs to Conroy, the millionaire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey is intensely interested in millionaires. He always hopes that
+he may be able in some way to secure for himself some of their
+superfluous cash.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think,&#8221; he said, &#8220;you ought to go down and leave a card on him. It
+would only be civil.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you can go and leave my card, if you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was evidently what Godfrey expected me to say. He seemed
+grateful.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well, Excellency, I&#8217;ll go at once. I&#8217;ll invite him and his party
+to your menagerie this afternoon. I dare say it will amuse them to see
+the natives.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey always calls my parties menageries, and my guests natives.
+Lady Moyne and her husband, who sometimes comes with her, are not
+counted as natives. Nor am I. Nor is Marion. Nor is Godfrey himself.
+This illustrates the working of Godfrey&#8217;s mind. As a matter of fact
+the Moynes and my own family are about the only people of social
+importance in the locality who ought to be called natives. My <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>other
+guests are all strangers, officials of one kind or another,
+stipendiary magistrates, police officers, bank managers, doctors,
+clergymen and others whom an unkind fate has temporarily stranded in
+our neighbourhood; who all look forward to an escape from their exile
+and a period of leisure retirement in the suburbs of Dublin.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey left me, and I went on fidgetting with my papers until
+luncheon-time.</p>
+
+<p>Marion and I were just finishing luncheon when Godfrey came in again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;have you captured your millionaire?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He wasn&#8217;t on board,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;There were two men there, Power,
+who&#8217;s Conroy&#8217;s secretary, and a horrid bounder called McNeice. They
+were drinking bottled stout in the cabin with Crossan.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Under those circumstances,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you did not, I suppose, leave my
+cards.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey has a standing feud with Crossan, who is not a gentleman and
+does not pretend to be. Godfrey, judged by any rational standard, is
+even less of a gentleman; but as the future Lord Kilmore he belongs to
+the ranks of an aristocracy and therefore has a contempt for Crossan.
+The two come into very frequent contact and quite as frequent
+conflict. Crossan manages the co-operative store which I started, and
+Godfrey regards him as one of my servants. Crossan, who has a fine
+instinct for business, also manages the commercial side of our local
+mackerel fishing. Godfrey thinks he would manage this better than
+Crossan does. Their latest feud was concerned with the service of
+carts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>which take the fish from our little harbour to the nearest
+railway station. Crossan is politically a strong Protestant and an
+Orangeman of high attainment. Godfrey has no particular religion, and
+in politics belongs to that old-fashioned school of Conservatives who
+think that the lower orders ought to be respectful to their betters.
+Crossan having been taught the Church Catechism in his youth, admits
+this respect as theoretical duty; but gets out of performing it in
+practice by denying that Godfrey, or for the matter of that any one
+else, is his better. Godfrey&#8217;s constant complaints about Crossan are
+the thorns which remind me that I must not regard my lot in life as
+altogether pleasant. I felt justified in assuming that Godfrey had not
+left my cards on men who degraded themselves so far as to drink
+bottled stout in company with Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>I was wrong. Godfrey did leave my cards. I can only suppose that his
+respect for the private secretary of a millionaire was stronger than
+his dislike of Crossan. He had even, it appeared, invited both Power
+and McNeice to view my &#8220;menagerie.&#8221; For this he felt it necessary to
+offer some excuse.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is one of the Powers of Kilfenora,&#8221; he said, &#8220;so I thought it
+would be no harm. By the way, Marion, what are you going to wear? I
+should say that your blue <i>cr&ecirc;pe de chine</i>&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey is something of an expert in the matter of woman&#8217;s clothes.
+Marion, I know, frequently consults him and values his opinion highly.
+Unfortunately the subject bores me. I cut him short with a remark
+which was intended for a snub.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope you have a new suit yourself, Godfrey. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>The occasion is an
+important one. If both Lady Moyne and Conroy&#8217;s private secretary are
+to be here, you ought to look your best.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But it is almost impossible to snub Godfrey. He answered me with a
+cheerful friendliness which showed that he appreciated my interest in
+his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have a new grey suit,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It arrived this morning, and it&#8217;s
+a capital fit. That&#8217;s the advantage of employing really good tailors.
+You can absolutely trust Nicholson and Blackett.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have often wondered whether Nicholson and Blackett could absolutely
+trust Godfrey. I have several times paid his debts, and I do not
+intend to do so any more. If they were debts of an intelligible kind I
+should not mind paying them occasionally. But Godfrey has no
+ostensible vices. I have never heard of his doing anything wild or
+disreputable. He does not gamble or borrow money in order to give
+jewels to pretty actresses. He owes bills to shop-keepers for ties and
+trousers. His next remark showed me that Nicholson and Blackett were
+becoming uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way, Excellency,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;d be glad if you&#8217;d be civil to
+the Pringles this afternoon. Get her tea or something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pringle is the manager of the branch of the bank in which Godfrey
+keeps his account. I imagine that he and his wife owe their
+invitations to my garden parties to the fact that Godfrey&#8217;s account is
+always overdrawn. This demand that I should be especially civil to the
+Pringles suggested to me that Godfrey contemplated sending a cheque to
+Nicholson and Blackett. I have no particular objection to being civil
+to the Pringles. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>I have to be civil to some one. I readily promised
+to get both tea and an ice for Mrs. Pringle; hoping that Godfrey would
+go away. He did not. He began talking again about Marion&#8217;s blue dress.
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I got him out of the house
+half an hour later by saying that if he did not go home at once he
+would not have time to dress himself with the care which the new grey
+suit deserved.</p>
+
+<p>It annoys me very much to think Godfrey is heir to my title. It used
+to annoy me still more to think that Marion meant to marry him. She
+assures me now that she never intended to; but she used to take an
+interest in his talk about clothes and he certainly intended to marry
+her.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">T</span>here are some churches in which it is considered desirable to keep
+the sexes apart. The men are placed on one side of the central aisle,
+the women on the other. At my garden-parties this separation takes
+place naturally without the intervention of any authority. The men
+gather in a group under a certain chestnut-tree and talk to each other
+gloomily in low tones. The women&mdash;there are always more women than
+men&mdash;seat themselves in three distinct rows round the sides of the
+tennis-court. The short row across the top of the tennis-court is
+reserved by an unwritten, but apparently very strict law for the
+ladies of the highest social position. The Dean&#8217;s wife, for instance,
+sits in that row. The seats at the other end of the court are occupied
+by people like the Pringles, those who are just eligible for
+invitations to my parties, but have, so to speak, no social position
+to spare. They always remind me of St. Paul&#8217;s &#8220;righteous&#8221; who
+&#8220;scarcely are saved.&#8221; The long side of the tennis-court opposite the
+chestnut-tree, which forms a kind of male seraglio, is given over to
+those of middling station, ladies who are, perhaps, in a position to
+shake hands with Lady Moyne, and who do not, perhaps, call on Mrs.
+Pringle.</p>
+
+<p>To this strictly observed etiquette there are two exceptions. My
+nephew Godfrey does not stand under the chestnut-tree, but keeps close
+to the side of Lady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>Moyne. The other men make it quite clear that
+they do not want him. No man whom I have ever met can tolerate
+Godfrey&#8217;s company. He follows Lady Moyne about because he believes her
+to be a lady of political influence, and he hopes she will get him a
+well-paid post under the government. He is one exception. The other is
+Lady Moyne herself. She declines to sit in a row. She walks about,
+sometimes walks away from the rest of the party.</p>
+
+<p>My daughter Marion&#8217;s duty on these occasions is to drag young men from
+the shelter of the chestnut-tree and make them play tennis with young
+women called from one or other of the rows in which their mothers have
+planted them. Marion finds this a difficult duty, requiring her utmost
+tact. My own duty, which I fulfil in the most conscientious manner, is
+to make as many complete journeys round the tennis-court as possible,
+saying something to every lady in all three rows, and giving a kind of
+general address of a friendly and encouraging kind to the men under
+the chestnut-tree.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular afternoon two unusual incidents broke the monotony
+of my party. Lady Moyne refused to be satisfied with the company of
+Godfrey. She sat down beside the Dean&#8217;s wife and made herself
+extremely agreeable for nearly ten minutes. Then she crossed the
+corner of the tennis-court, seriously interfering with the game in
+progress, and &#8220;cut out&#8221; the Dean from the middle of the group of men
+under the chestnut-tree. &#8220;Cut out&#8221; is strictly the right phrase to
+use. It is applied or used to be applied to the operation of capturing
+and carrying off ships at anchor under the protecting guns of friendly
+forts. It requires <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>great dash and gallantry to &#8220;cut out&#8221; a ship. The
+whole audience gaped in astonishment at Lady Moyne&#8217;s daring when she
+captured the Dean. She walked off with him, when she got him, to the
+shrubbery at the far end of the lawn. They were a singularly
+ill-assorted pair. Lady Moyne is invariably exquisite, a small woman
+with dainty ways and great vivacity. The Dean is an ecclesiastic as
+different as possible from the suave dignitaries who lead lives of
+scholarly leisure in cathedral closes. We picture the ideal dean, a
+slender man, slightly stooped, thin-lipped, with a suggestion of mild
+asceticism in his face. He steps slowly through the long window of his
+study. He paces the closely shaven lawn. The crows caw reverently in
+lofty trees. He holds a calf-bound volume of Plato in his hand. From
+time to time he glances from the cramped Greek text to the noble,
+weatherworn towers of his cathedral. His life is delicately scented
+with a fine mixture of classical culture and Tallis&#8217; ferial responses.
+Our Dean&mdash;he is also rector of our parish&mdash;is a man of a wholly
+different kind. He is, for one thing, wholly unconnected with any
+cathedral and has probably never paced a lawn beneath the shadow of
+historic towers in all his life. This kind of detached, independent
+dean is not found, I believe, anywhere except in Ireland. He is tall,
+cadaverous, rugged, and he can open his eyes so wide that the whites
+of them show all round the irises. Besides being a dean and the rector
+of our parish, he is honorary Grand Chaplain to the Black Preceptory
+of the Orange Order. Crossan, a stern judge of ecclesiastics, has the
+highest opinion of him. It was surmised by a lady in the second row to
+whom I happened to be talking at the time, that Lady Moyne <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>wanted to
+consult with him about the best way of defeating the Home Rule Bill.
+Lady Moyne is, of course, a strong Unionist.</p>
+
+<p>The second unusual incident of the afternoon followed the arrival of
+Bob Power. He came late, and Godfrey, driven from the side of Lady
+Moyne, fastened on to him at once. Bob shook him off and joined
+Marion. Marion, who had her duties to do and could not allow Bob to
+take possession of her, introduced him to a humble maiden who sat with
+her mother in the third row. Bob, it appears, selected the damsel
+himself after looking all round the tennis-court. To the great scandal
+of every one present he led her away from the tennis-court, and found
+his way to the garden. There&mdash;I judged by the condition of her gloves
+when they returned&mdash;they picked strawberries. I have every reason to
+believe that Miss Pringle&mdash;the girl was the daughter of Godfrey&#8217;s
+banker&mdash;enjoyed this garden-party as she had never enjoyed one before.
+She was actually laughing, and was looking very pretty when Bob
+brought her back to the refreshment tent for tea.</p>
+
+<p>I felt so pleased with Bob for his audacity that I asked him to dine
+with us. He refused, saying that he would be busy on the yacht, but he
+promised to call on us next morning.</p>
+
+<p>The garden-party wore itself to an end as even the dreariest
+festivities always do. Marion and I dined together in a condition of
+irritable exhaustion. After dinner we played Patience for an hour in
+the library. Then Marion took a novel, and I settled down to read <i>The
+Times</i>. The night was very close and we sat with both windows wide
+open.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p><i>The Times</i> had articles and letters on two subjects, the Home Rule
+Bill, which was a menace to the Empire and a danger to Irish
+Loyalists; and the German Navy, which was also a menace to the Empire
+and a danger to every one in the United Kingdom whether loyal or not.
+After reading the leading articles I passed on to the letters
+addressed to the editor. These are always, in my opinion, the most
+interesting part of any newspaper. The editor and leader writers are
+no doubt abler men than most of their correspondents; but then they
+write because they must, and they write in a hurry. The correspondents
+on the other hand write because they have something in them&mdash;something
+foolish as a rule, but none the less interesting&mdash;which is struggling
+for expression in print. They also&mdash;being for the most part retired
+military officers&mdash;have abundant leisure and are able to take days,
+perhaps weeks, in the preparation of their compositions.</p>
+
+<p>In that particular number of <i>The Times</i>, two retired colonels had
+written letters. One of them was disquieted by the growth of the
+German Navy. He was uninteresting. The other&mdash;a Colonel Malcolmson,
+whom I meet occasionally at my club&mdash;had delivered himself of a plan
+of campaign, an actual fighting programme, which he recommended to the
+Ulstermen, supposing that they meant to declare war against any one
+who wanted them to govern themselves. This letter interested me very
+much. Malcolmson offered his lawn as a parade and drill ground for
+volunteers. He also said that he thoroughly understood modern guns,
+and was prepared to take command of any artillery which Ulster might
+happen to possess. I lay back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>in my chair and tried to form a mental
+picture of Malcolmson, who is stout and has a bristly white moustache,
+aiming an immense cannon at an income tax collector. The vision was a
+pleasant one to linger over, and I added to the scene before my mind
+the figure of an athletic policeman threatening to smash Malcolmson&#8217;s
+cannon with a baton. The Nationalist leaders then appeared in the
+background waving Union Jack flags, and urging the policeman to fresh
+exertions in the cause of law and order. I even seemed to hear them
+denouncing Malcolmson as one of those who march through rapine and
+bloodshed to the dismemberment of an Empire.</p>
+
+<p>I was aroused from my agreeable reverie by Marion. She was standing at
+the window looking out across the bay on the far shore of which stands
+the little town of Kilmore, from which my ancestor, who was a Union
+peer, took his title.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what they&#8217;re doing in the village to-night,&#8221; she said.
+&#8220;There are a lot of lights moving about in the harbour and on the
+quay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I shook myself free of the vision of Malcolmson&#8217;s artillery duel with
+the tax collector, and joined Marion at the window. A half moon lit
+the scene before me dimly, making patches of silver light here and
+there on the calm waters of the bay. The <i>Finola</i>, looking very large,
+lay at anchor, broadside on to us, opposite the pier. On her deck
+lights moved to and fro, yellow stars in the grey gloom. On the pier
+were more lights, lanterns evidently, some stationary, others
+flickering in rapid motion. The night was so still that I could hear
+distinctly the rattle of oars in rowlocks. Boats were plying between
+the <i>Finola</i> and the shore.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Can they be landing anything from the yacht?&#8221; said Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think so,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Yachts do not carry cargoes, and if they
+did they wouldn&#8217;t land them in the middle of the night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. It was almost twelve o&#8217;clock. Then another noise
+was added to the rattling of oars. A cart, unmistakably a cart,
+lumbered across the stones at the end of the pier. After a while this
+cart emerged from the black shadows of the houses and we could see it
+toiling up the hill which leads out of the town. A very slight
+southerly breeze was setting across the bay from the town to us. We
+could hear the driver shouting encouragement to his horse as he
+breasted the hill. The cart was evidently heavily loaded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The boats haven&#8217;t been out,&#8221; said Marion. &#8220;There cannot have been a
+catch of mackerel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When there is a catch of mackerel the fish are packed in boxes on the
+pier, and carts, laden like the one we watched, climb the hill. There
+is a regularly organized service of those carts under the control of
+Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It can&#8217;t be fish,&#8221; I said, &#8220;unless the <i>Finola</i> has been making a
+catch and has come in here to land them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another cart bumped its way off the pier, and in a minute or two we
+saw it climbing the hill. Then the lights on the <i>Finola&#8217;s</i> deck went
+out one by one. The boats ceased plying between the yacht and the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see why they should land fish in the middle of the night,&#8221;
+said Marion.</p>
+
+<p>The activity of the people on the pier increased. More lights appeared
+there and moved very rapidly to and fro.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Unless they&#8217;re landing what they&#8217;re ashamed of,&#8221; said Marion, &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t see why they&#8217;re doing it at night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mysteries always irritate me. I answered Marion impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t be so foolish as to suppose that Conroy is smuggling. It
+wouldn&#8217;t be any temptation to a millionaire to cheat the revenue out
+of the duty on a few pounds of tobacco.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Several more carts followed each other in a slow procession up the
+hill. It seemed as if Crossan&#8217;s entire staff of men and horses was
+engaged in this midnight transport service.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Conroy might not know anything about it,&#8221; said Marion. &#8220;It may be
+done&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t suppose Bob Power&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was another man on board,&#8221; said Marion, &#8220;and Godfrey seemed to
+think that he was&mdash;well, not a very nice kind of man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact that Godfrey called him a cad,&#8221; I said, &#8220;rather goes to show
+that he is a man with a great deal of good in him. Besides, as it
+happens, I know all about him. His name is McNeice and he is a Fellow
+of Trinity College. It&#8217;s ridiculous to suppose that he&#8217;s landing a
+cargo of port wine for consumption in the common room. Fellows of
+College don&#8217;t do that kind of thing. Besides, he&#8217;s a good scholar. I
+had some correspondence with him when I was writing my article on St.
+Patrick&#8217;s birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a
+dutiful kiss and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>I stood at the window and watched until the last cart <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>had mounted the
+hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to
+the <i>Finola</i>. The town and bay were still again.</p>
+
+<p>I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of
+working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short
+article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire
+running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind,
+under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind
+refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility
+of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the <i>Finola</i>.
+The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand
+it. Marion&#8217;s smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It
+is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from
+our shores. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were
+pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest
+with any passer-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only
+two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not
+the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the
+revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland
+officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot
+show a respectable past history.</p>
+
+<p>I was driven back finally on my own theory&mdash;inherently very
+improbable&mdash;that the <i>Finola</i> had, in the course of her voyage, netted
+an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get
+rid of them.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">B</span>ob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my
+history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The
+sun, I recollect, was shining so brightly outside that I had the
+blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob&#8217;s entrance had
+much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the
+sunshine with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but
+tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the
+sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was,
+had not affected his spirits.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my literary
+work. I always absolutely hate it when Godfrey is the interrupter. But
+I found myself quite pleased when Bob Power said that we ought not to
+sit indoors on so fine a day. Marion ran off to get her hat and joined
+us on the lawn. Bob Power led us straight to the garden, and when we
+got there, made for the strawberry bed. He owned to a pleasant
+recollection of the feast he had enjoyed the day before.</p>
+
+<p>There is a good deal of the school-boy about Bob Power, and Marion is
+quite young enough to enjoy gorging herself with ripe strawberries. I,
+alas! am nearly sixty years of age. A very small number of
+strawberries satisfies me, and I find that stooping to gather them
+from beneath their nets tires me after a short time. Bob Power and
+Marion wandered far into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>the remoter parts of my strawberry bed. I
+stayed near the pathway. Their voices reached me and their laughter;
+but I could not hear what they were saying to each other. I felt
+suddenly lonely. They were getting on very well without me. I went on
+by myself and inspected my melon frames. I left them after a while and
+took a look at my poultry yard.</p>
+
+<p>The rearing of poultry is one of the things which I do in order to
+benefit my country. Quite ordinary chickens satisfy my personal needs,
+and the egg of the modest barndoor fowl is all I ask at
+breakfast-time. But an energetic young lady in a short tweed skirt and
+thick brown boots explained to me two years ago that Ireland would be
+a much happier country if everybody in it kept fowls with long
+pedigrees. She must have been right about this, because the government
+paid her a small salary to go round the country saying it; and no
+government, not even ours, would pay people to say what is not true.
+Her plan for introducing the superior hens into the homes of the
+people was that I should undertake the care of such birds as she sent
+me, and give their eggs, under certain conditions, to any one who
+asked for them. This I agreed to do, and my new fowl yard, arranged
+exactly as the young lady in thick boots wished, is my latest effort
+in patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>The hens which inhabited it were very fine-looking birds, and the cock
+who dominated them was a credit to any government. I watched them with
+real pleasure for some time. Then it occurred to me as curious that a
+government which recognized the value of good blood in birds, bulls,
+boars, horses, and even bees&mdash;if bees have blood&mdash;should be not only
+indifferent but actually hostile to our human aristocracy. For years
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>past animals of pedigree have been almost forced upon Ireland. Men of
+pedigree have as far as possible been discouraged from remaining in
+this country. This idea struck me as very suitable for one of my light
+newspaper articles. I was unwilling to lose grip of it and allow it to
+fade away as Malcolmson and his cannons had faded the night before. I
+took a sheet of paper and a pencil from my pocket and sat down on a
+stone to make a rough draft of the article. Before I had written three
+sentences I heard Marion&#8217;s voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, there you are, father. We were looking for you everywhere. Mr.
+Power and I want you to come and play tennis with us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I rose and stuffed my paper into my pocket. I felt quite glad that
+they had found me, although I do not care for playing tennis, and, as
+a rule, enjoy writing articles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will get on much better without me,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no,&#8221; said Marion; &#8220;Mr. Power is sure to beat me in a single; but I
+think I&#8217;d have a pretty good chance if you are on his side.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was to act as a handicap. My efforts to help Power were reckoned to
+be worth one, perhaps two strokes in every game for Marion. This was
+not complimentary to me; but I dare say my tennis deserves no more
+respectful treatment. I agreed to be a handicap, and I was a good one.
+Marion won the first set. I got exceedingly hot, but, up to the middle
+of the second set, I enjoyed myself. Then Godfrey appeared. He watched
+my efforts with an air of cold superiority and contemptuous surprise.
+My heart failed me and I was obliged to ask to be allowed to stop.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>Bob Power invited us to lunch on the <i>Finola</i>. Marion accepted the
+invitation joyfully. Godfrey also accepted, although I do not think
+Power meant to ask him. But Godfrey is not the kind of man to miss the
+chance of getting into touch, however remotely, with any one as rich
+as Conroy. Power eyed him with an expression of frank dislike.
+Godfrey, it seemed to me, did not much like Power. He was probably
+annoyed at the way in which Power made himself agreeable to Marion.
+Godfrey regarded Marion as, in a sense, his property, although there
+was nothing in the way of an engagement between them.</p>
+
+<p>McNeice, whom I had hoped to meet, was not on the yacht. The steward
+explained to us that he was spending the day with Crossan. I could see
+that the thought of any one spending the day with Crossan outraged
+Godfrey&#8217;s sense of decency. By way, I suppose, of annoying Power, he
+asked what had been happening on the <i>Finola</i> at twelve o&#8217;clock the
+night before.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was awakened up,&#8221; he said, &#8220;by the noise of carts going along the
+street and I looked out. I could see lights on the yacht and on the
+pier. What on earth were you doing at that time of night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Coaling,&#8221; said Power, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain to me that he disliked being asked questions. It must
+have been plain to Godfrey, too, for he immediately asked another.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How did you get coal in a place like this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear me,&#8221; said Marion, &#8220;how very unromantic! I thought you were
+smuggling!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey&#8217;s face assumed an expression of quite unusual intelligence. He
+suspected Power of evil practices <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>of some sort. Marion&#8217;s suggestion
+of smuggling delighted him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But where did you get the coal?&#8221; he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Godfrey,&#8221; I said, &#8220;for all you or I know there may be
+hundreds of tons of it piled up in the co-operative store. Crossan has
+a wonderful business instinct. He may have speculated on a visit from
+some large steamer and be making a large profit. I am the principal
+shareholder, and nothing pleases me better than to see the store
+succeeding.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I knew, as a matter of fact, that Crossan had no coal. I also knew
+that the <i>Finola</i> was not coaling. The carts were loaded when they
+were going up the hill. They would have been empty if they had been
+going to get coal for the <i>Finola</i>. I made my remark in the hope of
+discouraging Godfrey from asking more questions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish you would smuggle something,&#8221; said Marion. &#8220;I should love to
+have some French lace laid at my door in a bale in the middle of the
+night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Marion reads novels, and the smugglers in these import French lace. In
+real life the only people who try to cheat the nation out of its duty
+on lace are tourist ladies, and they would not share their spoils with
+Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why did you coal in the middle of the night?&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>One of Godfrey&#8217;s most striking characteristics is his persistent
+curiosity. There is hardly anything in the world which Godfrey will
+not find out if he is given time. A secret has the same attraction for
+him that cheese has for a mouse. Some day, I hope, he will find a trap
+baited with a seductive mystery.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;We always coal at night,&#8221; said Power.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Marion, &#8220;the dirt shows so much less at night than
+it would in daylight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand why you&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I rose and said that we must go ashore. I invited Power to dinner, and
+urged him to bring McNeice with him if possible. I made it quite plain
+that I was not inviting Godfrey. Power accepted the invitation, and
+sent us off in a boat. I said good-bye firmly to Godfrey at the end of
+the pier. I was annoyed with him for cross-questioning our host at his
+own table. Marion and I walked home. Godfrey walked up the hill
+towards the co-operative store. I am sure he did not want to see
+Crossan. I cannot suppose that he would venture to catechise McNeice.
+I expect he meant to prowl round the premises in hopes of discovering
+casks of smuggled brandy or cases full of tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>McNeice came to dinner, and I am bound to say that I found myself very
+nearly in agreement with Godfrey&#8217;s opinion of him. He was a singularly
+ill-mannered man. Power devoted himself to Marion, and I felt at once
+that their conversation was not of a kind that was likely to be
+interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing
+and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He
+sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared
+at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more
+quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our
+correspondence about St. Patrick. The subject roused him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are,&#8221; he said, &#8220;seventeen different theories about the place of
+that man&#8217;s birth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><p>I knew nine myself, my own, of which I was a little proud, being the
+ninth. I did not expect McNeice to deliver a harangue on the whole
+seventeen, but that is what he did. Having bolted his fish, he began
+in a loud, harsh voice to pour contempt on all attempts at
+investigating the early history of our national saint. He delayed our
+progress through dinner a good deal, because he would neither refuse
+nor help himself to the <i>entr&eacute;e</i> which my butler held at his elbow. It
+was not until he had finished with the whole seventeen theories about
+the saint that he turned his attention to dinner again. I ventured to
+suggest that he had not even mentioned my own theory.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; he said, &#8220;you have a theory too, have you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>My theory, at the time of its first appearance, occupied ten whole
+pages of the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, and when republished, with notes,
+in pamphlet form, was reviewed by two German papers. I felt hurt by
+his ignorance of it, and reminded him again that we had corresponded
+about the subject while I was writing the article.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve time to waste on that sort of thing,&#8221; he said, &#8220;why not
+devote it to living bishops instead of one who has been dead over a
+thousand years?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The idea of investigating the origins of our existing bishops was new
+to me but not in the least attractive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t it be rather waste of labour,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to build up an
+hypothesis about the birthplace of a living bishop when&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s certainly waste of labour to build up an hypothesis about a dead
+one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I meant to say,&#8221; I added, &#8220;that if one did want to know such a
+thing&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Nobody does,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would,&#8221; I went on, &#8220;be much simpler to write and ask him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I gathered from the way in which he spoke that McNeice did not like
+bishops; but I was not prepared for the violence of the speech which
+he made to me after dinner. Marion and Power were at the piano, which
+stands in a far-off corner of my rather oversized drawing-room.
+McNeice settled himself in front of the fire, his long legs straddled
+far apart, the bow of his white tie twisted under his ear. He is a man
+of singularly ferocious appearance. He has very bushy eyebrows which
+meet across the bridge of his nose, shining green eyes, a large jaw
+heavily underhung, and bright red hair.</p>
+
+<p>He addressed me for more than half an hour on the subject of bishops
+in general. I should be very sorry to write down the things he said.
+Some of them were quite untrue. Others were utterly unjust. It is
+quite wrong, for instance, to impute it as a crime to a whole class of
+men that their heads are bald. Nobody can help being bald if his hair
+will not grow any more than he can help being fat if his stomach will
+swell. Fatness was another of the accusations which McNeice hurled
+against the bishops. I suppose this violent hatred of an inoffensive
+class of men was partly the result of McNeice&#8217;s tremendous
+Protestantism. The poet Milton, I think, felt in the same way about
+the prelates of his day. Partly it may have been the expression of his
+naturally democratic temperament. Bishops like to be called &#8220;my lord&#8221;
+by servants and clergymen. McNeice, I imagine, has a quite evangelical
+dislike of such titles. I dare say that it was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>fact of my being a
+lord which made him so rude to me.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of my garden-party I happened to be standing close
+beside Lady Moyne when she was saying good-bye to the Dean. Her final
+remark was addressed quite as much to him as to me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What we have got to do,&#8221; she said, &#8220;is to make use of this virile
+democracy of ours; to mould it into an instrument for the preservation
+of social order. The introduction of the Home Rule Bill gives us just
+about the chance we want.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I found myself wondering, while the diatribe against the bishops was
+in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice
+into a weapon for her hand. It seemed to me more probable at the
+moment that McNeice would in the end tumble her beautiful head from
+the block of a guillotine into the basket of sawdust which waited
+underneath.</p>
+
+<p>Marion and Bob Power were singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan&#8217;s
+operas while McNeice preached to me. They at least were having an
+enjoyable evening. I dare say McNeice enjoyed himself too. If so, my
+dinner-party was not given in vain. One cannot reasonably expect more
+than three out of every four people to be happy at the same time. It
+was my misfortune that I happened to be the fourth.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">T</span>he <i>Finola</i> steamed out of our bay next morning. Marion saw her go,
+and became quite lyrical at breakfast about the beauty of her &#8220;lines,&#8221;
+a word which, as applied to the appearance of a yacht, she can only
+have learned from Bob Power. I was not able to share her rapture
+because the <i>Finola</i> went out at 6 a. m., an hour at which I make it a
+settled rule to be in bed. Marion is generally in bed at 6 a. m. too.
+She made an exceptional effort that morning.</p>
+
+<p>For a week I enjoyed almost unbroken peace, and accumulated quite a
+large sheaf of notes for my work on the Irish Rebellions. Even Godfrey
+refrained from worrying me. But such happiness was too good to last
+long. On Saturday morning three things happened, every one of them of
+a disturbing kind. I received a letter from Lady Moyne in which she
+invited me to spend three days during the following week at Castle
+Affey. Castle Affey is Lord Moyne&#8217;s chief Irish place. He has three
+others in various parts of the country and one in England. It is about
+ten miles from my home. Lady Moyne invited Marion too; but this was
+evidently an after thought, and she discounted the value of the
+invitation by saying that her party was to consist almost entirely of
+men and might be dull for Marion. I suspected politics at once, and
+advised Marion to refuse the invitation. I accepted it. Politics bore
+me a good deal; but it is interesting to watch <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>politicians at their
+game. It is also pleasant, very pleasant, to be in the company of Lady
+Moyne. The prospect of the visit was as I have said disturbing. I
+prefer monotony. But if things must fall splashing into the pool of my
+life, I would as soon they took the form of visits to Castle Affey as
+any other.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing which happened that morning was a deputation. It
+consisted of six out of the twenty carters whom Crossan has organized
+in the interests of our fishing industry. They made the modest request
+that I should drive my nephew Godfrey out of the neighbourhood. I felt
+the strongest possible sympathy with them. If I were a carter, a
+fisherman, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, and lived in Kilmore, I should
+certainly wish Godfrey to live somewhere else. I did not even question
+the members of the deputation about their special reasons for wanting
+to get rid of Godfrey. They told me in general terms that he was
+interfering in business which was &#8220;none of his.&#8221; I wanted no evidence
+in support of such a statement. Godfrey always interferes in
+everything. A very freckled young man who seemed to be junior member
+of the deputation, added that Godfrey &#8220;spied&#8221; upon them. Of course
+Godfrey spied on them. He spies on me.</p>
+
+<p>Strong as my sympathy was with the perfectly reasonable request of the
+deputation, I could not act as I was asked. Godfrey is, of course, in
+my employment. He collects the head rents still payable to me from
+some parts of the town which were not sold when I parted with the rest
+of my estate. For this I pay him &pound;200 a year. I could, I suppose,
+dismiss him if I chose; but the plain fact is that if I dismissed
+Godfrey he would immediately starve or go to the workhouse. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>He is
+quite unfit to earn his living in any way. Once, after great
+exertions, I secured for him a kind of minor clerkship in a government
+office. His duties, so far as I was able to learn, were to put stamps
+on envelopes, and he was provided with a damp sponge to prevent any
+injury which might happen to his tongue through licking the stamps. At
+the end of a year he was dismissed as hopelessly incompetent. He came
+back to me, beautifully dressed, with a small despatch-box full of
+tradesmen&#8217;s bills, and a grievance against the government. It was
+plain to me after that experiment that Godfrey could never earn his
+own living. I did not see my way to let him drift into the workhouse.
+He is, little as I like him, the heir to my title, and, in mere
+decency, I could not allow the cost of his support to fall on the
+rates.</p>
+
+<p>This is just one of the ways in which the democratic spirit of
+independence has affected us all without our knowing it. In the
+seventeenth century any member of the aristocracy who was afflicted
+with an heir like Godfrey had him shut up in the Bastille, or the
+Tower, by means of <i>lettres de cachet</i> or whatever corresponded to
+such instruments in England. There the objectionable young man ate
+bread and drank water at the expense of the public funds. Nobody seems
+to have suffered any discomfort at the thought that the cost of the
+support of his relative was falling either on the rates or the taxes.
+(I am not sure which it was but it must have been one or the other.)
+Nowadays we are horribly self-conscious in such matters. The
+debilitated labourer began it, objecting, absurdly, to being fed by
+other people in the workhouse. His spirit spread to the upper classes,
+and it is now impossible, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>morally, for me, a peer, to send my heir to
+the workhouse. Fortunately public opinion is swinging round again. The
+latest type of working-man has no objection to receiving an Old Age
+Pension, and likes to hear of his children being given free breakfasts
+at school. In time this new feeling will soak through to the class to
+which I belong. Then I shall be able, without a qualm, to send Godfrey
+to the workhouse. At present, I regret to say, I cannot.</p>
+
+<p>I explained all this carefully to the deputation. It pained me to have
+to say no to their request, but I said it quite firmly. My decision, I
+think, was understood. My feelings I fear were not.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after the deputation left, Godfrey himself arrived. He
+wanted me to dismiss Crossan. I am not at all sure that I could
+dismiss Crossan even if I wanted to do so. He is the manager of our
+co-operative store, and although most of the money which went to the
+starting of that enterprise was mine there is a considerable number of
+small shareholders. Crossan also runs the fishing business and our saw
+mill. I capitalized both these industries, lending money to the men to
+buy nets and good boats, and buying the various saws which are
+necessary to the making of planks. This no doubt gives me some hold
+over Crossan, but not enough to enable me to dismiss him as I might a
+cook. Besides, I do not want to dismiss Crossan. He is managing these
+different enterprises in such a way that they earn fair interest on
+the capital I put into them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been looking into things a bit, Excellency,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>I quite believed that. The deputation of carters said the same thing
+in other words.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;And you&#8217;ll find yourself in an awkward place one of these days if
+that fellow Crossan is allowed to go on as he&#8217;s going.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope you&#8217;re not going to drag up that dispute about the carters,
+Godfrey. I&#8217;m sick of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dispute about the carters is really an unpleasant business. As
+originally organized there were eight Protestant carters and four
+Roman Catholics. A year ago Crossan dismissed the four Roman Catholic
+carters, and one of the Protestants who was suspected of religious
+indifference. Their places were filled by five Orangemen of the most
+determined kind. Now the profits of this carting business are
+considerable. The five men who were dismissed appealed to Godfrey.
+Godfrey laid their case before me. I gathered that Godfrey had a high
+opinion of the outcasts who always spoke to him with the respect due
+to his position. He had a low opinion of the five interlopers who were
+men of rude speech and democratic independence of manner. I was
+foolish enough to speak to Crossan about the matter. He met me with a
+blunt assertion that it was impossible to trust what he called
+&#8220;Papishes.&#8221; There, as a lover of peace rather than justice, I wanted
+to let the matter rest; but Godfrey took up the subject again and
+again in the course of the following year. He persisted, not out of
+any love for justice though this once he was on the side of justice,
+but simply out of hatred of Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not only the dismissal of those carters,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;There&#8217;s
+a great deal more behind that. There&#8217;s something going on which I
+don&#8217;t understand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you don&#8217;t understand it,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you can&#8217;t expect me to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Look here, Excellency, you remember the time that yacht of Conroy&#8217;s,
+the <i>Finola</i>, was in here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I do. You went and left my cards on Bob Power.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry now that I did. There&#8217;s something fishy about that
+yacht. What was she doing on the night she was here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Coaling,&#8221; I said; &#8220;I don&#8217;t see why I should dismiss Crossan because
+Conroy&#8217;s yacht came in here for coal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She wasn&#8217;t coaling,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that, of course; so I said nothing, but left Godfrey to
+develope his grievance whatever it was.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ever since that night,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;there has been something or
+other going on in the yard behind the stores. Those carters are in it,
+whatever it is, and a lot more men, fishermen and young farmers.
+They&#8217;re up there every night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Probably dancing,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Much more likely to be drinking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish you wouldn&#8217;t talk nonsense, Godfrey. You know perfectly well
+that the store has not got a licence, and there&#8217;s no drink sold there.
+Besides Crossan is a fanatical teetotaller.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That wouldn&#8217;t stop him,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;if he could sell the stuff
+cheap and make money on it; if&#8221;&mdash;here he sank his voice&mdash;&#8220;if it hadn&#8217;t
+paid duty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now Crossan is one of those Christians who has added to the original
+Ten Commandments a Mohammedan prohibition of alcohol in any form.
+Godfrey, I have no doubt, would break any of the commandments which he
+recognized, if he saw his way to making a small profit on the sin. But
+I did not think that even a 25 per cent. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>dividend would tempt Crossan
+to disregard his self-imposed prohibition of alcohol.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all nonsense,&#8221; I said. &#8220;In the first place the <i>Finola</i> didn&#8217;t
+come in here to land a cargo of smuggled goods.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what did she come for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did not know, so I ignored Godfrey&#8217;s question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And in the second place Crossan wouldn&#8217;t debauch the whole place by
+making the men drunk night after night on smuggled spirits. Why, only
+three weeks ago he spoke to me seriously about the glass of claret I
+drink at dinner. He did it quite respectfully and entirely for my
+good. I respected him for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s up to some mischief,&#8221; said Godfrey, sulkily, &#8220;and it won&#8217;t be
+too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find
+out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night
+for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark,
+twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of
+the Orange Lodge. I&#8217;ve watched them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you watch them coming out again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did, twice,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;They didn&#8217;t go home till nearly one
+o&#8217;clock in the morning. I couldn&#8217;t stop up every night, so I only saw
+them twice.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;were they drunk?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Godfrey, unwillingly, &#8220;they were not. They walked quite
+straight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That explodes your theory then. If they had been drinking smuggled
+spirits for hours and hours, they would have been drunk.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They were at some mischief,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They were probably getting up a concert,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;No, they weren&#8217;t, for&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Godfrey,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve listened to you pretty patiently
+for a long time; but I really cannot spare you the whole morning. If
+you have anything to do I wish you&#8217;d go and do it. If you haven&#8217;t
+you&#8217;d better go to bed and sleep off your absurd suspicions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One has to speak very plainly to Godfrey. Hints are simply wasted on
+him. Even after my last remark he hesitated for a moment. Then he
+turned and went.</p>
+
+<p>I felt in the mood to write a short story which I have had in my mind
+for some time. I very often write short stories; but have never yet
+got an editor who cares to print any of them. The one I had in my mind
+when Godfrey left me was, however, likely to be particularly good. It
+was to be the autobiography of a murderer; not an ordinary murderer
+who slays through desire of gain or in obedience to an inborn criminal
+instinct. My murderer was to be a highly respectable, God-fearing man,
+a useful citizen, a good father, a man of blameless life and almost
+blameless thoughts, generous, high-principled, beloved. He was to slay
+his victim with one of the fire-irons on his hearth. The murderous
+impulse was to take possession of him quite suddenly but with
+absolutely irresistible force. He was to kill a man who had been
+boring him for hours. My intention was to write the story in such a
+way as to win public sympathy for my murderer and to make every one
+feel that the dead man deserved his fate. I meant to model the dead
+man on my nephew Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>I still think that a very good short story might be written along
+those lines, but I doubt whether I shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>ever write it. I wrote about
+two thousand words that morning before I was interrupted by the
+luncheon gong. I was unable to go on writing after luncheon because
+the conversation I had with Marion distracted my mind and turned my
+thoughts to another subject.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father,&#8221; she said, &#8220;do you think that Mr. Power could really have
+been smuggling things in that yacht?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; I said; &#8220;he couldn&#8217;t possibly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very queer,&#8221; said Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s queer?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, nothing. Only this morning Rose had a new gold brooch, quite a
+handsome one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rose is Marion&#8217;s maid, a pleasant and I believe efficient girl of
+agreeable appearance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Even if Mr. Power was smuggling,&#8221; I said, &#8220;it&#8217;s exceedingly unlikely
+that he&#8217;d bring in a cargo of gold brooches to give to the servants in
+the district.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I didn&#8217;t mean that,&#8221; said Marion. &#8220;In fact Rose told me that her
+young man gave her the brooch. He&#8217;s a very nice, steady young fellow
+with a freckly face and he drives one of the carts for Crossan.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He must, I suspect, be the same young man who accused Godfrey of being
+a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection
+of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He promised her a gold bracelet next week,&#8221; said Marion, &#8220;and Rose is
+very mysterious about where he gets the money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As long as he doesn&#8217;t steal it from me,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t care where
+he gets it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men
+in the village have heaps of money <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>lately, and I thought it might
+have something to do with smuggling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered
+Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose&#8217;s young man and the
+others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who
+frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was,
+of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form
+of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one
+of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and
+philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish
+peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of
+kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have
+made Rose&#8217;s freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch.
+The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the <i>Finola&#8217;s</i> midnight
+activity.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">A</span>ll competent critics appear to agree that art ought to be kept
+entirely distinct from moral purposes. A picture meant to urge us on
+to virtue&mdash;and there are such pictures&mdash;is bad art. A play or a novel
+with a purpose stands condemned at once. The same canon of criticism
+must, I suppose, apply to parties of all kinds, dinner-parties,
+garden-parties, or house-parties. A good host or hostess ought, like
+the painter and the novelist, to aim at making her work beautiful in
+itself; and should not have behind the hospitality a cause of any
+kind, charitable or political.</p>
+
+<p>I myself dissent, humbly, of course, from this view. Pictures like
+<i>Time, Death and Judgment</i>&mdash;I take it as an example of the kind of
+picture which is meant to make us good because I once saw it hung up
+in a church&mdash;appeal to me strongly. I do not like novels which aim at
+a reform of the marriage laws; but that is only because sex problems
+bore me horribly. I enjoy novels written with any other purpose. I
+hate parties, such as those which Godfrey instigates me to give, which
+have no object except that of merely being parties, the bare
+collection together of human beings in their best clothes. I was,
+therefore, greatly pleased when I discovered that my original guess
+was right and that Lady Moyne&#8217;s party was definitely political. I
+found this out when I arrived in the drawing-room before dinner. I was
+a little too early and there was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>no one in the room except Moyne. He
+shook hands with me apologetically and this gave me a clue to the
+nature of the entertainment before me. He dislikes politics greatly,
+and would be much happier than he is if he were allowed to hunt and
+fish instead of attending to such business as is carried on in the
+House of Lords. But a man cannot expect to get all he wants in life.
+Moyne has a particularly charming and clever wife who enjoys politics
+immensely. The price he pays for her is the loss of a certain amount
+of sport and the endurance of long periods of enforced legislative
+activity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to have told you before you came,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that&mdash;well, you
+know that my lady is very strongly opposed to this Home Rule Bill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne is fifteen years or so older than his wife. He shows his respect
+for her by the pretty old-fashioned way in which he always speaks of
+her as &#8220;my lady.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; he went on, &#8220;that the people we have with us at
+present&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Babberly?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne nodded sorrowfully. Babberly is the most terrific of all
+Unionist orators. If his speeches were set to music, the orchestra
+would necessarily consist entirely of cornets, trumpets and drums. No
+one could express the spirit of Babberly&#8217;s oratory on stringed
+instruments. Flutes would be ridiculous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Moyne, still apologetically, &#8220;it really is rather a
+crisis you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It always is,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve lived through seventy or eighty of
+them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But this is much worse than most,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>man called Malcolmson
+arrived this afternoon, a colonel of some sort. Was in the artillery,
+I think.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You read his letter in <i>The Times</i>, I suppose?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I did. But I needn&#8217;t tell you, Kilmore, that that kind of thing
+is all talk. My wife&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I fancy Lady Moyne would look well as <i>vivandi&egrave;re</i>,&#8221; I said,
+&#8220;marching in front of an ambulance waggon with a red cross on it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne looked pained. He is very fond of Lady Moyne and very proud of
+her. This is quite natural. I should be proud of her too if she were
+my wife.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Her idea,&#8221; said Lord Moyne, &#8220;is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just then our Dean came into the room. His presence emphasised the
+highly political nature of the party. Unless she had asked Crossan,
+Lady Moyne could not have got hold of any one of more influence with
+our north of Ireland Protestant democracy. The Dean cannot possibly be
+accustomed to the kind of semi-regal state which is kept up at Castle
+Affey. I should be surprised to hear that he habitually dresses for
+dinner. It was only natural, therefore, that he should be a little
+overawed by the immensity of the rooms and the number of footmen who
+lurk about the halls and passages. When he began explaining to me the
+extreme iniquity of the recent Vatican legislation about mixed
+marriages, he spoke in a quite low voice. As a rule this subject moves
+the Dean to stridency; but the heavy magnificence of Castle Affey
+crushed him into a kind of whisper. This encouraged me. If the Dean
+had been in his usual condition of vigour, I should not have ventured
+to do anything except agree with him heartily. Feeling that I might
+never catch him in a subdued mood again, I seized a chance of
+expressing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>my own views on the mixed marriage question. It seems to
+me that the whole difficulty about the validity of these unions might
+be got over by importing a few priests of the Greek Church into
+Ireland. The Vatican, I believe, recognizes that these Orientals
+really are priests. The Protestants could not reasonably object to
+their ministrations since they refuse to acknowledge the jurisdiction
+of the Pope. A mixed marriage performed by one of them would,
+therefore, be valid in the opinion of the ecclesiastical advisers of,
+let us say, the bridegroom. It would be quite unobjectionable to those
+responsible for the soul of the bride. I put my plan as persuasively
+as I could; but the Dean did not seem to see any merit in it. Indeed I
+have never met any one who did. That is the great drawback to trying
+to help the Irish nation out of its difficulties. No one will ever
+agree to a reasonable compromise.</p>
+
+<p>I took Lady Moyne in to dinner and enjoyed myself very much. She
+was&mdash;as indeed she always is&mdash;beautifully dressed. Although she talked
+a good deal to Babberly who sat on the other side of her, she left me
+with the impression that I was the person who really interested her,
+and that she only turned occasionally to her other neighbour from a
+sense of duty. Babberly talked about Unionist clubs and the vigorous
+way in which the members of them were doing dumb bell exercises, so as
+to be in thoroughly good training when the Home Rule Bill became law.
+The subject evidently interested him very much. He has a long white
+beard of the kind described as patriarchal. When he reaches exciting
+passages in his public speeches, and even when he is saying something
+emphatic in private life, his beard wags up and down. On this occasion
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>it rose and fell like a foamy wave. That was what convinced me that
+he was really interested in the activity of the Unionist clubs. Lady
+Moyne smiled at him in her bewilderingly bewitching way, and then
+turned round and smiled at me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I said, &#8220;do you actually mean to go out and do battle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t be necessary,&#8221; said Babberly. &#8220;Once the English people
+understand that we mean to die rather than see our lives and
+liberties&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nowadays,&#8221; said Lady Moyne, &#8220;when the industrial proletariate is
+breaking free from all control, it is a splendid thing for us to have
+a cause in which we take the lead, which will bind our working classes
+to us, and make them loyal to those who are after all their best
+friends and their natural leaders.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I quite saw Lady Moyne&#8217;s point. Crossan would not be at all likely to
+follow her or regard her as his best friend in ordinary matters. He
+might even resent her interference with his affairs. But on the
+subject of Home Rule Crossan would certainly follow any one who took
+his side of the great controversy. If Lady Moyne wore an orange sash
+over her pretty dresses Crossan would cheer her. While Home Rule
+remained a real danger he would refrain from asking why Lord Moyne
+should spend as much on a bottle of champagne for dinner, as would
+feed the children of a labourer for a week. It did not surprise me to
+find that Lady Moyne was clever enough to understand Crossan. I wanted
+to know whether Babberly understood.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I said to him, &#8220;suppose that the men you are enrolling take
+what you say seriously&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I assure you, Lord Kilmore,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;we are quite serious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I could hear Malcolmson at the other end of the table explaining to
+Moyne a scheme for establishing a number of artillery forts on the
+side of the Cave Hill above Belfast Lough. His idea apparently, was to
+sink any British warship which was ill-advised enough to anchor there
+with a view to imposing Home Rule on us. Malcolmson, at all events,
+was quite serious.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It will never come to fighting,&#8221; said Babberly again. &#8220;After all, the
+great heart of the English people is sound. They will never consent to
+see their brethren and co-religionists handed over&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne turned to me and smiled again. I am sixty years of age, but
+her smile gave me so much pleasure that I failed to hear the rest of
+what Babberly said.</p>
+
+<p>When at the end of dinner Lady Moyne left us, we congregated round the
+other end of the table, and everybody talked loud; everybody, that is,
+except Moyne and me. Moyne looked to me very much as if he wanted to
+go to sleep. He blinked a good deal, and when he got his eyes open
+seemed to hold them in that state with considerable effort. I did not
+feel sleepy, and became more and more interested as the conversation
+round me grew more violent. Babberly talked about a campaign among the
+English constituencies. He had a curious and quite pathetic faith in
+the gullibility of the British working-man. Nobody listened much to
+Babberly. The Dean prosed on about the effects of the <i>Ne Temere</i>
+decree. We all said that we agreed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>with him, and then stopped
+listening. Malcolmson got on to field guns, and had an elaborate plan
+for training gunners without actual practice. Babberly did not like
+this talk about artillery. He kept on saying that we should never get
+as far as that. A Mr. Cahoon, who came from Belfast, and spoke with
+the same kind of accent as McNeice, prophesied doleful things about
+the paralyzing of business under a Home Rule Parliament. What
+interested me was, not the conversation which beat fiercely on my
+ears, but the personal question, Why had Lady Moyne invited me to this
+party?</p>
+
+<p>I am constitutionally incapable of becoming excited about politics,
+and have therefore the reputation, quite undeserved, of being that
+singular creature, a Liberal peer. Why, being the kind of Gallio I am,
+I should have been, like a second Daniel, thrown among these lions, I
+could not understand. They were not the least likely to convert me to
+their own desperate intensity of feeling. If Lady Moyne wanted to
+convert me a far better plan would have been to invite me to her house
+after the politicians had gone away. Circe, I imagine, did not attract
+new lovers by parading those whom she had already turned into swine.
+Nor could I suppose that I had been brought to Castle Affey in order
+to convert people like Malcolmson to pacific ways of thought. In the
+first place, Lady Moyne did not want him converted. He and his like
+were a valuable asset to the Conservative party. And even if she had
+wanted them converted I was not the man to do it. I am mildly
+reasonable in my outlook upon life. To reason with Malcolmson is much
+the same as if a man, meaning well, were to offer a Seidlitz powder to
+an enraged hippopotamus.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p><p>It was not until next day that I found a solution of my problem. Moyne
+buttonholed me after breakfast, and invited me, rather wistfully I
+thought, to go round the stables with him. He wanted my opinion of a
+new filly. I went, pursued by the sound of the Dean&#8217;s voice.</p>
+
+<p>He was telling the story of a famous case of wife desertion brought
+about by the <i>Ne Temere</i> decree. He was telling it to Cahoon, the
+Belfast manufacturer, who must, I am sure, have heard it several times
+before.</p>
+
+<p>I used, long ago, to be a good judge of horses. I still retained my
+eye for a neat filly. Moyne&#8217;s latest acquisition was more than neat. I
+stroked her neck, and patted her flanks with genuine appreciation.
+Moyne looked quite cheerful and babbled pleasantly about hunting. Then
+Lady Moyne came through the door of the stable. I was very glad to see
+her. Her dress, a simple brown tweed, suited her admirably, and her
+smile, less radiant, perhaps, than it was the night before when set
+off by her diamonds, was most attractive. Moyne, too, though I knew
+that he did not want to talk politics, was glad to see her. She came
+into the horse-box, and fondled the filly. Then she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a lot we have to go through for a good cause!&#8221; she said. &#8220;Those
+terrible men!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Heavy going,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;that kind of thing at breakfast. Let&#8217;s
+take out the new car, and go for a spin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should love to,&#8221; she said, &#8220;but I must not. I only ran out to speak
+to you for a minute, Lord Kilmore.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes led me to believe at dinner the night before that I was the
+one man among her guests that she really wanted to talk to. Now her
+lips said the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>thing plainly. I did not believe it, of course;
+but I felt quite as much gratified as if it had been true.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Conroy comes this afternoon,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That millionaire fellow?&#8221; said Moyne, who was evidently not well up
+in the list of his visitors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I want you to take him in hand,&#8221; said Lady Moyne to me&mdash;not to
+her husband. &#8220;He&#8217;s very clever, and it&#8217;s most important to get him
+interested in our movement.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d much better take him in hand yourself,&#8221; I said. &#8220;If any one
+could interest him&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall, of course; but I can&#8217;t always be with him. I&#8217;m dreadfully
+afraid that if Mr. Babberly talks to him&mdash;but you know what Mr.
+Babberly is. He&#8217;s splendid in Parliament and on a platform; perfectly
+splendid. We&#8217;ve nobody like him. But he might not quite suit Mr.
+Conroy. Then poor dear Colonel Malcolmson does talk such nonsense. Of
+course it&#8217;s very good in its way, and I do hope the Liberals will lay
+to heart what he says about fighting before it&#8217;s too late&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Conroy is a business man,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and has a reputation for
+shrewdness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just it,&#8221; said Lady Moyne, &#8220;and the others&mdash;the Dean and that
+curious Mr. Cahoon. They&#8217;re dears, perfect dears in the way they stand
+up for the Union and the Empire, but&mdash;&#8221; She shrugged her shoulders,
+and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite understand,&#8221; I said; &#8220;but, after all, I&#8217;m rather an old bore,
+too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You!&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;You&#8217;re a literary man, and that&#8217;s so rare,
+you know, in our class. And, besides, you&#8217;re a Liberal. I don&#8217;t mean
+in any offensive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>sense of the word; only just that you&#8217;re not a party
+man. I must run away now; but you will do your best with Mr. Conroy,
+won&#8217;t you? We want a big subscription from him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Dean caught me a little later in the morning, and, though I told
+him I had letters to write, he insisted on explaining to me that, as a
+clergyman, he considered it wrong to take any active part in politics.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Church,&#8221; he said, &#8220;cannot allow herself to become attached to any
+party. She must stand above and beyond party, a witness to divine and
+eternal righteousness in public affairs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am, on the whole, glad that I heard the Dean say this. I should
+certainly have believed he was taking a side in politics, if he had
+not solemnly assured me that he was not. I might even have thought,
+taking at their face value certain resolutions passed by its General
+Synod, that the Church was, more or less, on the side of the
+Unionists, if the Dean had not explained to me that she only appeared
+to be on their side because they happened to be always in the right,
+but that she would be quite as much on the side of the Liberals if
+they would only drop their present programme which happened in every
+respect to be morally wrong. This cleared my mind for me, and I felt
+quite ready to face Conroy at luncheon, and dispel any difficulties he
+might feel about the Church and politics.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">M</span>r. Conroy arrived at luncheon-time, and Lady Moyne took him in hand
+at once. I watched her talking to him during the meal and afterwards
+when they walked together round the lawn. I came to the conclusion
+that Lady Moyne would have no difficulty in obtaining any subscription
+she wanted from the millionaire. They were, of course, intimate with
+each other. Lady Moyne had been Conroy&#8217;s guest in the days when his
+London house was a centre of social life. She had sailed with him on
+the <i>Finola</i>. But this was the first time she had him at Castle Affey;
+and therefore the first time he had seen Lady Moyne in her character
+as hostess. It is not to be wondered at that he yielded to her charm.
+Like all women of real capacity Lady Moyne was at her best in her own
+house.</p>
+
+<p>But she was too clever a hostess to devote herself entirely to one
+guest. She took Babberly for a drive later in the afternoon and I felt
+that my time had come. I determined to be true to my trust and to make
+myself agreeable to Conroy. Unfortunately he did not seem to want my
+company. He went off for a long walk with Malcolmson. This surprised
+me. I should have supposed beforehand that talk about artillery would
+have bored Conroy; and Malcolmson, since this Home Rule struggle
+began, has talked of nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>I spent the afternoon with Mr. Cahoon, and we talked about Home Rule,
+of course.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;What those fellows want,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is to get their hands into our
+pockets. But it won&#8217;t do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Those fellows&#8221; were, plainly, the Nationalist leaders.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Taxation?&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Belfast will be the milch cow of the Dublin Parliament,&#8221; said Cahoon.
+&#8220;Money will be wanted to feed paupers and pay priests in the south and
+west. We&#8217;re the only people who have any money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had never before come in contact with a man like Cahoon, and I was
+very much interested in him. His contempt, not only for our
+fellow-countrymen in Leinster, Munster and Connacht, but for all the
+other inhabitants of the British Isles was absolute. He had a way of
+pronouncing final judgment on all the problems of life which
+fascinated me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all well enough in its way,&#8221; he would say; &#8220;but it won&#8217;t do in
+Belfast. We&#8217;re business men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I think he said those words five times in the course of the afternoon,
+and each time they filled me with fresh delight. If the man had been a
+fool I should not have been interested in him. If he had been a simple
+crude money maker, a Stock Exchange Imperialist, for instance, I
+should have understood him and yawned. But he was not a fool. A man
+cannot be a fool who manages successfully a large business, who keeps
+in touch with the swift vicissitudes of modern international commerce,
+who has organized into a condition of high efficiency an industrial
+army of several thousand working-men and women. And Mr. Cahoon, in a
+curious hard way, was touched with idealisms; I discovered,
+accidentally, that he devotes his spare time on Saturdays to the
+instruction of young <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>men in cricket and football. His Sunday
+afternoons he gives to an immense Bible-class for boys of fifteen or
+sixteen. He has built and maintains, on the sole condition that he
+does not actually lose money by it, a kind of model village in a
+suburban district of Belfast. In order to look after this village
+properly he gets up at five o&#8217;clock in the morning on three days in
+the week. In winter, when his social work is in full swing, he spends
+almost all his evenings at a large Working-Men&#8217;s club. He spends his
+summer holidays in the seaside camp of The Boys&#8217; Brigade. It would be
+difficult to find a man who crams more work into what are supposed to
+be his leisure hours. He has, of course, little time for reading and
+he never travels. His devotion to good works leaves him no opportunity
+for culture, and accounts for the fact that he believes the things
+which Babberly says on platforms. He would, I did not actually try him
+with the subject, but I have no doubt he would, have brushed the
+philosophy of Emmanuel Kant into the world&#8217;s waste-basket with his
+unvarying formula: It wouldn&#8217;t do in Belfast. They are business men
+there.</p>
+
+<p>We worried on about his fear of the over-taxation of Belfast and the
+industrial North. I tried to get from him some definite account of the
+exact taxes which he feared. I tried to get him to explain how he
+proposed to fight, against whom he intended to fight, who might be
+expected to fight on his side. I do not think he got angry with me for
+my persistency, but his contempt for me steadily increased. I am not a
+business man and so I could not possibly, so he hinted, understand how
+they feel about the matter in Belfast.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;But do you think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that your workmen will go out and be shot
+in order to save you from paying an extra penny in the pound income
+tax? That&#8217;s what it comes to, you know, and I don&#8217;t see why they
+should do it. They don&#8217;t pay income tax, or for that matter death
+duties.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Cahoon looked me full in the face for nearly half a minute without
+replying. Then he took out his watch and looked at it. Then he took me
+by the arm and led me towards the yard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you ever see the Green Loaney Scutching Mill?&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen any scutching mill. I have only a vague idea of what
+a scutching mill is.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll not be more than twenty miles from this,&#8221; said Cahoon. &#8220;And in
+my car we&#8217;ll do it and be back for dinner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did not particularly want to spend the rest of the afternoon rushing
+about the country in Cahoon&#8217;s motor car. I preferred to stay quietly
+on the Castle Affey lawn and talk about Home Rule.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But about the working-man,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and the prospect of his
+fighting&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll be better able to talk about that,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;when you&#8217;ve
+seen the man I&#8217;m going to take you to. Seeing&#8217;s believing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was, of course, quite willing to go with Cahoon if he would really
+show me a citizen soldier in a scutching mill. We got out the motor
+car and started.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a man by the name of McConkey,&#8221; said Cahoon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A good name,&#8221; I said. &#8220;One expects something from a McConkey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>Cahoon did not say anything for about ten minutes. Then he went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McConkey is foreman in the mill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The scutching mill?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>It was, of course, the scutching mill. I only asked the question in
+order to keep up the conversation. The long silences were
+embarrassing. Cahoon did not answer me. At the end of another quarter
+of an hour of furious driving he gave me a little further information
+about McConkey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He neither drinks nor smokes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This led me to think that he might be some relation to my friend
+Crossan, possibly a cousin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I happen to know,&#8221; said Cahoon a little later, &#8220;that he has upwards
+of &pound;500 saved.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly McConkey and Crossan are close relations, brothers-in-law
+perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the Green Loaney Scutching Mill at about half-past five
+o&#8217;clock. Cahoon, who seemed to know all about the establishment, led
+me through some very dusty purlieus. McConkey, when we came upon him,
+did not seem particularly pleased to see Cahoon. He looked at me with
+suspicious malignity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a gentleman here,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;who wants to know whether
+you mean to fight rather than submit to Home Rule.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aye,&#8221; said McConkey, &#8220;I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked me square in the face without winking. Cahoon did the
+same thing exactly. Neither of them spoke. It was clearly my turn to
+say something; but with four hard grey eyes piercing my skin I found
+it difficult to think of a remark. In the end I said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Really?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>They both continued to stare at me. Then McConkey broke the silence
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll no be a Papist?&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not,&#8221; I replied. &#8220;In fact I am a church-warden.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>McConkey thrust his hand deep into a hip pocket in the back of his
+trousers and drew out a somewhat soiled packet of yellow tracing
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look at thon,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>I unfolded the tracing paper and found on it drawings of a machine
+gun. Cahoon peered over my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a bonny wee thing,&#8221; said McConkey.</p>
+
+<p>She looked to me large and murderous. Cahoon expressed his admiration
+for her, so I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll no be that badly off for something to fight with,&#8221; said
+McConkey, &#8220;when the time comes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to say,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you&#8217;ve bought that weapon?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t her bought yet,&#8221; said McConkey; &#8220;but I have the money by
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you actually mean&mdash;&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay. I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Cahoon. He was still studying the drawings of the gun.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;ll be queer,&#8221; said McConkey, slowly, &#8220;if she doesna&#8217; land a few of
+them in hell before they have me catched.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Cahoon again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you really think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that he&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re business men,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;and we don&#8217;t throw away our
+money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I said, &#8220;who are you going to shoot at? It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>would be silly to
+attack a tax collector with a gun like that. I don&#8217;t see who&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;don&#8217;t fret about that. We&#8217;ll find somebody to
+shoot at.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;ll be plenty,&#8221; said McConkey, &#8220;when the time comes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The real difficulty,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;is that&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll no be wanting to stand up till us,&#8221; said McConkey.</p>
+
+<p>The relations of Capital with Labour are, I understand, strained in
+other parts of the United Kingdom. Here, with Home Rule on the
+horizon, they seem to be actually cordial. There is certainly a good
+deal to be said for Lady Moyne&#8217;s policy. So long as Cahoon and
+McConkey have a common taste for making domestic pets of machine guns
+they are not likely to fall out over such minor matters as wages and
+hours of work.</p>
+
+<p>I had a good deal to think of as Cahoon drove me back to Castle Affey.
+My main feeling was one of great personal thankfulness. I shall never,
+I hope, take part in a battle. If I do I hope I shall be found
+fighting against some properly organized army, the men and officers of
+which have taken up the business of killing in a lofty professional
+spirit. I cannot imagine anything more likely to shatter my nerve than
+to be pitted against men like McConkey, who neither drink nor smoke,
+but save and spend their savings on machine guns. The regular soldier
+has his guns bought for him with other people&#8217;s money. He does not
+mind much if no gory dividend is earned. McConkey, on the other hand,
+spends his own money, and being a business man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>will hate to see it
+wasted. He would not be satisfied, I imagine, with less than fifty
+corpses per cent. as a return on his expenditure.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner that evening Conroy made a suggestion for our evening&#8217;s
+entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lady Moyne,&#8221; he said, &#8220;ought to read us the speech which she is to
+make next week to the Unionist women.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard of the Unionist women before, and knew nothing of
+their wish to be spoken to. The Dean assured me that they were
+numerous and quite as enthusiastic as their husbands and brothers.
+Cahoon said that he was giving his mill hands a half holiday in order
+that the girls might go to listen to Lady Moyne. Babberly struck in
+with a characteristic speech.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The influence of women,&#8221; he said, &#8220;can hardly be over-estimated. We
+must never forget that the most impressionable years of a man&#8217;s life
+are those during which he is learning to say his prayers beside his
+mother&#8217;s knee.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This, as I recognized was a mere paraphrase of the proverb which
+states that the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. The
+secret of Babberly&#8217;s great success as an orator is that he has a
+striking power of putting platitudes into new words.</p>
+
+<p>I ventured to suggest that, so far as the present political situation
+was concerned it was hardly worth while trying to get at the children
+who were learning to say their prayers. The Home Rule Bill would be
+either rejected or passed long before any of that generation had
+votes. Lady Moyne was good enough to smile at me; but Babberly felled
+me at once.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;The women whom we expect to influence,&#8221; he said, &#8220;have fathers,
+brothers and husbands as well as young children.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After dinner we had the speech. A secretary, who had once been Lady
+Moyne&#8217;s governess and still wore pince-nez, brought a quantity of
+type-written matter into the drawing-room. Moyne wanted me to slip
+away with him to the billiard room; but I refused to do so. I wanted
+to watch Lady Moyne making her speech. I am glad that I resisted his
+appeal. Lady Moyne not only read us the speech. She delivered it to
+us, treated us, indeed, to a rehearsal, I might even call it a dress
+rehearsal, for she described at some length the clothes she intended
+to wear. They must have been the most sumptuous in her wardrobe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The poor dears,&#8221; she said, &#8220;want something to brighten their lives.
+Besides, they&#8217;ll take it as a compliment to them if I&#8217;m like Solomon
+in all his glory.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I gathered from this remark that the audience was to consist mainly of
+the wives and sisters of McConkey and other men of the same class.
+Cahoon&#8217;s wife, if he had one, would not require a display of Lady
+Moyne&#8217;s best clothes to seal her attachment to the Union.</p>
+
+<p>The speech was an uncommonly good one. A phrase in it frequently
+repeated, appealed to me very strongly. Lady Moyne spoke about &#8220;our
+men.&#8221; I do not know why it is, but the phrase &#8220;our women&#8221; as used for
+instance by military officers who have been to India, always strikes
+me as singularly offensive. It suggests seraglios, purdahs and other
+institutions by which Turks, and Orientals generally, assert and
+maintain the rights of property with regard to the other sex. &#8220;Our
+men,&#8221; on the other hand, is redolent of sentimental domesticity. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>I
+never hear it without thinking of women who are mothers and makers of
+men; who sew on trouser buttons and cook savoury messes for those who
+are fighting the battle of life for them in a rough world, sustained
+by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It
+is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all
+it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast
+working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun
+bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey&#8217;s wife, assuming for the
+moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from
+tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened
+him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of
+the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord
+Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and
+the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did miss it, for
+he was nearly asleep in a chair. But McConkey&#8217;s wife would not. Her
+heart would glow with a sense that she and Lady Moyne were sisters in
+their anxious care for the men entrusted to them.</p>
+
+<p>That single phrase made such a violent emotional appeal to me that I
+missed all the rest of the speech. Each time I began to recover a
+little from hearing it and was prepared to give my attention to
+something else, Lady Moyne used to repeat it, and then I was
+hypnotized again. I have no doubt, however, that the speech was a
+powerful appeal for the maintenance of the Union. Conroy said so
+afterwards and Babberly entirely agreed with him. The Dean suggested
+that something might be put in about the sanctity of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>marriage
+tie, a matter of particular importance to women and likely to be
+seriously affected by the passing of a Home Rule Bill. Lady Moyne
+thanked him for calling her attention to the omission. The secretary,
+who had once been a governess, adjusted her pince-nez and took a note.</p>
+
+<p>In the smoking-room that evening Conroy took command of the
+conversation, and for the first time since I arrived at Castle Affey
+we got off politics. He told us a good deal about how he made his
+fortune. Most men who have made fortunes enjoy talking about how they
+made them. But their stories are nearly always most uninteresting. My
+impression is that they do not themselves understand how they came to
+be rich. But Conroy understood, or at all events thought he
+understood, his own success. He believed that he was rich because he
+had, more than other men, a love of the excitement which comes with
+risk. He had the spirit of the true adventurer, the man who pursues
+novelty and danger for their own sakes. Every story he told us
+illustrated and was meant to illustrate this side of his character. He
+despised the rest of us, especially me perhaps. We, Cahoon, the Dean,
+even Malcolmson, though he was a bristly fighting man, certainly Moyne
+who had gone quietly to bed&mdash;we were tame barndoor fowls, eating the
+sordid messes spread for us by that old henwife, civilized society.
+Conroy was a free bird of the wild. He snatched golden grain for
+nutriment from the hand of a goddess. These were not his words or his
+metaphors, but they represented the impression which his talk and his
+stories left on my mind.</p>
+
+<p>At twelve o&#8217;clock I rose to say good night. As I did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>so a servant
+entered the room and told Conroy that his motor was ready for him at
+the door. Conroy left the room at once, and left the house a few
+minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose we ought, all of us, to have been surprised. Motor drives in
+the middle of the night are an unusual form of amusement, and it was
+impossible to suppose that Conroy could have any business requiring
+immediate personal attention in the neighbourhood of Castle Affey. But
+his talk during the evening had left its impression on other minds as
+well as mine. We bid each other good night without expressing any
+astonishment at Conroy&#8217;s conduct. Cahoon refrained from saying that
+inexplicable midnight expeditions were not the kind of things they
+cared for in Belfast. Even he recognized that a man who had
+accumulated as large a fortune as Conroy&#8217;s must not be judged by
+ordinary standards.</p>
+
+<p>I, unfortunately, failed to go to sleep. I tried to read the works of
+Alexander Pope, of which I found a well-bound copy in my bedroom. But
+my mind only became more active. I got up at last and covered six
+sheets of the Castle Affey note paper with a character sketch of
+Conroy. I maintained that he was wrong in supposing that a capacity
+for daring is the secret of becoming rich. Bob Power, for instance, is
+as daring as any man living and certainly loves risk for its own sake,
+but Bob will not die a rich man. Nor will Conroy. Wealth falls into
+the hands of such men occasionally, as vast hoards of gold did one
+hundred and fifty years ago into the holds of pirate ships. But no one
+ever heard of a buccaneer who died with a large fortune safely
+invested. Before Conroy dies his fortune <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>will have taken to itself
+wings and fled back to that goddess of his who gave it. This was the
+substance of my article. Marion typed it out for me when I went home,
+but neither of the editors who usually print my articles would have
+it. I suppose that they did not know Conroy personally. If they had
+known him they would have appreciated my character sketch. I called
+it, I remember, &#8220;Our Contemporary Pirates,&#8221; a title which ought to
+have been attractive.</p>
+
+<p>At three o&#8217;clock, just as I was finishing my article, I heard Conroy&#8217;s
+motor on the gravel outside my window.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared at breakfast looking fresh and cheerful. None of us asked
+him where he had been the night before, and he did not offer us any
+information.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast he asked me to go for a walk with him. Lady Moyne, who
+heard the invitation given, looked pleased, and I recollected at once
+that I had promised to interest Conroy in the Unionist cause and lead
+him on to the point of giving a large subscription to our funds.</p>
+
+<p>These party funds have always been rather a puzzle to me. I have never
+understood why it should be necessary for rich Liberals, rich
+Conservatives and American Irishmen to spend enormous sums of money in
+persuading people to vote. The theory of democratic government is, I
+suppose, that the citizen expresses his opinion freely in a polling
+booth. If he has not got an opinion it would surely be better to leave
+him alone. If he has an opinion and attaches any importance to it he
+will go to the polling booth without being dragged there by a kind of
+special constable hired for the purpose. If the money of the party
+funds were given to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>voters in the form of bribes, the expenditure
+would be intelligible. It might even be justified; since an occasional
+tip would be most welcome to nearly every elector. But to spend tens
+of thousands of pounds on what is called organization seems very
+foolish. However I am not a practical politician, and my immediate
+object was not to explain the theory of political finance to Conroy,
+but to work him up into the frame of mind in which he would sign
+cheques.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot flatter myself that I did this or even helped to do it.
+Conroy did not give me a chance. He began to talk about the Irish land
+question, a thing in which I no longer take any but an academic
+interest. He asked me if I still owned a small estate in Co. Galway
+which had belonged to my father. I told him that I had long ago sold
+it and was uncommonly glad to do so.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a paying proposition?&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; I said, &#8220;it paid very well; but the fact is, what with the
+agitation about grazing lands, and the trouble about people in
+congested districts&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I reckon,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;that your ancestors mismanaged the property
+some.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I expect they did. But I did not expect to have their misdeeds brought
+home to me in a vigorous personal way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your father,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;or your grandfather, turned my
+grandfather off a patch of land down there in 1850.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather had, I have heard, a theory that small holdings of land
+were uneconomic. He evicted his tenants and made large grass farms.
+Nowadays we hold the opposite opinion. We are evicting large <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>tenants
+and establishing small holdings. Our grandsons, I dare say, will go
+back again to the large farms. I explained to Conroy that he ought not
+to blame my grandfather who was acting in accordance with the most
+advanced scientific theories of his time.</p>
+
+<p>Conroy was very nice about the matter. He said he had no grudge
+against either me or my grandfather. He had, however, so he told me
+frankly, a prejudice against everything English; an inherited
+prejudice, and not quite so irrational as it looked. It was after all
+the English who invented the economic theories on which my grandfather
+acted. He talked so much about his dislike of England and everything
+English that I did not like to introduce the subject of the
+subscription to Lady Moyne&#8217;s political fund. He did, in the end,
+subscribe largely. When I heard about his &pound;1000 cheque I supposed that
+he must have counted the Union with us a misfortune for England and so
+wished to perpetuate it. Either that was his motive, so I thought, or
+else Lady Moyne had captivated him as she always captivates me.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> had no sooner settled down quietly at home and got to work again on
+my history than I was assailed by Godfrey. I wish very much that he
+was Conroy&#8217;s nephew and not mine. Conroy goes driving in a motor in
+the middle of the night, so he must like disturbances. I hate them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, Excellency, but I am afraid I shall have to interrupt
+you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey, besides being objectionable in other ways, is a liar. He is
+not sorry, he is very glad, when he gets the chance of interrupting
+me. I should resent the disturbance less if he acknowledged frankly
+that he enjoyed annoying me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It can&#8217;t be time,&#8221; I said, &#8220;for another garden-party yet; but, if it
+is, I&#8217;d rather you made out the invitation list yourself. I&#8217;m busy.
+Besides making out lists is one of the things you&#8217;re good at. I should
+be sure to leave out somebody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to talk about garden-parties,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;This is
+something much more serious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no use coming to me about it,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I told you last time
+that your tailor could bring you into the County Court if he liked. I
+shan&#8217;t pay him again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The inference was a natural one. Godfrey had said that he wanted to
+talk about something more important than a garden-party. But the
+inference was wrong. Godfrey looked offended.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I sent Nicholson and Blackett a cheque last week,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>I waited patiently. If Godfrey&#8217;s business had nothing to do with
+garden-parties or tailors&#8217; bills, I could only suppose that he meant
+to make some fresh complaint about Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pringle cashed it all right,&#8221; said Godfrey, after a short pause. &#8220;I
+went in there the day after your party and played tennis with his
+daughter. They were awfully pleased.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I dare say they were. People attach a surprising amount of importance
+to Godfrey&#8217;s social patronage. I myself should be more inclined to
+cash his cheques for him if he stayed away from my house. But I did
+not want to argue with Godfrey about Pringle&#8217;s taste in guests.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s Crossan been doing to you?&#8221; I asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He hasn&#8217;t been doing anything to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then for goodness&#8217; sake, Godfrey, let the man alone.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like the way he&#8217;s going on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You never did. There&#8217;s nothing fresh about that. You&#8217;ve complained
+about him regularly every week for five years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was an exaggeration. I am sometimes away from home for more than
+a week at a time and Godfrey does not always complain about Crossan in
+his letters.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Excellency,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;it&#8217;s far better for you to
+know what Crossan&#8217;s doing. He&#8217;s going about all over the country day
+after day. He&#8217;s got a motor car.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>I can quite understand that Crossan&#8217;s owning a motor car must have a
+very irritating effect on Godfrey. I cannot afford to keep one. That
+any one else in the district over which I ought, according to
+Godfrey&#8217;s theory, to be a kind of king, should assume a grandeur
+impossible for me is simply an aggravated kind of insolence. No wonder
+that Godfrey, with the honour of the family at heart, resented
+Crossan&#8217;s motor car. I tried to soothe him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s probably quite an inferior machine,&#8221; I said. &#8220;It will break down
+soon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not only that,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;though I think Crossan ought to
+stay at home and mind his business. He must be neglecting things.
+But&mdash;I wish you&#8217;d walk up to the store with me, Excellency. Crossan&#8217;s
+away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d much rather go when Crossan&#8217;s at home,&#8221; I said; &#8220;but, of course,
+if you won&#8217;t leave me in peace until I do, I may as well go at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I got my hat and walking stick. On the way up to the store Godfrey
+preserved an air of mysterious importance. I had no objection whatever
+to his doing this; because he could not talk and look mysterious at
+the same time, and I particularly dislike being talked to by Godfrey.
+I expect he tried to be dignified with a view to impressing me, but
+just before we reached the store he broke down and babbled fatuously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marion told me yesterday,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that she&#8217;d had a letter from
+that fellow Power.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She told me that too,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I think you ought to put a stop to it. It&#8217;s not right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Godfrey,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you appear to forget <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>that he&#8217;s one of the
+Powers of Kilfenora and private secretary to a millionaire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This twofold appeal to the highest and strongest feelings which
+Godfrey possesses ought to have silenced him. He did, I think, feel
+the force of what I said. But he was not satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you knew all that was going on,&#8221; he said, &#8220;you wouldn&#8217;t like it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We reached the store. The young woman who controls the sale of
+miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever
+Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her
+business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to
+the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one of the outhouses.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That door ought to be locked,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>This was true. I was somewhat surprised to find it open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I forced the lock this morning,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;with a screw driver.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In that case,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you can hardly blame Crossan for its being
+open. Why did you do it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to see what he had inside,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;and I wanted you
+to see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a good deal inside. In fact the outhouse, a large building,
+was filled from floor to ceiling with packing-cases, some of them very
+large indeed. Godfrey pointed to a small one near the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just lift that up, will you, Excellency?&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I won&#8217;t. Why should I? I&#8217;m not a railway porter, and it looks
+heavy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;It is heavy. Just watch me for a moment if you don&#8217;t want to lift it
+yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey with evident difficulty lifted the packing-case, staggered a
+few steps with it and then set it down. The packing-case may have been
+heavy but it was quite small. It seemed to me that Godfrey was making
+a rather pitiful exhibition of his physical feebleness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You ought to do things with dumb bells,&#8221; I said. &#8220;The muscles of your
+arms are evidently quite soft.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey took no notice of the taunt. He was in a state of tremendous
+moral earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want your permission to open these cases,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t give you any such permission,&#8221; I said. &#8220;How can I? They&#8217;re
+not my packing-cases.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey argued with me for quite a long time, but I remained firm. For
+some reason which I could not understand, Godfrey was unwilling to
+open the packing-cases without permission from somebody. I should have
+supposed that having already forced a door he would not have boggled
+at the lid of a packing-case; but he did. He evidently had some vague
+idea that the law takes a more serious view of smashing packing-cases
+than it does of housebreaking. He may have been right. But my record
+so far was clear. I had not forced the lock of the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you suppose is in those cases?&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Artificial manure,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>Our store does a large business in artificial manure. It generally
+comes to us in sacks, but there is no reason <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>why it should not come
+in packing-cases. It is tremendously heavy stuff.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Those cases were landed from the <i>Finola</i>,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;She
+wouldn&#8217;t come here with a cargo of artificial manure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve brought me all the way up here to accuse Conroy of
+smuggling,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you&#8217;ve wasted your own time and mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t accuse Conroy of smuggling,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;In fact, I&#8217;m
+going to write to him to-night to tell him what&#8217;s going on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; I said. &#8220;You can if you like, but don&#8217;t mix my name up
+with it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We walked back together as far as the village. Godfrey was silent
+again. I could see that he still had something on his mind, probably
+something which he wanted me to do. He kept on clearing his throat and
+pulling himself together as if he were going to say something of
+importance. I was uncomfortable, for I felt sure that he intended to
+attack me again about Marion&#8217;s correspondence with Bob Power. I have
+never, since she was quite a little girl, interfered with Marion&#8217;s
+freedom of action. I had not the smallest intention of making myself
+ridiculous by claiming any kind of authority over her, especially in a
+matter so purely personal as the young man she chose to favour.
+Besides, I like Bob Power. At worst there was nothing against him
+except his smuggling, and smuggling is much less objectionable than
+the things that Godfrey does. I should rather, if it came to that,
+have a son-in-law who went to prison occasionally for importing
+spirits without consulting the government than one who perpetually
+nagged at me and worried me. But I did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>not want to provoke further
+arguments by explaining my feelings to Godfrey. I was therefore rather
+relieved when he finally succeeded in blurting out what was in his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope, Excellency,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that you will take the first chance
+you get of speaking to Crossan.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In sudden gratitude for escaping a wrangle about Marion and Bob Power
+I promised hurriedly that I would speak to Crossan. I was sorry
+afterwards that I did promise. Still, I very much wished to know what
+was in the packing-cases. I did not really believe it was artificial
+manure. I did not believe either that it was smuggled brandy.</p>
+
+<p>My chance came two days later. I met Crossan in the street. He was
+standing beside his motor car, a handsome-looking vehicle. He
+evidently intended to go for a drive. I felt at once that I could not
+ask him a direct question about the packing-cases. I determined to get
+at them obliquely if I could. I began by admiring the motor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s good enough, my lord,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>He is a man of few words, and is sparing of his praise. &#8220;Good enough&#8221;
+is, from Crossan, quite an enthusiastic compliment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If your lordship would care about a drive any day,&#8221; he said, &#8220;it&#8217;ll
+be a pleasure to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan always interjects &#8220;my lord&#8221; and &#8220;your lordship&#8221; into the
+middle of the remarks he makes to me; but he says the words in a very
+peculiar tone. It always seems to me that he wishes to emphasize the
+difference in our social station because he feels that the advantage
+is all on his side. &#8220;The rank,&#8221; so his tone suggests, &#8220;is but the
+guinea stamp. The man&#8221;&mdash;that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>is in this case Crossan himself&mdash;&#8220;is the
+gowd for a&#8217; that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can get about the country pretty quickly in that car,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>Crossan looked at me with a perfectly expressionless face for some
+time. Then he said said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you think, my lord, that I&#8217;m neglecting my work, you&#8217;ve only to
+say so and I&#8217;ll go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to assure him that I had no intention of finding fault with
+him in any way. My apology was as ample as possible. After another
+minute spent in silent meditation Crossan expressed himself satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It suits me as little to be running round the country,&#8221; he said, &#8220;as
+it would suit your lordship.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite understand that,&#8221; I said. &#8220;But then I don&#8217;t do it. You do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It has to be,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>I did not quite see why it had to be; but Crossan spoke with such
+conviction that I dared not contradict him and did not even like to
+question him. Fortunately he explained himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m the Grand Master, as your lordship is aware,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Worshipful&#8221; is the title of courtesy applied to Grand Masters, and
+I&#8217;m sure no one ever deserved it better than Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If we&#8217;re not ready for them, my lord, they&#8217;ll have our throats cut in
+our beds as soon as ever they get Home Rule.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They,&#8221; of course were the &#8220;Papishes,&#8221; Crossan&#8217;s arch enemies.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted very much to hear more of his activities among the Orangemen.
+I wanted to know what steps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>he, as Grand Master, was taking to
+prevent cut-throats creeping in on us while we slept. I thought I
+might encourage him by telling him something he would be pleased to
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McConkey,&#8221; I said, &#8220;who is foreman in the Green Loaney Scutching
+Mill, is buying a splendid quick-firing gun.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The remark did not have the effect I hoped for. It had an exactly
+opposite effect. Crossan shut up like a sea anemone suddenly touched.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your lordship&#8217;s affairs won&#8217;t be neglected,&#8221; he said stiffly. &#8220;You
+may count on that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I felt that I could. I have the utmost confidence in Crossan&#8217;s
+integrity. If a body of &#8220;Papishes&#8221; of the bloodiest kind were to come
+upon Crossan and capture him; if they were to condemn him to death
+and, being God-fearing men, were to allow him half an hour in which to
+make his soul; he would spend the time, not in saying his prayers, not
+even in cursing the Pope, but in balancing the accounts of the
+co-operative store, so that any auditor who took over the books
+afterwards might find everything in order.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you really feel it to be your duty,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to go round the
+district working up&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll have heard of the Home Rule Bill, maybe,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard of it, several times. After my visit to Castle Affey I
+even understood it, though it was certainly a measure of great
+complexity. I think I appreciated the orthodox Protestant view of it
+since the day I talked to McConkey. I wanted Crossan to realize how
+fully I entered into his feelings, so I quoted a phrase from one of
+Babberly&#8217;s speeches.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;In this supreme crisis of our country&#8217;s destiny,&#8221; I said, &#8220;it is the
+duty of every man to do his uttermost to avert the threatened ruin of
+our common Protestantism.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That ought to have pacified Crossan even if it did not rouse him to
+enthusiasm. Huge crowds have cheered Babberly for saying these moving
+words. But Crossan received them from me in sullen silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be well,&#8221; he said at last, &#8220;if your lordship and others like
+you were more in earnest.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan is not by any means a fool. I have occasionally been tempted
+to think he is, especially when he talks about having his throat cut
+at night; but he has always shown me in the end that he has in him a
+vein of strong common sense. He recognized that I was talking bombast
+when I spoke about the supreme crisis; but, curiously enough, he is
+quite convinced of Babberly&#8217;s sincerity when he says things of that
+sort.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly an hour after Crossan left me when I recollected that I
+had not found out anything about the packing-cases. The subject
+somehow had not come up between us, though I fully intended that it
+should. Our talk about Home Rule gave me no clue to what was in the
+cases. I could scarcely suppose that they were full of gorgets for
+distribution among Orangemen, defensive armour proof against the
+particular kind of stabs which Crossan anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey called on me the next morning in a white heat of righteous
+indignation. He had received an answer to the letter which he wrote to
+Conroy. Before showing it to me he insisted on my reading what he
+called his statement of the case. It occupied four sheets of quarto
+paper, closely type-written. It accused <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>Bob Power and McNeice of
+using the <i>Finola</i> for smuggling without the owner&#8217;s knowledge. It
+made out, I am bound to say, quite a good case. He had collected every
+possible scrap of evidence, down to Rose&#8217;s new brooch. I suppose
+Marion told him about that. He said at the end of the letter that he
+had no motive in writing it except a sincere wish for Conroy&#8217;s
+welfare. This was quite untrue. He had several other motives. His love
+of meddling was one. Hatred of Crossan was another. Jealousy of Bob
+Power was a third.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now is there anything objectionable in that letter? Anything that one
+gentleman would not write to another?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I admitted that on the whole it was a civil letter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now look at his answer,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>Conroy&#8217;s answer was on a post-card. It consisted of six words only.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do not be a damned fool.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that&#8217;s sound advice even if it&#8217;s not very politely
+expressed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Conroy&#8217;s in it too,&#8221; said Godfrey, vindictively, &#8220;and I&#8217;ll make them
+all sorry for themselves before I&#8217;ve done with them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> find by consulting my diary that it was on the 30th of June that I
+went to Dublin. I am not often in Dublin, though I do not share the
+contempt for that city which is felt by most Ulstermen. Cahoon, for
+instance, will not recognize it as the capital of the country in which
+he lives, and always speaks of Dublin people as impractical, given
+over to barren political discussion and utterly unable to make useful
+things such as ships and linen. He also says that Dublin is dirty,
+that the rates are exorbitantly high, and that the houses have not got
+bath-rooms in them. I put it to him that there are two first-rate
+libraries in Dublin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I want a book,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I buy it. We pay for what we use in
+Belfast. We are business men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I explained, &#8220;there are some books, old ones, which you cannot
+buy. You can only consult them in libraries.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you go to London, then?&#8221; said Cahoon.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation took place in the club. I lunched there on my way
+through Belfast, going on to Dublin by an afternoon train. I was, in
+fact, going to Dublin to consult some books in the College Library.
+Marion and I had been brought up short in our labours on my history
+for want of some quotations from the diary of a seventeenth-century
+divine, and even if I had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>willing to buy the book I should have
+had to wait months while a second-hand bookseller advertised for it.</p>
+
+<p>Trinity College, when I entered the quadrangle next day, seemed
+singularly deserted. The long vacation had begun a week before.
+Fellows, professors and students had fled from the scene of their
+labours. Halfway across the square, however, I met McNeice. He seemed
+quite glad to see me and invited me to luncheon in his rooms. I
+accepted the invitation and was fed on cold ham, stale bread and
+bottled stout.</p>
+
+<p>Thackeray once hinted that fellows of Trinity College gave their
+guests beer to drink. Many hard words have been said of him ever since
+by members of Dublin University. I have no wish to have hard things
+said about me; so I explain myself carefully. McNeice&#8217;s luncheon was
+an eccentricity. It is not on cold ham solely, it is not on stale
+bread ever, that guests in the Common Room are fed. If, like Prince
+Hal, they remember amid their feasting &#8220;that good creature, small
+beer,&#8221; they do not drink it without being offered nobler beverages.
+When the University, in recognition of my labours on the Life of St.
+Patrick, made me a doctor of both kinds of law, I fared sumptuously in
+the dining hall and afterwards sipped port rich with the glory of suns
+which shone many many years ago on the banks of the upper Douro.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, while I was still heavy with the spume of the stout,
+McNeice asked me if I had seen the new paper which was being published
+to express, I imagine also to exacerbate, the opinions of the Ulster
+Unionists. He produced a copy as he spoke. It was called <i>The
+Loyalist</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;We wanted something with a bite in it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re dead sick of
+the pap the daily papers give us in their leading articles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Pap is, I think, a soft innocuous food, slightly sugary in flavour,
+suitable for infants. I should never have dreamed of describing the
+articles in <i>The Belfast Newsletter</i> as pap. An infant nourished on
+them would either suffer badly from the form of indigestion called
+flatulence or would grow up to be an exceedingly ferocious man. I
+felt, however, that if McNeice had anything to do with the editing of
+<i>The Loyalist</i> its articles would be of such a kind that those of the
+<i>Newsletter</i> would seem, by comparison, papescent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re running it as a weekly,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;and what we want is to
+get it into the home of every Protestant farmer, and every working-man
+in Belfast. We are circulating the first six numbers free. After that
+we shall charge a penny.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked at <i>The Loyalist</i>. It was very well printed, on good paper.
+It looked something like <i>The Spectator</i>, but had none of the pleasant
+advertisements of schools and books, and much fewer pages of
+correspondence than the English weekly has.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you can&#8217;t expect it to pay at that price.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;We&#8217;ve plenty of money behind us.
+Conroy&mdash;you know Conroy, don&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; I said, &#8220;then Lady Moyne got a subscription out of him after
+all. I knew she intended to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lady Moyne isn&#8217;t in this at all,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;We&#8217;re out for
+business with <i>The Loyalist</i>. Lady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Moyne&#8217;s&mdash;well, I don&#8217;t quite see
+Lady Moyne running <i>The Loyalist</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a tremendously keen Unionist,&#8221; I said. &#8220;She gave an address to
+the working-women of Belfast the week before last, one of the most
+moving&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All frills,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;silk frills. Your friend Crossan is
+acting as one of our agents, distributing the paper for us. That&#8217;ll
+give you an idea of the lines we&#8217;re going on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan, I admit, is the last man I should suspect of being interested
+in frills. The mention of his name gave me an idea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Was it copies of <i>The Loyalist</i>,&#8221; I asked, &#8220;which were in the
+packing-cases which you and Power landed that night from the
+<i>Finola</i>?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>McNeice laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come along round with me,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and see the editor. He&#8217;ll
+interest you. He&#8217;s a first-rate journalist, used to edit a rebel paper
+and advocate the use of physical force for throwing off the English
+rule. But he&#8217;s changed his tune now. Just wait for me one moment while
+I get together an article which I promised to bring him. It&#8217;s all
+scattered about the floor of the next room in loose sheets.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I read <i>The Loyalist</i> while I waited. The editor was unquestionably a
+first-rate journalist. His English was of a naked, muscular kind,
+which reminded me of Swift and occasionally of John Mitchel. But I
+could not agree with McNeice that he had changed his tune. He still
+seemed to be editing a rebel paper and still advocated the use of
+physical force for resisting the will of the King, Lords and Commons
+of our constitution. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>It is the merest commonplace to say that Ireland
+is a country of unblushing self-contradictions; but I do not think
+that the truth of this ever came home to me quite so forcibly as when
+I read <i>The Loyalist</i> that it would be better, if necessary, to
+imitate the Boers and shoot down regiments of British soldiers than to
+be false to the Empire of which &#8220;it is our proudest boast that we are
+citizens.&#8221; The editor&mdash;such was the conclusion I arrived at&mdash;must be a
+humorist of a high order.</p>
+
+<p>His name was Diarmid O&#8217;Donovan and he always wrote it in Irish
+characters, which used to puzzle me at first when I got into
+correspondence with him. We found him in a small room at the top of a
+house in a side street of a singularly depressing kind.</p>
+
+<p>McNeice explained to me that <i>The Loyalist</i> did not court notoriety,
+and preferred to have an office which was, as far as possible, out of
+sight. He said that O&#8217;Donovan was particularly anxious to be
+unobtrusive. He had, before he became connected with <i>The Loyalist</i>,
+been editor of two papers which had been suppressed by the Government
+for advocating what the Litany calls &#8220;sedition and privy conspiracy.&#8221;
+He held, very naturally, that a paper would get on better in the world
+if it had no office at all. If that was impossible, the office should
+be an attic in an inaccessible slum.</p>
+
+<p>O&#8217;Donovan, when we entered, was seated at a table writing vigorously.
+I do not know how he managed to write at all. His table was covered
+with stacks of newspapers, very dusty. He had cleared a small, a very
+small space in the middle of them, and his ink-bottle occupied a kind
+of cave hollowed out at the base of one of the stacks. It must have
+been extremely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>difficult to put a pen into it. The chairs&mdash;there were
+only two of them besides the editorial stool&mdash;were also covered with
+papers. But even if they had been free I should not have cared to sit
+down on them. They were exceedingly dirty and did not look safe.</p>
+
+<p>McNeice introduced me and then produced his own article. O&#8217;Donovan,
+very politely, offered me his stool.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McNeice tells me,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that you are writing a history of Irish
+Rebellions. I suppose you have said that Nationalism ceased to exist
+about the year 1900?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hadn&#8217;t thought of saying that,&#8221; I said. &#8220;In fact&mdash;in view of the
+Home Rule Bill, you know&mdash;I should have said that Irish Nationalism
+was just beginning to come to its own.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>O&#8217;Donovan snorted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no such thing as Irish Nationalism left,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The
+country is hypnotized. We&#8217;ve accepted a Bill which deprives us of the
+most elementary rights of freemen. We&#8217;ve licked the boots of English
+Liberals. We&#8217;ve said &#8216;thank you&#8217; for any gnawed bones they like to
+fling to us. We&#8217;ve&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It struck me that O&#8217;Donovan was becoming rhetorical. I interrupted
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Idealism in politics,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is one of the most futile things
+there is. What the Nationalist Party&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t call them that,&#8221; said O&#8217;Donovan. &#8220;I tell you they&#8217;re not
+Nationalists.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll call them anything you like,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but until you invent some
+other name for them I can&#8217;t well talk about them without calling them
+Nationalists.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&mdash;&#8221; said O&#8217;Donovan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; I said. &#8220;<i>They.</i> So long as you know who I mean, the
+pronoun will satisfy me. They had to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>consider not what men like you
+wanted, but what the Liberal Party could be induced to give. I don&#8217;t
+say they made the best bargain possible, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anyhow,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;we&#8217;re not going to be governed by those
+fellows. That&#8217;s the essential point.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I think it is. The Unionist is not really passionately attached to the
+Union. He has no insuperable antipathy to Home Rule. Indeed, I think
+most Unionists would welcome any change in our existing system of
+government if it were not that they have the most profound and deeply
+rooted objection to the men whom McNeice describes as &#8220;those fellows,&#8221;
+and O&#8217;Donovan indicates briefly as &#8220;they.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And so,&#8221; I said, turning to O&#8217;Donovan, &#8220;in mere despair of
+nationality you have gone over to the side of the Unionists.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve gone over,&#8221; said O&#8217;Donovan, &#8220;to the side of the only people in
+Ireland who mean to fight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Supposing that Ulster really did mean to fight O&#8217;Donovan&#8217;s position
+was quite reasonable. But Babberly says it will never come to
+fighting. He is quite confident of his ability to bluff the
+conscientious Liberal into dropping the Home Rule Bill for fear of
+civil war. O&#8217;Donovan, and possibly McNeice, will be left out in the
+cold if Babberly is right. The matter is rather a tangled one. With
+Babberly is Lady Moyne, working at her ingenious policy of dragging a
+red herring across the path along which democracy goes towards
+socialism. On the other hand there is McNeice with fiery intelligence,
+and O&#8217;Donovan, a coldly consistent rebel against English rule in any
+shape and form. They have their little paper with money enough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>behind
+it, with people like Crossan circulating it for them. It is quite
+possible that they may count for something. Then there is Malcolmson,
+a man of almost incredible stupidity, but with a knowledge, hammered
+into him no doubt with extra difficulty, of how to handle guns.</p>
+
+<p>O&#8217;Donovan and McNeice were bending over some proof sheets and talking
+in low whispers; there was a knock at the office door, and a moment
+later Malcolmson entered. He looked bristlier than ever, and was
+plainly in a state of joyous excitement. He held a copy of the first
+number of <i>The Loyalist</i> in his hand. He caught sight of me at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m damned,&#8221; he said, &#8220;if I expected to see you here, Kilmore. You&#8217;re
+the last man in Ireland&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m only here by accident,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and I&#8217;m going away almost at
+once. Let me introduce you to Mr. McNeice and Mr. O&#8217;Donovan.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson shook hands with the two men vigorously. I never shake
+hands with Malcolmson if I can possibly help it, because he always
+hurts me. I expect he hurt both McNeice and O&#8217;Donovan. They did not
+cry out, but they looked a good deal surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I happened to be in Dublin,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;and I called round
+here to congratulate the editor of this paper. I only came across it
+the day before yesterday, and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t have come across it any sooner,&#8221; I said, &#8220;for it&#8217;s only
+just published.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And to put down my name as a subscriber for twenty copies. If you
+want money&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They don&#8217;t,&#8221; I said, &#8220;Conroy is financing them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Conroy has some sound ideas,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;You approve of the paper, then?&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I like straight talk,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We aim at that,&#8221; said O&#8217;Donovan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m dead sick of politics and speech making,&#8221; said Malcolmson. &#8220;What
+I want is to have a slap at the damned rebels.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. O&#8217;Donovan&#8217;s point of view,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is almost the same as yours.
+What he wants&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad to hear it,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;and I need only say that when
+the time comes, gentlemen, and it won&#8217;t be long now if things go on as
+they are going&mdash;you&#8217;ll find me ready. What Ireland wants&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson paused. I waited expectantly. It is always interesting to
+hear what Ireland wants. Many people have theories on the subject, and
+hardly any one agrees with any one else.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What Ireland wants,&#8221; said Malcolmson dramatically, &#8220;is another Oliver
+Cromwell.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He drew himself up and puffed out his chest as he spoke. He must, I
+think, have rather fancied himself in the part of a twentieth century
+Puritan horse soldier. I looked round at O&#8217;Donovan to see how he was
+taking the suggestion. Oliver Cromwell I supposed, could not possibly
+be one of his favourite heroes. But I had misjudged O&#8217;Donovan. His
+sympathy with rebels of all nations was evidently stronger than his
+dislike of the typical Englishman. After all, Cromwell, however
+objectionable his religious views may have been, did kill a king.
+O&#8217;Donovan smiled quite pleasantly at Malcolmson. I dare say that even
+the idea of a new massacre of Drogheda was agreeable enough to him,
+provided the inhabitants of the town were the people to whom he denied
+the title of Nationalists and Malcolmson <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>wanted to have a slap at
+because they were rebels.</p>
+
+<p>Then McNeice got us all back to practical business in a way that would
+have delighted Cahoon. McNeice, though he does live in Dublin, has
+good Belfast blood in his veins. He likes his heroics to be put on a
+business basis. The immediate and most pressing problem, he reminded
+us, was to secure as large a circulation as possible for <i>The
+Loyalist</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You get the paper into the people&#8217;s hands,&#8221; he said to Malcolmson,
+&#8220;and we&#8217;ll get the ideas into their heads.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson, who is certainly prepared to make sacrifices in a good
+cause, offered to hire a man with a motorcycle to distribute the paper
+from house to house over a wide district.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know the exact man we want,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He knows every house in
+County Antrim, and the people like him. He&#8217;s been distributing Bibles
+and selling illuminated texts among the farmers and labourers for
+years. He&#8217;s what&#8217;s called a colporteur. That,&#8221; he turned to O&#8217;Donovan
+with his explanation, &#8220;is a kind of Scripture reader, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>If any one in the world except Malcolmson had suggested the employment
+of a Scripture reader for the distribution of <i>The Loyalist</i>, I should
+have applauded a remarkable piece of cynicism. But Malcolmson was in
+simple earnest.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you be able to get him?&#8221; I said. &#8220;The society which employs him
+may perhaps&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, that will be all right,&#8221; said Malcolmson. &#8220;There can&#8217;t be any
+objection. But if there is&mdash;I happen to be a member of the committee
+of the society. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>I&#8217;m one&#8221;&mdash;he sunk his voice modestly&mdash;&#8220;of the largest
+subscribers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am inclined to forget sometimes that Malcolmson takes a leading part
+in Church affairs. At the last meeting of the General Synod of the
+Church of Ireland he said that the distribution of the Bible among the
+people of Ireland was the surest means of quenching the desire for
+Home Rule. Free copies of <i>The Loyalist</i> for the people who already
+have Bibles and a force of artillery are, so to speak, his reserves.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">T</span>he 12th of July, was, of course, indicated by nature itself as a day
+in every way suitable for a great Unionist demonstration. Babberly and
+Lady Moyne were not the people to neglect an opportunity. They
+organized a demonstration. Then somebody&mdash;I think it must have been
+McNeice in the pages of <i>The Loyalist</i>&mdash;suggested that the thing
+should be called a review and not a demonstration. Malcolmson took the
+idea up warmly and forced Babberly&#8217;s hand. English journalists of the
+Conservative kind&mdash;journalists of every kind swarmed over Belfast for
+a week beforehand&mdash;were delighted and trumpetted the thing as a
+review. Liberal journalists lost their tempers&mdash;the clever ones losing
+theirs most hopelessly&mdash;and abused the Orangemen in finely pointed
+paradoxical epigrams, which I dare say excited the admiration of
+sentimental Nationalists in Chelsea, but had not the smallest effect
+of any kind on the people of Belfast. They, just then, had no leisure
+time to spend in reading epigrams, and never at any time appreciated
+paradox. An English statesman of great ability announced to the world
+at large that a demonstration was one thing, and a review was quite a
+different thing. He went no further than to point out the fact that
+there was a distinction between the two things; but everybody
+understood that a demonstration was, in his opinion, quite harmless,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>whereas a review might end in getting somebody into trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The Nationalist leaders&mdash;&#8220;those fellows&#8221; as McNeice called
+them&mdash;issued a kind of manifesto. It was a document which breathed the
+spirit of moderate constitutionalism, and spoke the words of grave,
+serious patriotism. It made a strong appeal to the people of Belfast
+not to injure the cause of liberty, law and order by rash and
+ill-considered action. It said that no Nationalist wanted to see
+Babberly and Lord Moyne put into prison; but that most Nationalists
+had been made to sleep on plank beds for utterances much less
+seditious than this advertisement of a review. O&#8217;Donovan and McNeice
+tore this manifesto to pieces with jubilant scorn in the next number
+of <i>The Loyalist</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A Roman Catholic bishop issued a kind of pastoral to his flock urging
+them to remain at home on the 12th of July, and above all things not
+to attempt a counter demonstration in Belfast. It was a nice pastoral,
+very Christian in tone, but quite unnecessary. No sane Roman Catholic,
+unless he wanted a martyr&#8217;s crown, would have dreamed of demonstrating
+anywhere north of the Boyne on that particular day.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers were very interesting at this time, and I took in so
+many of them that I had not time to do anything except read them. I
+had not even time to read them all, but Marion used to go through the
+ones I could not read. With a view to writing an essay&mdash;to be
+published in calmer times&mdash;on &#8220;Different Points of View&#8221; we cut out
+and pasted into a book some of the finer phrases. We put them in
+parallel columns. &#8220;Truculent corner boys,&#8221; for instance, faced &#8220;Grim,
+silent warriors.&#8221; &#8220;Men in whom the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>spirit of the martial psalms still
+survives,&#8221; stood over against &#8220;Ruffians whose sole idea of religion is
+to curse the Pope.&#8221; &#8220;Sons of unconquerable colonists, men of our own
+race and blood,&#8221; was balanced by &#8220;hooligans with a taste for rioting
+so long as rioting can be indulged in with no danger to their own
+skins.&#8221; We were interrupted in this pleasant work by the arrival of a
+letter from Lady Moyne. She summoned me&mdash;invited would be quite the
+wrong word&mdash;to Castle Affey. I went, of course.</p>
+
+<p>Babberly was there. He and Lady Moyne were shut up in the library
+along with Lady Moyne&#8217;s exhausted secretary. They were writing letters
+which she typed. I saw Moyne himself before I saw them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;m very much afraid that some of our people
+are inclined to go too far. Malcolmson, for instance. I can&#8217;t
+understand Malcolmson. After all the man&#8217;s a gentleman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I said, &#8220;Malcolmson wants to fight. He always said so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite so, quite so. We all said so. I&#8217;ve said so myself; but it was
+always on the distinct understanding&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That it would never come to that. I&#8217;ve heard Babberly say so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;damn it all, Kilmore!&mdash;it doesn&#8217;t do to push things to these
+extremes. The whole business has been mismanaged. The people have got
+out of hand; and there&#8217;s Malcolmson, a man who&#8217;s dined at my table a
+score of times, actually egging them on. Now, what do you think we
+ought to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Government is threatening you, I suppose?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s growling,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;Not that I care <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>what the Government
+does to me. It can&#8217;t do much. But I do not want her ladyship mixed up
+in anything unpleasant. It won&#8217;t do, you know. People don&#8217;t like it. I
+don&#8217;t mind for myself, of course. But still it&#8217;s very unpleasant. Men
+I know keep writing to me. You know the sort of thing I mean.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did. The members of the English aristocracy still preserve a curious
+sentiment which they call &#8220;loyalty.&#8221; It is quite a different thing
+from the &#8220;loyalty&#8221; of Crossan, for instance, or McNeice. I fully
+understood that there were men in clubs in London who would look
+coldly at poor Moyne (men of such importance that their wives&#8217;
+treatment of Lady Moyne would matter even to her) if he were
+discovered to be heading an actual rising of Ulster Protestants. I
+promised to do what I could to get Moyne out of his difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>I found that Babberly and Lady Moyne had worked out a very feasible
+plan without any help from me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That fellow Malcolmson has rushed things,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;and
+there&#8217;s an abominable rag called <i>The Loyalist</i>&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I hear that the Nationalists at their last
+meeting in Dublin joined in singing &#8216;God Save the King.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to hear what Babberly thought of this. I was disappointed.
+The fact did not seem to interest him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know who edits the thing,&#8221; he went on, still referring to
+<i>The Loyalist</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Conroy is behind it,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I happen to know that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But surely,&#8221; said Lady Moyne, &#8220;Mr. Conroy cannot want to encourage
+violence. He has just as much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>to lose as any of us&mdash;more than most of
+us&mdash;by any kind of outbreak of the democracy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lady Moyne has suggested to Malcolmson,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;that he
+should agree to call this 12th of July business a March Past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that any improvement on Review?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Lady Moyne, &#8220;the Government doesn&#8217;t want to be
+driven to take steps against us. There would be horrible rioting
+afterwards if they struck Moyne&#8217;s name off the Privy Council or did
+anything like that. It would be just as unpleasant for them as it
+would be for us, more so in fact.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your idea,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is to give the Government a loophole of escape.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Malcolmson has agreed all right,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;and if only that
+wretched little paper&mdash;did you say Conroy was in it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll write to Mr. Conroy at once,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure his
+connection with a paper of that kind is simply a mistake.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She turned to the table and began to write her letter. The secretary
+in a distant corner of the room was still typing out a long
+pronouncement which Babberly intended to forward to <i>The Times</i>. A
+minute or two later Lady Moyne turned to me with one of her brightest
+smiles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We want you to be with us on the 12th,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>In England or Scotland a countess who gives an invitation for &#8220;the
+12th&#8221; is understood to mean the 12th of August, and her guest must be
+ready to shoot grouse. In North-Eastern Ulster &#8220;the 12th&#8221; meant the
+12th of July, and the party, in this case at all events, was likely to
+end in the shooting of policemen.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;At the Review?&#8221; I said, &#8220;I mean to say the March Past? But I never go
+to political meetings. I&#8217;m no good at all as a speaker.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, it doesn&#8217;t matter about your speaking. We should love to hear
+you, of course. But if you&#8217;d really rather not&mdash;!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I think Lady Moyne was relieved when I assured her that I really would
+rather not.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ll be on the platform,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We want you very much
+indeed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that I&#8217;ll be the least use to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The point is,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;that you&#8217;re a Liberal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you mustn&#8217;t say that,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;That&#8217;s only foolish
+gossip. I&#8217;m perfectly certain that Lord Kilmore never was&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never,&#8221; I said. &#8220;But then I never was a Conservative either.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just it,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you see?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The point is,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;that if you are on the platform it
+will be quite clear&mdash;I mean to say as it&#8217;s generally understood that
+you&#8217;re inclined to Liberalism&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I began to understand a little. Last time I was at Castle Affey Lady
+Moyne made a great point of my associating myself with her party in
+opposing Home Rule. The fact that I was a Liberal (though not in any
+offensive sense of the word) gave weight to the opposition; and I
+might help to make the other Liberals (who were Liberals in the most
+offensive possible sense) take the threats of Babberly seriously. This
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>time I was to sit on the platform side by side with Malcolmson and
+Cahoon, because, being a Liberal, or rather suspected of being
+inclined to Liberalism, my presence might induce the other Liberals,
+who were Liberals indeed, not to take Babberly&#8217;s remarks at their face
+value. That is the drawback to the kind of detached position which I
+occupy. I am liable to be used for such various purposes that I get
+confused. However, I ought, no doubt, to be very thankful that I am
+useful in any way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you think, my dear Lady Moyne,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that my presence at the
+March Past will be of the slightest service to you&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It will,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It will, indeed, of the very greatest service,
+and Moyne will be delighted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was thinking of Moyne when I made the promise. I do not mean to say
+that I should have undertaken to perch myself like a fool on a wooden
+platform in the middle of a mob simply out of friendship for Moyne. I
+would not have done it unless Lady Moyne had looked at me with a
+particular expression in her eyes, unless I had hoped that she would
+give my hand a little squeeze of intimate friendship when I was
+bidding her good night. Still I did think of Moyne too, and was quite
+genuinely pleased that I was able to help him out of a difficult
+position.</p>
+
+<p>I found him later on roaming about among the cucumber frames in a
+desolate corner of the garden. A man who was digging potatoes directed
+me to that curious retreat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s all right, Moyne,&#8221; I said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve got the whole thing settled
+most satisfactorily. You needn&#8217;t be afraid of any disagreeable public
+scandal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Thank God!&#8221; said Moyne, fervently. &#8220;How did you manage it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t take any credit for the arrangement,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Lady Moyne and
+Babberly had it all cut and dried before they consulted me at all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are they going to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, in the first place they&#8217;ve got Malcolmson and the rest of that
+lot to stop calling the thing a Review. It&#8217;s to be officially known
+for the future as a March Past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who is to march past what?&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I forgot to ask that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but I rather fancy the audience is to
+march past you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;that there&#8217;s much difference between
+calling it a March Past and calling it a Review. They&#8217;re both military
+terms; and what I object to is being associated with&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lady Moyne seemed to think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that it made all the difference
+in the world; and that the Government would grasp at the olive
+branch.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose it will be all right,&#8221; said Moyne doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The next part of the plan,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is that I am to be on the
+platform.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll rather hate that, won&#8217;t you, Kilmore?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall detest it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I don&#8217;t see what good it will do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nor do I; but Lady Moyne and Babberly both say that as I&#8217;m a
+Liberal&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely to God you&#8217;re not that!&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I&#8217;m not. But I&#8217;m suspected of being inclined that way. Therefore
+my being on the platform will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>prove to the world that you&#8217;re not
+nearly so much of a Unionist as you&#8217;ve been trying to make out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I am,&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know that, of course; but Lady Moyne wants to persuade people that
+you&#8217;re not, just for the present, till this fuss about the Review
+wears off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose it will be all right,&#8221; said Moyne, again.</p>
+
+<p>It was all right. An announcement was made in all the leading papers
+that no one had ever intended to hold a Review on the 12th of July,
+but that the Unionist leaders had expressed their unalterable
+determination to have a March Past. The Liberal papers said that this
+abandonment of the principal item on their programme showed more
+distinctly than ever that the Ulster Unionists were merely swaggering
+cowards who retreated before the firm front showed by the Government
+in face of their arrogant claims. The Unionist papers said that
+Belfast by insisting on the essential thing while displaying a
+magnanimous disregard for the accidental nomenclature, had
+demonstrated once and for ever the impossibility of passing the Home
+Rule Bill.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later my name appeared amongst those of other gentlemen who
+intended to take seats on the platform in Belfast. The Unionist papers
+welcomed the entry into public life of a peer of my well-known
+intellectual powers and widely recognized moderation. The Liberal
+papers said that the emptiness of Ulster&#8217;s opposition to Home Rule
+might be gauged by the fact that it had welcomed the support of a
+dilettante lordling.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">O</span>ur meeting on the 12th of July was held in the Botanic Gardens, and
+nobody marched past anything. A platform, not unlike the Grand Stand
+at a country race meeting, was built on the top of a long slope of
+grass. At the bottom of the slope was a level space, devoted at
+ordinary times to tennis-courts. Beyond that the ground sloped up
+again. The botanists who owned the gardens must, I imagine, have
+regretted that our meeting was a splendid success. I did not see their
+grounds afterwards, but there cannot possibly have been much grass
+left. The poor tennis-players must have been cut off from their game
+for the rest of the summer. The space in front of the platform was
+packed with men, and the air was heavy with the peculiarly pungent
+smell of orange peel. I cannot imagine how any one in the crowd
+managed to peel an orange. The men seemed to be so tightly packed as
+to make the smallest movement impossible. Possibly the oranges were
+deliberately peeled beforehand by the organizers of the meeting with a
+view to creating the proper atmosphere for the meeting. There
+certainly is a connection between the smell of oranges and political
+enthusiasm. I felt a wave of strong feeling come over me the moment I
+climbed to my seat; and as no one had at that time made a speech, it
+can only have been the oranges which affected me. I wish some
+philosopher would work out a theory of oranges. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>blossom of the
+tree is used at weddings as a symbol of enduring love, perhaps as an
+aid to affection. The mature fruit pervades political meetings, which
+are all called together with a view to promoting strife and general
+ill feeling. What would happen if any one came to a meeting crowned
+with the blossoms? What would become of a bride if she were decked
+with the fruit? Is there any connection whatever between the fruit and
+the lily? It is certainly associated with political action of the most
+violent kind.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Moyne, who took the chair, wore one of the lilies, a very small
+one, in the lapel of his coat. Lady Moyne carried a large bouquet of
+them. Babberly wore one. So did Malcolmson. Our Dean would have worn
+one if he could; but it is impossible to fix a flower becomingly into
+the button-hole of a clerical coat. We began by singing a hymn. The
+Dean declaimed the first two lines of it, and then the bands took up
+the tune. Considering that there must have been at least forty bands
+present, all playing, I think we got through the hymn remarkably well.
+We certainly made an impressive amount of noise. I think it was
+Babberly who suggested the hymn. He had an idea that it would impress
+the English Nonconformists. I do not think it did; but, so far as our
+meeting was concerned, that did not matter. We were not singing
+it&mdash;any of us, except Babberly&mdash;with a view to impressing other
+people. We were singing with the feeling in our breasts, that we were
+actually marching to battle under the divine protection. The reporters
+of the Unionist papers made the most of the prevailing emotion. They
+sent off telegrams of the most flamboyant kind about our Puritan
+forefathers.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p><p>Poor Moyne, who is a deeply religious man, did not sing the hymn. He
+has a theory that hymns and politics ought not to be mixed. I heard
+him arguing the position afterwards with the Dean who maintained that
+the question of Home Rule was not a political one. Political questions
+are those, so he argued, with regard to which there is a possibility
+of difference of opinion among honest men. But all honest men are
+opposed to Home Rule, which is therefore not a political question.</p>
+
+<p>My seat was in the very front of the platform, and when we had
+finished the hymn I noticed that the smell of perspiration was
+beginning to overpower the oranges. It is my misfortune to have an
+unusually acute sense of smell. No one afflicted with such an
+infirmity ought to take any part in the politics of a modern
+democratic state.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne introduced Babberly to the audience, and everybody cheered,
+although no one heard a word he said. Moyne has not a good voice at
+any time, and his objection to the hymn had made him nervous.</p>
+
+<p>Babberly was not nervous, and he has a very good voice. I imagine that
+at least half the audience heard what he said, and the other half knew
+he was saying the right things because the first half cheered him at
+frequent intervals.</p>
+
+<p>He began, of course, by saying that our forefathers bled and died for
+the cause which we were determined to support. This, so far as my
+forefathers and Moyne&#8217;s are concerned, is horribly untrue. The
+ancestors of both of us commanded regiments of the volunteers who
+achieved the only Home Rule Parliament which ever sat in Ireland. My
+own great grandfather <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>afterwards exchanged his right to legislate in
+Dublin for the peerage which I now enjoy. But Moyne and I were no
+doubt in a minority in that assembly. Babberly&#8217;s forefathers may
+possibly have bled and died for the Union; but I do not think he can
+be sure about this. His father lived in Leeds, and nobody, not even
+Babberly himself, knows anything about his grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>When the audience had stopped cheering Babberly&#8217;s forefathers, he went
+on to tell us that Belfast had the largest shipbuilding yard, the
+largest tobacco factory, the largest linen mill, and the second
+largest School of Art Needlework in the United Kingdom. These facts
+were treated by everybody as convincing reasons for the rejection of
+the Home Rule Bill, and a man, who was squeezed very tight against the
+platform just below me, cursed the Pope several times with singular
+vindictiveness.</p>
+
+<p>Babberly&#8217;s next statement was that he defied the present Government to
+drive us out of the British Empire, which we had taken a great deal of
+trouble in times past to build up. This was, of course, a perfectly
+safe defiance to utter; for no one that I ever heard of had proposed
+to drive Babberly, or me, or Moyne out of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Then we got to the core of Babberly&#8217;s speech. Some fool, it appeared,
+wanted to impeach Babberly, and Babberly said that he wanted to be
+impeached. I am a little hazy about the exact consequences of a
+successful impeachment. There has not been one for a long time; but I
+have an idea that the victim of the process is called before the House
+of Lords and beheaded. How far recent legislation may have curtailed
+the powers of the House of Lords in the matter I do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>not know; but
+even under our new constitution impeachment must remain a very serious
+matter. It was, we all felt, most heroic of Babberly to face this kind
+of undefined doom in the way he did.</p>
+
+<p>This was the last thing which Babberly said in his speech. He talked a
+great deal more, but he did not say anything else which it is possible
+to write down. I do not think I have ever heard any public speaker
+equal to Babberly in eloquence. He gave one incontestable proof of his
+power as an orator that day in Belfast. He must have spoken for very
+nearly an hour, and yet no one noticed that he was not saying anything
+for the greater part of the time. I did not notice it, and probably
+should never have found it out if I had not tried afterwards to write
+down what he said.</p>
+
+<p>After Babberly came the Dean. I suffer a great deal from the Dean&#8217;s
+sermons on Sundays; but I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. He is not
+Babberly&#8217;s rival in eloquence; but he has a knack of saying the kind
+of things which people listen to. He began by telling us what he would
+do if he found himself in command of the forces of Ulster at the
+beginning of a great war. &#8220;Lord Moyne,&#8221; he said, &#8220;should organize my
+transport and commissariat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I cannot imagine any job at which Moyne would be more certain to fail
+totally. But the Dean justified himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have stopped in Lord Moyne&#8217;s house,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and I know how well
+he manages the food supply of a large establishment. My friend Mr.
+Babberly should draw up the plan of campaign. His cautious intellect
+should devise the schemes for circumventing the wiles and stratagems
+of the enemy. He should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>map out the ambuscades into which the
+opposing troops should fall. You have listened to Mr. Babberly to-day.
+You will agree with me about his fitness for the work to which I
+should put him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had listened to Babberly and I did not agree with the Dean. But I
+formed one of a very small minority. Moyne began to look uneasy. It
+seemed to me that he did not much like this military metaphor of the
+Dean&#8217;s. I imagine that he would have been still more uncomfortable if
+he had been obliged to take an active part in a campaign planned by
+Babberly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For the command of a forlorn hope,&#8221; said the Dean, &#8220;for the leading
+of a desperate charge, for the midnight dash across the frontier&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Some one in the audience suggested the Boyne as the boundary of the
+frontier.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should select Colonel Malcolmson.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The audience highly approved of his choice. It seemed to me that the
+people did not quite grasp the fact that the Dean was speaking only
+metaphorically. Some thought of the same kind struck Moyne. He
+fidgetted uneasily, Babberly made an effort to stop the Dean, but that
+was impossible.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For settling the terms of peace with the beaten enemy&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll beat them,&#8221; said several people in the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should call upon my good friend Lord Kilmore.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This gave me a severe shock. For a moment I thought of standing up and
+refusing to act as military ambassador of the Ulster army. Then I
+recollected that if Moyne managed the transport and Babberly planned
+the campaign it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any
+beaten enemy. I kept my seat and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>watched Babberly whispering
+earnestly to Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson followed the Dean. Moyne leaned over to me and expressed a
+hope that Malcolmson was not going to commit us to anything
+outrageous. From the look of Malcolmson&#8217;s eye as he rose I judged that
+Moyne&#8217;s hope was a vain one.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Dean,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;has spoken to you about the campaign. I
+ask you, are you prepared to undertake one?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good Heavens!&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>Babberly squeezed his way past Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This won&#8217;t do,&#8221; he said to Moyne, &#8220;Malcolmson mustn&#8217;t go too far.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Dean,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;has told us where to find our
+commanders. Looking round upon this vast assembly of determined men I
+can tell the Dean where to look for the rank and file of the army.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll have to stop him,&#8221; said Babberly.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say the thought of the impeachment which was hanging over his
+head made him nervous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t,&#8221; said Lord Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ask those present here,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;who, when the supreme
+moment comes are prepared to step forward into the ranks, to hold up
+their hands and swear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson did not make it quite clear what oaths we were to employ.
+But his audience appeared to understand him. Thousands of hands were
+held up and there was a kind of loud, fierce growl, which I took to be
+the swearing. Lord Moyne turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What am I to do, Kilmore?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson and the ten or twelve thousand men in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>front of him were
+still growling like a very angry thunderstorm at a distance. The thing
+was exceedingly impressive. Then some one started the hymn again. I
+never heard a hymn sung in such a way before. If the explosions of
+large guns could be tuned to the notes of an octave the effect of
+firing them off, fully loaded with cannon balls, would be very much
+the same. Malcolmson, beating time very slowly with his hand from the
+front of the platform, controlled this human artillery. Lady Moyne
+came to me and shouted in my ear. It was necessary to shout on account
+of the terrific noise made by Malcolmson&#8217;s hymn.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As soon as he sits down you&#8217;ll have to get up and say something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t,&#8221; I yelled. &#8220;I&#8217;m no good at all as a public speaker.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The beginning of Lady Moyne&#8217;s next shout I could not hear at all. Only
+the last words reached me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&mdash;on account of your being a Liberal, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since I have known her I refused to do what Lady
+Moyne asked me. Very likely I should have given in at last and made an
+indescribable fool of myself; but before she succeeded in persuading
+me, Malcolmson&#8217;s hymn stopped. Malcolmson himself, apparently
+satisfied with his performance, sat down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth am I to do?&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can write to the papers, to-morrow,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But now?&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The only thing I can think of,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is to start them singing
+&#8216;God Save the King.&#8217; That will commit them more or less&mdash;at least it
+may.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>Moyne rose to his feet and asked all the bands present to play &#8220;God
+Save the King.&#8221; Babberly backed him and the bands struck up.</p>
+
+<p>Considering that the audience had just pledged themselves with
+inarticulate oaths and most terrifying psalmody to march in
+Malcolmson&#8217;s army, their enthusiasm for the King was striking. They
+sang the National Anthem quite as whole-heartedly as they had sung the
+hymn. They are a very curious people, these fellow-countrymen of mine.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne cheered up a little when we got back to the club.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That was a capital idea of yours, Kilmore,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t see how
+they can very well accuse us of being rebels after the way we sang the
+National Anthem.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder if they&#8217;ll impeach Babberly,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, that&#8217;s only a Labour Member,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t really mean
+it. Those fellows never do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think our people really meant it to-day?&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Meant what? God Save the King? Of course they did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was thinking of the hymn,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope to God,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;they didn&#8217;t mean that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This is a curious view of hymn-singing for a religious man to take.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> cannot make out why everybody thinks I am a Liberal. Lady Moyne was
+the first who mentioned to me this slur on my character. Babberly
+evidently believed it. Then, shortly after the Belfast meeting, I had
+a letter, marked &#8220;Private and Confidential,&#8221; from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. Although Clithering is not a member of the Government, he
+is in close touch with several very important Ministers. Under
+ordinary circumstances I should not mention Clithering&#8217;s name in
+telling the story of his letter. I know him to be a conscientious,
+scrupulously honourable man, and I should hate to give him pain. Under
+ordinary circumstances, that is, if things had gone in Ulster in the
+way things usually do go, Clithering would have felt it necessary to
+assert publicly in the papers that he did not write the letter. This
+would have been very disagreeable for him because he does not like
+telling lies; and the unpleasantness would certainly be aggravated by
+the fact that nobody would believe him. So many important and exciting
+things, however, have happened in Ulster since I got the letter that I
+do not think Clithering will now want to deny that he wrote it. I
+have, therefore, no hesitation in mentioning his name.</p>
+
+<p>This letter was written in the best politico-diplomatic style. I had
+to read it nine times before I could find out what it was about. When
+I did find out I made a translation of it into the English of ordinary
+life, so as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>to make quite sure of not acting beyond my instructions.
+I was first of all complimented on not being a party politician. This,
+coming from one of the Government wire-pullers, meant, of course, that
+I was in his opinion a strong Liberal. I have noticed for years that
+the only party politicians in these islands are the people who are
+active on the other side; and that party politics are the other side&#8217;s
+programme. My correspondent evidently agreed with Lady Moyne and
+Babberly that as I was not a Conservative, I must be a supporter of
+the Government.</p>
+
+<p>Having made this quite unwarranted assumption, the letter went on to
+suggest that I should ask Conroy if he would like a peerage. The point
+was not made quite clear, but I gathered that Conroy could have any
+kind of title that he liked, up to an earldom. I know, of course, that
+peerages are given in exchange for subscriptions to party funds, by
+the party, whichever it may be, which receives the subscriptions. I
+did not know before that peerages were ever given with a view to
+inducing the happy recipient not to subscribe to the funds of the
+other party. But in Conroy&#8217;s case this must have been the motive which
+lay behind the offer. He had certainly given Lady Moyne a handsome
+cheque. He was financing McNeice&#8217;s little paper in the most liberal
+way. He had, I suspected, supplied Crossan with the motor car in which
+he went about the country tuning up the Orange Lodges. It seemed quite
+likely it was his money with which Rose&#8217;s young man bought the gold
+brooch which had attracted Marion&#8217;s attention. Conroy was undoubtedly
+subsidizing Ulster Unionism very generously. I suppose it must have
+been worth while to stop this flow of money. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>Hence the suggestion
+that Conroy might be given a peerage. This, at least, was the
+explanation of the letter which I adopted at the time. I have since
+had reason to suppose that the Government knew more than I did about
+the way Conroy was spending his money, and was nervous about something
+more important than Babberly&#8217;s occasional demonstrations.</p>
+
+<p>My first impulse was to burn the letter and tell my correspondent that
+I was not a politician of any sort, and did not care for doing this
+kind of work. Then my curiosity got the better of my sense of honour.
+A man cannot, I think, be both an historian and a gentleman. It is an
+essential part of the character of a gentleman that he should dislike
+prying into other people&#8217;s secrets. The business of the historian, on
+the other hand, is to rake about if necessary through dust-bins, until
+he finds out the reasons, generally disreputable, why things are done.
+A gentleman displays a dignified superiority to the vice of curiosity.
+For the historian curiosity is a virtue. I am, I find, more of an
+historian than a gentleman. I wanted very much to find out how Conroy
+would take the offer of a peerage. I also wanted to understand
+thoroughly why the offer was made.</p>
+
+<p>Some weeks were to pass before I learned the Government&#8217;s real reason
+for wanting to detach Conroy from the Unionist cause; but luck
+favoured me in the matter of sounding Conroy himself. I had a letter
+from him in which he said that he was coming to our neighbourhood for
+a few days. I immediately asked him to stay with me.</p>
+
+<p>Then I tried, very foolishly, to make my nephew Godfrey feel
+uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Conroy,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is coming here to stay with me next Tuesday.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How splendid!&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I say, Excellency, you will ask me up
+to dinner every night he&#8217;s here, won&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you wouldn&#8217;t like to meet Conroy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I&#8217;d like to meet him. He might give me a job of some kind
+or get me one. A man like that with millions of money must have plenty
+of jobs to give away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Godfrey speaks of a job he means a salary. Nearly everybody does.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I can only get the chance of making myself agreeable to him,&#8221; said
+Godfrey, &#8220;I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll be able to get something out of him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m surprised,&#8221; I said, &#8220;at your wanting to meet him at all. After
+the post-card he wrote you&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t mind that in the least,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I never take
+offence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This is, indeed, one of Godfrey&#8217;s chief vices. He never does take
+offence. It was Talleyrand, I think, who said that no man need ever
+get angry about anything said by a woman or a bishop. Godfrey improves
+on this philosophy. He never gets angry with any one except those whom
+he regards as his inferiors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be a good opportunity,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;for your second
+menagerie party. We&#8217;ve only had one this year. I expect it would amuse
+Conroy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m nearly sure it wouldn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll have to do something in the way of entertaining while he&#8217;s
+here,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I suppose you&#8217;ll have the Moynes over to
+dinner?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p><p>I knew that the Moynes were in London, so I told Godfrey that he could
+write and ask them if he liked. I tried to be firm in my opposition to
+the garden-party, but Godfrey wore me down. It was fixed for
+Wednesday, and invitations were sent out. I discovered afterwards that
+Godfrey told his particular friends that they were to have the honour
+of meeting a real millionaire. In the case of the Pringles he went so
+far as to hint that Conroy was very likely to give him a lucrative
+post. On the strength of this expectation, Pringle, who is an easy man
+to deceive, allowed Godfrey to cash a cheque for &pound;10.</p>
+
+<p>Conroy arrived on Sunday afternoon, travelling, as a millionaire
+should, in a motor car. Godfrey dined with us that night, and made
+himself as agreeable as he could. Conroy had, apparently, forgotten
+all about the post-card. I did not get a minute alone with my guest
+that night and so could do nothing about the peerage. I thought of
+approaching him on the subject next morning after breakfast, though
+that is not a good hour for delicate negotiations. But even if I had
+been willing to attack him then, I hardly had the chance. Godfrey was
+up with us at half-past ten. He wanted to take Conroy on a personally
+conducted tour round the objects of interest in the neighbourhood.
+Conroy said he wanted to go to the house of a man called Crossan who
+lived somewhere near us, and would be very glad if Godfrey would act
+as guide. It is a remarkable proof of Godfrey&#8217;s great respect for
+millionaires that he consented to show Conroy the way to Crossan&#8217;s
+house. They went off together, and I saw no more of Conroy till
+dinner-time.</p>
+
+<p>He deliberately avoided my garden-party, although <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>Godfrey had
+explained to him the night before that my guests would be &#8220;quite the
+funniest lot of bounders to be found anywhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Pringles must have been disappointed at not meeting Conroy. Miss
+Pringle, whose name I found out was Tottie, looked quite pretty in a
+pink dress, and smiled almost as nicely as she did when Bob Power took
+her to gather strawberries. Mrs. Pringle asked Godfrey to dine with
+them that night, and Tottie looked at him out of the corner of her
+eyes so as to show him that she would be pleased if he accepted the
+invitation. Pringle himself joined in pressing Godfrey. I suppose he
+must really have believed in the salary which Godfrey expected to get
+from Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey promised to dine with them. He explained his position to me
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I needn&#8217;t tell you, Excellency,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that I don&#8217;t want to go
+there. I shall get a rotten bad dinner and Mrs. Pringle is a rank
+outsider.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Pringle,&#8221; I said, &#8220;seems a pleasant girl. She&#8217;s certainly
+pretty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Poor little Tottie!&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;That sort of girl isn&#8217;t bad fun
+sometimes; but I wouldn&#8217;t put up with boiled mutton just for the sake
+of a kiss or two from her. The fact is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your banking account,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;Pringle&#8217;s directors have been writing
+rather nasty letters lately. It&#8217;s perfectly all right, of course, and
+I told him so; but all the same it&#8217;s better to accept his invitation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey is the most unmitigated blackguard I&#8217;ve ever met.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I hardly see Tottie Pringle as the next Lady Kilmore,&#8221; said Godfrey;
+&#8220;but, of course, that&#8217;s the game.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe it. Tottie Pringle&mdash;I do not for a moment believe
+that she ever allowed Godfrey to kiss her&mdash;does not look the kind of
+girl who&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll make my excuses to Conroy, won&#8217;t you, Excellency? Tell him&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the exact amount of the over-draft?&#8221; I said; &#8220;he&#8217;ll probably
+want to know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Better not say anything about that,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;Tell him I had a
+business engagement.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey&#8217;s necessity gave me my opportunity. I had Conroy all to myself
+after dinner, and I sounded him very cautiously about the title. The
+business turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. At
+first Conroy was singularly obtuse. He did not seem to understand what
+I was hinting at. There was really no excuse for him. Our surroundings
+were very well suited for delicate negotiations. I had given him a
+bottle of champagne at dinner. I had some excellent port on the table
+afterwards. My dining-room is a handsome apartment, a kind of large
+hall with a vaulted roof. The light of the candles on the table
+mingled in a pleasantly mysterious way with the twilight of the summer
+evening. The long windows lay wide open and a heavy scent of lilies
+crept into the room. The lamp on the sideboard behind me lit up the
+impressive portrait of my great grandfather in the uniform of a
+captain of volunteers, the Irish volunteers of 1780. Any one, I should
+have supposed, would have walked delicately among hints and
+suggestions in such an atmosphere, among such surroundings. But Conroy
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>would not. I was forced at last to speak rather more plainly than I
+had intended to. Then Conroy turned on me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does your Government think I should want the darned thing for?&#8221;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t know. I suppose the usual reasons.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are they?&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;for I&#8217;m damned if I know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;when you put it that way I don&#8217;t know that I can
+exactly explain. But most people like it. I like it myself, although
+I&#8217;m pretty well used to it. I imagine it would be much nicer when you
+came to it quite fresh. If you happen to be going over to London, you
+know, it&#8217;s rather pleasant to have the fellow who runs the
+sleeping-car bustling the other people out of the way and calling you
+&#8216;my lord.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Conroy sat in grim silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s more than that in it,&#8221; I said. &#8220;That&#8217;s only an example, quite
+a small example of the kind of thing I mean. But those little things
+count, you know. And, of course, the extra tip that the fellow expects
+in the morning wouldn&#8217;t matter to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and
+flurried.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are other points, too,&#8221; I went on. &#8220;For instance a quite pretty
+girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew Godfrey&mdash;at least
+he says she does&mdash;simply because he&#8217;ll be Lord Kilmore when I&#8217;m dead.
+You&#8217;ve met my nephew Godfrey, so you&#8217;ll realize that she can&#8217;t
+possibly have any other motive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;does your Government expect me to do in return
+for making me attractive to Tottie Pringle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not my Government,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;m not mixed up with it or
+responsible for it in any way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I always understood,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;that you are a Liberal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everybody understands that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and it&#8217;s no use my
+contradicting it. As for what the Government wants you to do, I
+haven&#8217;t been actually told; but I fancy you&#8217;d be expected to stop
+giving subscriptions to Lady Moyne.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that all?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all I can think of. But, of course, there may be other
+things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I reckon,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;that your Government can&#8217;t be quite fool
+enough to mind much about what Lady Moyne does with my money. The
+pennies she drops into the slot so as to make Babberly talk won&#8217;t hurt
+them any.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was very much my own opinion. If I were a member of the
+government&mdash;I rather think I actually was, a few weeks later&mdash;Babberly
+would merely stimulate me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can tell your Government from me&mdash;&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not my Government.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well tell <i>that</i> Government from me, that when I want a title I&#8217;ll
+put down the full market price. At present I&#8217;m not taking any.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Next day Conroy went off with Crossan in his motor car. He did not
+come back. I got a telegram from him later in the afternoon asking me
+to forward his luggage to Belfast. I forget the excuse he made for
+treating me in this very free and easy way; but there was an excuse, I
+know, probably quite a long one, for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>the telegram filled three sheets
+of the paper which the post-office uses for these messages.</p>
+
+<p>Conroy&#8217;s sudden departure was a bitter sorrow and disappointment to
+Godfrey. He came up to dinner that night with three new pearl studs in
+the front of his shirt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I can&#8217;t understand,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is why a man like Conroy should
+spend his time with your upper servants; people like Crossan, whom I
+shouldn&#8217;t dream of shaking hands with.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that he&#8217;s not going to give you that job you
+hoped for.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He may,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I think he liked me right enough. If only he
+could be got to believe that Power is robbing him right and left.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But is he?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s doing what practically comes to the same thing. Once Conroy
+finds out&mdash;and he will some day&mdash;I should think I&#8217;d have a middling
+good chance of getting his secretaryship. He must have a gentleman for
+that job, otherwise he&#8217;d never be able to get along at all. I don&#8217;t
+suppose he knows how to do things a bit. He evidently doesn&#8217;t know how
+to behave. Look at the way he&#8217;s gone on with Crossan since he&#8217;s been
+here. Now if I were his secretary&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey mumbled on. He evidently has hopes of ousting Bob Power. He
+may possibly succeed in doing so. Godfrey has all the cunning
+characteristic of the criminal lunatic.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later he got his chance of dealing with Bob Power. The
+<i>Finola</i> anchored in our bay again and Bob Power was in command of
+her.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">B</span>ob Power spent the afternoon with us. Strictly speaking, I ought to
+say he spent the afternoon with Marion. I only saw him at tea-time. He
+let me understand then that he would like to stay and dine with us. I
+felt that I ought to be vexed at the prospect of losing another quiet
+evening. Conroy had cost me two evenings. My visit to Castle Affey, my
+political March Past, and my expedition to Dublin had robbed me of
+nine others. I could ill afford to spare a twelfth to Bob Power. Yet I
+felt unreasonably pleased when he promised to dine with us. There is a
+certain flavour of the sea about Bob, a sense of boisterous good
+fellowship, a joyous irresponsibility, which would have been
+attractive to me at any time, and were singularly pleasant after my
+political experiences. I was not at all so well pleased when a note
+arrived from Godfrey in which he asked whether he too could dine with
+us.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived long before dinner, before I had gone upstairs to dress,
+and explained himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I heard,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that Power was up here, so I thought I&#8217;d better
+come too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How lucky it is,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that Pringle didn&#8217;t invite you to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t have gone if he had. I should have considered it my duty
+to come here. After all, Excellency, some one ought to look after
+Marion a bit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;For the matter of that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;some one ought to look after Tottie
+Pringle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You never can tell,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;what silly fancy a girl will take
+into her head, and that fellow Power is just the sort who might&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey nodded sagaciously. It has always been understood that Godfrey
+is to marry Marion at some future time. I have always understood this
+and, on personal grounds, dislike it very much; though I do not deny
+that the arrangement is convenient. My title is not a very ancient or
+particularly honourable one, but I do not like to think of its being
+dragged in the gutter by a pauper. If Godfrey married Marion he would
+have the use of her income. Godfrey has certainly understood this plan
+for the future. He may treat himself occasionally to the kisses of
+Tottie Pringle, but he is not the man to allow kissing to interfere
+with his prospect of earning a competence. Whether Marion understood
+her fate or not, I do not know. She always endured Godfrey with
+patience. I suppose that this condition of affairs gave Godfrey a
+certain right to nod sagaciously when he spoke of looking after
+Marion. But I resented both his tone and the things he said. I left
+him and went up to dress.</p>
+
+<p>Marion&#8217;s behaviour during the evening fully justified Godfrey&#8217;s fears,
+though I do not think that anything would have excused him for
+expressing them to me. She was amazingly cheerful during dinner, and
+in so good a temper, that she continued smiling at Godfrey even when
+he scowled at her. Bob Power was breezily agreeable, and I should have
+thoroughly enjoyed the stories he told us if I had not been conscious
+all the time that Godfrey was frowning at my right ear. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>sat on
+that side of me and Bob Power on the other, so my ear was, most of the
+time, the nearest thing to my face that Godfrey could frown at.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Bob and Marion behaved really badly; not to Godfrey, but
+to me. No one could behave badly to Godfrey because he always deserves
+worse than the worst that is done to him. But I am not a very
+objectionable person, and I have during the last twenty-two years
+shown a good deal of kindness to Marion. I do not think that she and
+Bob ought to have slipped out of the drawing-room window after singing
+one short song, and left me to be worried by Godfrey for the whole
+evening. Only one way of escape presented itself to me. I pretended to
+go to sleep. That stopped Godfrey talking after a time; but not until
+I had found it necessary to snore. I heard every word he said up to
+that point. I woke up with a very good imitation of a start when Bob
+and Marion came in again. That happened at ten o&#8217;clock, and Bob
+immediately said good night. Under ordinary circumstances Godfrey
+stays on till nearly eleven; but that night he went away five minutes
+after Bob left.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning there was trouble. It began with Marion&#8217;s behaviour at
+breakfast. As a rule she is a young woman of placid and equable
+temper, one who is likely in the future to have a soothing effect on
+her husband. That morning she was very nearly hysterical. When we went
+into my study after breakfast she was quite incapable of work, and
+could not lay her hands on any of the papers which I particularly
+wanted. I was irritated at the moment, but I recognized afterwards
+that she had some excuse, and in any case my morning&#8217;s work would have
+been interrupted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>At half-past ten I got a note from Godfrey&mdash;written in pencil and
+almost illegible&mdash;in which he asked me to go down to see him at once.
+He said that he was in severe pain and for the time confined to bed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re sure,&#8221; he said, &#8220;to have heard a garbled account of what
+happened, before you get this letter. I want to tell you the <i>facts</i>
+before I take further action.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The word &#8220;facts&#8221; was underlined shakily. I had, of course, heard no
+account of anything which had happened. I handed the letter to Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know what this means?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Marion read it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rose told me this morning,&#8221; she said, &#8220;that there had been some kind
+of a row last night. She said Godfrey was killed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That isn&#8217;t true at all events,&#8221; I said. &#8220;He&#8217;s still alive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I didn&#8217;t believe her,&#8221; said Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I think you ought to have told me at breakfast,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I hate
+having these things sprung on me suddenly. At my time of life even
+good news ought to be broken to me gradually. Any sudden shock is bad
+for the heart.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought there might be no truth in the story at all,&#8221; said Marion,
+&#8220;and you know, father, that you don&#8217;t like being worried.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I don&#8217;t. But I am worried a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that I&#8217;d better go down and see him. He says
+he&#8217;s in great pain, so he&#8217;s not likely to be agreeable; but still I&#8217;d
+better go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do,&#8221; said Marion; &#8220;and, of course, if there&#8217;s anything I can do,
+anything I can send down to him&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t expect he&#8217;s as bad as all that,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Men like Godfrey
+are never seriously hurt. But if he expresses a wish for chicken jelly
+I&#8217;ll let you know at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I started at once. I met Bob Power just outside my own gate. He was
+evidently a little embarrassed, but he spoke to me with the greatest
+frankness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m extremely sorry, Lord Kilmore,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but I am afraid I hurt
+your nephew last night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Badly?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not very,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;Collar bone and a couple of ribs. I saw the
+doctor this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Broken?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. It wasn&#8217;t altogether my fault. I mean to say&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure it was altogether Godfrey&#8217;s,&#8221; I said. &#8220;The thing which
+surprises me is that nobody ever did it before. Godfrey is nearly
+thirty, so for twenty years at least every man he has met must have
+been tempted to break his ribs. We must, in spite of what everybody
+says, be a Christian nation. If we were not&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He would keep following me about,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I told him several
+times to clear away and go home. But he wouldn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He has a fixed idea that you&#8217;re engaged in smuggling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Even if I was,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;it would be no business of his.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just why he mixes himself up in it. If it had been his
+business he wouldn&#8217;t have touched it. There&#8217;s nothing Godfrey hates
+more than doing anything he ought to do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m awfully glad you take it that way,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I was afraid&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear fellow,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m delighted. But you haven&#8217;t told me yet
+exactly how it happened.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was moving a packing-case,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;a rather large one&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. I think he felt that the packing-case might require some
+explanation, especially as it was being moved at about eleven o&#8217;clock
+at night. I hastened to reassure him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite a proper thing for you to be doing,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and certainly no
+business of Godfrey&#8217;s. Every one has a perfect right to move
+packing-cases about from place to place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He told me he was going for the police, so&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think you need have taken any notice of that threat. The
+police know Godfrey quite well. They hate being worried just as much
+as I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So I knocked him down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must have hit him in several places at once,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to have
+broken so many bones.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;that he got up again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just the sort of thing he would do. Any man of ordinary good
+feeling would have known that when he was knocked down he was meant to
+stay down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then the two other men who were with me, young fellows out of the
+town, set on him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Was one of them particularly freckly?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t notice. Why do you ask?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If he was it would account for my daughter&#8217;s maid getting hold of an
+inaccurate version of the story this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>morning. But it doesn&#8217;t matter.
+Go on with what you were saying.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There isn&#8217;t any more,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;They hammered him, and then we
+carried him home. That&#8217;s all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am going down to see him now,&#8221; I said. &#8220;He&#8217;s thinking of taking
+further action.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let him,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;Is Miss D&#8217;Aubigny at home?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, she is. If you&#8217;re going up to see her&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I would,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;if I thought she wouldn&#8217;t be angry with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s nervous,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and excited; but she didn&#8217;t seem angry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the town I met Crossan and, very much to my surprise,
+McNeice walking with him. Crossan handed me a letter. I put it into my
+pocket and greeted McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did not know you were here,&#8221; I said. &#8220;When did you come?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Last night,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;Crossan brought me on his motor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Were you in time for the scrimmage?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d maybe better read the letter I&#8217;ve given you, my lord,&#8221; said
+Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;d been there,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;your nephew would probably be dead
+now. In my opinion he ought to be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The letter I&#8217;ve just given your lordship,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;is an
+important one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure it is,&#8221; I said. &#8220;But I haven&#8217;t time to read it now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;What&#8217;s in it, my lord, is this. I&#8217;m resigning the management of your
+business here, and the sooner you&#8217;re suited with a new man the
+better.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If my nephew Godfrey has been worrying you, Crossan,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+take steps&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not that, my lord. For all the harm his talk ever did me I&#8217;d
+stay on. But&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at McNeice as if asking permission to say more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Political business,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if it&#8217;s a matter of politics, everything must
+give way to politics. But I&#8217;m very sorry to lose you, Crossan. My
+business affairs&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll have no business affairs left, my lord, if the Home Rule Bill
+passes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;re going to stop it,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We are,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>He certainly believed that he was. At the present moment he believes
+that he did stop it.</p>
+
+<p>I found Godfrey propped up in bed. His face had a curiously unbalanced
+appearance owing to the way in which one side of his jaw was swollen.
+Bob Power&#8217;s original blow must have been a hard one. I noticed when he
+spoke that one of his eye teeth was broken off short. He began to pour
+out his complaint the moment I entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A murderous assault was made on me last night,&#8221; he said. &#8220;After I
+left your house I walked down&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t talk if it hurts you, Godfrey,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking in a muffled way which led me to think that the inside
+of his mouth must be nearly as much swollen as the outside.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That fellow Power had a band of ruffians with him. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>If he had fought
+fair I shouldn&#8217;t have minded, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What were you doing,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to make him attack you? He must have
+had some reason.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t doing anything. I was simply looking on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That may have been the most objectionable thing possible,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t say that his violence was justified; but it may have been quite
+excusable if you insisted on looking on at something which he didn&#8217;t
+want you to see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey actually tried to smile. He could not do so, of course, on
+account of the condition of his mouth, but I judged by the expression
+of his eyes that he was trying to. Godfrey&#8217;s smiles are always either
+malicious or idiotic. This one, if it had come off, would have been
+malicious.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I saw all I wanted to,&#8221; he said, &#8220;before they attacked me. In fact, I
+was just going for the police&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose you sent for the police this morning?&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I didn&#8217;t. I don&#8217;t trust the police. I wouldn&#8217;t trust the
+magistrates here, except you, of course, Excellency. What I&#8217;m going to
+do is write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good gracious, Godfrey! Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What
+interest can you expect him to take in your fights? If you are going
+to make a political matter of it at all, you&#8217;d far better try the
+Secretary of State for War. It&#8217;s much more in his line.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the man who&#8217;s responsible for
+the revenue, isn&#8217;t he?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t expect him to give you a pension simply because Power
+knocked out your teeth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll stop Power smuggling,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that it&#8217;s no use my telling you that he was not
+smuggling?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I saw him at it,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;and I&#8217;m going to write to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth do you expect to gain by that?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He ought to be grateful to me for putting him on the track of the
+smuggling,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I should think he&#8217;d want to do something
+for me afterwards. He might&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give you a job,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I always heard that fellows in the Treasury got
+good salaries.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was greatly relieved when I left Godfrey. I expected that he would
+want to take some sort of legal proceedings against Bob Power which
+would have involved us all in a great deal of unpleasantness. I should
+not have been surprised if he had tried to blackmail Bob or Conroy, or
+both, and I should have disliked that very much. But his letter to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be merely foolish. In the first
+place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer would never see Godfrey&#8217;s letter. It would be opened, I
+supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it
+and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the
+spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the
+waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever would happen.</p>
+
+<p>I was, I own, entirely wrong. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did see
+the letter. I take that for granted, because the Prime Minister saw
+it, and I cannot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>see how it could have got to him except through the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The spelling may have been as bad as
+Godfrey&#8217;s spelling usually is, but the letter evidently gave a
+detailed account of what had happened, the kind of account which
+impresses people as being true. The letter was, in fact, the first
+direct evidence the Government got about what Conroy and McNeice and
+Bob were doing. I dare say there were suspicions abroad before. The
+offer of a peerage to Conroy showed that there was good reason to
+placate him. But it was Godfrey&#8217;s absurd letter which first suggested
+to the minds of the Cabinet that Conroy was using his yacht, the
+<i>Finola</i>, for importing arms into Ulster. Even then I do not think
+that anybody in authority suspected how thoroughly Conroy and Bob were
+doing the work. They may have thought of a cargo of rifles, and a few
+thousand cartridges. The existence of the Ulster artillery was a
+surprise to them at the very moment when the guns first opened fire.</p>
+
+<p>So far from having no consequences at all, Godfrey&#8217;s ridiculous letter
+actually precipitated the conflict which took place. I do not think
+that it made any difference to the result of the fighting. That would
+have been the same whether the fighting came a little sooner or a
+little later. But the letter and the action of the Government which
+followed it certainly disorganized Conroy&#8217;s plans and hustled McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>I found McNeice in my study when I got home. I told him, by way of a
+joke, about the letter which Godfrey intended to write. To my surprise
+he did not treat it as a joke. I suppose he realized at once what the
+consequences of such a letter might be.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;They ought to have put him past writing letters,&#8221; he growled, &#8220;when
+they had him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then, without even saying good-bye to me, he got up and left the room.
+In less than an hour he and Crossan were rushing off somewhere in
+their motor car. They may have gone to hold a consultation with
+Conroy. He was in Belfast at the time.</p>
+
+<p>I found Bob Power and Marion in the garden, but not, as I expected,
+eating gooseberries. They were sitting together on a seat opposite a
+small artificial pond in which I try to keep gold fish. When I came
+upon them they were sitting up straight, and both of them were gazing
+intently into the pond. This surprised me, because all the last
+consignment of gold fish had died, and there was nothing in the pond
+to look at.</p>
+
+<p>I told Bob about Godfrey and the letter to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. His reception of the news was even more disappointing than
+McNeice&#8217;s was. He neither laughed, as I hoped, nor even scowled. In
+fact, if I had not spoken quite distinctly, I should have thought that
+he did not hear what I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord Kilmore,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I think I ought to tell you at once&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father,&#8221; she said, &#8220;Bob and I&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did
+more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion&#8217;s hand and held it
+tight. I thought it better to try to help them out.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; I said, &#8220;whether I&#8217;ve guessed rightly&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you have, father,&#8221; said Marion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;If not,&#8221; I said, &#8220;it&#8217;ll be very embarrassing for all of us when I
+tell you what my guess is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marion and I&mdash;&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have spent the morning,&#8221; I said, &#8220;in finding out that you want to
+marry each other?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course we have,&#8221; said Marion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery that they both wanted the same thing made them
+ridiculously happy. Marion kissed me with effusive ardour, putting her
+left arm tight round my neck, but still holding on to Bob with her
+right hand. Bob, after our first raptures had subsided a little,
+insisted on going down to Godfrey&#8217;s lodgings, and apologizing for
+breaking his ribs. I told him that an apology delivered in that spirit
+would merely intensify Godfrey&#8217;s wish to write to the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer. But nothing I said moved Bob in the least. He was so
+happy that he wanted to abase himself before some one.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">B</span>abberly is in some ways a singularly unlucky man. A place for him,
+and that a high one, ought to have been quite secure in the next
+Unionist Cabinet. Now he will never hold office under any government,
+and yet no one can say that his collapse was in any way his own fault.</p>
+
+<p>On the very day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received
+Godfrey&#8217;s letter, Babberly announced his intention of holding another
+Unionist demonstration in Belfast. He did not mean any harm by this.
+He intended nothing worse than another eloquent speech and expected
+nothing more serious than the usual cheers. He regards demonstrations
+very much as my nephew Godfrey does garden-parties. They are
+troublesome functions, requiring a good deal of labour and care for
+their successful accomplishment, but they are necessary. People expect
+something of the kind from time to time; and&mdash;if I do not give
+garden-parties, I should not, so Godfrey says, keep up my position in
+the county. If Babberly did not, so to speak, give demonstrations he
+would lose his position in the political world. Babberly&#8217;s position
+is, of course, vastly more important than mine.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the
+papers&mdash;perhaps I should say published a manifesto&mdash;urging the extreme
+importance of Babberly&#8217;s demonstration. This was necessary because
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>McNeice and O&#8217;Donovan, in <i>The Loyalist</i>, had lately adopted a
+sneering tone about demonstrations. And <i>The Loyalist</i> was becoming an
+effective force in the guidance of Ulster opinion. Thanks to the
+exertions of Crossan, Malcolmson and some others the paper was very
+widely circulated and wherever it went it was read. Lady Moyne, I
+knew, disliked <i>The Loyalist</i> and was uneasy about the tone of its
+articles. She felt it necessary to stimulate the popular taste for
+demonstrations, and wrote Moyne&#8217;s manifesto for him. It was a very
+good manifesto, full of weighty words about the present crisis and the
+necessity of standing shoulder to shoulder against the iniquitous plot
+of the Government for the dismemberment of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Very much to my surprise, and I am sure to Lady Moyne&#8217;s, <i>The
+Loyalist</i> printed a strong article in support of the proposed
+demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering than its
+reference to Babberly and Lord Moyne; nothing better calculated to
+insure the success of the performance than the way in which it urged
+all Unionists to attend it. &#8220;Assemble in your Thousands&#8221; was the
+phrase used four times over in the course of the article. There was
+only one sentence in it which could cause any one the slightest
+uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Previous demonstrations,&#8221; so the article concluded, &#8220;have served
+their purpose as expressions of our unalterable convictions. This one
+must do something more. <i>It must convince the world that we mean what
+we say.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That, of course, was nothing more than Babberly had proclaimed a dozen
+times in far more eloquent language. Nor was the fact that McNeice
+printed the last sentence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>in italics particularly startling. Babberly
+had emphasized the same statement with all the violence possible. But,
+so tense was the public mind at this time, everybody was vaguely
+anxious and excited. We felt that McNeice attached more meaning to the
+words than Babberly did.</p>
+
+<p>A member of the Cabinet happened to be speaking two days later at a
+large public meeting in Croydon. He was supposed to be explaining the
+advantages of the new Insurance Act to the mistresses and servants of
+the smaller middle-class households. There were, I believe, very few
+people with sufficient faith in his power of apology to go to hear
+him; but, of course, there were plenty of newspaper reporters. The
+Cabinet Minister addressed them, and, ignoring for the time the
+grievances of the British house-and-parlourmaid, he announced that the
+Government was going to stand no nonsense from Ulster.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The leaders,&#8221; he said, &#8220;of the unfortunate dupes who are to assemble
+next week in Belfast, must understand once for all that in a
+democratically governed country the will of the majority must prevail,
+and His Majesty&#8217;s Government is fully determined to see that it does
+prevail, at any cost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This, again, was nothing more than the usual thing. Only the last
+three words conveyed anything in the nature of a threat, and many
+papers did not report the last three words. Babberly, I think, was
+quite justified in supposing that the Cabinet Minister was saying no
+more than, according to the rules of the game, he was bound to say;
+that he was, in fact, giving a garden-party of his own to keep up his
+position in the county. At all events Babberly replied to the
+Government&#8217;s pronouncement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>with a defiance of the boldest possible
+kind. <i>The Loyalist</i>, in a special number, published in the middle of
+the week, patted Babberly on the back, and said that the men of Ulster
+would, if necessary, assert their right of public meeting with rifles
+in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>This was not going much further than Babberly himself had often gone
+in earlier stages of the controversy. It is true that he had always
+spoken of &#8220;arms&#8221; which is a vague word and might mean nothing worse
+than the familiar paving stones. <i>The Loyalist</i> specified the kind of
+arms, mentioned rifles, which are very lethal weapons. Still, viewed
+from a reasonable standpoint, there was nothing very alarming in the
+word rifles.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later Moyne motored over to my house. He seemed greatly
+disturbed, so I took him into my study and gave him tea. While we were
+drinking it he told me what was the matter with him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Kilmore,&#8221; he said, &#8220;do you know anything about a rumour
+that&#8217;s flying about?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are so many,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About the importation of arms into this country.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had my suspicions, rather more than suspicions, for I had been
+thinking over the somewhat remarkable performances of Bob Power and
+the <i>Finola</i>. I did not, however, want to say anything definite until
+I knew how much information Moyne had. After all Bob Power had now
+arranged to be my son-in-law. I do not know what the law does to
+people who import arms into a peaceful country; but the penalty is
+sure to be severe, and I did not want Marion&#8217;s wedding-day to be
+blighted by the arrest of the bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They say,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;that some of the cargoes have been landed
+here under your windows.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I can only assure you,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that I have never in my life
+imported so much as a pocket pistol.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had a long letter from Babberly this morning,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;He had
+an interview with the Prime Minister yesterday. It appears that the
+Government has some information.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why doesn&#8217;t the Government act upon it then?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They are acting. They want me and Babberly to come out and denounce
+this kind of thing, to discountenance definitely&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all well enough,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but I don&#8217;t see why you and
+Babberly should be expected to get the Government out of a hole. In
+fact it&#8217;s your business to keep them in any holes they fall into.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Under ordinary circumstances,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;we shouldn&#8217;t, of course,
+stir hand or foot. We&#8217;d let them stew in their own juice. And I may
+tell you that&#8217;s the line Babberly thinks we ought to take. But I don&#8217;t
+know. If there&#8217;s any truth in these rumours, and there may be, you
+know, it seems to me that we are face to face with a very serious
+business. Party politics are all right, of course; and I&#8217;m just as
+keen as any man to turn out this wretched Government. They&#8217;ve done
+mischief enough, but&mdash;well, if there&#8217;s any truth in what they say, it
+isn&#8217;t exactly a question of ordinary politics, and I think that every
+loyal man ought to stand by&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If there&#8217;s any truth in the rumours&mdash;&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The country&#8217;s in a queer state,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand
+what&#8217;s going on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If the people have got rifles,&#8221; I said, &#8220;they&#8217;re not likely to give
+them up because you and Babberly tell them to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Babberly says there&#8217;s nothing in it,&#8221; said Moyne, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>doubtfully, &#8220;and
+her ladyship agrees with him. She thinks it&#8217;s simply a dodge of the
+Government to spike our guns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that Moyne cannot help talking about guns, even when
+he&#8217;s afraid that somebody or other may really have one. He might,
+under the circumstances, have been expected to use some other
+metaphor. &#8220;Cook our goose,&#8221; for instance, would have expressed his
+meaning quite well, and there would have been no suggestion of
+gunpowder about the words.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see,&#8221; I said, &#8220;how you can very well do anything when both
+Lady Moyne and Babberly are against you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t&mdash;I can&#8217;t, of course. And yet, don&#8217;t you know, Kilmore, I
+don&#8217;t know&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I quite appreciated Moyne&#8217;s condition of mind. I myself did not know.
+I felt nearly certain that Bob Power had been importing arms in the
+<i>Finola</i>. I suspected that Crossan and others had been distributing
+them. And yet it seemed impossible to suppose that ordinary people,
+the men I lunched with in the club, like Malcolmson, the men who
+touched their hats to me on the road, like Rose&#8217;s freckly-faced lover,
+the quiet-looking people whom I saw at railway stations, that those
+people actually meant to shoot off bullets out of guns with the
+intention of killing other people. Of course, long ago, this sort of
+killing was done, but then, long ago, men believed things which we do
+not believe now. Perhaps I ought to say which I do not believe now.
+Malcolmson may still believe in what he calls &#8220;civil and religious
+liberty.&#8221; Crossan certainly applies his favourite epithet to the
+&#8220;Papishes.&#8221; He may conceivably think that they would put him on a rack
+if they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>got the chance. If he believed that he might fight. And yet
+the absurdity of the thing prevents serious consideration.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that our minds are so thoroughly attuned to the
+commonplace that we have lost the faculty of imaginative vision of
+unusual things. Commonplace men&mdash;I, for instance, or Babberly&mdash;can
+imagine a defeat of the Liberal Government or a Unionist victory at
+the General Election, because Liberal Governments have been defeated
+and Unionist victories have been won within our own memories. We
+cannot imagine that Malcolmson and Crossan and our large Dean would
+march out and kill people, because we have never known any one who did
+such things. Men with prophetic minds can contemplate such
+possibilities, because they have the power of launching themselves
+into the unseen. We cannot. This is the reason why cataclysms, things
+like the Flood recorded in the Book of Genesis, and the French
+Revolution, always come upon societies unprepared for them. The
+prophets foretell them, but the common man has not the amount of
+imagination which would make it possible for him to believe the
+prophets. &#8220;They eat and drink, marry, and are given in marriage,&#8221;
+until the day when the thing happens.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back now and considering, in the light of what actually
+happened, my own frame of mind while I was talking to Moyne, I can
+only suppose that it was my lack of imagination which prevented my
+realizing the meaning of what was going on around me.</p>
+
+<p>The next event which I find it necessary to chronicle is Conroy&#8217;s
+visit to Germany. I heard about it from Marion. She got a letter
+almost every day from Bob Power, and it was understood that he was to
+pay us a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>short visit at the end of that week. He explained, much to
+Marion&#8217;s disappointment and mine, that this visit must be postponed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The chief,&#8221; it was thus he wrote of Conroy, &#8220;has gone over to
+Germany. He&#8217;s always going over to Germany. I fancy he must have
+property there. But it doesn&#8217;t generally matter to me whether he goes
+or not. This time&mdash;worse luck&mdash;he has taken it into his head to have
+the yacht to meet him at Kiel. I have to go at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the moment I attached no importance whatever to Conroy&#8217;s visit to
+Germany. Now I have come to think that he went there on a very serious
+business indeed. His immense financial interests not only kept him in
+touch with all the money markets of the world. They also gave him a
+knowledge of what was being done everywhere by the great manufacturers
+and the inventors. Moreover Conroy&#8217;s immense wealth, when he chose to
+use it, enabled him to get things done for him very quietly. He could
+secure the delivery of goods which he ordered in unconventional ways,
+in unusual places. He could, for instance, by means of lavish
+expenditure and personal interviews, arrange to have guns put
+unobtrusively into innocent looking tramp steamers and transhipped
+from them in lonely places to the hold of the <i>Finola</i>. Whether the
+German Government had any idea of what was going on I do not know.
+Foreign governments are supposed to be well supplied with information
+about the manufacture and destination of munitions of war. The English
+Government, I am sure, had not up to the last moment any definite
+information. Its suspicions were of the very vaguest kind before the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer received Godfrey&#8217;s letter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>The Belfast demonstration&mdash;Babberly&#8217;s defiance of the Government&#8217;s
+warning&mdash;was fixed for the first Monday in September. On the 24th of
+August, ten days before the demonstration, <i>The Loyalist</i> became a
+daily instead of a weekly paper. Its circulation increased
+immediately. It was on sale everywhere in the north of Ireland, and it
+was delivered with striking regularity in out of the way places in
+which it was almost impossible to get any other daily paper. It
+continued to press upon its readers the necessity of attending
+Babberly&#8217;s demonstration in Belfast. It said, several times over, that
+the demonstration was to be one of armed men. Parliament was sitting
+late, debating wearily the amendments proposed by Unionists to the
+Home Rule Bill. A Nationalist member arrived at Westminster one day
+with a copy of <i>The Loyalist</i> in his pocket. He called the attention
+of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the language used in one of the
+leading articles, and asked what steps were being taken to prevent a
+breach of the peace in Belfast on the first Monday in September.
+Before the Chief Secretary could answer Babberly burst in with another
+question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is it not a fact,&#8221; he asked, &#8220;that the paper in question is edited by
+a notorious Nationalist, a physical force man, a declared rebel, one
+of the chosen associates of the honourable gentleman opposite?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Chief Secretary replied that he had no knowledge of the political
+opinions of the editor in question further than as they obtained
+expression in his paper. He appeared to be a strong Unionist.</p>
+
+<p>Considering that O&#8217;Donovan had been in prison three times, and that
+papers edited by him had been twice suppressed by the Government, the
+Chief Secretary must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>have meant that he had no official knowledge of
+O&#8217;Donovan&#8217;s opinions. The distinction between knowledge and official
+knowledge is one of the most valuable things in political life.</p>
+
+<p>Babberly displayed the greatest indignation at this answer to his
+question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is the fair fame of the men of Ulster,&#8221; he asked, &#8220;to be traduced, is
+their unswerving loyalty to the Crown and Constitution to be
+impeached, on the strength of irresponsible scribblings emanating from
+a Dublin slum?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The office of <i>The Loyalist</i> is in a slum. So far Babberly was well
+informed. He cannot have known that the &#8220;scribblings&#8221; were by the pen
+of an eminent fellow of Trinity College, or that the money which paid
+for printing and circulation was Conroy&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>The Nationalist member pressed for a reply to his original question.
+He said that he desired nothing except that the Government should
+perform the elementary duty of preserving law and order.</p>
+
+<p>That particular Nationalist member had, in the days past, been put
+into prison with the utmost regularity whenever a government undertook
+to perform the elementary duty he now desired to see undertaken. And
+no government ever, in old times, undertook such work except when
+goaded to desperation by Babberly. The seething of a kid in its
+mother&#8217;s milk is forbidden by the law of Moses, which shows that it
+must be a tempting thing to do. That Nationalist member felt the
+temptation strongly. He evidently had hopes of sacrificing Babberly on
+the altar of the twin gods so long worshipped by the Ulster members,
+incarcerating him in the sacred names of law and order. But the Chief
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>Secretary did not see his way to make Babberly the hero of a state
+trial. He replied that the Government was fully alive to the duty of
+preserving order in Belfast, and refused to commit himself to any
+definite plan for dealing with Babberly.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers made the most of the incident, and O&#8217;Donovan&#8217;s record
+was scrutinized by both parties. A lively discussion ensued as to
+whether a &#8220;Hill-sider&#8221;&mdash;some one discovered that picturesque
+description of O&#8217;Donovan&mdash;could become a militant Unionist. The text
+from the prophet Jeremiah about the spots on the leopard was quoted
+several times with great effect.</p>
+
+<p>McNeice&#8217;s name was not mentioned, nor was Conroy&#8217;s. We may suppose
+that his connection with the University saved McNeice. Trinity College
+has, of late years, displayed such a capacity for vigorous
+self-defence, that the boldest politician hesitates to attack it or
+any one under its immediate protection. Conroy escaped because no one,
+not even an Irish member, cares to ride atilt against a millionaire.
+We respect little else in heaven or earth, but we do, all of us,
+respect money.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">O</span>n the Wednesday before the day fixed for the Belfast demonstration, a
+meeting of the Ulster Unionist leaders was held in London. Moyne was
+at it. Lady Moyne, although the absurd conventions of our political
+life prevented her being present in person, was certainly an influence
+in the deliberations. She gave a dinner-party the night before in
+Moyne&#8217;s town house. Babberly, of course, was at the dinner, and with
+him most of the small group of Ulster Members of Parliament. Three or
+four leading members of the Opposition, Englishmen who had spoken on
+Ulster platforms and were in full sympathy with the Ulster dislike of
+Home Rule, were also present. Cahoon was not. He travelled from
+Belfast during the night of the dinner-party and only reached London
+in time for the meeting of the Party next day. I do not know whether
+Cahoon was invited to the dinner or not. Malcolmson was invited. He
+told me so himself, but he did not accept the invitation. He said he
+had business in Belfast and he went to London with Cahoon. The Dean
+was at the dinner-party. His name appeared in the newspaper lists of
+guests next morning. McNeice was not there. Lady Moyne did not like
+McNeice, and, although he was a member of the &#8220;Ulster Defence
+Committee,&#8221; he was never admitted to what might be called the social
+gatherings of the party.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers, in their columns of fashionable intelligence, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>printed
+a full list of the guests at this dinner, and even noted the dresses
+worn by some of the chief ladies. It was described as a brilliant
+function, and Lady Moyne figured as &#8220;one of the most successful of our
+political hostesses.&#8221; I have no doubt that she was successful in
+impressing her views on Babberly and the others. Whether she thought
+it worth while to spend time that night in talking to the Dean I do
+not know. Immediately under the account of the dinner-party there was
+a short paragraph which stated that Conroy, &#8220;the well-known
+millionaire yachtsman,&#8221; had returned from a cruise in the Baltic Sea,
+and that the <i>Finola</i> was lying off Bangor in Belfast Lough.</p>
+
+<p>In quite a different part of the papers there were comments and
+articles on the meeting of the Ulster leaders to be held that
+afternoon. The articles in Liberal papers oscillated between
+entreaties and threats. One of them, in a paper supposed to be more or
+less inspired by the Government, pleased me greatly. It began with a
+warm tribute to the loyalty which had always characterized the men of
+Ulster. Then it said that troops were being moved to Belfast in order
+to overcome a turbulent populace. It went on from that to argue that
+troops were entirely unnecessary, because Ulstermen, though pig-headed
+almost beyond belief in their opposition to Home Rule, would not
+hesitate for a moment when the choice was given them of obeying or
+defying the law. They would, of course, obey the law. But, so the
+article concluded, if they did not obey the law the resources of
+civilization were by no means exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>As no law had, up to that time, been made forbidding the holding of
+the Belfast demonstration, this article <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>was perhaps premature in its
+attempt to impale Babberly and his friends on the horns of a dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>The Conservative papers assumed an air of calm confidence. One of
+them, the editor of which was in close touch with Babberly, said
+plainly that dear as the right of free speech was to the Unionist
+leaders they would cheerfully postpone the Belfast demonstration
+rather than run the smallest risk of causing a riot in the streets.
+Political principles, it is said, were sacred things, but the life of
+the humblest citizen was far more sacred than any principle, and the
+world could confidently rely on Babberly&#8217;s being guided in his
+momentous decision by considerations of the loftiest patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt that Babberly fully intended to do as that paper said
+he would do. I feel certain that the informal consultation of the
+politicians at Lady Moyne&#8217;s dinner-party had ended in a decision to
+postpone the demonstration. But things had passed beyond the control
+of Babberly and Lady Moyne. No newspaper was able to give any report
+of the proceedings of the meeting held that afternoon. But Malcolmson,
+Cahoon and McNeice were all present, and the Dean, having escaped the
+overpowering atmosphere of Moyne House, was able to express his
+opinions freely and forcibly. On the other hand Lady Moyne was not
+there, and Moyne, when it comes to persuading men, is a very poor
+substitute for her. The English Unionists could not be there, so the
+weight of their moderation was not felt. The meeting broke up without
+reaching any decision at all; and the Belfast demonstration remained
+on the list of fixtures for the next week.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Samuel Clithering, originally a manufacturer of hosiery in the
+midlands, was at this time acting regularly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>as an official ambassador
+of the Cabinet. The fact that he was a leading Nonconformist was, I
+fancy, supposed to commend him in some obscure way to the Ulster
+party. He spent the evening after the meeting in flying about in his
+motor between the House of Commons where Babberly was proposing
+amendments to the Bill, Moyne House where Lady Moyne and her secretary
+sat over her typewriter, a military club in St. James&#8217; Street where
+Malcolmson sat smoking cigars, and a small hotel in the Strand where
+McNeice and Cahoon were stopping. The Dean had left London for Belfast
+immediately after the meeting. I have no doubt that Sir Samuel
+Clithering did his best; but diplomacy applied to men like McNeice and
+Malcolmson is about as useful as children&#8217;s sand dykes are in checking
+the advance of flowing tides.</p>
+
+<p>It is a source of regret to me that my account of what happened in
+London is meagre and disjointed. I was not there myself and events
+became so much more exciting afterwards that nobody has any very clear
+recollection of the course of these preliminary negotiations.</p>
+
+<p>My own personal narrative begins again two days after the London
+meeting, that is to say on the Friday before the Belfast
+demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey came up to see me at eleven o&#8217;clock with his arm in a sling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excellency,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the Dean has just hoisted a large flag on the
+tower of the church. I&#8217;m sure you don&#8217;t approve of that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is, I hope, unnecessary to say that Godfrey is at feud with the
+Dean. The Dean is a straightforward and honourable man. He and Godfrey
+live in the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>town. A quarrel between them was therefore
+inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact I do not approve of the hoisting of flags on the
+church tower. In Ireland we only hoist flags with a view to irritating
+our enemies, and&mdash;I am not an expert in Christian theology but it
+seems to me that church towers are not the most suitable places for
+flaunting defiances. The Dean and I argued the matter out years ago
+and arrived at a working compromise. I agreed to make no protest
+against flags on the 12th of July. The Dean promised not to hoist them
+on any other day. This is fairly satisfactory to the Dean because he
+can exult over his foes on the day of the year on which it is most of
+all desirable to do so. It is fairly satisfactory to me because on
+three hundred and sixty-four days out of every year the church
+remains, in outward appearance at least, a house of prayer, and I am
+not vexed by having to regard it as a den of politicians. That is as
+much as can be expected of any compromise, and I was always quite
+loyal to my share of the bargain. The Dean, it now appeared, was not;
+and Godfrey saw his chance of stirring up strife.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;the Dean can have anything to do with the
+flag. He is in London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He came back yesterday,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;and the flag he has hoisted
+is a large Union Jack.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now the Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other
+flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without
+giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses
+the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool flew a
+Union Jack out of the window of a Dublin house underneath which the
+Irish leader happened at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>the moment to be proclaiming his loyalty to
+the Empire and his ungovernable love for the English people. The fool
+who hoisted the flag was afterwards very properly denounced for having
+gone about to insult the Irish nation. The Dean might, I think, have
+set floating a banner with three Orange lilies emblazoned upon it like
+the fleur-de-lys of ancient France. No one&#8217;s feelings would have been
+much hurt and no one&#8217;s enthusiasm unusually stirred. But it is
+characteristic of the Dean that when he does a thing at all he does it
+thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just come and look at it,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;It&#8217;s enormous.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We went into the library, from the windows of which a clear view can
+be obtained of the town and the church which stands above it. There
+certainly was a flag flying from the church tower. I took a pair of
+field-glasses and satisfied myself that it was the Union Jack.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Would you like me to speak to the Dean about it?&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Any interference on your part would
+merely&mdash;and these are rather exciting times. The Dean is entitled, I
+think, to a little license. I don&#8217;t suppose he means to keep it there
+permanently.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then, borne to us by a gentle breeze across the bay, came the sound of
+the church bells. We have a fine peal of bells in our church,
+presented to the parish by my father. They are seldom properly rung,
+but when they are&mdash;on Christmas Day, at Easter and on the 12th of
+July&mdash;the effect is very good.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely,&#8221; I said, &#8220;the Dean can&#8217;t be having a Harvest Thanksgiving
+Service yet? It&#8217;s not nearly time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then I noticed that instead of one of the regular chimes the bells
+were playing a hymn tune. It was, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>I might have guessed, the tune
+to which &#8220;O God, our help in ages past&#8221; is sung in Ireland. The hymn,
+since Babberly&#8217;s first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of
+battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants
+that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn. Elsewhere, in
+England, in Scotland, in the United States and the Colonies this
+metrical version of the 90th Psalm is sung to a fine simple tune
+called St. Ann. But we are not and never have been as other men are.
+Without a quiver of our nerves we run atilt at the most universally
+accepted traditions. The very fact that every one else who uses the
+hymn sings it to the tune called St. Ann would incline us to find some
+other tune if such a thing were obtainable. We found one which
+musicians, recognizing that we had some right to claim it as ours,
+called &#8220;Irish&#8221; or &#8220;Dublin.&#8221; This tune emerged suddenly from nowhere in
+response to no particular demand in the middle of the eighteenth
+century. It is anonymous, but it was at once wedded to the words of
+that particular hymn, and we have used it ever since. It is difficult
+to give an opinion on the comparative merits of two hymn tunes, and I
+hesitate to say that ours is a finer one than that used by the rest of
+the English-speaking world. I am, however, certain that there is in
+our tune an unmistakable suggestion of majestic confidence in an
+eternal righteousness, and that it very well expresses the feeling
+with which we sing the hymn at political demonstrations and elsewhere.
+It came to me that day across the waters of the bay, hammered slowly
+out by the swinging bells, with a tremendous sense of energy. The
+English St. Ann seemed lilty and almost flippant in comparison.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p><p>I raised my glasses again and took another look at the Union Jack,
+blown out from its flag-post and displaying plainly its tangled
+crosses. Then I noticed that men were entering the churchyard singly,
+in pairs and in little groups of three and four.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Dean,&#8221; I said, &#8220;must have some sort of service in church to-day.
+If it isn&#8217;t the Harvest Thanksgiving it must be an anniversary of
+something. What happened at this time of year, Godfrey? I can&#8217;t
+remember anything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I still stared through my glasses. I was struck by the unusual fact
+that only men were going into the church. Then, quite suddenly, I saw
+that every man was carrying a gun. I laid down my glasses and turned
+to Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you&#8217;d go down to the town&mdash;not to the church,
+mind, Godfrey, but into the town, and ask somebody&mdash;ask the police
+sergeant at the barrack what is going on in the church.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey is always at his very best when he has to find out something.
+He would have made almost an ideal spy. If any one is ever wanted by
+the nation for the more disagreeable part of secret service work I can
+confidently recommend Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he returned to me hot and breathless.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The police sergeant told me, Excellency, that the Dean&#8217;s going to
+march all the Orangemen and a lot of other men along with them to
+Belfast for the Unionist demonstration. They are having service in the
+church first and they&#8217;ve all got rifles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have all my life steadily objected to politics being mixed with
+religion. I hold most strongly that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>Church ought not to be
+dominated by politicians. The Church is degraded and religion is
+brought into contempt when they are used by party leaders. But&mdash;the
+bells had ceased ringing. The hymn was now, no doubt, being sung by
+the men within. It occurred to me suddenly that on this occasion it
+was not the politicians who were taking possession of religion, but
+religion which was asserting its right to dominate politics. This is
+plainly quite a different matter. I can even imagine that politics
+might be improved if religion asserted itself a little more frequently
+than it does. I still maintain that it is only right and fair to keep
+politics out of the Church. I am not at all sure that it is right to
+keep the Church out of politics.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I told the sergeant,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;that he had better go and stop
+them at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, did you?&#8221; I said. &#8220;Do you know, Godfrey, that&#8217;s just the kind of
+suggestion I&#8217;d expect you to make under the circumstances.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thanks awfully, Excellency,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I&#8217;m awfully glad you&#8217;re
+pleased.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There are besides the sergeant three constables in our police barrack.
+They are armed as a rule with short round sticks. On very important
+occasions they carry an inferior kind of firearm called a carbine.
+There were, I guessed about three hundred men in the church, and they
+were armed with modern rifles. Godfrey&#8217;s faith in the inherent majesty
+of the law was extremely touching.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did he go?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think he intends to,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;but he did not give me a
+decided answer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Our police sergeant is a man of sense.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Did you say,&#8221; I asked, &#8220;that they&#8217;re going to march to Belfast?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what the sergeant told me,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Actually walk the whole way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Belfast is a good many miles away from us. It would, I suppose, take a
+quick walker the better part of two days to accomplish the journey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He said &#8216;march,&#8217;&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I suppose he meant to walk.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This is, as we are constantly reminded, the twentieth century. I
+should have supposed that any one who wanted to get from this place to
+Belfast would have gone in a train. Our nearest railway station is
+some way off, but one might walk to it in an hour and a half. Once
+there, the journey to Belfast can be accomplished in another two
+hours. It seems rather absurd to spend two days over it, but then the
+whole thing is rather absurd. The rifles are absurd. The gathering of
+three hundred men into a church to indulge in a kind of grace before
+meat as preparation for a speech from Babberly is rather absurd. To
+set a peal of bells playing&mdash;but I am not quite sure about the hymn
+tune. It did not sound to me absurd as it came across the bay. I am, I
+trust, a reasonable man, not peculiarly liable to be swept off my feet
+by waves of emotion; but there was something in the sound of that hymn
+tune which prevented me from counting it, along with our other
+performances, as an absurdity.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER  XVII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">T</span>he Dean and his men did actually march to Belfast. I saw them there
+two days later. I also saw them start, ranged in very fair order with
+the Dean at their head. The most surprising thing about their march
+was that they had no band. There are at least two bands in the town. I
+subscribe to both of them regularly and have occasionally given a
+donation to a third which enjoys an intermittent existence, springing
+into sudden activity for a week or two and then disappearing for
+months. I asked the police sergeant, who is a South of Ireland man and
+very acute of mind, why none of the bands accompanied the army. The
+explanation he gave me was interesting and suggestive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There isn&#8217;t as much as a boy in the district,&#8221; he said, &#8220;who&#8217;d
+content himself with a drum when he might have the handling of a
+rifle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet an excessive fondness for drums has been reckoned&mdash;by English
+politicians&mdash;one of the failings of the Ulster man.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Belfast next morning quite unexpectedly. No peal of bells
+heartened me for my start, partly because all the bell-ringers and
+nearly all the able-bodied members of the church in the parish had
+marched forth with the Dean. Partly also, I suppose, because I did not
+travel in a heroic way. I am much too old to undertake a two-days&#8217;
+walking tour, so I went by train. Godfrey <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>saw me off. I owed this
+attention, I am sure, to the fact that Marion was with me. She told
+Godfrey that she was going to marry Bob Power, but Godfrey did not on
+that account cease to regard her as his property. He had hopes, I
+fancy, that Bob Power would be killed in some fight with a Custom
+House officer. Marion, on the other hand, was vaguely afraid that
+either Bob or I would get injured while rioting in Belfast. That was
+her reason for going with me.</p>
+
+<p>I went because I received on Friday evening a very urgent letter from
+Lady Moyne. She and Lord Moyne had just arrived in Belfast, and her
+letter was sent to me by a special messenger on a motor bicycle. She
+wished me to attend an extraordinary meeting of the &#8220;Ulster Defence
+Committee&#8221; which, in defiance of our strong sabbatarian feeling, was
+to be held on Sunday afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We elected you a member of the committee at a meeting held yesterday
+in London,&#8221; she wrote, &#8220;so you have a perfect right to be present and
+to vote.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That meeting must have been held after McNeice, Malcolmson and Cahoon
+returned to Ireland. They regard me as a Laodicean in the matter of
+Home Rule, and would never have consented to my sitting on a committee
+which controlled, or at all events was supposed to control, the
+actions of the Ulster leaders.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s most important, dear Lord Kilmore,&#8221; the letter went on, &#8220;that
+you should be present on Sunday. Your well-known moderation will have
+a most steadying influence, and if it should come to a matter of
+voting, your vote may be absolutely necessary.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After getting a letter of that kind I could not well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>refuse to go to
+Belfast. Even without the letter I should, I think, have gone. I was
+naturally anxious to see what was going to happen.</p>
+
+<p>I spent my time in the train reading several different accounts of an
+important Nationalist meeting held the day before in a village in
+County Clare, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten. Three
+of the chief Nationalist orators were there, men quite equal to
+Babberly in their mastery of the art of public speaking. I read all
+their speeches; but that was not really necessary. None of them said
+anything which the other two did not say, and none of them left out
+anything which the other two had said.</p>
+
+<p>They all began by declaring that under Home Rule all Irishmen should
+receive equal consideration and be treated with equal respect. They
+all looked forward to the day when they would be walking about the
+premises at present occupied by the Bank of Ireland in Dublin with
+their arms round Babberly&#8217;s neck. The dearest wish of their hearts&mdash;so
+they all said, and the people of County Clare cheered heartily&mdash;was to
+unite with Lord Moyne, Babberly, Malcolmson and even the Dean in the
+work of regenerating holy Ireland. Any little differences of religious
+creed which might exist would be entirely forgotten as soon as the
+Home Rule Bill was safely passed. They then went on to say that the
+Belfast people, and the people of County Antrim and County Down
+generally, were enthusiastically in favour of Home Rule. The fact that
+they elected Unionist members of Parliament and held Unionist
+demonstrations was accounted for by the existence of a handful of
+rack-renting landlords, a few sweating capitalists and some clergymen
+whose churches <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>were empty because the people were tired of hearing
+them curse the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Moyne has sold every acre of his property and the Dean&#8217;s only
+difficulty with the majority of his large congregation is that he does
+not curse the Pope often enough to please them. Cahoon, I am told,
+only sweats in the old-fashioned intransitive sense of the word. He is
+frequently bathed in perspiration himself. I never heard of his
+insisting on his workmen getting any hotter than was natural and
+necessary. But these criticisms are beside the mark. No one supposes
+that a political orator means to tell the truth when he is making a
+speech. Politics could not be carried on if he did. What the public
+expects and generally insists on is that the inevitable lies should
+have their loins girt about with a specious appearance of
+truthfulness. Every speaker must offer distinct and convincing proofs
+that his statements are strictly accurate reflections of fact. The
+best and simplest way of doing this is by means of bold challenge. The
+speaker offers to deposit a large sum of money with the local mayor to
+be paid over to a deserving charity, if any opponent of the speaker
+can, to the satisfaction of twelve honourable men, generally named,
+disprove some quite irrelevant truism, or can prove to the
+satisfaction of the same twelve men the falsity of some universally
+accepted platitude. This method is very popular with orators, and
+invariably carries conviction to their audiences.</p>
+
+<p>The Nationalist members in County Clare broke away into a variant of
+the familiar plan. They challenged the Government.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let the Government,&#8221; they said, all three of them, &#8220;proclaim the
+meeting to be held in Belfast on Monday <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>next, and allow the public to
+watch with contempt the deflation of the wind-distended bladder of
+Ulster opposition to Home Rule. We venture to say that the little
+group of selfish wire-pullers at whose bidding the meeting has been
+summoned, will sneak away before the batons of half a dozen policemen,
+and their followers will be found to be non-existent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Government, apparently, believed the Nationalist orators, or half
+believed them. Sir Samuel Clithering was sent over to Belfast, to
+report, confidentially, on the temper of the people. He must have sent
+off his despatch before the Dean&#8217;s army marched in, before any of the
+armies then converging on the city arrived, before the Belfast people
+had got out their rifles. The Government in the most solemn and
+impressive manner, proclaimed the meeting. That was the news with
+which we were greeted when our train drew up at the platform in
+Belfast.</p>
+
+<p>The proclamation of meeting is one of the regular resources of
+governments when Irish affairs get into a particularly annoying
+tangle. There have been during my time hundreds of meetings proclaimed
+in different parts of the country. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief
+Secretary never get any thanks for their action. The people who want
+to hold the meeting always accuse the Government of violating the
+right of free speech and substituting a military tyranny for the Magna
+Charta. The other people who do not want the meeting to be held always
+say that the Government ought to have proclaimed it much sooner than
+it did, and ought to have imprisoned, perhaps beheaded, the men who
+intended to speak at the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power met us on the platform, which was horribly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>crowded, and
+immediately conducted Marion to a motor car which he had in waiting
+outside the station. Then he came back to me and we went together in
+search of Marion&#8217;s luggage. It was while we were pushing our way
+through the crowd that he told me the great news. I said that the
+failure of the demonstration would be a disappointment to the Dean and
+his riflemen who would have to walk all the way home again without
+hearing Babberly&#8217;s speech.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not so sure about that,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;We may have the meeting in
+spite of their teeth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t possibly,&#8221; I said, &#8220;hold a meeting when&mdash;dear me! Who are
+those?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a crowd round the luggage van where we were trying to
+discover Marion&#8217;s trunk. An unmannerly porter shoved me back, and I
+bumped into a man who had something hard and knobby in his hand. I
+looked round. He was a soldier in the regular khaki uniform with a
+rifle in his hand. The bayonet was fixed. I felt deeply thankful that
+it was pointing upwards and not in a horizontal direction when the
+porter charged me. It might quite easily have gone through my back.
+This man appeared to be a kind of outpost sentry. Behind him, all
+similarly armed, were twenty or thirty more men drawn up with their
+backs to the wall of the station. A youth, who looked bored and
+disgusted, was in command of them and stood at the end of the line.
+His sword struck me as being far too big for him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who on earth are those?&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Those,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;are the troops who are overawing us. Some of them.
+There are lots more. You&#8217;ll see them at every street corner as we go
+along. By <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>jove! I believe that&#8217;s Nosey Henderson in command of this
+detachment. Excuse me one moment, Lord Kilmore. Henderson was with me
+at Harrow. I&#8217;ll just shake hands with him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the young officer as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hullo Nosey,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know you were in these parts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ordered up from the Curragh,&#8221; said Henderson. &#8220;Damned nuisance this
+sort of police duty. We oughtn&#8217;t to be asked to do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your particular job,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;is to overawe the railway porters, I
+suppose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Been here since nine o&#8217;clock this morning,&#8221; said Henderson, &#8220;and
+haven&#8217;t had a blessed thing to eat except two water biscuits. What&#8217;s
+the row all about? That&#8217;s what I can&#8217;t make out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It&#8217;s quite simple,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;Our side wants to hold a
+meeting&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are on a side then, are you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I am,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I&#8217;m in command of a company of
+volunteers. We don&#8217;t run to khaki uniforms and brass buttons, but
+we&#8217;ve got guns all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say,&#8221; said Henderson, &#8220;tell me this now. Any chance of a scrap?
+Real fighting, you know? I&#8217;ve been asking all sorts of fellows, and
+nobody seems to be able to say for certain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shan&#8217;t begin it,&#8221; said Bob; &#8220;but, of course, if you get prodding
+at us with those spikes you have at the end of your guns&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are a lot of fellows in this town that would be all the better
+of being prodded. Every porter that walks along the platform spits
+when he passes us in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>damned offensive way. You would think they
+were looking for trouble.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd round the luggage van cleared away a little and we found
+Marion&#8217;s trunk. Bob handed it over to a porter and we joined Marion in
+the motor car.</p>
+
+<p>The scene outside the station was striking. A considerable body of
+dragoons, some mounted, some on foot beside their horses, were grouped
+together near the great gate which led into the railway company&#8217;s
+yard. Their accoutrements and the bridles of their horses jangled at
+every movement in a way very suggestive of military ardour. The
+trappings of horse soldiers are evidently made as noisy as possible.
+Perhaps with the idea of keeping up the spirits of the men. Some
+Highlanders, complete in their kilts, stood opposite the dragoons at
+the other end of the yard. A sergeant was shouting explosive
+monosyllables at them in order to make them turn to the left or to the
+right as he thought desirable. Behind them were some other soldiers,
+Englishmen I presume, who wore ordinary trousers. They were sitting on
+a flight of stone steps eating chunks of dry bread. Their rifles were
+neatly stacked behind them. Round the motor car were about thirty men
+whom I hesitate to call civilians, because they had rifles in their
+hands; but who were certainly not real soldiers, for they had no
+uniforms. They looked to me like young farmers.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My fellows,&#8221; said Bob, pointing to these men. &#8220;Pretty tidy looking
+lot, aren&#8217;t they? I brought them along as a sort of guard of honour
+for Marion. They&#8217;re not really the least necessary; but I thought you
+and she might be pleased to see them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p><p>Here and there, scattered among the military and Bob&#8217;s irregular
+troops, were black uniformed policemen, rosy-faced young men, fresh
+from a healthy life among the cattle ranches of Roscommon, drafted to
+their own immense bewilderment into this strange city of Belfast,
+where no one regarded them with any reverence, or treated them with
+the smallest respect. The motor car started, creeping at a walking
+pace through the mingled crowd of armed men who thronged the entrance
+to the station. Our guard of honour, some of them smoking, some
+stopping for a moment to exchange greetings with acquaintance, kept up
+with us pretty well. Then, as we got clear of the station and went
+faster, we left our guard behind. One man indeed, with a singular
+devotion to duty, poked his rifle into the car and then ran alongside
+of us with his hand on the mudguard. He carried Marion&#8217;s trunk into
+the hotel when we got there.</p>
+
+<p>Our drive was an exciting one. At every street corner there were
+parties of soldiers. Along every street stalwart policemen strolled in
+pairs. There were certainly hundreds of armed irregulars. For the most
+part these men seemed to be under no control; but occasionally we met
+a party marching in something like military formation, led by an
+officer, grave with responsibility. One company, I remember, got in
+our way and for a long time could not get out of it. Their officer had
+been drilling them carefully and they were all most anxious to obey
+his orders. The difficulty was that he could not recollect at the
+moment what orders he ought to give to get them out of our way. He
+halted them to begin with. Then in firm tones, he commanded a
+half-right turn and a quick march. We had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>to back our car to avoid
+collision with the middle part of the column. Their officer halted
+them again. We offered to go back and take another route to our hotel;
+but the officer would not hear of this. He told his men to stand at
+ease while he consulted a handbook on military evolutions. In the end
+he gave the problem up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get out of the way, will you,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and form up again when the
+car is past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was unconventional, but quite effective. The men&mdash;and it is to
+their credit that not one of them smiled&mdash;broke their formation,
+scattered to right and left and reformed after we had passed. This
+took place in a narrow side street in which there was very little
+traffic. I recognized the wisdom of the officer in choosing such a
+place for his man&oelig;uvres.</p>
+
+<p>In the main streets the business of the town seemed to be going on
+very much as usual. It was Saturday afternoon. Shops and offices were
+closing. Young men and girls passed out of them and thronged the trams
+which were leaving the centre of the city. They took very little
+notice of the soldiers or the police. In the poorer streets women with
+baskets on their arms were doing their weekly shopping at the stalls
+of small butchers and greengrocers. Groups of factory girls marched
+along with linked arms, enjoying their outing, unaffected apparently
+by the unusual condition of their streets. The newspaper boys did a
+roaring trade, shrieking promises of sensational news to be found in
+the pages of the <i>Telegraph</i> and <i>Echo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Marion became intensely excited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doesn&#8217;t it look just as if the town had been captured by an enemy,&#8221;
+she said, &#8220;after a long siege?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;It hasn&#8217;t been captured yet,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>I have often tried to understand how it was that Bob Power came to
+take the active part he did in the fighting which followed, and how he
+came to be in command of a body of volunteers. He had not, so far as I
+know, any actual hatred of the idea of Home Rule. He was too
+light-hearted to be in full sympathy with fanatical Puritans like
+Crossan and McNeice. He certainly had no hatred of the British Empire
+or the English army. He was, up to the last moment, on friendly terms
+with those of the army officers whom he happened to know. He chatted
+with them and with detached inspectors of police in the same friendly
+way as he did with Henderson at the railway station.</p>
+
+<p>I can only suppose that he regarded the whole business&mdash;to begin with
+at all events&mdash;as a large adventure of a novel and delightful kind. He
+went into it very much as many volunteers went into the Boer War,
+without any very strong convictions about the righteousness of the
+cause in which he fought, certainly without any realization of the
+horror of actual bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>There are men of this temperament, fortunately a good many of them. If
+they did not exist in large numbers the world&#8217;s fighting would be very
+badly done. The mere mercenary&mdash;uninspired by the passion for
+adventure&mdash;will at the best do as little fighting as possible, and do
+it with the smallest amount of ardour. Fanatics cannot be had to
+order. Some kind of idea&mdash;in most cases a religious idea&mdash;is necessary
+to turn the ordinary church-going business man or farmer into an
+efficient fighting unit. The kind of patriotism which is prepared to
+make sacrifices, to endure bodily pain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>and risk death, is very rare.
+It is on the men who enjoy risk, who love struggle, who face death
+with a laugh, the men of Bob Power&#8217;s reckless temperament, that the
+world must rely when it wants fighting done. Hitherto men of this kind
+have been plentiful. Whether our advancing civilization is going to
+destroy the breed is a question which, I am pleased to say, need not
+be answered by my generation. There are enough Bob Powers alive to
+last my time.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> fully intended to go to church on Sunday morning. I was, in fact,
+waiting for Marion at the door of the hotel, when Sir Samuel
+Clithering came to see me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall be so much obliged,&#8221; he said, &#8220;if you will spare me a few
+minutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did not want to spare any minutes to Sir Samuel Clithering. In the
+first place I had promised to take Marion to the cathedral. &#8220;A Parade
+Service&#8221;&mdash;I quote the official title of the function&mdash;was to be held
+for the benefit of the volunteers and Marion naturally wanted to see
+Bob Power at the head of his men. I wanted to hear the men singing
+that hymn again, and I wanted to hear what sort of sermon the
+Dean&mdash;our Dean, not the Dean of the cathedral&mdash;would preach on such an
+occasion. He was advertised to preach, as &#8220;Chaplain General of the
+Loyalists.&#8221; These were three good reasons for not giving Sir Samuel
+Clithering the few minutes he demanded. I had, also, a fourth. I had
+held, as I have related, previous communications with Clithering. I
+suspected him of having more peerages in his pocket for distribution,
+and I did not want to undertake any further negotiations like that
+with Conroy. He might even&mdash;and I particularly disliked the idea&mdash;be
+empowered to offer our Dean an English bishopric.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>I kept this last reason to myself, but I stated the other three fully
+to Sir Samuel. He seemed dissatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everybody&#8217;s going to church,&#8221; he complained. &#8220;I can&#8217;t get Lord Moyne.
+I can&#8217;t get Babberly. I can&#8217;t get Malcolmson, and it&#8217;s really most
+important that I should see some one. Going to church is all very
+well&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As a leading Nonconformist,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Free Churchman,&#8221; said Sir Samuel.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon, Free Churchman. You ought not to object to people
+going to church. I&#8217;ve always understood that the Free Churchmen are
+honourably distinguished from other Christians by their respect for
+the practice of Sunday worship.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course, I don&#8217;t object to people going to church. I should be
+there myself if it were not that&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. I thought he might be searching for an appropriate text
+of Scripture so I helped him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your ass,&#8221; I said, &#8220;has fallen into a pit, and you want&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was evidently not exactly the text he wanted. He seemed
+astonished when I quoted it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ass!&#8221; he said. &#8220;What ass?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Government,&#8221; I said. &#8220;It is in rather a hole, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Capital,&#8221; said Clithering, laughing without the smallest appearance
+of mirth, &#8220;capital! I didn&#8217;t catch the point for a moment, but I do
+now. My ass has fallen into a pit. You put the matter in a nutshell,
+Lord Kilmore. I don&#8217;t mind confessing that a pit of rather an
+inconvenient size does lie in front of us. I feel sure that you, as a
+humane man, won&#8217;t refuse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>your help in the charitable work of helping
+to get us out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Marion came downstairs in her best hat. It was not for nothing that
+Bob Power and I and the running volunteer had struggled with her
+trunk. Her frock, also, was charming.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your daughter,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;Now my dear young lady, you must
+spare your father to me for an hour. Affairs of state. Affairs of
+state. But you&#8217;ll allow me to send you to church in my car. My private
+secretary is in it, and I shall tell him to see you safely to church,
+to secure a seat for you&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Dean has reserved seats for us,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Capital, capital. We can regard that as settled then. My private
+secretary&mdash;an excellent young fellow whom I picked up at Toynbee
+Hall&mdash;a student of our social problems&mdash;a man whom I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll
+like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He conducted Marion to the door and handed her over to the private
+secretary from Toynbee Hall. I resigned myself and led Clithering to a
+deserted smoking-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never saw so much church-going anywhere,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s most
+remarkable. I don&#8217;t think the Government quite appreciates&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact the percentage of church-going men on that
+particular Sunday was considerably over the average. On the other hand
+there were much fewer women than usual. Every church of every
+Protestant denomination was holding a &#8220;Parade Service&#8221; for volunteers,
+and most of the women who tried to get in had to be turned away from
+the doors. I thought it well to rub the facts in a little.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Rack-renting landlords,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Sweating capitalists, and clergymen
+whose churches are empty because their congregations are tired of
+hearing them curse the Pope!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Eh?&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;what&#8217;s that? what&#8217;s that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only a quotation,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I forget if it was a Cabinet Minister&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I recollect the words now. It was one
+of the Irish Members. No Cabinet Minister would dream of saying such
+things. We have a high sense of the importance of the Ulster problem.
+Nothing, I assure you, is further from our minds than the desire to
+minimize or treat with undue flippancy the conscientious objections,
+even the somewhat unreasonable fears of men whom we recognize as&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering paused. I had not anything particular to say, so I waited
+for him to begin again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that a meeting of the Unionist Defence
+Committee is to be held this afternoon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to it. I&#8217;m not really a member of the
+committee, at least I wasn&#8217;t until yesterday; but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite understand, quite understand. In fact&mdash;speaking now in the
+strictest confidence&mdash;I may say that the suggestion to add your name
+to the committee was made&mdash;well it was made to Lady Moyne by a very
+important person. It was generally recognized that a man of your
+well-known moderation&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was beginning to dislike being called a man of moderation nearly as
+much as I disliked being called a Liberal.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you want me to do?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;The situation&mdash;the very difficult and distressing situation is this,&#8221;
+said Clithering, &#8220;stated roughly it is this. The Government has
+proclaimed to-morrow&#8217;s meeting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is the pit into which&mdash;I don&#8217;t want to be
+offensive&mdash;I&#8217;ll say, your ox has fallen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And the town is full of troops and police. Any attempt to hold the
+meeting can only result in bloodshed, deplorable bloodshed, the lives
+of men and women, innocent women sacrificed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The strength of Babberly&#8217;s position,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is that he doesn&#8217;t
+think bloodshed deplorable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he does. He told me so in London. He repeated the same thing this
+morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t mean Babberly personally,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I mean his party;
+Malcolmson, you know, and our Dean. If you&#8217;d only gone to hear the
+Dean preach this morning you&#8217;d know what he thinks about blood. I&#8217;ve
+often heard him say that the last drop of it&mdash;mind that now, Sir
+Samuel&mdash;the last drop ought to be shed. That&#8217;s going as far as any one
+very well could, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he must,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;he must think bloodshed deplorable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, he doesn&#8217;t,&#8221; I said. &#8220;You mustn&#8217;t think everybody is like your
+Government. It&#8217;s humanitarian. We&#8217;re not. We&#8217;re business men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering caught at the last phrase. It appealed to him. He did not
+know the meaning attached to it by Cahoon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We want to appeal to you as business men.
+We want to suggest a reasonable compromise.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you&#8217;ve come to the wrong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>place. I&#8217;m not
+the least averse to compromises myself, in fact I love them. But the
+Belfast business man&mdash;You don&#8217;t quite understand him, I&#8217;m afraid, Sir
+Samuel. Have you heard him singing his hymn?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. What hymn? But leaving the question of hymns aside for the
+moment&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t do that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;the hymn is the central fact in the
+situation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering thought this over and evidently failed to understand it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I am empowered to suggest,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is a compromise so very
+favourable to the Ulster claims that I can hardly imagine your
+rejecting it. The Government will allow the meeting to be held this
+day week if your committee will agree to the postponement.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you will also withdraw your Home Rule Bill&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we can&#8217;t,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;We can&#8217;t do that. We&#8217;ll insert any
+reasonable safeguards. We&#8217;ll concede anything that Ulster likes to
+ask, but we&#8217;re pledged, absolutely pledged, to the Bill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;as far as pledges are concerned, we&#8217;re pledged
+against it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What we deprecate,&#8221; said Sir Samuel, &#8220;is violence of any kind.
+Constitutional agitation, even if carried on with great bitterness is
+one thing. Violence&mdash;but I&#8217;m sure, Lord Kilmore, that we can rely on
+you to use your influence at the meeting this afternoon to secure the
+acceptance of the terms we offer. I&#8217;m sure we can count on you. You
+can&#8217;t <i>want</i> bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did not want bloodshed, of course. I do not suppose that anybody
+did. What Clithering could not understand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>was that some
+people&mdash;without wanting bloodshed&mdash;might prefer it to Home Rule. He
+left me, still I fancy relying on my well-known moderation. No man
+ever relied on a more utterly useless crutch. Moderation has never
+been of the slightest use anywhere in Ireland and was certainly a vain
+thing in Belfast that day.</p>
+
+<p>I walked round to the club and found nobody in it except Conroy. He
+alone, among the leading supporters of the Loyalist movement, had
+failed to go to church. I thought I might try how he would regard the
+policy of moderation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you&#8217;ll have to give up this meeting
+to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think so,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve just been talking to Sir Samuel Clithering,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and he
+thinks there&#8217;ll be bloodshed if you don&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I reckon he&#8217;s right there. We&#8217;re kind of out for that, aren&#8217;t we?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t be so pleasant,&#8221; I said, &#8220;when it&#8217;s your blood that&#8217;s shed.
+I don&#8217;t mean yours personally, I mean your friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The other side will do some of the bleeding,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Still,&#8221; I said, &#8220;in the end they&#8217;ll win.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t bet too heavy on that,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to say that you think that a handful of north of
+Ireland farmers and mechanics can stand up against the British
+Empire?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s fixed in my mind,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;that the British lion will get
+his tail twisted a bit before he&#8217;s through with this business. I don&#8217;t
+say that he won&#8217;t make good in the end. Nobody but God Almighty can
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>tell this minute whether he will or not; but he&#8217;ll be considerable
+less frisky when he&#8217;s finished than he is to-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; I said, &#8220;even supposing you clear the streets of the soldiers
+and police to-morrow&mdash;I do not see how you can; but if you do the
+Government will simply anchor a battleship off Carrickfergus and shell
+the whole town into a heap of ruins.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m calculating on their trying that,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>That was all I could get out of Conroy. I left him, feeling uneasily
+that his vote would certainly go against Clithering&#8217;s compromise. His
+confidence in the fighting powers of the raw men whom Bob and others
+had taken to church with them struck me as absurd. His cool assumption
+of power to deal with the British fleet was arrogance run mad.</p>
+
+<p>On my way back to my hotel I ran into a congregation which had just
+got out of some church or other. In the first rank&mdash;they were marching
+in very fair order&mdash;was Crossan. He saluted me and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m thinking,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that you won&#8217;t have seen them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a small group of men who were bringing up the rear of
+the congregation&#8217;s march. They were dragging a heavy object along with
+two large ropes. I recognized the leader of them at once. He was
+Cahoon&#8217;s foreman friend, McConkey. I was pleased to find that he
+recognized me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have her safe,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Would you like to take a look at her?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did. She was a machine gun of a kind quite unknown to me; but her
+appearance was very murderous. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>McConkey led me up to her. He stroked
+her black side lovingly and patted her in various places.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was trying her yesterday,&#8221; he said, &#8220;down on the slob land under
+the Shore Road. Man o&#8217; man, but she shoots bonny!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had no doubt of it. She was likely to be accountable for a good deal
+of bloodshed if there was any street fighting next day. The record of
+her bag would, I should think, haunt Sir Samuel Clithering for the
+rest of his life.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve a matter of five thousand cartridges,&#8221; said McConkey in a hoarse
+whisper, &#8220;and there&#8217;s another five thousand ordered.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">T</span>he committee met at three o&#8217;clock in the afternoon. Sir Samuel
+Clithering was not, of course, a member of it; but he lurked about
+outside and waylaid us as we went in. He was in a condition of pitiful
+bewilderment. Alice whose adventures in Wonderland have been very dear
+to me since I first read them aloud to Marion, was once placed in a
+difficult and awkward position by the kings, queens and knaves of the
+pack of cards with which she was playing coming to life. This was
+sufficiently embarrassing. But Clithering was much worse off than
+Alice. In her story all the cards came to life, and though the
+unexpectedness of their behaviour made things difficult for her there
+was a certain consistency about the whole business. A card player
+might in time adjust himself to a game played with cards which
+possessed wills of their own. But poor Clithering had to play with a
+pack in which one suit only, and it not even the trump suit, suddenly
+insisted that the game was a reality. The other three suits, the
+Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Irish Nationalists still behaved
+in the normal way, falling pleasantly on top of each other, and
+winning or losing tricks as the rules of the game demanded. The Ulster
+party alone&mdash;Clubs, we may call them&mdash;would not play fairly. They
+jumped out of the player&#8217;s hand and obstinately declared that the
+green cloth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>was a real battlefield. The higher court cards of the
+suit&mdash;Lady Moyne for instance, and Babberly&mdash;Clithering felt himself
+able to control. It was the knaves&mdash;I am sure he looked on McNeice as
+a knave&mdash;the tens, the sevens and the humble twos which behaved
+outrageously.</p>
+
+<p>And Clithering was not the only player who was perplexed. I had been
+to luncheon with the Moynes. Babberly was there of course. So was
+Malcolmson. Clithering sat next but one to Lady Moyne. Malcolmson was
+between them. It was a curious alliance. The emissary of the
+Government, which had passed measures which all good aristocrats
+disliked intensely, joined hands for the moment with the lady whose
+skill as a political hostess had frequently been troublesome to
+Clithering&#8217;s friends. I do not suppose that such an alliance could
+possibly last long. Those whom misfortune, according to the old
+proverb, forces into bed together, always struggle out again at
+opposite sides when the clouds cease to be threatening. But while it
+lasted the alliance was firm enough. They were both bent on pressing
+the advantages of moderation on Malcolmson. They produced very little
+effect. Malcolmson is impervious to reason. He kept falling back, in
+replying to their arguments, on his original objection to Home Rule.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall never consent,&#8221; he said, &#8220;to be governed by a pack of
+blackguards in Dublin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was really a very good answer, for every time he made it he drove a
+wedge into the coalition against him. Lady Moyne was bound to admit
+that all Irishmen outside Ulster are blackguards, and that the
+atmosphere of Dublin is poisonous. Clithering, on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>other hand, was
+officially committed to an unqualified admiration for everything south
+of the Boyne. I do not think that Malcolmson appreciated his dialectic
+advantage. His mind was running on big guns rather than arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne squeezed my hand as we parted after luncheon, and I think I
+am not exaggerating in saying that there were tears in her eyes. She
+succeeded at all events in giving me the impression that her future
+happiness depended very largely on me. I determined, as I had
+determined several times before, to be true to the most charming lady
+of my acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne took the chair at our meeting. Next him sat Babberly. Cahoon,
+McNeice and Malcolmson sat together at the bottom of the table. I was
+given a chair on Moyne&#8217;s other side. Conroy would not sit at the table
+at all. He had two chairs in a corner of the room. He sat on one of
+them and put his legs on the other. He also smoked a cigar, which I
+think everybody regarded as bad form. But nobody liked to protest,
+because nobody, except me and McNeice, knew which side Conroy was
+going to take in the controversy before us. Babberly, I feel sure,
+would have objected to the cigar if he had thought that Conroy
+favoured extreme defiance of the Government. Malcolmson, like many
+military men, is a great stickler for etiquette. He would have snubbed
+the cigar if he thought Conroy was inclined to moderation. As things
+were, we all warmly invited Conroy to desert his private encampment
+and join us round the table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I guess I&#8217;m here as an onlooker,&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;You gentlemen can
+settle things nicely without me, till it comes to writing cheques.
+Then I chip in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p><p>Moyne murmured a compliment about Conroy&#8217;s extreme generosity in the
+past, and Babberly said that further calls on our purses were, for the
+present, unnecessary. Then we all forgot about Conroy. The Dean sat
+half way down the table on my side. There was also present a Member of
+Parliament, a man who had sat by Babberly&#8217;s side in the House of
+Commons all through the dreary months of June, July and August,
+supporting consistently every move he made towards wrecking the Home
+Rule Bill. There ought to have been several others of the moderate
+party at the meeting. Their letters of apology were read to us. They
+all had urgent business either in England or Scotland, which prevented
+their being in Belfast. I do not think their absence made much
+difference in the result of our deliberations. We had got beyond the
+stage at which votes matter much.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne was pitifully nervous. He stated our position very fairly. It
+was, he said, a hateful thing to have to give in to the Government. He
+did not like doing it. On the other hand he did not like to take the
+responsibility of urging the people of Belfast to commit a breach of
+the peace. Lives, he said, would certainly be lost if we attempted to
+hold our meeting in the face of the force of armed men which the
+Government had collected in our streets. He would feel himself guilty
+of something little short of murder if he did not advise the
+acceptance of the compromise offered by Clithering. It was, after all,
+a fair, more than a fair compromise. Nothing would be lost by
+postponing the meeting for a week.</p>
+
+<p>It was rather a feeble speech. Nobody offered any interruption, but
+nobody expressed any approval of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>what he said. When he sat down
+Babberly rose at once.</p>
+
+<p>Now Babberly is no fool. He knows that florid orations are out of
+place at committee meetings. He did not treat us to any oratory. He
+gave us tersely and forcibly several excellent reasons for postponing
+our demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Government,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is weakening. Its offer of a compromise
+shows that it is beginning at last to feel the full force of the
+Ulster objection to Home Rule.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here McNeice interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If that&#8217;s so,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we must make our objection more unmistakably
+obvious than before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite so,&#8221; said Babberly; &#8220;but how? Is it&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By fighting them,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If by fighting them,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;you mean asking the unarmed
+citizens of Belfast to stand up against rifles&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Unarmed?&#8221; The word came from Conroy in his corner. Every one was
+startled. We had not expected Conroy to take any part in the
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Undrilled, undisciplined,&#8221; said Babberly. &#8220;What can be the result of
+such a conflict as you suggest? Our people, the men who have trusted
+us, will be mowed down. We shall place ourselves hopelessly in the
+wrong. We shall alienate the sympathies of our friends in England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A large crowd had gathered in the street outside the windows of the
+room in which we were sitting. I suppose that the men found waiting a
+tiresome business. By way of passing the time they began to sing &#8220;O
+God, our help in ages past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;It is of the utmost importance to us,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;to retain the
+sympathies of the English constituencies. Any illegal violence on our
+part&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You should have thought of that before you told the English people
+that we meant to fight,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you follow my advice to-day,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;there will be no
+necessity for fighting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The hymn outside gathered volume. It seemed to me that thousands of
+voices were joining in the singing of it. It became exceedingly
+difficult to hear what Babberly was saying. I leaned forward and
+caught his next few sentences.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By keeping within the limits of constitutional action at this crisis
+we shall demonstrate that we are, what we have always boasted
+ourselves, the party of law and order. We shall win a bloodless
+victory. We shall convince the Government that we possess self-control
+as well as determination.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then the noise of the singing outside became so great that it was
+impossible to hear Babberly at all. McNeice tilted his chair back and
+began to hum the tune. Malcolmson beat time to the singing with his
+forefingers. Their action seemed to me to be intentionally insulting
+to Babberly. The crowd outside reached the end of a verse and there
+was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Damn that hymn!&#8221; said Babberly.</p>
+
+<p>This roused the Dean. It would have roused any dean with a particle of
+spirit in him. After all, a high ecclesiastic cannot sit still and
+listen to profane condemnation of one of the Psalms of David, even if
+it has undergone versification at the hands of Dr. Watts. The conduct
+of McNeice and Malcolmson was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>offensive and provocative. The noise
+made by the crowd was maddening. There is every excuse for Babberly&#8217;s
+sudden loss of temper. But the Dean&#8217;s anger was more than excusable.
+It was justified. He sprang to his feet, and I knew at once that he
+was very angry indeed. I could see a broad white rim all round the
+irises of his eyes, and a pulse in his temples was throbbing visibly.
+I recognized the symptoms. I had seen them once before at a vestry
+meeting when some ill-conditioned parishioner said that the Dean&#8217;s
+curate was converting to his own uses the profits of the parish
+magazine. The periodical, as appeared later on, was actually run at a
+loss, and the curate had been seven-and-ninepence out of pocket the
+previous year.</p>
+
+<p>The Dean said something to Babberly, but the crowd had begun the
+fourth verse of the hymn, and we could not hear what he said. I got up
+and shut both windows. The atmosphere of our committee-room was hot,
+and likely to become hotter; but it is better to do business in a
+Turkish bath than not to do it at all. There was plainly no use our
+talking to each other unless we were able to hear. My action gave
+Babberly time to regain his temper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I apologize,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I apologize to all of you, and especially to
+you, Mr. Dean, for an intemperate and uncalled-for exclamation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Dean sat down. The pulse in his forehead was still throbbing, but
+the irises of his eyes ceased to look like bulls&#8217; eyes in the middle
+of targets.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have been a consistent supporter of the Union,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;for
+twenty years. In season and out of season I have upheld the cause we
+have at heart on English platforms and in the House of Commons. I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>know better than you do, gentlemen, what the temper of the English
+people is. I know that we shall sacrifice their friendship and
+alienate their sympathy if we resort to the argument of lawlessness
+and violence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the only argument they ever listen to,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;Look at
+the Nationalists. What arguments did they use?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;are you going to ask Ulstermen to fire on
+the King&#8217;s troops?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I reckon,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;that we mean to use our guns now we&#8217;ve got
+them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Babberly made a curious gesture with his hands. He flung them out from
+him with the palms upwards and then sat down. McNeice rose next.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For the last two years,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we&#8217;ve been boasting that we meant
+to resist Home Rule with force if necessary. That&#8217;s so, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson growled an assent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;English politicians and Irish rebels said we were bluffing. Our own
+people&mdash;the men outside there in the street&mdash;thought we were in
+earnest. The English went on with their Bill. Our people drilled and
+got rifles. Which of the two was right about us? Were we bluffing or
+were we in earnest? We&#8217;ve got to answer that question to-morrow, and
+we&#8217;ll never get another chance. If we don&#8217;t fight now, we&#8217;ll never
+fight, for there won&#8217;t be a man left in Ulster that will believe in us
+again. I don&#8217;t know that there&#8217;s any more to be said. I propose that
+Lord Moyne puts the question to the meeting and takes a vote.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then Cahoon rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Before you do that, my lord,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;d like to say a word. I&#8217;m a
+business man. I&#8217;ve as much at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>stake as any one in this room. My
+fortune, gentlemen, is in bricks and mortar, in machinery and plant
+not ten miles from this city. I&#8217;ve thought this matter out, and I came
+to a conclusion years ago. Home Rule won&#8217;t do for Belfast, and Belfast
+isn&#8217;t going to have it. If I saw any way of stopping it but the one
+I&#8217;d take it. There are thousands, yes, gentlemen, thousands of men,
+women, and children depending on my business for their living. Home
+Rule means ruining it and starving them. I don&#8217;t like fighting, but,
+by God, I&#8217;ll fight before I submit to Home Rule.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lord Moyne looked slowly round the room. His face was quite pale. It
+seemed to me that his eyes had grown larger. They had a look of terror
+in them. His hands trembled among the papers in front of him. He saw
+at once what the result of a vote would be. He looked at me. I shook
+my head. It was quite plain that nothing I could say would influence
+the meeting in the least.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;are we to attempt to hold our meeting
+to-morrow? Those who are in favour of doing so say &#8216;Aye.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Cahoon, McNeice, Malcolmson, the Dean and Conroy voted &#8220;aye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The &#8216;ayes&#8217; have it,&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Before we part,&#8221; said Babberly, &#8220;I wish to say that I leave Belfast
+to-night&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Malcolmson muttered something. Babberly held up his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You are wrong. I&#8217;m not afraid. I&#8217;m not taking care of
+my own skin. But I have lived a loyal man and I mean to die a loyal
+man. I decline to take part in the rebellion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p><p>I have heard Babberly speak on various occasions and admired his
+eloquence. This time I recognized his sincerity. He was speaking the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall go back to England,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and, of this you may rest
+assured, that I shall do what can be done in Parliament and elsewhere
+to save you and the men whom I must call your victims from the
+consequences of to-day&#8217;s madness and to-morrow&#8217;s crime.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He left the room. The five men who had voted &#8220;Aye&#8221; were gathered in a
+knot talking eagerly. I took Moyne&#8217;s arm and we went out together.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Her ladyship must be got away,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And your daughter, Kilmore.
+She&#8217;s here, isn&#8217;t she? This town will be no place for women to-morrow.
+Luckily I have the car. You&#8217;ll take them, won&#8217;t you? Castle Affey will
+be the best place for the present.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are you going to do yourself?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through the door and down the flight of steps to the street.
+The crowd outside caught sight of us at once. Some one shouted aloud.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;More traitors!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The news of the result of the meeting and the part we took in it had
+somehow reached the people already. An angry roar went up from the
+crowd. Those who were nearest to us cursed us. A police-officer with
+eight men forced a way through the crowd. At a word from their officer
+the men drew their batons and stood in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think, my lord,&#8221; said the officer to Moyne, &#8220;that you&#8217;d better go
+back. We had the greatest difficulty in getting Mr. Babberly through,
+and the crowd is angrier now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going on,&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I cannot be responsible,&#8221; said the officer. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t enough men to
+control this crowd. If you go on&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne pushed his way through the cordon of police. I followed him. At
+first the people drew back a little and let us pass into the middle of
+the crowd. Then one man after another began to hustle us. Moyne linked
+his arm in mine and helped me along. A man struck him in the face with
+the flat of his hand. It was a sharp slap rather than an actual blow.
+Moyne flushed deeply, but he neither spoke nor struck back. Then
+suddenly the people seemed to forget all about us. A wild cheer burst
+from them. Hats were flung into the air. Sticks were waved. Some one
+began firing shots from a revolver in rapid succession. It was a
+fusillade of joy, a kind of salute to McNeice who appeared at the
+window of the committee-room. Moyne and I pushed our way on. When we
+were clear of the crowd Moyne spoke to me again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better take them at once,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s impossible to know
+what&#8217;ll happen here to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you?&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I shall stay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be a fool, Moyne,&#8221; I said. &#8220;You&#8217;re the one of all others who
+ought not to stay. Don&#8217;t you see that whatever way things go you&#8217;re in
+for it? The mob thinks you&#8217;re a traitor. I wouldn&#8217;t trust those
+fellows we&#8217;ve just left not to kill you. And when the soldiers have
+shot them down and the subsequent investigation begins, the Government
+is bound to fix on you as a ringleader. There&#8217;ll be panic to-morrow
+and savage vindictiveness the next day. McNeice and Malcolmson will
+frighten the Government and the Government will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>have you hanged or
+beheaded afterwards for causing the trouble. The English people will
+clamour for a victim, and you&#8217;re exactly the sort of victim they&#8217;ll
+like. Your one chance is to get out of this. Go to Castle Affey
+to-night, and telegraph to <i>The Times</i> to-morrow to say that you
+dissociate yourself&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne stopped me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Kilmore,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve heard all you have to say, and I
+agree with it, more or less. I don&#8217;t suppose I&#8217;ll be either murdered
+by the mob or shot by the military, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if you stay here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Even if I am,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll have to stay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In the name of goodness, why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know the way we&#8217;ve been talking for the last two years&mdash;our side,
+I mean.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I knew the way Babberly had been talking. I knew the way Lady Moyne
+had goaded him and others to talk, but poor Moyne hardly ever talked
+at all. All he ever wanted was to be left alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I can&#8217;t exactly go back on them now when they&#8217;re doing what we
+said they ought to do. I&#8217;ve got to see the thing through. After all
+it&#8217;s my fault that those poor fellows are in this horrible mess.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He glanced back as he spoke. He was thinking of the angry crowd we had
+left behind us.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you&#8217;ll take care of the ladies,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Run them down to Castle
+Affey and make yourself as comfortable as you can. They won&#8217;t be
+expecting you, but they&#8217;ll manage some sort of dinner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;m staying on in Belfast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why should you? You&#8217;ve no responsibility. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>You&#8217;ve never taken any
+part in our&mdash;It&#8217;s very good of you to think of staying. It really is.
+And I appreciate the spirit in which&mdash;But&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For goodness&#8217; sake, Moyne,&#8221; I said, &#8220;don&#8217;t give me credit for any
+kind of heroism. That <i>noblesse oblige</i> attitude of yours doesn&#8217;t suit
+me a bit. It isn&#8217;t in my line.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But hang it all, Kilmore, you can&#8217;t be staying here for the fun of
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve often told you,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that I&#8217;m writing a history of the
+Irish Rebellions. I naturally want to see one, and there isn&#8217;t likely
+to be another in my time. That&#8217;s my only reason for staying in
+Belfast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We found Lady Moyne waiting for us when we reached the hotel. She was
+wearing a long cloak, and had a motor-veil tied over her head. She was
+evidently prepared to start at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve ordered the car,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It ought to be round now. Marion&#8217;s
+coming with me, Lord Kilmore. I think she&#8217;d be better out of Belfast
+for the next few days.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The news of the decision of our committee seemed to have spread with
+quite unexampled rapidity. We came straight from the meeting, and we
+found that Lady Moyne had already recognized the necessity for flight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re going,&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;and I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re taking
+Marion with you. But how did you know? Who told you what&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That young man who&#8217;s Mr. Conroy&#8217;s secretary,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;I
+forget his name.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bob Power,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He came in to see Marion, and he told us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob must have known beforehand what the committee&#8217;s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>decision was to
+be. I realized that Conroy must have had the whole plan cut and dried;
+that the meeting at which Moyne presided was simply a farce. However,
+there was nothing to be gained by discussing that.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that Moyne ought to go with you. I don&#8217;t think
+Belfast is particularly safe for him just now; and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Moyne must stay, of course,&#8221; said Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;ll be trouble afterwards,&#8221; I said. &#8220;He ought not to be mixed up
+in it. If he clears out at once&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne looked at me with an expression of wonder on her face. Her
+eyes opened very wide.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you don&#8217;t expect him to run away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course not,&#8221; said Moyne; &#8220;of course not. And there&#8217;s really no
+risk. I&#8217;ll&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s not the kind of people we are,&#8221; said Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll join you at Castle Affey in a couple of days,&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Castle Affey,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to Castle Affey. I&#8217;m
+going to London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What for?&#8221; I said. &#8220;And how are you going to get there? There are no
+steamers on Sunday night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m taking possession of Mr. Conroy&#8217;s yacht,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;She&#8217;s
+lying off Bangor, and that young man, Mr. Power, said we could have
+her. We&#8217;ll get across to Stranraer this evening, and I&#8217;ll have a
+special train and be in London to-morrow morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;London!&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;But why London? Surely Castle Affey&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I must see the Prime Minister early to-morrow. He must be
+persuaded&mdash;he must be forced if necessary&mdash;to telegraph orders to
+Belfast. Don&#8217;t you realize? I don&#8217;t blame you, I don&#8217;t blame either of
+you for the failure of your meeting this afternoon. I&#8217;m sure you did
+your best. But&mdash;but what will happen here to-morrow? We can&#8217;t leave
+the people to be shot down like dogs. After all, they&#8217;re <i>our</i>
+people.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what can you do?&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;The Prime Minister won&#8217;t see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If necessary I shall force him,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;He shall see me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne is, as I have always said, a remarkable woman. Many members
+of her sex have been trying for years to force their way into the
+presence of the Prime Minister. They have hitherto failed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am afraid,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that Marion won&#8217;t be much use to you if you&#8217;re
+going to come into collision with the police in any way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope I shan&#8217;t be reduced to those methods,&#8221; she said; &#8220;but if I am
+I shall leave Marion at home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I had not the slightest doubt that Lady Moyne would succeed in seeing
+the Prime Minister. He has probably sense enough to know that though
+he may resist other women successfully, he cannot possibly make head
+against her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If there is no rioting here to-night,&#8221; said Lady Moyne, &#8220;I shall be
+in time. That young man, Mr. Power, seemed to think that everything
+would be quiet until to-morrow. I hope he&#8217;s right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s sure to be,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Conroy is running the revolution and
+settles exactly what is to happen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;He was very confident,&#8221; said Lady Moyne. &#8220;Ah! here&#8217;s Marion. Now we
+can start. Good-bye, Lord Kilmore. Do your best here. I&#8217;ll make the
+best arrangement I can with the Prime Minister.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">M</span>oyne and I dined together in the hotel. We should have got a better
+dinner at the club, and I wanted to go there. But Moyne was afraid of
+the other men&#8217;s talk. It was likely that there would be some very
+eager talk at the club; and Moyne, whose name still figured on
+placards as chairman of next day&#8217;s meeting would have been a butt for
+every kind of anxious inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>We did not altogether escape talk by staying in the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were sitting down to dinner I was told that Bob Power
+wished to see me. Moyne wanted me to send him away; but I could not
+well refuse an interview to the man who was to be my son-in-law. I
+gave that as my excuse to Moyne. In reality I was filled with
+curiosity, and wanted to hear what Bob would say to us. I told the
+waiter to show him in. He carried no visible weapon of any kind, but
+he was wearing a light blue scarf round his left arm. I suppose I
+stared at it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Our nearest approach to a uniform,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Something of the sort
+was necessary.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why light blue?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s a good colour, easily seen. The men are to
+wear orange, of course. I&#8217;m an officer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captain or Colonel or Knight at Arms?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;We haven&#8217;t bothered about titles,&#8221; said Bob, who did not seem to
+recognize the question. &#8220;We haven&#8217;t had time to settle details of any
+sort. In fact I haven&#8217;t much time now. I just dropped in to tell you
+that you needn&#8217;t be nervous about to-night. We have our men well under
+control, and the police ought to be able to deal with the rabble. If
+they can&#8217;t&mdash;if there&#8217;s any sign of rioting&mdash;we step in and stop it at
+once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He pulled a revolver from his coat pocket as he spoke. It gave us the
+necessary information about the way in which rioting was to be
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall be on patrol all night,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My orders&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way,&#8221; I said, &#8220;excuse my asking a stupid sort of question. But
+who gives you your orders? Who is Commander-in-Chief?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Conroy, of course. Didn&#8217;t you know? He organized the whole thing.
+Wonderful head Conroy has. I don&#8217;t wonder he became a millionaire. He
+has his men under perfect control. They may not look starchy when you
+see them in the streets, but they&#8217;ll do what they&#8217;re told. I thought
+you and Lord Moyne would be glad to know, so I dropped in to tell you.
+I must be off now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He got as far as the door and then turned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marion and Lady Moyne got away all right,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I saw them off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he left us.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s good news as far as it goes,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;I&#8217;m not at all sure. If there had been a
+riot to-night, the ordinary sort of riot&mdash;but I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s very
+hard to know what to hope for.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p><p>If there had been an ordinary riot that night, and if it had been
+sternly and promptly suppressed, there would perhaps have been no
+battle next day. If, on the other hand, Conroy and Bob and the others
+could keep their men under control, if they could secure the peace of
+the city for the night, then the fighting next day was likely to be
+serious. As Moyne said, it was very hard to know what to hope for.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter brought in our fish, and with it a message from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. He wanted to see Moyne. I had had enough of Clithering for
+one day, so I made no objection when Moyne flatly refused to see him.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose a man cannot be a successful manufacturer of hosiery in the
+English midlands without possessing the quality of persistence.
+Clithering had it. He sent another message to say that his business
+was very important. Moyne said that he and his business might go to
+hell together. I hope the waiter translated this message into
+parliamentary language. Clithering is a Nonconformist, and therefore a
+man of tender conscience. I should not like him to be shocked.</p>
+
+<p>The hotel cook was doing his best for us. He sent us up an <i>entr&eacute;e</i>.
+With it came a note from Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sending a telegram to the Prime Minister describing the condition
+of affairs here. May I say that you have refused to preside at the
+meeting to-morrow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne showed me the note. Then he scribbled an answer on the back of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may tell the Prime Minister that if a meeting is held I shall
+preside. The announcements made in the papers and posters stand good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think that&#8217;s wise?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s right,&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>It is a great pity that right things very seldom are wise. I have
+hardly ever met anything which could possibly be called prudent which
+was not also either mean or actually wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Our next interruption was due to a newspaper reporter. He represented
+several papers, among others one in New York. He had the names of all
+of them printed on his card, but they did not impress Moyne. Our
+waiter, who was beginning to swell with a sense of his own importance,
+drove off that newspaper reporter. Three others, all of them
+representing papers of high standing, sent in their cards in quick
+succession. Moyne laid a sovereign on the table and told the waiter
+that he could have it as a tip on condition that no one got into the
+room while we were at dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter got the sovereign in the end; but he did not deserve it.
+While we were drinking our coffee a young man overwhelmed our waiter
+and forced his way into the room. There were two doors in our room,
+which is one of what is called a suite. As the young man entered by
+one, Moyne, leaving his coffee and his sovereign behind him, left by
+the other. He shut it with a slam and locked it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord Moyne, I presume?&#8221; said the young man.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord Moyne,&#8221; I said, &#8220;has just left.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I ask,&#8221; he said, &#8220;if I have the honour of addressing Mr.
+McNeice?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I explained that I was not McNeice. Then, in order to get him to go
+away, if possible, I added that I was not Malcolmson, or Cahoon, or
+Conroy, or the Dean.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ll pardon my curiosity,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I should like to ask&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>I saw that I should be obliged to tell him who I was in the end. I
+told him at once, adding that I was a person of no importance
+whatever, and that I had no views of any kind on what he would no
+doubt want to call &#8220;the situation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I ask you one question?&#8221; he said. &#8220;Is Lord Moyne going to take
+the chair to-morrow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I said, &#8220;he is. But if you&#8217;re going to print what I say in any
+paper I won&#8217;t speak another word.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As a matter of fact,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the wires are blocked. There&#8217;s a man
+in the post office writing as hard as he can and handing one sheet
+after another across the counter as quick as he can write them. Nobody
+else can send anything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Clithering, I expect.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very likely. Seems to fancy himself a bit, whoever he is. Nobody else
+can get a message through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He seemed an agreeable young man. Moyne had probably gone to bed and I
+did not want to spend a lonely evening.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have a glass of claret,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and poured himself off half a tumbler-full. Then it struck
+him that he owed me some return for my hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My name,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is Bland. I was with Roberts&#8217; column in the
+Orange Free State.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; I said. &#8220;A war correspondent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did the Greek War, too,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A poor affair, very. Looks to me
+as if you were going to do better here. But it&#8217;s a curious situation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and most unpleasant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;From my point of view,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;it&#8217;s most interesting. The usual
+thing is for one army to clear <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>out of a town before the other comes
+in or else to surrender after a regular siege. But here&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that our proceedings are frightfully
+irregular.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None the worse for that,&#8221; said Bland kindly. &#8220;But they <i>are</i> a bit
+peculiar. I&#8217;ve read up quite a lot of military history and I don&#8217;t
+recollect a single case in which two hostile armies patrolled the
+streets of the same city without firing a shot at one another. By the
+way, have you been out?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not since this afternoon,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be quite worth your while to take a stroll round,&#8221; said
+Bland. &#8220;There&#8217;s not the slightest risk and you may never have a chance
+of seeing anything like it again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I quite agreed with Bland. The odds are, I suppose, thousands to one
+against my ever again seeing two hostile armies walking up and down
+opposite sides of the street. I got my hat and we went out together.</p>
+
+<p>We were almost immediately stopped by a body of lancers. Their leader
+asked us who we were and where we were going.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Press correspondents,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;on our way to the telegraph
+office.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This impressed the officer. He allowed us to go on without ordering
+his men to impale us. I was glad of this. I am not particularly afraid
+of being killed, but I would rather meet my end by a sword cut or a
+bullet than by a lance. I should feel like a wild pig if a lancer
+speared me. No one could die with dignity and self-respect if he felt
+like a wild pig while he was passing away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In ordinary wars,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;the best thing to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>say is that you
+are a doctor attached to the Ambulance Corps. But that&#8217;s no use here.
+These fellows don&#8217;t want doctors!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then we met a party of volunteers. They stopped us too, and challenged
+us very sternly. Bland gave his answer. This time it did not prove
+wholly satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Protestant or Papist?&#8221; said the officer in command.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Neither,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;I&#8217;m a high caste Brahmin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately I recognized the officer&#8217;s voice. It was Crossan who
+commanded this particular regiment. It never was safe, even in the
+quietest times, to be flippant with Crossan. On a night like that and
+under the existing circumstances, Bland might very well have been
+knocked on the head for his joke if I had not come to his rescue.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Crossan,&#8221; I said, &#8220;don&#8217;t make a fuss. Mr. Bland and I are simply
+taking a walk round the streets.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If he&#8217;s a Papist,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;he&#8217;ll have to go home to his bed.
+Them&#8217;s my orders. We don&#8217;t want rioting in the streets to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is your religion?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Haven&#8217;t any,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t believed any doctrine taught by any
+Church since I was six years old. Will that satisfy you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was afeard,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;that you might be a Papist. You can go
+on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This shows, I think, that the charges of bigotry and intolerance
+brought against our Northern Protestants are quite unfounded. Crossan
+had no wish to persecute even a professed atheist.</p>
+
+<p>We did not go very far though we were out for nearly two hours. The
+streets were filled with armed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>men and everybody we met challenged
+us. The police were the hardest to get rid of. They were no doubt
+soured by the treatment they received in Belfast. Accustomed to be
+regarded with awe by rural malefactors and denounced in flaming
+periods, of a kind highly gratifying to their self-importance, by
+political leaders, they could not understand a people who did not
+mention them in speeches but threatened their lives with paving
+stones. This had been their previous experience of Belfast and they
+were naturally suspicious of any stray wayfarers whom they met. They
+were not impressed when Bland said he was a newspaper reporter. They
+did not seem to care whether he believed or disbelieved the Apostles&#8217;
+Creed. One party of them actually arrested us and only a ready lie of
+Bland&#8217;s saved us from spending an uncomfortable night. He said, to my
+absolute amazement, that we were officials of an exalted kind, sent
+down by the Local Government Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the
+condition of Belfast. This struck me at the time as an outrageously
+silly story, but it was really a rather good one to tell. The Irish
+police are accustomed to sworn inquiries as one of the last resorts of
+harassed Governments. It seemed to the sergeant quite natural that
+somebody should be in Belfast to hold one.</p>
+
+<p>We came across McConkey with his machine gun at a street corner. He
+had got a new crew to pull it along. I suppose the first men were
+utterly exhausted. But McConkey himself was quite fresh. Enthusiasm
+for the weapon on which he had spent the savings of a lifetime kept
+him from fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>The experience was immensely interesting; but I began to get tired
+after a time. The necessity for explaining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>what we were&mdash;or rather
+what we were not&mdash;at the end of every fifty yards, began to make me
+nervous. Bland&#8217;s spirits kept up, but Bland is a war correspondent and
+accustomed to being harried by military authorities. I am not. It was
+a comfort to me when we ran into Bob Power&#8217;s regiment outside the
+Ulster Hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bob,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I want to get back to my hotel. I wish you&#8217;d see me
+safe, chaperone me, convoy me, or whatever you call the thing I want
+you to do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bland tugged at my sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get him to take me to the post-office,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll have another
+go at getting a telegram through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bob,&#8221; I said, &#8220;this is my friend Mr. Bland. He&#8217;s a war correspondent
+and he wants to get to the post-office.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>My return to the hotel was simple enough. The police kept out of the
+way of Bob&#8217;s men. The other soldiers let him and his regiment pass
+without challenge. Bland, faithful to his professional duties, poured
+out questions as we went along.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How&#8217;s it managed?&#8221; he said. &#8220;Why aren&#8217;t you at each other&#8217;s throats?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So far as we&#8217;re concerned,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;there&#8217;s nothing to fight
+about. We don&#8217;t object to the soldiers or the police. We&#8217;re loyal
+men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, are you?&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Unless our meeting&#8217;s interrupted to-morrow,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That explains your position all right,&#8221; said Bland. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t
+quite understand the others. I should have thought&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The soldiers,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;have strict orders not to provoke a
+conflict. I met Henderson just now and he told me so. You remember
+Henderson, Lord Kilmore? The man I was talking to at the railway
+station. He&#8217;d only had two water biscuits to eat all day yesterday.
+When I met him just now he told me he&#8217;d had nothing since breakfast
+to-day but one bit of butterscotch. He said he wished we&#8217;d fight at
+once if we were going to fight and get it over.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the police&mdash;&#8221; said Bland, still trying to get information. &#8220;I
+should have thought the police&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They tried to arrest us,&#8221; I said. &#8220;In fact they did arrest us but
+they let us go again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say they&#8217;d like to arrest us,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;but you see we&#8217;ve
+all got guns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;and the ordinary inhabitants of the city&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re in bed,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;and we&#8217;ve all agreed that they&#8217;d better
+stay there. Nobody wants a riot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thanks,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;If I can get my wire through I&#8217;ll let the world
+know the exact position of affairs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you are wiring,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;you might like to mention that there
+was jolly nearly being a fight at the gasworks. The military people
+got it into their heads that we intended to turn off the gas and
+plunge the town into darkness so as to be able to murder people
+without being caught. They took possession of the works and put a
+party of Royal Engineers in charge. Fairly silly idea! But some fool
+on our side&mdash;a fellow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>who&#8217;s been dragging a quick-firing gun about
+the streets all day&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;McConkey,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I know him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t hear his name,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;but he got it into his head that
+the Royal Engineers were going to turn off the gas so that the
+soldiers could make short work of us. He wanted to wipe out those
+engineers with his gun. I don&#8217;t suppose he&#8217;d have hit them, but he&#8217;d
+certainly have tried if some one hadn&#8217;t run and fetched Conroy. He
+settled the matter at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;This story will be a scoop for me. I don&#8217;t expect
+any one else knows it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He handed the gasworks over to the police,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But did that satisfy any one?&#8221; I asked. &#8220;I should have thought that
+both the original parties would have fallen upon the police.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;The police are so much the weakest party in
+the town that it&#8217;s plainly to their interest to keep the gas burning.
+Even the man with the machine gun saw that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I found Moyne waiting for me when I got back to the hotel. He was very
+depressed and took no more than a mere sip of the whisky and soda
+which I ordered for him. I made an effort to cheer him a little before
+I went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that there&#8217;ll be a battle to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sure there will. What&#8217;s to stop it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that everybody will be too exhausted to fight.
+McConkey, for instance, is still hauling that field gun of his about
+the streets. He simply won&#8217;t have strength enough left to-morrow to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>shoot it off. All the soldiers and all the volunteers are marching up
+and down. They mean to keep it up all night. I should say that you and
+I and three or four other sensible people who have gone to bed will
+have the town entirely to ourselves to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne smiled feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish it was all well over,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I hope the Prime Minister
+won&#8217;t be disagreeable to&mdash;. It would have been better, much better, if
+she&#8217;d gone to Castle Affey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t be a bit afraid of that,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be
+disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left
+Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would
+certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;He may hold her responsible to some
+extent. And she is, you know. That&#8217;s the worst of it, she is. We all
+are.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, but we are,&#8221; said Moyne. &#8220;I feel that. I wish to goodness we&#8217;d
+never&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I mean is that the Prime Minister won&#8217;t hold her responsible.
+After all, Moyne, he&#8217;s a politician himself. He&#8217;ll understand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we said&mdash;we kept on saying&mdash;Babberly and all of us&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne was becoming morbid.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be a fool,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Of course we said things. Everybody does.
+But we never intended to do them. Any one accustomed to politics will
+understand that. I expect the Prime Minister will be particularly
+civil to Lady Moyne. He&#8217;ll see the hole she&#8217;s in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> went down to the club next morning at about half-past ten o&#8217;clock,
+hoping to see Conroy. He, so I thought, might be able to tell me what
+was likely to happen during the day. Moyne could tell me nothing. I
+left him in the hotel, desperately determined to take the chair at any
+meeting that might be held; but very doubtful about how he was to do
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The streets were much less obviously martial than they had been the
+night before. There were no soldiers to be seen. There were only a
+very few volunteers, and they did not seem to be doing anything
+particular. The police&mdash;there were not even many of them&mdash;looked quite
+peaceable, as if they had no more terrific duties to perform than the
+regulation of traffic and the arrest of errant drunkards. I began to
+think that I had accidentally told Moyne the truth the night before.
+All our warriors seemed to be in bed, exhausted by their marching and
+counter-marching. I did not even see McConkey with his machine gun.
+This disappointed me. I thought McConkey was a man of more grit. One
+night&#8217;s work ought not to have tired him out.</p>
+
+<p>Clithering was in the club. He, at all events, was still active. Very
+likely he was caught the night before by some patrolling party and
+forced to go to bed. Unless he happened to be carrying some sort of
+certificate of his religious faith in his pocket, Crossan would almost
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>certainly have put him to bed. The moment he saw me he came fussing
+up to me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very glad to be able to tell you,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that the troops are
+to be kept in barracks to-day unless they are urgently required. I&#8217;m
+sure you&#8217;ll agree with me that&#8217;s a good plan.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It depends,&#8221; I said, &#8220;on the point of view you take. It won&#8217;t be at
+all a good plan for the police if there&#8217;s any fighting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I telegraphed to the Prime Minister last night,&#8221; said Clithering; &#8220;I
+sent a long, detailed message&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I heard about that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;from one of the war correspondents, a
+man called Bland. You rather blocked the wires, and he couldn&#8217;t get
+his messages through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was of the utmost possible importance,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;that the
+Prime Minister should thoroughly understand the situation. Our
+original idea was that the appearance of large bodies of troops in the
+streets would overawe&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They weren&#8217;t overawing any one,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So I saw. So I saw yesterday afternoon. I telegraphed at once. I gave
+it as my opinion that the troops, so far from overawing, were
+exasperating the populace. I suggested&mdash;I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll agree with me
+that the suggestion was wise&mdash;in fact I urged very strongly that the
+troops should be kept out of sight to-day&mdash;under arms and ready for
+emergencies&mdash;but out of sight. I am in great hopes that the people
+will settle down quietly. Now, what do you think, Lord Kilmore?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll be quite quiet,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if you let them hold their
+meeting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Oh, but that&#8217;s impossible,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I quite agree with the
+Prime Minister there. Any sign of weakness on the part of the
+Government at the present crisis would be fatal, absolutely fatal. The
+Belfast people must understand that they cannot be allowed to defy the
+law.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you&#8217;d better trot out your soldiers again, all you&#8217;ve got.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering did not seem at all pleased with this suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall rely upon the police,&#8221; he said, &#8220;to put a stop to the
+meeting. I do not anticipate that there will be any organized&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On the whole,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m very glad I&#8217;m not a policeman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;the responsible leaders of the Unionist
+party will understand the criminal folly of&mdash;You don&#8217;t anticipate&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m nothing of a prophet,&#8221; I said; &#8220;but if you ask my opinion I&#8217;d say
+that the police will be wiped out in about ten minutes. They&#8217;re a very
+fine body of men; but there aren&#8217;t nearly enough of them. If you
+really want to stop the meeting you&#8217;ll have to get out the soldiers,
+and even with them&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we want to avoid bloodshed,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;We cannot have the
+citizens of Belfast shot down by the military. Think of the
+consequences, the political consequences. A Tory Government might&mdash;but
+we! Besides, the horrible moral guilt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no affair of mine,&#8221; I said; &#8220;but I should have thought&mdash;I dare
+say I am wrong. There may be no moral guilt about killing policemen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;But they won&#8217;t be killed,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;Our one aim is to avoid
+bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re trying the police rather high,&#8221; I said. &#8220;They&#8217;ll do what you
+tell them, of course. But I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s quite fair to ask them to
+face ten times their own number of men all armed with magazine rifles
+when they have nothing but those ridiculous little carbines.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, but the police are not to have firearms,&#8221; said Clithering.
+&#8220;Strict orders have been given&mdash;batons ought to be quite sufficient.
+We must avoid all risk of bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good gracious!&#8221; I said. &#8220;Do you expect a handful of police with
+small, round sticks in their hands&mdash;Oh! go away, Clithering. You mean
+well, I dare say, but you&#8217;re absurd.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is very seldom that I lose my temper in this sudden way. I was
+sorry a moment afterwards that I had given way to my feelings. Poor
+Clithering looked deeply hurt. He turned from me with an expression of
+pained astonishment and sat down by himself in a corner. I pitied him
+so much that I made an effort to console him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say it will be all right,&#8221; I said. &#8220;The police will probably
+have sense enough to go away before they&#8217;re shot. Then the meeting
+will be held quite peaceably. I don&#8217;t know what the political
+consequences of that may be, but you&#8217;ll get off the moral guilt, and
+there&#8217;ll be no bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This ought to have cheered and consoled Clithering; but it did not. It
+made him more nervous than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must go at once,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and see the General in command.
+Everything must be&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p><p>He left the room hurriedly without finishing his sentence. This
+annoyed me. I wanted to know what everything must be.</p>
+
+<p>The reading-room of the club is on the first floor, and the window
+commands an excellent view of Donegal Place, one of the principal
+thoroughfares of Belfast. The club stands right across the eastern end
+of the street, and the traffic is diverted to right and left along
+Royal Avenue and High Street. At the far, the western end, of Donegal
+Place, stands the new City Hall, with the statute of Queen Victoria in
+front of it. There again the traffic is split at right angles. Some of
+the best shops in the town lie on either side of this street. A
+continuous stream of trams passes up and down it, to and from the
+junction, which is directly under the club windows, and is the centre
+of the whole Belfast tramway system. It is always pleasant to stand at
+the reading-room window and watch the very busy and strenuous traffic
+of this street. As a view point on that particular morning the window
+was as good as possible. Donegal Place is the chief and most obvious
+way from the northern and eastern parts of the city to the place where
+the meeting was to be held.</p>
+
+<p>Between eleven o&#8217;clock and twelve the volunteers began to appear in
+considerable numbers. I saw at once that I had been wrong in supposing
+that they meant to spend the day in bed. One company after another
+came up Royal Avenue or swung round the corner from High Street, and
+marched before my eyes along Donegal Place towards the scene of the
+meeting. Small bodies of police appeared here and there, heading in
+the same direction. Now and then a few mounted police trotted by,
+making nearly as much jangle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>as if they had been regular soldiers.
+The hour fixed for the meeting was one o&#8217;clock, but at noon the number
+of men in the street was so great that ordinary traffic was stopped. A
+long line of trams, unable to force their way along, blocked the
+centre of the thoroughfare. The drivers and conductors left them and
+went away. Crowds of women and children collected on the roofs of
+these trams and cheered the men as they marched along.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past twelve Moyne drove along in a carriage. The Dean was
+beside him, and Cahoon had a seat with his back to the horses. The
+progress of the carriage was necessarily very slow. I could not see
+Moyne&#8217;s face, but he sat in a hunched-up attitude suggestive of great
+misery. The Dean sat bolt upright, and kept taking off his hat to the
+crowd when cheers broke out. Cahoon, whose face I could see, seemed
+cheerful and confident.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the carriage, perched on a kind of bar and holding on
+tightly to the springs, was Bland. Barefooted urchins often ride in
+this way, and appear to enjoy themselves until the coachman lashes
+backwards at them with his whip. I never saw a grown man do it before,
+and I should have supposed that it would be most uncomfortable. Bland,
+however, seemed quite cheerful, and I admired the instinct which led
+him to attach himself to Moyne&#8217;s carriage. He made sure of being
+present at the outbreak of hostilities, since the meeting could
+neither be held nor stopped till Moyne arrived; and he had hit upon
+far the easiest way of getting through the crowd which thronged
+Donegal Place.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter to one Bob Power and his company <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>arrived. Instead of
+marching to the scene of the meeting Bob halted and drew his men
+across the end of the street right underneath the club windows.
+Crossan, with another company of volunteers, joined him.</p>
+
+<p>Bob and Crossan consulted together, and Bob gave an order which I
+could not hear. Two of his men laid down their rifles and ran along
+the street, one taking each side of the line of trams. They shouted to
+the people on the roofs of the trams as they passed them. The orders,
+if they were orders, were obeyed. There was a hurried stampede of
+women and children. They climbed down from the trams and ran along the
+street towards my end of it. Bob&#8217;s men opened their ranks and let them
+go through.</p>
+
+<p>One after another the shops in the streets were closed. Roller blinds
+and shutters covered the windows. A telegraph boy on a red bicycle
+rode through Bob&#8217;s lines into the empty street. He stopped and
+dismounted, evidently puzzled by the deserted appearance of the
+street. Two of the volunteers seized him and took the envelope from
+his wallet. They sent him back to the post-office. The poor boy was so
+frightened that he left his bicycle behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Bob gave an order and one of his men took the bicycle and rode off in
+the direction of the meeting. A few minutes later one of the club
+waiters brought the telegram to me. It was from Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Saw the Prime Minister this morning. He is taking all possible
+measures to avoid bloodshed. Has telegraphed instructions to the
+military authorities. Tell Moyne. Am sending duplicate message to him.
+Want to make sure of reaching him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at my watch. It was five minutes past <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>one; evidently too
+late to tell Moyne anything. Whatever was happening at the scene of
+the meeting had begun to happen at one o&#8217;clock. I waited.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later a motor car, driven at a furious pace, dashed round
+the corner at the far end of the street, and sped towards us. A single
+passenger sat beside the driver. I recognized him at once. It was
+Clithering. Halfway down the street he suddenly caught sight of Bob&#8217;s
+volunteers. He clutched the driver by the arm. The car stopped
+abruptly, backed, turned round and sped back again. I lost sight of it
+as it swept round the corner.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed another period of waiting in tense silence. The men
+beneath me&mdash;there must have been about five hundred of them&mdash;did not
+speak. They scarcely moved. Bob and Crossan stood in front of them,
+rigid, silent.</p>
+
+<p>Bob&#8217;s scout, the man who had mounted the telegraph boy&#8217;s red bicycle,
+appeared in front of the Town Hall and came tearing along the street.
+He sprang to the ground in front of Bob and Crossan and spoke to them
+eagerly. They turned almost at once and gave an order. Their men lay
+down. I heard the rattle of their rifles on the pavement. I could see
+their hands fiddling with the sights, slipping along the barrels and
+stocks, opening and snapping shut the magazines. The men were nervous,
+but, except for the movements of their hands, they showed no signs of
+great excitement. One man, near the end of the line, deliberately
+unbuttoned his collar and threw it away. Another took off his coat,
+folded it up carefully, and laid it on the ground behind him. It
+struck me that it was his vest coat, a Sunday garment which he was
+unwilling to soil. Bob <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>walked slowly along the line, speaking in low
+tones to the men. Crossan stood rigidly still a few paces in front of
+the line, watching the far end of the street.</p>
+
+<p>Another cyclist appeared and rode towards us. One of the men fired his
+rifle. Crossan turned round, walked back to the man, and struck him on
+the head. Then he wrenched the rifle from his hands, threw it into the
+street, and kicked the man savagely. The man made no resistance. He
+got up and slowly left the ranks, walking away shamefacedly with
+hanging head. I do not think that Crossan had spoken to him, nor did
+he speak to any one else. His action explained itself. He turned his
+back on the men and once again stared down the empty street.
+Discipline was evidently to be strictly preserved in the ranks of the
+volunteers. There was to be no shooting until the order was given.</p>
+
+<p>When Crossan&#8217;s proceedings ceased to be interesting I looked round to
+see what had become of the cyclist. I caught sight of him in the
+custody of two volunteers. He was shoved through the door of the club.
+I could only see the top of his head, and so failed to recognize him
+until he entered the room and came over to me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bland,&#8221; I said. &#8220;How did you get here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I spotted this window,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;as I rode along, and I asked
+them to put me in here. Is it a club?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I said. &#8220;What happened at the meeting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get me a whisky and soda,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;if you&#8217;re a member.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What happened?&#8221; I said. &#8220;Did they hold the meeting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;They were holding it,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;when I left. But it wasn&#8217;t much
+of a meeting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I ordered a whisky and soda from a terrified waiter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What about the police?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They ran over the police,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think they killed
+many. There wasn&#8217;t any shooting. The whole thing was done with a rush.
+Damned well done. You couldn&#8217;t call it a charge. The police were drawn
+up in the middle of an open space where four or five roads met. The
+men kind of flowed over them. When the place was clear again, there
+weren&#8217;t any police. That&#8217;s all. Ah! here&#8217;s the whisky!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was evidently thirsty for he drank the whole tumbler-full at a
+draught.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What about Moyne?&#8221; I said. &#8220;What did he do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! He stood up on the back seat of a carriage and began to make a
+speech. But that didn&#8217;t matter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What did he say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. I didn&#8217;t stay to listen. I expect he urged them not to
+kill any one. But it does not matter what he said. The men with
+rifles, the volunteers, began to march off at once, in good order,
+some in one direction, some in another. In five minutes there wasn&#8217;t
+anybody left to listen to Lord Moyne except a few corner boys. I can
+tell you this, Lord Kilmore, there&#8217;s a man with a head on his
+shoulders behind this insurrection. He has those men of his holding
+all the most important parts of the town. I got hold of a bicycle&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221; I said. &#8220;You&#8217;re very wonderful, Bland. How did you get a
+bicycle in the middle of a battlefield?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stole it,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;It belonged to a policeman, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>but he is
+probably dead, so he won&#8217;t mind. I rode after two or three different
+parties of volunteers just to see where they were going. When I got
+back to the place of the meeting there was a body of cavalry trotting
+up. I had a sort of feeling that the battle would come this way. It
+ought to. This is the most important place in the town. All lines of
+communication meet here. Your side has brains enough to see that. The
+question is, will the soldiers attack them here? I chanced it. If
+there&#8217;s any good fighting to-day it ought to be here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure whether the General in command of the troops had the
+brains to recognize that the post which Bob Power held was the key to
+the whole situation. He did a good deal of desultory street fighting
+in other places, and though he made a strong show of attacking Bob
+Power in the end I think he was drawn into it by accident.</p>
+
+<p>Bland lit a cigarette, and he and I stood at the window watching.</p>
+
+<p>A crowd of men appeared at the far end of the street, running in wild
+disorder. They ran quite silently with bent heads and outstretched
+hands. Behind them, immediately behind them, came a squadron of
+dragoons galloping. As the fugitives turned into the street the
+soldiers overtook them and struck right and left with their swords.
+They were using the flats, not the edges of the blades. The fugitives
+staggered under the blows. Some of them stumbled and fell; but I do
+not think that any one was seriously hurt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord Moyne&#8217;s audience,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;The corner boys. There&#8217;s not an
+armed man among them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I noticed that when he pointed it out to me. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>flying men, wild
+with terror, rushed into the empty trams. For the moment they were
+safe enough. The dragoons could not get at them without dismounting.
+They pulled up their horses.</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power gave an order. Rifles cracked all along his line. The men
+must have emptied their magazines before they stopped firing. The
+officer of the dragoons gave an order. His squadron wheeled and
+galloped back the way they came. Five horses lay plunging on the
+ground. Four men dragged themselves clear of their saddles and ran
+after their comrades. The other lay where he fell.</p>
+
+<p>Six men detached themselves from Bob&#8217;s lines and ran forward. In a few
+minutes they were dragging the terrified fugitives from the trams and
+driving them along the street. They came towards us, wailing aloud in
+high shrill voices, like women. Behind them came Bob&#8217;s volunteers,
+carrying the wounded dragoon, and supporting a couple of the fugitives
+who had been knocked down by the soldiers. The howling men were pushed
+through the ranks to the rear. The volunteers closed up again in
+silence. Not even when the dragoons turned and galloped away did they
+break their silence. I have heard of soldiers going into battle with
+shouts and greeting moments of success with cheers. These men fired on
+their enemies without a shout and saw them fly without a cheer. Five
+minutes later a company of infantry marched into the street, extended
+into open order, and fired. Bob&#8217;s men fired. More infantry came. They
+deployed along the front of the City Hall. The rifle fire from both
+ends of the street was rapid and continuous. It was the first time in
+my life that I had ever been in danger of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>being killed by a bullet. I
+confess that for a few minutes I was so nervous that I was unable to
+give any attention to the fighting going on in front of me. So many
+rifles were going off at the far end of the street that it seemed
+certain that not only Bland and I but every one of Bob&#8217;s men must
+necessarily die at once. To my very great surprise I was not hit. My
+nervousness began to disappear. I peered out of the window and noticed
+that none of Bob&#8217;s men were either killed or wounded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said to Bland, &#8220;that this is a regular battle. You&#8217;ve
+had some experience so you ought to know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;it&#8217;s a battle right enough&mdash;of sorts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A bullet snicked through the window glass above my head and buried
+itself in the wall at the far end of the room. I looked at the
+volunteers again. They did not seem to be suffering. I took a glance
+at the soldiers at the far end of the street. The firing did not seem
+even to annoy them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There seems to me,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to be very little damage done. Don&#8217;t
+they usually kill each other in battles?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The shooting&#8217;s damned bad,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;damned bad on both sides. I
+never saw worse. I wonder if they mean to shoot straight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob&#8217;s men, I think, were doing their best; but they were certainly
+making very bad practice. It did not seem to me that during the first
+twenty minutes they hit a single living thing except the four dragoon
+horses. The walls of the houses on both sides of the street were
+filled with bullet marks. A curious kind of shallow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>furrow appeared
+about halfway down the street. At first it seemed a mere line drawn on
+the ground. Then it deepened into a little trench with a ridge of dust
+beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There must be a ton or two of good bullets buried there,&#8221; said Bland.
+&#8220;They haven&#8217;t sighted for the distance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t blame the volunteers,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but the soldiers really ought
+to shoot better. A lot of money is spent on that army every year, and
+if they can&#8217;t hit a single enemy at that distance&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rather think,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;that the soldiers are firing up into
+the air on purpose. That bullet which came through our window is the
+only one which hit anything. It&#8217;s shocking waste of ammunition.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The door of the reading-room opened behind me. I turned and saw Sir
+Samuel Clithering. He staggered into the room and looked deadly white.
+For a moment I thought he must be blind. He plunged straight into a
+table which stood in the middle of the room in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My God! My God!&#8221; he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Then he was violently sick. He must have got into the club somehow
+from the back. I went over to him, intending to get him out of the
+room before he was sick again. He clutched my arm and held me tight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Stop it. Promise them anything, anything at all;
+only get them to stop.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did not quite know what Clithering wanted me to do. It seemed absurd
+to go down to Bob Power and offer, on behalf of the Government, to
+introduce amendments into the Home Rule Bill. Yet something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>of the
+sort must have been in Clithering&#8217;s mind when he urged me to promise
+anything. He probably had some vague idea of consulting the wishes of
+the electorate. That is the sort of thing Clithering would think of
+doing in an emergency.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s horrible, too horrible,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Oh God! Bloodshed!
+Bloodshed!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Cheer up,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think a single man on either side has
+been hit yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say,&#8221; said Bland from the window, &#8220;did the soldiers get orders to
+fire over the people&#8217;s heads?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;Strict orders. The Cabinet was unanimous. The
+Prime Minister telegraphed this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rather rough on the peaceable inhabitants of the town,&#8221; said Bland,
+&#8220;the men who have kept out of the battle. I suppose you forgot that
+bullets come down again somewhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was in one of the back streets,&#8221; wailed Clithering, &#8220;far away&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Exactly,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;it&#8217;s just in back streets that those things
+happen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was a woman,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;a girl with a baby in her arms. I
+did not know what had happened. I ran over to her. She and the
+baby&mdash;both of them. I shall never forget it. Oh!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he was sick again. Clithering is a highly civilized man. I
+suppose one must be highly civilized if one is to keep pace with the
+changing fashions in stockings. It was out of what is called &#8220;Fancy
+Hosiery&#8221; that Clithering made most of his money. I felt very sorry for
+him, but his performances were making me feel sick too. I joined Bland
+again at the window.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve got a machine gun,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;Things will get brisker
+now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked out anxiously and saw with a sense of relief that it was
+Bob&#8217;s side which had got the new gun. McConkey and his assistants had
+turned up from somewhere and were dragging their weapon into position
+under the window of a large jeweller&#8217;s shop on the left flank of Bob&#8217;s
+firing line. This was bad enough. In street fighting at close quarters
+a gun of this kind is very murderous and ought to do a terrible amount
+of destruction. But things would have been much worse if the soldiers
+had had it. They, I suppose, would have known how to use it. I doubted
+McConkey&#8217;s skill in spite of his practice on the slob lands below the
+Shore Road.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The soldiers will have to shoot in earnest now,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;If that
+fellow can handle his gun he&#8217;ll simply mow them down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It looked at first, I am bound to say, as if McConkey had really
+mastered his new trade. He got his weapon into position and adjusted a
+belt of cartridges, working as coolly as if he were arranging the
+machinery of the Green Loaney Scutching Mill. He seemed to find a
+horrible satisfaction in what he was doing. Twice I saw him pat the
+muzzle of the thing as if to give it encouragement. I dare say he
+talked to it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s damned cool,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen fellows who&#8217;d been fighting
+for months not half so&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then McConkey started his infernal machine. The effect was most
+surprising. Two tramcars, which were standing close to the far end of
+the street, simply disappeared. There was a kind of eruption of
+splintered wood, shattered glass and small fragments of metal. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>When
+that subsided there was no sign of there ever having been tramcars in
+that particular spot. McConkey evidently noticed that he had not aimed
+his pet quite straight. He stopped it at once.</p>
+
+<p>An officer&mdash;I think it was Bob&#8217;s friend Henderson&mdash;sprang to his feet
+at the far end of the street and ran along the line of soldiers
+shouting an order.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll begin in earnest now,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;Why doesn&#8217;t he rattle
+them again with the gun?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>McConkey had the best will in the world, but something had gone wrong
+with his gun; it was a complicated machine, and he had evidently
+jammed some part of it. I saw him working frenziedly with a large iron
+spanner in his hand; but nothing he could do produced the least
+effect. It would not go off.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Henderson&#8217;s soldiers stood up and stopped firing. The
+volunteers stopped firing too. The soldiers formed in a line. There
+was silence in the street for a moment, dead silence. I could hear
+McConkey&#8217;s spanner ringing against the iron of his gun. Then Bob Power
+shouted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re going to charge us. Up, boys, and come on! We&#8217;ll meet them
+halfway.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re all gone mad together,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;You can&#8217;t charge down
+magazine rifles. It&#8217;s impossible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems to me,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that if this battle is ever to be finished
+at all they&#8217;ll have to get at each other with their fists. So far
+weapons have been a total failure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering crawled across the room while we were speaking and clutched
+me by the legs. I do not think it was fear of the bullets which made
+him crawl. He had been so very sick that he was too weak to walk.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;What&#8217;s happening?&#8221; he said. &#8220;For God&#8217;s sake tell me. Are there many
+killed?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No one yet on this side,&#8221; I said. &#8220;There may be a few soldiers hit,
+but I don&#8217;t suppose you mind about them. There&#8217;s just going to be a
+charge. Get up and you&#8217;ll be able to see it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering caught the edge of the window-sash and dragged himself to
+his feet. He was just in time to see Bob&#8217;s men rush along the street.
+They did not charge in any sort of order. They simply spread out and
+ran as fast as they could, as fast as I ever saw men run. Some of them
+took their rifles with them. Others, evidently agreeing with me that
+they would do more destruction with their fists, left their rifles
+behind. They covered fifty or sixty yards, and were still going fast
+when they discovered that the soldiers were not waiting for them.
+Henderson walked alongside the leading men of the column with his
+ridiculously long sword in his hand. Two mounted officers brought up
+the rear. Two men, with their rifles sloped over their shoulders,
+marched briskly across the end of the street. In the middle of the
+column were eight stretchers carried along. Bob&#8217;s men, in spite of
+their bad shooting, had wounded that number of their enemies. I found
+out afterwards that they had killed three others outright. The
+discipline of the British army must be remarkably good. In spite of
+this heavy loss the soldiers obeyed orders, and steadily refrained
+from trying to kill Bob&#8217;s men. Their final disappearance was a
+crowning proof of their obedience. I watched this body of infantry
+march out of sight into the next street. They were not running away.
+They were not even retreating. They gave me the impression of having
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>stopped the battle in a way that was quite customary because it was
+time for them to do something else&mdash;get some dinner perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>This performance produced, as might be expected, a most disconcerting
+effect upon Bob&#8217;s warriors. They stopped running and stared at their
+departing foes. Then they turned round and gaped at each other. Then
+they applied to Bob Power for information. They wanted to know,
+apparently, whether they had gained a great and glorious victory, or
+were to regard the departure of the enemy as some subtle kind of
+strategy. Bob seemed as much puzzled as every one else. Even Bland, in
+spite of his experience of battles in two great wars, was taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m damned,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank God, thank God!&#8221; said Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>Then he crumpled up and fainted. He meant, I think, to express the
+relief he felt at the cessation of hostilities. He had not heard, or
+if he heard, had not heeded, Bland&#8217;s remark. Clithering is not the
+type of man to thank God for any one&#8217;s damnation, and he had no
+special dislike of Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m damned,&#8221; said Bland again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that it&#8217;s rather unusual in battles to do that
+sort of thing&mdash;march off, I mean&mdash;without giving some sort of notice
+to the other side. It strikes me as rather bad form. There ought to be
+a rule against it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob&#8217;s men returned, sheepishly and dejectedly, to their original
+posts. Crossan was arguing with McConkey about the condition of the
+machine gun. The young man who had taken off his coat before the
+battle picked it up from the ground, brushed it carefully, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>put it
+on. Bob Power walked along the street with a note-book in his hands.
+He appeared to be writing down the names of the shop-keepers whose
+windows were broken. He is a young man of active and energetic
+disposition. I suppose he felt that he must do something.</p>
+
+<p>Bland stared through the window for some time. He hoped, I dare say,
+that the soldiers would come back, with reinforcements, perhaps with
+artillery. At last he gave up this idea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s have a drink,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We want one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He turned abruptly and stumbled over Clithering, who had fallen just
+beside him. I got hold of a waiter, the only one left in the club, and
+made him bring us a whisky and soda. Bland squirted the syphon into
+Clithering&#8217;s face, and I poured small quantities of whisky into his
+mouth. Clithering is a rigid teetotaller, and has for years been
+supporting every Bill for the suppression of public houses which has
+been brought before Parliament. The whisky which he swallowed revived
+him in the most amazing way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have they gone?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you mean the soldiers,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;they have. I can&#8217;t imagine
+why, but they have.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I telegraphed to the Prime Minister,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;It was hours
+and hours ago. Or was it yesterday? It was just before I saw the woman
+shot. I told him that&mdash;that the soldiers&mdash;they were only meant to
+overawe the people&mdash;not to kill them&mdash;I said the soldiers must be
+withdrawn to barracks&mdash;I said they must not be allowed&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether it was exhaustion after nervous strain or the
+whisky which affected Clithering. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>Whisky&mdash;and he had swallowed nearly
+a glassful&mdash;does produce striking effects upon teetotallers; so it may
+have been the whisky. Clithering turned slowly over on his side and
+went sound asleep. Bland and I carried him upstairs to a bedroom on
+the top storey of the club. There were, Bland said, three bullets
+buried in the mattress, so it was fortunate that we had not carried
+Clithering up earlier in the day.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s get the waiter,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;if he hasn&#8217;t gone away, and tell
+him to undress this fool!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hardly necessary to undress him, is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Better to,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;and take away his clothes. Then he&#8217;ll have
+to stay there, and won&#8217;t be able to send any more telegrams.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s rather a good thing he sent that last one,&#8221; I said. &#8220;If he
+hadn&#8217;t, somebody would certainly have been killed in the charge.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose that telegram accounts for it,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I mean for the
+behaviour of the soldiers. Orders sent straight from Downing Street. I
+say, what a frightful temper the Commanding Officer must be in this
+minute! I wonder if I could get an interview with him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked questioningly at me. I fancy he hoped that I would give him
+a letter of introduction to the General in command of the district.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;His language,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;would be a tremendous scoop for me. Could
+you&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t. I don&#8217;t know him, and even if I did&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, well,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;it can&#8217;t be helped. And, any way, I dare say
+I shouldn&#8217;t have been able to get my telegram through. The wires are
+sure to be blocked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">I</span> looked at my watch and found that it was three o&#8217;clock. The battle
+had lasted more than two hours.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had no idea,&#8221; I said to Bland, &#8220;that fighting was such interesting
+work. The time has flown.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m uncommonly hungry,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;Let&#8217;s try and find something to
+eat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When he mentioned the subject of eating I found that I too was very
+hungry. I felt, however, that it was scarcely right, certainly it was
+not suitable to sit down to luncheon in a club while a revolution was
+in full swing under the windows. People ought to be serious
+immediately after battles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oughtn&#8217;t we to be doing something?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doing what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t know. Seeing after the wounded, perhaps.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Attending to wounded men is properly speaking work for women; but both
+Lady Moyne and Marion were in London.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are sure to be a few somewhere,&#8221; I said. &#8220;They&#8217;ve been fighting
+all over the town, and I don&#8217;t suppose the soldiers were as careful
+everywhere else as they were here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you a surgeon as well as a lord?&#8221; asked Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no. I don&#8217;t know anything about surgery. My idea&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Then I expect the wounded, if there are any, would rather you left
+them alone. Besides, a town like this must have hundreds of doctors in
+it. They&#8217;ll all be out after the wounded by this time as keen as
+vultures. It isn&#8217;t every day that an ordinary practitioner gets the
+chance of gouging out bullets. They wouldn&#8217;t let you interfere with
+their sport even if you paid them. There won&#8217;t, as a matter of fact,
+be nearly enough wounded to go round the profession. They&#8217;d hate to
+have an amateur chipping in. Let&#8217;s forage about a bit and get some
+food.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was not very easy to find food in the club, and the only surviving
+waiter was still undressing Clithering. But Bland is a good forager.
+He found two dressed crabs somewhere, and then came upon a game pie. I
+let him have the dressed crabs all to himself. He is a much younger
+man than I am and is a war correspondent. He ought to be able to
+digest anything.</p>
+
+<p>I fully intended to eat three helpings of game pie, for I was very
+hungry; but before I had finished the first of them I was interrupted.
+Crossan stalked into the room. He was the last man I wanted to see.
+His appearance and manner are, at the best of times, tragic.
+Clithering had been with me, off and on, most of the day, so I had got
+rather tired of tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think it right to inform your lordship,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;that Mr.
+Godfrey D&#8217;Aubigny has just been arrested in the streets.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good!&#8221; I said. &#8220;I hope that whoever has him won&#8217;t let him go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s to be tried by court martial,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;on suspicion of
+being a spy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey actually haunts me. No sooner have I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>achieved a moment&#8217;s
+peace and quietness&mdash;with the greatest difficulty in the middle of a
+rebellion&mdash;than Godfrey breaks in on me. How he came to be in Belfast
+I could only dimly guess. It seemed likely that, having heard that a
+battle was going on, he came to the scene of it in the hope of
+pillage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;they won&#8217;t actually hang him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was him, as your lordship is aware,&#8221; said Crossan, &#8220;that gave the
+first information to the Government.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan, in spite of the fact that he was a victorious general,
+preserved his peculiar kind of respect for my title. He did not,
+indeed, take off his hat when he entered the room, but that was only
+because soldiers, while on duty, never take off their hats.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be absurd, Crossan,&#8221; I said. &#8220;You know perfectly well that he
+hasn&#8217;t intelligence enough to give anything but wrong information to
+any Government. What he told the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he
+wrote to him was that you were smuggling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If your lordship doesn&#8217;t care to interfere&mdash;,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I help in any way?&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>He had been eating steadily and had finished the two crabs. I had not
+eaten more than three or four mouthfuls of game pie. I felt I might
+accept his offer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve any experience of courts martial,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I haven&#8217;t&mdash;and
+if you really don&#8217;t mind trotting off&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;In fact a court martial would be rather a
+scoop for me. I&#8217;m sure the public would want to know how it&#8217;s run.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I shall feel greatly obliged to you,&#8221; I said. &#8220;The fact is that a
+nephew of mine is going to be hanged as a spy. You said you were going
+to hang him, didn&#8217;t you, Crossan?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think it likely, my lord,&#8221; said Crossan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; I said, &#8220;he richly deserves it; and so far as my own
+personal feelings go I should be very glad if he were hanged. But, of
+course, he&#8217;s my nephew and people might think I&#8217;d been unkind to him
+if I made no effort to save him. One must consider public opinion more
+or less. So if you could arrange to rescue him&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While I was speaking Clithering shambled into the room. He was wearing
+a suit of pyjamas not nearly big enough for him. The waiter who put
+him to bed was quite a small man. The pyjamas must have been his. He
+asked us to find his clothes for him, and said that he wanted to go to
+the post-office.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must send a telegram to the Prime Minister,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I must send
+it at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan eyed him very suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It strikes me,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;that if you&#8217;re caught sending telegrams
+to the Prime Minister you&#8217;ll be hanged too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re just going to hang a nephew of mine,&#8221; I explained, &#8220;for
+writing a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You can see for
+yourself that a telegram to the Prime Minister is much worse. I really
+think you&#8217;d better stay where you are.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Clithering was, unfortunately, in a mood of hysterical heroism. He
+said that he did not value his life, that lives were only given to men
+in order that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>might lay them down, and that the noblest way of
+laying down a life was in the service of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that Crossan was getting more and more suspicious every
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is in order to save the lives of others,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that I want to
+send my telegram to the Prime Minister.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan actually scowled at Clithering. I expected that he would
+arrest him at once. There might have been, for all I knew, a Committee
+of Public Safety sitting in the Town Hall. I could imagine Crossan
+hauling the unfortunate Clithering before it on a charge of
+communicating with the Prime Minister. I could imagine Clithering,
+heroic to the last, waving his incriminating telegram in the faces of
+his judges. Bland saved the situation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come along, Colonel,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Show me where that court martial of
+yours is sitting. Lord Kilmore will restrain this lunatic till we get
+back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Crossan may have been pleased at being addressed as Colonel. Or he may
+have trusted that I would prevent any telegram being sent to the Prime
+Minister. At all events, he stopped scowling at Clithering and went
+off with Bland. I offered Clithering some of the game pie, but he
+refused to touch it. He sat down at a corner of the table and asked me
+to lend him a pencil and some paper. I did so, and he composed several
+long telegrams. The writing evidently soothed him. When he had
+finished he asked me quite calmly whether I thought he would really be
+hanged if he went to the post-office. I was not at all sure that he
+would not. Clithering sighed when he heard my opinion. Then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>he sat
+silent for a long time, evidently trying to make up his mind to the
+hanging.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I could get the telegram through first,&#8221; he said at last, &#8220;I
+shouldn&#8217;t so much mind&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you wouldn&#8217;t,&#8221; I said; &#8220;and what is the good of throwing away
+your life without accomplishing anything?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s terrible,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;terrible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was terrible, of course; but I was beginning to get tired of
+Clithering. Besides, he looked very ridiculous in pyjamas which only
+reached halfway down his legs and arms.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you think,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that it would be better for you to go back
+to bed? You&#8217;ll be safe there, and it won&#8217;t really matter much whether
+your telegram goes to the Prime Minister or not. A little sleep will
+do you all the good in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We have murdered sleep,&#8221; said Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>I never realized the full immensity of Clithering&#8217;s fatuousness until
+he uttered that mangled quotation from Macbeth in the tone of an
+old-fashioned tragedian. I believe the man actually revelled in
+harrowing emotion. It would not have surprised me to hear him assure
+me that the &#8220;multitudinous seas&#8221; would not wash out the blood-stains
+from his hands. He might very well have asked for &#8220;some sweet
+oblivious antidote.&#8221; If he had known the passages I am sure he would
+have quoted them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do go to bed,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>Then Bland came in leading Godfrey with him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rescued him,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;without very much difficulty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I call it frightful cheek,&#8221; said Godfrey, &#8220;fellows like that who
+ought to be touching their hats to me and saying &#8216;Sir&#8217; when they speak
+to me&mdash;Fancy them daring&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This view of the matter was very characteristic of Godfrey. I really
+believe that he would dislike being hanged much less if the
+executioner were one of the small class of men whom he recognizes as
+his social equals.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They gave him quite a fair trial,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;and had just
+condemned him when&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That fellow Crossan in particular,&#8221; said Godfrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Colonel ran round to tell you,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I rather fancy they
+wanted to get off carrying out the sentence if they could.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A lot of fellows,&#8221; said Godfrey sulkily, &#8220;who ought to be wheeling
+barrows! But it&#8217;s very largely your fault, Excellency. You always
+encouraged that class. If you&#8217;d kept them in their proper places&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth brought you to Belfast?&#8221; I said. &#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you stay
+at home? Nobody wants you here. Why did you come?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey looked uneasily at Bland. He evidently did not want to make
+his reason for coming to Belfast public property. Godfrey is usually
+quite shameless. I could only imagine that he had done something of a
+peculiarly repulsive kind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;why did you come?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Bland again, and then nodded sideways at me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you thought there might be some assessment
+made by the Government of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>amount of damage done in the town, and
+that if you started valuing things at once on your own hook, you might
+possibly get a job out of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But is there?&#8221; said Godfrey eagerly; &#8220;for if there is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So far as I know there isn&#8217;t,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anyhow it wasn&#8217;t that which brought me to Belfast. The fact is,
+Excellency, I couldn&#8217;t very well stay at home. You remember,&#8221;&mdash;here
+his voice sunk to a whisper&mdash;&#8220;what I told you about the Pringles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your bank account?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. Not that. The girl, I mean. Tottie Pringle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes, I remember.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, old Pringle began to get offensive. He seemed to think that I
+ought to&mdash;you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marry her? I expect you ought.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excellency?&#8221; said Godfrey in genuine horror and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;I forgot to mention that I promised the
+court martial to get your nephew out of Belfast before to-morrow
+morning. I hope you don&#8217;t mind. They wouldn&#8217;t let him go on any other
+condition.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite right,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Godfrey shall start to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see why I should,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s at all
+nice of you, Excellency, to&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And while we&#8217;re at it,&#8221; I said, &#8220;we may as well ship off Clithering.
+Godfrey let me introduce you to&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked round and discovered that Clithering was not in the room.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I hope to goodness,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that he&#8217;s not gone out to get himself
+hanged. He rather wanted to a few minutes ago.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s all right,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I saw him going upstairs. I expect he&#8217;s
+looking for his clothes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Godfrey,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to offer you a great chance. Sir Samuel
+Clithering is in every way a very big man. In the first place he&#8217;s
+very rich. In the next place he&#8217;s on intimate terms with the Prime
+Minister. In fact he&#8217;s been sending him telegrams every hour or so for
+the last two days. You go upstairs and help him to find his clothes.
+Then take him over to London. The Fleetwood steamer is still running.
+If you can get him out of Belfast and lay him down safe and sound on
+his own doorstep the Government will be so grateful that they&#8217;ll very
+likely make you a stipendiary magistrate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But supposing he doesn&#8217;t want to go?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll have to make him,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How?&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;How can I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be a fool, Godfrey,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Nag at him. You&#8217;ve got more than
+two hours before you, and nagging is a thing you&#8217;re really good at.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bland took Godfrey by the arm and led him up to Clithering&#8217;s bedroom.
+He locked them in together, and did not open the door again until half
+an hour before the steamer started. Then he took up Clithering&#8217;s
+clothes to him. Godfrey had evidently spent the time as I advised.
+Clithering deserved it, of course; but he certainly looked as if he
+had been through a bad time when Bland let him out.</p>
+
+<p>There was a meeting of the Ulster Defence Committee at seven o&#8217;clock.
+It was summoned, so the notice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>which I received informed me, in order
+to make arrangements for preserving the peace of the town. This, I
+thought, was very proper work for the committee. The Cabinet was
+probably making other arrangements with the same object. Between them
+the committee and the Government had destroyed what little peace
+Belfast ever had. The least they could do was to restore it.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne took the chair as usual. He opened our proceedings by saying
+firmly and decisively, that he intended to surrender himself at once
+to the authorities.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re the only authorities there are at present,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;so
+if you want to surrender&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We must resolve ourselves into a Provisional Government,&#8221; said the
+Dean, who always likes to do things constitutionally.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The police,&#8221; said Moyne feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There aren&#8217;t any,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wiped out,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The General in command of the troops&mdash;&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The troops are shut up in their barracks,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Licked,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Say,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;are you dead sure you whipped them?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They bolted,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t reckon to be a military expert,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;but it kind of
+occurs to me that those troops weren&#8217;t doing all they knew. I don&#8217;t
+say but you&#8217;re quite right to boost your men all you can; but we&#8217;ll
+make a big mistake if we start figuring on having defeated the British
+army.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I happen to know,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that Mr. Conroy is quite right.
+Clithering&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That spaniel!&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He told me,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that the troops had orders to fire over our
+men&#8217;s heads. The idea, I think, was not so much to injure as to
+overawe us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was a damned foolish idea,&#8221; said McNeice sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You cannot,&#8221; said the Dean, &#8220;overawe the men of Ulster.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the Dean&#8217;s most cherished opinions. I have heard him
+express it a great many times. I do not know whether the Dean had
+actually been fighting during the afternoon. I am sure he wanted to;
+but he may have considered it his duty to do no more than look on. Our
+Dean is particularly strong on Old Testament history. I am sure he
+recollected that Moses sat on the top of an adjacent hill while Joshua
+was fighting the Amalekites.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you want to surrender yourself,&#8221; said Conroy to Moyne, &#8220;I reckon
+you&#8217;ll have the chance of handing yourself over to a British Admiral
+before long.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you any reason to suppose that the Fleet&mdash;?&#8221; said Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re ready for them,&#8221; said Malcolmson. &#8220;If the Government thinks it
+can force Home Rule on Ulster with the guns of the Channel Fleet, it&#8217;s
+making a big mistake. It&#8217;ll find that out before long.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you like, Lord Moyne,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;we&#8217;ll put you under arrest
+and then nobody will be able to hold you responsible afterwards for
+anything that happens. You&#8217;ll be quite safe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whatever Moyne&#8217;s motives may have been in wishing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>to surrender
+himself, I am perfectly sure that a desire for his own safety was not
+one of them. I imagine that he hoped, in a confused and troubled way,
+to get himself somehow on the side of law and order again. Moyne was
+never meant to be a rebel.</p>
+
+<p>Conroy&#8217;s words were insulting, intentionally so, I think. He wished to
+get rid of Moyne before the committee discussed the defence of Belfast
+against the Fleet. He may have wished to get rid of me too. He
+succeeded. Moyne is not nearly so thorough-going a patrician as his
+wife; but he has sufficient class pride to dislike being insulted by a
+millionaire. He got up and left the room. He looked so lonely in his
+dignified retirement that I felt I ought to give him such support as I
+could. I rose too, took his arm, and went out with him.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">P</span>eople who organize and carry through revolutions generally begin by
+cutting the telegraph wires, with a view to isolating the scene of
+action. I cannot help thinking that this is a mistake. We kept our
+telegraph offices open day and night, and I am strongly of opinion
+that we gained rather than lost by our departure from the established
+ritual of revolutions. The news which came to us from England was
+often encouraging, and generally of some value. Nor do I think that
+the Government gained any advantage over us by the messages which
+Clithering as their agent, or Bland and others in their capacity of
+public entertainers, sent from Belfast to London.</p>
+
+<p>When Moyne and I got back to our hotel we found two long telegrams and
+one short one waiting for us. The first we opened was from Lady Moyne.
+She had, it appeared, spent a very strenuous day. She caught the Prime
+Minister at breakfast in his own house, and probably spoiled his
+appetite. She ran other members of the Cabinet to earth at various
+times during the day. One unfortunate man she found playing a mixed
+foursome on a suburban golf links. She impressed upon him, as she had
+upon all his colleagues the appalling wickedness of shooting the
+citizens of Belfast. Every one, it appeared, agreed with her on this
+point. The Government&#8217;s policy, so they told her and she told us, was
+to cow, not to kill, the misguided people who were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>rioting in
+Belfast. She besought Moyne to use all his influence to moderate the
+anti-Home Rule enthusiasm of Malcolmson and the Dean.</p>
+
+<p>Moyne smiled in a sickly way when we came to this advice.</p>
+
+<p>The other long telegram was from Babberly. I must say that Babberly at
+this crisis displayed immense energy and something like political
+genius. Having been all his life a strong Conservative, and a
+supporter of force as a remedy for every kind of social
+unpleasantness, he turned a most effective somersault and appealed
+suddenly to the anti-militarist feelings of the Labour Party. He
+succeeded&mdash;I cannot even imagine how&mdash;in organizing a mass meeting in
+Trafalgar Square to protest against the murder of the working-men of
+Belfast in the streets of their own city, by the hired mercenaries of
+the capitalist classes. The meeting was actually engaged in making its
+protest while Moyne and I were reading the telegrams. Babberly&#8217;s case
+was really extraordinarily strong. Soldiers were shooting off guns in
+Belfast, and the people they fired at&mdash;or as we knew, fired over&mdash;were
+working-men. There was occasion for a strong and eloquent appeal to
+the sentiment of the solidarity of labour. Babberly was just the man
+to make it with the utmost possible effectiveness. I pictured him
+perched on the head of one of the British lions which give its quite
+peculiar dignity to Trafalgar Square, beseeching a crowd of confused
+but very angry men not to allow the beast to open its mouth or show
+its teeth. I could easily imagine that the news of Babberly&#8217;s
+exertions, dribbling in during the day to the offices of harassed
+Ministers, might have reinforced with grave political considerations
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>the hysterical humanitarian telegrams which Clithering was shooting
+off from the seat of war. A Tory Government might survive a little
+bloodshed. A Liberal Government convicted of having incited a soldier
+to shoot a working-man would be in a perilous position.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must say,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that Babberly is infernally clever. I don&#8217;t
+quite know where he&#8217;ll find himself afterwards, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does it matter about afterwards?&#8221; said Moyne, &#8220;if only we get
+out of the mess we&#8217;re in, nothing that happens afterwards need trouble
+us in the least.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If this meeting of his is really a success,&#8221; I said, &#8220;we may feel
+pretty confident that there&#8217;ll be no more shooting anyhow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The next telegram, the short one, rather dashed our hopes of immediate
+peace. It was from Lady Moyne.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Channel Fleet,&#8221; she said, &#8220;has been ordered to Belfast Lough.
+Expected to arrive to-morrow morning. Advise unconditional surrender.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne is very fond of his wife, and has a sincere admiration for her
+abilities; but on the receipt of this telegram he lost his temper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is the use of advising unconditional
+surrender when Conroy and Malcolmson are engaged at this moment in
+making plans for sinking the Fleet with rifles?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite agree with you,&#8221; I said. &#8220;There&#8217;s no kind of use our going to
+them again. But I don&#8217;t expect they&#8217;re relying entirely on rifles.
+Malcolmson always said he understood explosives. He may be laying
+submarine mines opposite Carrickfergus.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>Lady Moyne&#8217;s telegram was not the only warning we received of the
+approaching visit of the Channel Fleet. Our system of leaving the
+telegraph wires intact proved to be an excellent one. Everybody in
+Belfast learnt that the Fleet was coming. Everybody, so far as I could
+learn, received the news with joy. Bland was tremendously excited. He
+called on me next morning, and invited me to go with him to see the
+British Fleet in action. He had been up very early and found a place,
+so he said, from which we could have a capital view of the bombardment
+of the town.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got two pairs of field-glasses,&#8221; he said, &#8220;Zeiss prism
+binoculars. We&#8217;ll see the whole show capitally.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Was there much other looting last night?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was none,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I hired the glasses. I got them for
+five shillings. Cheap, I call it; but the optician who owned them
+seemed to think they&#8217;d be safer if I had them than they would be in
+his shop. More out of the way of shells, I expect.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moyne refused to come with us. He still cherished the hope of being
+able to surrender himself during the day to some one in recognizable
+authority. Bland and I set out together.</p>
+
+<p>We hurried along High Street, past the Albert Memorial and crossed the
+bridge to the south side of the river. The streets were full of
+volunteers, marching about, all in the highest spirits. The prospect
+of being shelled by the Fleet did not frighten them in the least.
+Having, as they believed, defeated the Army the day before, it seemed
+quite a simple matter to deal with the battleships.</p>
+
+<p>We made our way along the quays, passed through a shipbuilding yard,
+deserted by its workers, and came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>to a long muddy embankment which
+stretched out on the south side of the channel leading into the
+harbour. On the end of this embankment was a small wooden lighthouse.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s our spot,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I&#8217;ve got the key of the door.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I will always say for Bland that he has the true instinct of a war
+correspondent. From the top of our tower we saw the Fleet far out in
+the offing. There were not nearly so many ships as I expected. I
+counted seven; disagreeable looking monsters with smoke pouring out of
+their funnels. They were too far off for us to see much of them even
+with the aid of our excellent glasses; but what I did see I did not
+like. Fighting against men requires courage, no doubt, especially when
+they have magazine rifles. But men are after all flesh and blood.
+Fighting against vast iron machines seems to me a much more terrifying
+thing. I wondered whether Malcolmson were also watching the ships and
+whether he were any more inclined than he had been the night before to
+unconditional surrender.</p>
+
+<p>While I was gazing out to sea, Bland tapped me on the arm and drew my
+attention to the fact that a company of volunteers was marching out
+along our muddy causeway. They were Bob Power&#8217;s men and they came
+along whistling &#8220;The Protestant Boys,&#8221; a tune which makes an excellent
+quick-step march. They had spades with them as well as rifles, and
+they set to work at once to entrench themselves.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re going to dispute a landing,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;but I don&#8217;t see
+what use that is. The Fleet can shell the whole place into ruins in
+two hours without coming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>within range of their rifles&mdash;and&mdash;however
+we&#8217;ll see. The fellow who&#8217;s running this revolution&mdash;Conroy, isn&#8217;t
+it?&mdash;may have something up his sleeve.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the battleships detached herself from her fellows and steamed
+rapidly into the Lough. Opposite Carrickfergus her engines were
+stopped, and she turned slowly in a half circle till she lay broadside
+on to us. I could see her distinctly, and I confess that the look of
+her terrified me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Cleared for action,&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>A boat was lowered, a steam launch. In a minute or two she was
+speeding towards us, her white ensign trailing astern. Bob Power stood
+up outside his entrenchment and peered at her. As she drew closer we
+could see behind the shelter hood, the young officer who steered her.
+As she swerved this way and that, following the windings of the
+channel, we caught glimpses of a senior officer, seated in the stern
+sheets. Pushing through the calm water at high speed she threw up
+great waves from her bows. Her stern seemed curiously deep in the
+water. When she was almost abreast of our lighthouse Bob hailed her.
+Her engines were stopped at once. A sailor with a boathook in his hand
+sprang into her bow and stood there motionless while the boat glided
+on. I could see the young officer who steered gazing curiously at
+Bob&#8217;s entrenchments. Then the senior officer stood up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An Admiral,&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>He hailed Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you in command here?&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke the launch stopped abreast of the entrenchments and lay
+motionless in the water.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I am in command of this detachment,&#8221; said Bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then,&#8221; said the Admiral, &#8220;you are to lay down your arms at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better come ashore,&#8221; said Bob, &#8220;and see our commanding officer
+if you want to make terms with us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Admiral flushed. He was quite close to us and we could see his
+face distinctly. He looked as if he wanted to say something explosive.
+The idea of being invited to make terms with rebels was evidently very
+objectionable to him. I suppose he must have had strict and binding
+orders from somebody. He did not say any of the things he wanted to.
+The launch&#8217;s propeller gave a few turns in the water. Then the boat
+slipped up to the shore. The sailor with the boathook held her fast
+while the Admiral stepped out of her. Bob received him most
+courteously. The Admiral glared at Bob. The riflemen, crouched behind
+their mud bank, scowled at the Admiral. The young officer in the
+launch gave an order and his boat was pushed off from the shore. Bob
+and the Admiral walked off together towards the town.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour and a half the launch lay opposite us in the middle of the
+channel. Occasionally, as the ebbing tide carried her down, she
+steamed a little and regained her position opposite the entrenchments.
+Bob&#8217;s men, realizing that there would be no shooting till the Admiral
+returned, rose from their trench. They strolled about the embankment,
+chatted, smoked, stared at the launch, stared at the battleship from
+which she came, and peered at the more distant fleet which lay hull
+down far out towards the entrance of the lough.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Unless Mr. Conroy has some game on that we know nothing about,&#8221; said
+Bland, &#8220;he&#8217;d better climb down and make the best terms he can.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I think that Bland was nervous. He made that remark or others like it
+several times while we were waiting for the Admiral&#8217;s return. I
+candidly confess that I was more than nervous. I was desperately
+frightened. I am not, I hope, a coward. I believe that I was not
+afraid of being killed, but I could not take my eyes off the great
+iron ship which lay motionless, without a sign of life about her, a
+black, menacing monster on the calm water of the lough. I was seized,
+obsessed, with a sense of her immense power. She would destroy and
+slay with a horrible, unemotional, scientific deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Conroy had better surrender,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;He can&#8217;t expect&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He won&#8217;t surrender,&#8221; I said; &#8220;and if he wanted to, the men would not
+let him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Damn it,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;He must. I&#8217;ve seen war, and I tell you he
+must.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At last the Admiral returned. Bob was with him, and was evidently
+trying to make himself agreeable. He was chatting. Occasionally he
+laughed. The Admiral was entirely unresponsive. When he got close
+enough for us to see his face I saw that he looked perplexed and
+miserable. I was miserable and frightened, but the Admiral looked
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them there was an immense crowd of people; men, armed and
+unarmed, women, even children. It was a mere mob. There was no sign of
+discipline among them. Some young girls, mill-workers with shawls over
+their heads, pressed close on the Admiral&#8217;s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>heels. Bob gave an order
+to his men, and they drew up across the end of our embankment. Bob and
+the Admiral passed through the line. The crowd stopped.</p>
+
+<p>The launch drew to shore again. The Admiral stepped on board her, and
+she steamed away.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd hung around the end of our embankment. Some children began
+chasing each other in and out among the men and women. A few girls
+went down to the water&#8217;s edge and threw in stones, laughing at the
+splashes they made. Then a young man found an empty bottle and flung
+it far out into the channel. Fifty or sixty men and women threw stones
+at it, laughing when shots went wide, cheering when some well-aimed
+stone set the bottle rocking. Further back from the water&#8217;s edge young
+men and girls were romping with each other, the girls crying shrilly
+and laughing boisterously, the men catching them round their waists or
+by their arms. It might have been a crowd out for enjoyment of a Bank
+Holiday.</p>
+
+<p>The launch reached the battleship, was hoisted and stowed on board.
+Almost immediately a long line of signal flags fluttered from the
+squat mast. Smoke began to pour from the funnels. The flags were
+hauled down and another festoon of them was hoisted in their place. I
+could see an answering stream of flags fluttering from one of the
+ships further out.</p>
+
+<p>Then, very slowly, the great steamer began to move. She went at a
+snail&#8217;s pace, as it seemed to me, across the lough to the County Down
+coast. Very slowly she swept round in a wide circle and steamed back
+again northward. There was something terrifying in the stately
+deliberation with which she moved. It was as if some great beast of
+prey paced as a sentinel in front <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>of his victim, so conscious of his
+power to seize and kill that he could afford to wait before he sprang.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd behind us was silent now. The laughter and the play had
+ceased. Children were crowding round the women seeking for hands to
+hold. Some of the women, vaguely terror-stricken, looked into the
+faces of the men. Others had drawn a little apart from the rest of the
+crowd and stood in a group by themselves, staring out at the
+battleship. There were middle-aged women and quite young women in this
+group. I raised my field-glasses and scanned their faces. There was
+one expression on them, and only one&mdash;not fear, but hatred. Women
+fight sometimes in citizen armies when such things have been called
+into existence. But it is not their fighting power which makes them
+important. That is, probably, always quite inconsiderable. What makes
+them a force to be reckoned with in war is their faculty for hating.
+They hate with more concentration and intensity than men do. These
+women were mindful, perhaps, of the girl with the baby whom Clithering
+had seen shot. They realized, perhaps, the menace for husbands,
+lovers, and sons which lay in the guns of the black ironclad parading
+sluggishly before their eyes. Remembering and anticipating death, they
+hated the source of it with uncompromising bitterness. The men in the
+crowd seemed crushed into silence by mere wonder and expectation of
+some unknown thing. They were not, so far as I could judge, afraid.
+They were not excited. They simply waited to see what was to happen to
+them and their town.</p>
+
+<p>Once more a string of flags fluttered from the ship&#8217;s mast. Once more
+the answer came from her consorts. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>Then for the third time she swept
+round. We saw her foreshortened; then end on; then foreshortened again
+as her other side swung into view. At that moment&mdash;just before the
+whole length of her lay flat before our eyes she fired. At first I
+scarcely realized that she had fired. There was a small cloud of white
+smoke hanging over her near the bow. That was all for the moment. Then
+came the horrible sound of the great projectile racing through the
+air. Then it was past.</p>
+
+<p>Some women in the crowd, a few, shrieked aloud. Some girls ran wildly
+towards the town, driven, I suppose, to seek shelter of some kind.
+Most of the crowd stood silent. Then from some young men who stood
+together there came a kind of moaning sound. It gathered volume. It,
+as it were, took shape. Voice after voice took it up. The whole
+crowd&mdash;many hundreds of men and women&mdash;sang together the hymn they had
+all been singing for months past, &#8220;O God, our help in ages past.&#8221; I do
+not know how far back towards the town the singing spread, but it
+would not surprise me to hear that ten thousand voices joined in it.</p>
+
+<p>Bland had his glasses raised. He was still gazing at the battleship.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A strange answer,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to make to the first shell of a
+bombardment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;It reminds me of a profane rhyme which I used to
+hear:</p>
+
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;&#8216;There was a young lady of Zion<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who sang Sunday-school songs to a lion.&#8217;</span></div></div></div>
+
+<p>&#8220;But hers, I should say, was the more sensible proceeding of the two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was not sure. It is just conceivable&mdash;it seemed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>to me at that
+moment even likely&mdash;that a hymn, sung as that one was, may be the most
+effective answer to a big gun. There are only certain things which
+guns can do. When they have destroyed life and ruined buildings their
+power is spent. But the singing of hymns may, and sometimes does,
+render men for a time at least, indifferent to the loss of their lives
+and the ruin of their houses. Against men in the frame of mind which
+hymn-singing induces the biggest guns are powerless. The original
+singers fall, perhaps, but the spirit of their singing survives. For
+each voice silenced by the bursting shells ten voices take up the
+song.</p>
+
+<p>The battleship, after firing the gun, swung round and once more slowly
+steamed across the lough. I waited, tense with excitement, for her to
+turn again. At the next turn, I felt sure, another shell would come. I
+was wrong. She turned, more slowly than ever as it seemed. No white
+smoke issued from her. Again she steamed northwards. Again, opposite
+Carrickfergus, close to the northern shore, she turned. Right in front
+of her bows the water was suddenly broken. It was as if some one had
+dropped a huge stone close to her. The spray of the splash must have
+fallen on her fore deck.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My God!&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;they&#8217;re firing at her. Look! From the hill
+above the town.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I could not look. My eyes were on the ship as she slowly turned. Her
+side came gradually into view. Then, quite suddenly and for no
+apparent reason, she staggered. I saw her list over heavily, right
+herself again, and steam on.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hit!&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;Hit! Hit!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>He danced beside me with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Two puffs of smoke hung over the ship&#8217;s decks, one forward, one aft,
+and blew clear again. But this time we heard no shrieking shells. She
+was firing, not at the town, but at the guns on the hill which
+threatened and wounded her. Then her signal flags ran up again. Before
+the answer came from the other ships the sea was broken twice close to
+her. I looked to see her stagger from another blow, heel over, perhaps
+sink. Her speed increased. In a minute she was rushing towards us,
+flinging white waves from her great bows. Then she swept round once
+more. Fire as well as smoke poured from her funnels. She steamed
+eastwards down the lough. We saw her join the other ships far out. She
+and they lay motionless together.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd behind us began to sing their hymn again.</p>
+
+<p>Bland and I left our lighthouse and went back towards the town. We
+passed Bob and his men in their trench but they scarcely noticed us.
+We pushed our way through the crowd. We passed the shipbuilding yard,
+now full of eager people, discussing the departure of the ship,
+canvassing the possibility of her coming back again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What guns have they on the Cave Hill?&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I did not know that they had any guns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder where they got them,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I wonder who has command
+of them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I could answer, or thought I could answer, both questions. As we
+struggled through the crowds which thronged the quay I told Bland of
+the visits of the <i>Finola</i> to our bay and of the piles of huge
+packing-cases <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>which Godfrey had shown me in the sheds behind the
+store.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who fired them?&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;Who have you got who understands
+them? Those were big guns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Malcolmson,&#8221; I said, &#8220;always said he understood guns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He does,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;If he&#8217;d shot just the least shade better he&#8217;d
+have sunk that ship.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On the bridge we met McConkey, sweating profusely, taking his
+favourite weapon along at a rapid trot. He stopped when he saw us and
+halted his breathless team.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have her working again,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and she&#8217;ll shoot the now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re too late,&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is she sunken?&#8221; said McConkey. &#8220;Man o&#8217; man but I&#8217;m sorry for it. I
+wanted sore to have a shot at her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s not sunk,&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;but she&#8217;s gone. Steamed clean out of
+range of your gun.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d have liked well to have got to her before she quit,&#8221; said
+McConkey. &#8220;Did you hear tell what she did with that shell she fired
+into the town?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Did it kill many people?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sorra the one,&#8221; said McConkey. &#8220;But I&#8217;ll tell you what it did do.&#8221;
+His voice sank to a hoarse but singularly impressive whisper. &#8220;It made
+flitters of the statue of the old Queen that was sitting fornint the
+City Hall. The like of thon is nice work for men that&#8217;s wearing the
+King&#8217;s uniform.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bland burst into a sudden fit of boisterous laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may laugh if it pleases you,&#8221; said McConkey, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>&#8220;but I&#8217;m thinking
+it&#8217;s time for loyal men to be getting guns of their own when the
+Government is that thick with rebels and Papishes that they&#8217;d go
+shooting at the ould Queen who was always a decent woman, so she was,
+and too good for the like of them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>McConkey&#8217;s story was perfectly true. The solitary shell which was
+fired into Belfast fell just outside the City Hall. It injured that
+building a good deal; and it entirely destroyed the statue of Queen
+Victoria. It is a curious evidence of the amazing loyalty of the
+people of Belfast that many of them were more angry at this insult to
+Majesty than they would have been if the shell had killed half a dozen
+volunteers. McConkey was not by any means the only man who saw in the
+accident evidence of an unholy alliance between the Liberal Government
+and the men whom Babberly was accustomed to describe as &#8220;Steeped to
+the lips in treason.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<p class="n"><span style="float:left;font-size:40px;line-height:25px;padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:1px;">B</span>land and I stood together outside the City Hall and surveyed the
+shattered fragments of the statue. The shell must have exploded quite
+close to it, and I was immensely impressed at first with the terrific
+power of modern artillery. Then I began to think about the moral
+effects of the bombardment, and I saw my way to helping Bland in his
+profession. He had been very kind to me and very helpful. I wanted to
+do him a good turn if I could.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This,&#8221; I said, &#8220;is a magnificent opportunity for you. You&#8217;ll be able
+to send off a telegram to your newspaper which will make your fortune
+as a correspondent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see that,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;If there&#8217;d been a little slaughter I
+might have made something out of it. But a statue! Hang it all! One
+statue is rather a poor bag for the British Fleet. The people are
+proud of their navy. They&#8217;ve spent a lot of money on it, and they
+won&#8217;t like being told that it has hit nothing but a statue, after a
+long morning&#8217;s shooting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bland had not grasped my idea. For a moment I was inclined to keep it
+for my own use and work it up into an article when I got time. But
+Bland deserved something from me. I resisted the temptation and gave
+him the idea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that I were a special correspondent. I&#8217;d&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;What would you say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I should take that New Zealander who stood on the broken arch of
+Westminster Bridge and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Macaulay&#8217;s,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think that the public would stand
+him again. He&#8217;s played out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not in the way I mean to use him. I should, so to speak, spiritualize
+him, and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hold on a minute,&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>He got out a note-book and a pencil and prepared to write.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now,&#8221; he said, &#8220;go on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bland&#8217;s expectant attitude, and the fact that he was evidently going
+to take down what I said in shorthand, embarrassed me. When I write
+essays I like to work deliberately and to correct carefully. I aim at
+a polished elegance of style. I do not care for the kind of offhand
+composition Bland asked for.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Interview with a Revolutionary Peer,&#8217;&#8221; said Bland, &#8220;&#8216;Lord Kilmore on
+the Ulster Situation.&#8217; You were just going to say&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, nothing much. Only that the feelings of that New Zealander&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Meditating on the ruins of a shattered civilization,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I
+can put in that part myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&mdash;Are nothing to yours&mdash;&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Yours</i>,&#8221; said Bland.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, mine, if this must be an interview; but I&#8217;d rather you had the
+whole credit.&mdash;Are nothing to mine when I survey the vacant pedestal
+of that statue. You catch the idea now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I don&#8217;t. Is there one?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, there is. These unrecognizable fragments of stone, the once
+majestic statue, Ulster&#8217;s loyalty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good,&#8221; said Bland. &#8220;I have it now.&#8221; He began <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>to write rapidly. &#8220;&#8216;To
+the thoughtful mind there was something infinitely tragic in the
+shattered statue of the great queen, symbol of the destruction of an
+ideal. England bought the friendship of Nationalist Ireland at a heavy
+price when the guns of her Fleet annihilated the loyalty of Ulster.&#8217;
+That&#8217;s your idea.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got it exactly,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll send it off at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. You&#8217;d better hurry. It&#8217;s almost certain to occur to Babberly,
+and the moment it does he&#8217;ll put it into a speech. If he does, the
+whole credit will go to him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This impressed Bland. He hurried away towards the post-office. I felt
+that I was not likely to get anything more out of the statue. I put a
+small bit of it in my pocket to keep as a souvenir, and then strolled
+along Donegal Place.</p>
+
+<p>I met Crossan, who saluted me gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The provisional Government,&#8221; he said, &#8220;desires your lordship&#8217;s
+presence in the City Hall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad there&#8217;s a provisional Government,&#8221; I said. &#8220;We want
+something of the sort. Do you happen to know if I&#8217;m a member of it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been looking for you, my lord,&#8221; said Crossan, severely, &#8220;for
+over an hour, and there&#8217;s no time to waste.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I hurried off. The Government, after driving off the British Fleet,
+was likely to be in a good temper, but I did not wish to keep it
+waiting for me too long.</p>
+
+<p>When I entered the room I found Conroy, McNeice, Malcolmson, Cahoon
+and the Dean seated at the table. Moyne was not there.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I congratulate you, gentlemen,&#8221; I said, &#8220;on the result <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>of the
+naval engagement. Malcolmson was perfectly magnificent. It was you,
+wasn&#8217;t it, who&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t see anything magnificent about it,&#8221; said Malcolmson,
+sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re damned well sick of being played with,&#8221; said McNeice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If the English Government means to fight us&mdash;&#8221; said the Dean,
+speaking explosively.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to say,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that you think the Admiral was not in
+earnest in that bombardment?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No more than the soldiers were yesterday,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;They fired
+over our heads.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And we&#8217;re not going to stand any more fooling,&#8221; said Malcolmson.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re business men,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;and this sort of play-acting won&#8217;t
+do for Belfast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your boss politicians,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;have been flooding us out with
+telegrams.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a large pile of telegrams in front of him and some forty or
+fifty loose sheets of flimsy yellow paper were scattered about the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Their notion,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;is that we should send a man over to
+negotiate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An ambassador,&#8221; I said, &#8220;Plenipotentiary?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord Moyne won&#8217;t go,&#8221; said the Dean.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s the proper man,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s try to persuade him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s up at the barracks,&#8221; said McNeice. &#8220;He&#8217;s been there all morning
+trying to get the General to arrest him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be far better,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if he went to London and handed
+himself over to the Prime Minister.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;European convention,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;makes it necessary, so I am
+informed, that this particular kind of job should be done by a member
+of your aristocracy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was, I think, with the exception of Moyne, the only member of the
+House of Lords in Belfast at the moment. The committee had evidently
+fixed on me as an ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is,&#8221; I said, &#8220;a tradition that the Diplomatic Service should
+be&mdash;but our circumstances are so very peculiar&mdash;I am not sure that we
+ought to feel bound&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you go?&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course, I&#8217;ll go,&#8221; I said. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing I should like better.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The <i>Finola</i> is lying off Bangor,&#8221; said Conroy. &#8220;I&#8217;ll run you and
+Power down there in my motor. He&#8217;ll land you wherever you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I suppose I&#8217;ll go in my shirt with a rope round my
+neck, like the burghers of Calais.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If that&#8217;s the regular costume,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke so severely that I thought I had better drop the subject of
+clothes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, as to the terms which you are prepared to offer the Government,&#8221;
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We will not have Home Rule,&#8221; said the Dean and Malcolmson together.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course not,&#8221; I said. &#8220;That will be understood at once. Shall I
+demand Mr. Redmond&#8217;s head on a charger? I don&#8217;t suppose you want it,
+but it&#8217;s always well to ask for more than you mean to take. It gives
+the other side a chance of negotiating.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All we ask,&#8221; said McNeice, &#8220;is that the English clear out of this
+country, bag and baggage, soldiers, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>policemen, tax collectors, the
+whole infernal crew, and leave us free hand to clean up the mess
+they&#8217;ve been making for the last hundred years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Either that,&#8221; said Malcolmson, &#8220;or fight us in earnest.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll clear out, of course,&#8221; I said. &#8220;If it&#8217;s a choice between that
+and fighting. But what about governing the country afterwards?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll do that,&#8221; said Conroy, &#8220;and if we can&#8217;t do it better than they
+did&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you will,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Anyhow, you can&#8217;t do it worse. But&mdash;there&#8217;s
+just one point more. What about the Lord Lieutenant?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know that he matters any,&#8221; said Conroy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He doesn&#8217;t,&#8221; I said, &#8220;not a bit. But he&#8217;s there at present, and some
+arrangement will have to be made about him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If the Dublin people like airing their best clothes before an
+imitation king,&#8221; said Cahoon, &#8220;let them. It won&#8217;t matter to us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This showed me that Cahoon, at least, has a statesman&#8217;s mind. In
+unessential matters he is ready to yield to the sentiments of his
+inferiors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand then,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that the Lord Lieutenant with the purely
+ornamental part of the Viceregal staff is to be allowed to remain on
+the condition that he gives&mdash;shall we say eight balls and eight
+dinner-parties every year?&mdash;and that every other Englishman leaves the
+country at once. Those are your terms.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And no more talk about Home Rule,&#8221; said the Dean firmly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll start at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bob Power was waiting for me in Conroy&#8217;s motor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>when I had packed my
+bag. The streets were very crowded as we drove through them, and the
+people cheered us tremendously. It was the first time I had ever been
+cheered, and I found the sensation agreeable. Besides cheering, the
+crowd sang a great deal. Some one had composed a song especially for
+the occasion, which had caught the fancy of the Belfast people, and
+spread among them with wonderful rapidity. The tune, I am told, dates
+from the days of the eighteenth-century volunteer movement.</p>
+
+<div class="centerbox3 bbox2"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Do you think I&#8217;m a fool<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To put up with Home Rule?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I&#8217;m not, as you&#8217;ll quickly discover, discover.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For soldier and rebel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&#8217;m equally able;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&#8217;ll neither have one nor the t&#8217;other, the t&#8217;other.&#8221;</span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>As poetry this is scarcely equal to Dr. Isaac Watts&#8217; version of the
+ninetieth of David&#8217;s psalms. The rhyme of &#8220;rebel&#8221; with &#8220;able&#8221; is
+defective, and &#8220;discover&#8221; and &#8220;other&#8221; jar rather badly; but poets of
+high reputation have done worse in times of patriotic excitement, and
+the thing expressed the feelings of the Belfast people with perfect
+accuracy. A better poet might very well have failed to understand
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Bob and I made the sea-passage as short as possible by steaming to
+Port Patrick. I spent an anxious half-hour while we passed through the
+squadron of warships. Bob assured me that they would not do anything
+to us. When I complained that they had a truculent and angry look
+about them he said that that was nothing out of the common. All
+warships look truculent. I dare say they do. Warfare has become much
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>more civilized and scientific than it used to be; but we cannot any
+of us afford as yet to neglect the wisdom of the medi&aelig;val Chinese.
+They wore masks in order to terrify their foes. Our battleships are
+evidently designed with the same object.</p>
+
+<p>I reached London next morning, and at once sent word to the Prime
+Minister that I was ready to make a treaty with him. He sent Sir
+Samuel Clithering to act as an intermediary. We met in the library of
+Moyne House, which was neutral ground. Lady Moyne had been one of the
+original syndicate which, so to speak, placed our insurrection on the
+market. Her house was therefore friendly soil for me. She had
+afterwards disassociated herself, more or less, from Conroy and
+McNeice; while Moyne had been trying for two days to surrender
+himself. The Prime Minister&#8217;s ambassador could therefore go to Moyne
+House without loss of dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Clithering brought my nephew Godfrey with him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. D&#8217;Aubigny,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is acting for the present as one of my
+private secretaries.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering is a man who accumulates private secretaries rapidly. It
+would not have surprised me to hear that he had a dozen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I brought him,&#8221; Clithering went on, &#8220;to take notes of our
+conversation. I thought that you would prefer him to a stranger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I should very much have preferred the young man from Toynbee Hall who
+escorted Marion to the cathedral. I should, in fact, have preferred
+any other private secretary. But I had not the heart to say so. The
+experience of the last few days had softened me, and Godfrey looked
+immensely pleased with himself. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>He had on a new frock coat,
+beautifully cut, and a pair of trousers of an exquisite shade of grey.
+He also had a pale mauve tie with a pearl pin in it.</p>
+
+<p>Clithering began rather pompously. I dare say he really thought that
+he was in a position to dictate terms.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I sincerely hope that you fully realize the
+extraordinary forbearance with which the Government has treated
+this&mdash;this&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t say rebellion,&#8221; I said; &#8220;we&#8217;re thoroughly loyal men and always
+have been.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering hesitated. He wanted to say rebellion, but he remembered
+that he was engaged in a game of diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This <i>&eacute;meute</i>,&#8221; he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>French is, after all, a greater language than English. I could not
+object to <i>&eacute;meute</i>. I should have objected to any English description
+of our rising.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We might,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;have shot the people down. We might have
+bombarded the town. I am sure that you realize that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We realize it,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but we don&#8217;t altogether appreciate it. In
+fact, we feel that your way of conducting the war has been rather
+insulting to us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to say,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;that you really wanted
+us&mdash;to&mdash;to shoot in earnest?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We did. In fact one of the alternatives which I am empowered to offer
+you&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Offer us! But we&mdash;we are&mdash;I mean to say that the terms of settlement
+must, of course, be dictated by us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Godfrey, you can&#8217;t write shorthand, I know; but
+you must try and take down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>what I&#8217;m going to say now as accurately as
+possible. I&#8217;ll speak quite slowly. The Government&mdash;I mean, of course,
+so far as Ulster is concerned, the late Government&mdash;your
+Government&mdash;must either conduct the war in a proper business-like
+way&mdash;have you got that down, Godfrey?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;that you want us&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean,&#8221; I said, &#8220;that we have put our money into it. Conroy, in
+particular, has spent huge sums on cannons. We are determined to have
+a show of some sort. Your Government must therefore either agree to
+fight properly and not keep running away every time we get a shot in,
+or&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;go on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m waiting,&#8221; I said, &#8220;till Godfrey gets that written down. Have you
+finished, Godfrey? Very well. Or&mdash;now take this down carefully&mdash;you
+English clear out of Ireland altogether, every man of you, except&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;&#8221; said Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And leave us to manage Ireland ourselves. Got that, Godfrey?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; said Clithering; &#8220;but&mdash;I thought you didn&#8217;t want Home Rule.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t. We won&#8217;t have it at any price.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But that is Home Rule of the most extreme kind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no use splitting hairs,&#8221; I said, &#8220;or discussing finicking
+points of political nomenclature. The point for you to grasp is that
+those are our terms.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you excuse me?&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;This is all rather surprising.
+May I call up the Prime Minister on the telephone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Certainly,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;m in no hurry. But be sure you put it to him
+distinctly. I don&#8217;t want to have any misunderstanding.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was no telephone in the library of Moyne House. Clithering had
+to ring for a servant who led him off to another room. Godfrey seized
+the opportunity of his absence to confide in me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Poor old Clithering is a bit of a bounder,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Makes
+stockings, you know, Excellency. And Lady Clithering is a fat
+vulgarian. It&#8217;s all she can do to pick up her aitches. I shouldn&#8217;t
+think of stopping in their house if&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If any one else would give you food and pocket money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s that, of course,&#8221; said Godfrey. &#8220;But what I was thinking of
+is the daughter. There is a daughter and she ought to have a tidy
+little pile. Now do you think it would be worth my while to marry into
+a family like that for forty thou.? Clithering ought to run to forty
+thou., with the title in sight. I wonder if you would mind sounding
+him, Excellency?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At present,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m arranging about the fate of Belfast, which
+is rather an important matter in some ways. But&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey did not seem to care much about the fate of Belfast.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that it really is settled about Marion and that
+fellow Power.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite,&#8221; I said; &#8220;they&#8217;re to be married at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I think, Excellency, if you don&#8217;t mind speaking to old
+Clithering&mdash;I wouldn&#8217;t like to commit myself until I was pretty sure
+of the money. There&#8217;s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>only one daughter, so he can hardly offer less
+than forty thou.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I fully intended to tell Godfrey what I thought of him; but words were
+not easy to find. I was still searching for a noun to go along with
+&#8220;damnable&#8221; when Clithering came back. He seemed greatly excited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Prime Minister,&#8221; he blurted out, &#8220;is quite ready&mdash;He says he has
+no objection&mdash;In fact it&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve been trying to do all along. Our
+Home Rule Bill was simply an attempt&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do try to be coherent,&#8221; I said. &#8220;What did the Prime Minister say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He said we&#8217;d leave Ireland with the greatest pleasure,&#8221; said
+Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that all?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Something in the way Clithering spoke made me think the Prime Minister
+must have said more than that.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He added,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;that&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he paused nervously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Out with it,&#8221; I said. &#8220;It&#8217;s far better to have no secrets. Godfrey,
+take down the Prime Minister&#8217;s words.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He added,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;that there is only one thing which would
+please him better than to see the back of the last Irishman leaving
+Westminster, and that is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go on,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To hear that at the end of three weeks you&#8217;d all torn each other to
+pieces, and that there was nothing but a lot of trouser buttons left
+to show that Ireland had ever been an inhabited country. Of course he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>didn&#8217;t mean it. If there was the least chance of any internecine
+strife our conscience would not allow us&mdash;after all we have a duty, as
+Englishmen&mdash;but there&#8217;s no risk of bloodshed, is there, Lord Kilmore?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not the slightest. I may take it then that your Government agrees to
+our terms. You cart away your army and all your officials, except the
+Lord Lieutenant. We want him. He&#8217;s to give parties for the Dublin
+doctors and the smaller landed gentry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But about his salary,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;Is that to be an Imperial
+charge, or are you&mdash;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I forgot to ask about that,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but if there&#8217;s any difficulty I
+expect Conroy will agree to pay it. It&#8217;s not much, is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure of the exact figure; but I know it&#8217;s never supposed to
+be enough.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve no actual authority for saying so,&#8221; I said, &#8220;but I expect we&#8217;ll
+want to do the thing decently if we do it at all. Cahoon has the mind
+of a statesman, and in his opinion something will have to be done to
+soothe the Dublin public. A first-rate Viceregal establishment was his
+idea. However, we needn&#8217;t go into details. The main thing is that we
+want a Lord Lieutenant. If your Government undertakes to supply
+suitable men from time to time I think I may promise that we&#8217;ll find
+the money. Write that down, Godfrey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When you speak of the English clearing out of Ireland,&#8221; said
+Clithering, &#8220;and leaving you the country to yourselves, you don&#8217;t of
+course mean absolute fiscal independence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We do,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t mean that,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;It&#8217;s costing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> us nearly two
+millions a year to run the country, and if that&#8217;s withdrawn you will
+go bankrupt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What McNeice said,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;was that you were to clear out, bag,
+baggage, soldiers, police, tax-collectors, and the whole&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tax-collectors!&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t your Prime Minister say he&#8217;d be glad to get rid of us? What&#8217;s
+the use of your arguing on about every little point?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;the collection of the revenue! Between
+ourselves now, Lord Kilmore, do you think there would be any risk of
+your imposing a tariff on&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certain to,&#8221; I said. &#8220;It will be one of the first things we do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t agree to that,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;Free Trade is a principle,
+a sacred principle with us. You can&#8217;t expect&mdash;We are a Free Trade
+Government. Our consciences&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Go on with the war. Bombard Belfast. Kill
+another woman. Smash the Albert Memorial with a shell.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Our consciences&mdash;&#8221; said Clithering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your consciences,&#8221; I said, &#8220;will have to let you do one thing or the
+other.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now take my own case,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I am interested, deeply
+interested, in hosiery. We do a big business in stockings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey winced. I do not wonder. The future Lady Kilmore must, of
+course, wear stockings, but it is not pleasant for Godfrey to think of
+her supply coming straight from the paternal factory.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;The Irish trade,&#8221; said Clithering, &#8220;is not among the most
+remunerative, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We can only afford to wear the cheaper sorts,&#8221; I said; &#8220;and a great
+many of us can&#8217;t buy any at all. I don&#8217;t think you need bother about
+the Irish trade.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Still, it is substantial. Now, a hostile tariff&mdash;or a bounty on
+Balbriggan&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll have to establish a factory in Ireland,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and dodge
+the tariff. Tipperary now. Labour is comparatively cheap, and&mdash;After
+all, it&#8217;s a choice between that and letting the Fleet loose at Belfast
+again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clithering thought this over. I think the idea of cheap labour in
+Tipperary cheered him up. When he next spoke it was in a most friendly
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that the shells which were fired&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was only one,&#8221; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I heard that no lives were lost,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I hope that the
+damage done to property was not serious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One statue,&#8221; I said, &#8220;was smashed to bits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry, very sorry indeed. Now I wonder if you would allow
+me&mdash;I mean if the people of Belfast would allow me&mdash;as a personal
+expression of the warm feeling of friendliness I&#8217;ve always felt for
+the Irish people, <i>all</i> the Irish people&mdash;I wonder if I might offer to
+replace the statue. I should esteem it an honour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was a very large statue,&#8221; I said, &#8220;and must have cost&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I should not allow considerations of money to stand in my way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p><p>This was handsome. I looked at Godfrey to see how he liked to hear his
+future wife&#8217;s dowry being frittered away on statues. I could see that
+he was anything but pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall convey your offer,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to the people of Belfast. They
+may not want that exact statue again. We&#8217;re not quite as keen on Kings
+and Queens as we were. But I feel quite sure something symbolic would
+appeal to us strongly. What would you think now of Ulster as an infant
+Hercules strangling a snake representing Home Rule? Any good sculptor
+would knock off something of that sort for you; about twelve feet by
+nine feet, not counting the pedestal. By the way, did we do much
+damage to your ship? The one Malcolmson hit with his cannon ball?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Clithering. &#8220;I did not hear any details.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because,&#8221; I said, &#8220;if she is injured in any way&mdash;But perhaps she was
+insured?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think men-of-war are insured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, they ought to be. But if that one wasn&#8217;t I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;d like to
+make good any damage we did. Conroy has lots of money, and he&#8217;d be
+sorry if the English people were put to any expense in repairing a
+battleship we injured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am not a practised ambassador, but I have always understood that
+diplomacy is a trade in which politeness pays. I was not going to be
+outdone by Clithering. When he offered Belfast a new statue I could
+hardly do less than promise that Conroy would mend the ship. I was
+very glad afterwards that I thought of it. Clithering was tremendously
+pleased, and made me quite a long speech. He said that he looked upon
+my offer as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>a kind of first-fruit of the new spirit of amity which
+was coming into existence between England and Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>This ended our negotiations to the satisfaction of every one
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Moyne returned at once to Castle Affey and spent the summer in
+planning new ways of keeping the insurgent industrial democracy from
+invading the rights and privileges of the propertied classes. Last
+time I dined there she explained to me a scheme for developing the Boy
+Scout movement, which would, she thought, distract the attention of
+the public and push social questions into the background. Babberly
+escaped having to address a labour meeting in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He
+had promised to do this, but there was no necessity for him to keep
+his promise once the troops were withdrawn from Belfast. He returned
+to his duties in Parliament, and, as I gathered from the papers,
+harassed the Government successfully all through the autumn session.
+The Dean and Crossan played their hymn tune on our church bells every
+day for a fortnight. They still&mdash;and I am writing several months after
+the new Irish Government has been firmly established&mdash;congratulate
+each other on the way in which the third Home Rule Bill was defeated
+by the unfaltering attitude of the Ulster Loyalists.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey, I regret to say, failed to marry Miss Clithering. She took a
+violent dislike to him after he had spent three weeks in her father&#8217;s
+house. Not even the prospect of becoming Lady Kilmore would reconcile
+her to the marriage. I am therefore still responsible for his
+maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>I have, unfortunately, been obliged to give up writing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>my &#8220;History of
+Irish Rebellions.&#8221; I do not understand Marion&#8217;s system of filing, and
+I cannot find any of the papers I want. I cannot get Marion to explain
+things to me, or to take any trouble to help me. Since she married Bob
+Power she has lost all interest in my literary work.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Transcriber&#8217;s Note:</span></h3>
+
+<p>1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters&#8217; errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author&#8217;s words and
+intent.</p>
+
+<p>2. The original of this e-text did not have a Table of Contents; one has been
+added for the reader&#8217;s convenience.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29533-h.htm or 29533-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/3/29533/
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/29533-h/images/i001.jpg b/29533-h/images/i001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9334dbe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533-h/images/i001.jpg
diff --git a/29533.txt b/29533.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..14755c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9226 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Hand of Ulster
+
+Author: George A. Birmingham
+
+Release Date: July 29, 2009 [EBook #29533]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THE RED HAND
+ OF ULSTER
+
+ BY
+
+ G. A. BIRMINGHAM
+
+ AUTHOR OF "SPANISH GOLD," "THE MAJOR'S NIECE,"
+ "PRISCILLA'S SPIES," ETC.
+
+ HODDER & STOUGHTON
+
+ NEW YORK
+
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1912,
+
+By George H. Doran Company
+
+
+
+
+ UNIFORM EDITION _of the_ WORKS _of_
+ G. A. BIRMINGHAM
+
+ _Each, net $1.20_
+
+ LALAGE'S LOVERS
+ SPANISH GOLD
+ THE SEARCH PARTY
+ THE SIMPKINS PLOT
+ THE MAJOR'S NIECE
+ PRISCILLA'S SPIES
+ THE RED HAND
+   OF ULSTER
+
+ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+ NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+
+In a book of this kind some of the characters are necessarily placed
+in the positions occupied by living men; but no character is in any
+way copied from life, and no character must be taken as representing
+any real person. Nor must the opinions of Lord Kilmore of Errigal, the
+imaginary narrator of the tale, be regarded as those of the Author.
+
+G. A. B.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+BY
+
+LORD KILMORE OF ERRIGAL
+
+
+The events recorded in this chapter and the next did not fall under my
+own observation. I derived my knowledge of them from various sources,
+chiefly from conversations with Bob Power, who had, as will appear,
+first-hand knowledge. In the third chapter I begin my own personal
+narrative of the events which led up to the final struggle of Ulster
+against Home Rule and of the struggle itself. Accidents of one kind or
+another, the accidents of the situation of Kilmore Castle, the
+accident of Bob Power's connection with my daughter Marion, the
+accidents of my social position and personal tastes, have placed me in
+a position to give a very full account of what actually happened. The
+first two chapters of this book will therefore be written in the
+impersonal manner of the ordinary history; I myself occupying the
+position of unseen spectator. The rest of the book is largely founded
+upon the diary which I actually kept.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED HAND OF ULSTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was in 1908 that Joseph Peterson Conroy burst upon London in the
+full magnificence of his astounding wealth. English society was, and
+had been for many years, accustomed to the irruption of millionaires,
+American or South African. Our aristocracy has learnt to pay these
+potentates the respect which is their due. Well-born men and women
+trot along Park Lane in obedience to the hooting calls of motor horns.
+No one considers himself degraded by grovelling before a plutocrat.
+
+It has been for some time difficult to startle London by a display of
+mere wealth. Men respect more than ever fortunes which are reckoned in
+millions, though they have become too common to amaze. But Joseph
+Peterson Conroy, when he came, excited a great deal of interest. In
+the first place his income was enormous, larger, it was said, than the
+income of any other living man. In the next place he spent it very
+splendidly. There were no entertainments given in London during the
+years 1909, 1910, and 1911, equal in extravagance to those which
+Conroy gave. He outdid the "freak dinners" of New York. He invented
+freak dinners of his own. His horses--animals which he bought at
+enormous prices--won the great races. His yachts flew the white
+ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron. His gifts to fashionable charities
+were princely. English society fell at his feet and worshipped him.
+The most exclusive clubs were honoured by his desire of membership.
+Women whose fathers and husbands bore famous names were proud to boast
+of his friendship.
+
+It cannot be said that Conroy abused either his position or his
+opportunities. He had won his great wealth honestly--that is to say
+without robbing any one except other robbers, and only robbing them in
+ways permitted by American law. He used what he had won honourably
+enough. He neither bought the favours of the women who thronged his
+entertainments; nor degraded, more than was necessary, the men who
+sought benefits from him. For a time, for nearly four years, he
+thoroughly enjoyed himself, exulting with boyish delight in his own
+splendour. Then he began to get restless. The things he did, the
+people he knew, ceased to interest him. It was early in 1911 that
+the crisis came; and before the season of that year was over Conroy
+had disappeared from London. His name still appeared occasionally
+in the columns which the newspapers devote to fashionable intelligence.
+But the house in Park Lane--the scene of many magnificent
+entertainments--was sold. The dinner parties, balls and card parties
+ceased; and Conroy entered upon what must have been the most exciting
+period of his life.
+
+Bob Power--no one ever called him Robert--belonged to an old and
+respected Irish family, being a younger son of General Power of
+Kilfenora. He was educated at Harrow and afterwards at Trinity
+College. He was called to the Irish bar and might have achieved in
+time the comfortable mediocrity of a County Court judgeship if he had
+not become Conroy's private secretary. The post was secured for him by
+an uncle who had known Conroy in New York in the days before he became
+a millionaire, while it was still possible for an ordinary man to do
+him a favour. Bob accepted the post because everybody said he would be
+a fool to refuse it. He did not much like writing letters. The making
+out of schemes for the arrangements of Conroy's guests at the more
+formal dinner parties worried him. The general supervision of the
+upper servants was no delight to him. But he did all these things
+fairly well, and his unfailing good spirits carried him safely through
+periods of very tiresome duty. He became, in spite of the twenty-five
+years' difference of age between him and his patron, the intimate
+friend of Joseph Peterson Conroy.
+
+It was to Bob that Conroy confided the fact that he was tired of the
+life of a leader of English society. The two men were sitting together
+in the smoking room at one o'clock in the morning after one of
+Conroy's most magnificent entertainments.
+
+"I'm damned well sick of all this," said Conroy suddenly.
+
+"So am I," said Bob.
+
+Bob Power was a man of adventurous disposition. He had a reputation in
+Connacht as a singularly bold rider to hounds. The story of his
+singlehanded cruise round Ireland in a ten tonner will be told among
+yachtsmen until his son does something more extravagantly idiotic.
+The London season always bored him. The atmosphere of Conroy's house
+in Park Lane stifled him.
+
+"Is there any one thing left in this rotten old world," said Conroy,
+"that's worth doing?"
+
+In Bob's opinion there were several things very well worth doing. He
+suggested one of them at once.
+
+"Let's get out the _Finola_," he said, "and go for a cruise. We've
+never done the South Sea Islands."
+
+The _Finola_ was the largest of Conroy's yachts, a handsome vessel of
+something over a thousand tons.
+
+"Cruising in the _Finola_," said Conroy, "is no earthly good to me.
+What I want is something that will put me into a nervous sweat, the
+same as I was when I was up against Ikenstein and the railway bosses.
+My nerves were like damned fiddle strings for a fortnight when I
+didn't know whether I was going to come out a pauper or the owner of
+the biggest pile mortal man ever handled."
+
+Bob knew nothing of Ikenstein or the methods by which the pile had
+been wrested from him and his companions, but he did know the
+sensations which Conroy described. He, himself, arrived at them by
+hanging on to a sea anchor in a gale of wind off the Galway coast, or
+pushing a vicious horse at a nasty jump. Nervous sweat, stretched
+nerves and complete uncertainty about the immediate future afford the
+same delight however you get at them. He sympathized with Conroy.
+
+"You might fit out a ship or two and try exploring round the South
+Pole," Bob said. "They've got the thing itself of course, but there
+must be lots of places still undiscovered in the neighbourhood. I
+should think that hummocking along over the ice floes in a dog sledge
+must be pretty thrilling."
+
+Conroy sighed.
+
+"I'm too fat," he said, "and I'm too darned soft. The kind of life
+I've led for the last four years isn't good training for camping out
+on icebergs and feeding on whale's blubber."
+
+Bob smiled. Conroy was a very fat man. A camping party on an iceberg
+would be likely to end in some whale eating his blubber.
+
+"I didn't mean you to go yourself," said Bob.
+
+"Oh! I see. I'm to fit out the expedition and you are to go in
+command. I don't quite see where the fun would come in for me. It
+wouldn't excite me any to hear of your shooting Esquimaux and
+penguins. I shouldn't care enough whether you lived or were froze to
+get any excitement out of a show of that kind."
+
+"We'd call it 'The Joseph P. Conroy Expedition,'" said Bob; "and the
+newspapers--"
+
+"Thanks. But I'm pretty well fed up with newspaper tosh. The press has
+boosted me ever since I landed in this country, and I'd just as soon
+they stopped now as started fresh."
+
+Bob relinquished the idea of a Polar expedition with a sigh.
+
+It was Conroy himself who made the next suggestion.
+
+"If politics weren't such a rotten game--"
+
+Bob did not feel attracted to political life; but he was loyal to his
+patron.
+
+"Clithering," he said, "was talking to me to-night. You know the man I
+mean, Sir Samuel Clithering. He's not in the Cabinet, but he's what
+I'd call a pretty intimate hanger on; does odd jobs for the Prime
+Minister. He said the interest of political life was absorbing."
+
+"I shouldn't care for it," said Conroy. "After all, what would it be
+worth to me? There's nothing for me to gain, and I don't see how I
+could lose anything. It would be like playing bridge for counters.
+They might make me a lord, of course. A title is about the only thing
+I haven't got, but then I don't want it."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Bob. "I merely mentioned politics
+because Clithering said--"
+
+"Besides," said Conroy, "it wouldn't be my politics. England isn't my
+country."
+
+"It would be rather exciting," said Bob, "to run a revolution
+somewhere. There are lots of small states, in the Balkans, you know,
+which could be turned inside out and upside down by a man with the
+amount of money you have."
+
+"There's something in that notion," said Conroy. "Get a map, will
+you?"
+
+Bob Power did not want to go wandering round the house at half-past
+one o'clock in the morning looking for a map of the Balkan States. It
+seemed to him that the idea--the financing of a revolution was of
+course a joke--might be worked out with reference to some country
+nearer at hand, the geographical conditions of which would be
+sufficiently well known without the aid of a map.
+
+"Why not try Ireland?" he said.
+
+Then a very curious thing happened. Conroy's appearance, not merely
+his expression but his actual features seemed to change. Instead of
+the shrewd face of a successful American financier Bob Power saw the
+face of an Irish peasant. He was perfectly familiar with the type. It
+was one which he had known all his life. He knew it at its best,
+expressive of lofty idealisms and fantastic dreams of things beyond
+this world's experience. He knew it at its worst too, when narrow
+cunning and unquenchable bitterness transform it. The change passed
+over Conroy's face and then quickly passed away again.
+
+"By God!" said Conroy, "it's a great notion. To buck against the
+British Lion!"
+
+Bob remembered the things which he had heard and half heeded about
+Conroy's ancestry. In 1850 another Conroy, a broken peasant, the
+victim of evil fate and gross injustice, had left Ireland in an
+emigrant ship with a ragged wife and four half starved children
+clinging to him, with an unquenchable hatred of England in his heart.
+The hate, it appeared, had lived on in his son, had broken out again
+in a grandson, dominating the cynical cosmopolitanism of the financial
+magnate. Bob was vaguely uneasy. He did not like the expression he had
+seen on Conroy's face. He did not like the tone in which he spoke. But
+it was obviously absurd to suppose that any one could take seriously
+the idea of financing an Irish revolution.
+
+Then Conroy began to talk about Ireland. He knew, it appeared, a great
+deal about the history of the country up to a certain point. He had a
+traditional knowledge of the horrors of the famine period. He was
+intimately acquainted with the details of the Fenian movement. Either
+he or his father had been a member of the Clan na Gael. He understood
+the Parnell struggle for Home Rule. But with the fall of Parnell his
+knowledge stopped abruptly. Of all that happened after that he knew
+nothing. He supposed that the later Irish leaders had inherited the
+traditions of Mitchel, O'Leary, Davitt and the others. Bob laughed at
+him.
+
+"If you're thinking of buying guns for the Nationalists," he said,
+"you may save your money. They wouldn't use them if they had arsenals
+full. They're quite the most loyal men there are nowadays. Why
+wouldn't they? They've got most of what they want and Clithering told
+me the Home Rule Bill was going to knit their hearts to the Empire.
+Awful rot, of course, but his very words."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Conroy.
+
+Bob laughed again. He had all the contempt common in his class for
+those of his fellow-countrymen who professed to be Nationalists. But
+he had rather more intelligence than most Irish gentlemen. He quite
+realized the absurdity of supposing that the Irish Parliamentary party
+consisted of men who had in them the makings of rebels.
+
+"Read their speeches," he said. "Since this talk of Home Rule began
+they've been cracking up the glories of the British Empire like--like
+the Primrose League."
+
+"To-morrow morning," said Conroy, "you'll fetch me along all the books
+and pamphlets you can lay hands on dealing with the present state of
+the Irish question."
+
+"I want a small cart," said Bob.
+
+"Get a four-horse waggon, if you like," said Conroy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+For nearly a week Conroy remained shut up in his study. Bob was kept
+busy. He spent a good deal of time in writing plausible explanations
+of Conroy's failure to keep his social engagements. He ransacked the
+shelves of booksellers for works dealing with contemporary Irish
+politics. He harried the managers of press-cutting companies for
+newspaper reports of speeches on Home Rule. These were things for
+which there was little or no demand, and the press-cutting people
+resented being asked for them. He even interviewed political leaders.
+These gentlemen received him coldly at first, suspecting from his
+appearance that he wanted to get a chance of earning L400 a year as a
+member of Parliament, and hoped to persuade them to find him a
+constituency. When they discovered that he was the private secretary
+of a famous millionaire their manner changed and they explained the
+policies of their various parties in such ways as seemed likely to
+draw large cheques from Conroy.
+
+Bob reported what they said, summarized the letters of the
+disappointed hostesses, and piled Conroy's table with books,
+pamphlets, and newspaper cuttings. The whole business bored and
+worried him. The idea that Conroy actually contemplated organizing a
+rebellion in Ireland never crossed his mind. He hoped that the
+political enthusiasm of his patron would die away as quickly as it had
+sprung up. It was therefore a surprise to him when, after a few
+weeks' hard reading, Conroy announced his decision.
+
+"I'm going into this business," he said.
+
+"Politics?" said Bob.
+
+"Politics be damned! What I'm out for is a revolution."
+
+"You can't do it," said Bob. "I told you at the start that those
+fellows won't fight. They haven't it in them to stand up and be shot
+at."
+
+"I'm thinking of the other fellows," said Conroy.
+
+"What other fellows?" he asked.
+
+"Belfast," said Conroy.
+
+Bob whistled.
+
+"But," he said, "but--but--" The extraordinary nature of the idea made
+him stammer. "But they are Loyalists."
+
+"As I figure it out," said Conroy, "they mean to rebel. That's what
+they say, anyhow, and I believe they mean it. I don't care a cent
+whether they call themselves Loyalists or not. It's up to them to
+twist the British Lion's tail, and I'm with them."
+
+"Do you think they really mean it?" said Bob.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"Well," said Bob, after a slight hesitation, "I do. You see I happen
+to know one of them pretty well."
+
+Bob showed political discernment. It was the fashion in England and
+throughout three-quarters of Ireland to laugh at Belfast. Nobody
+believed that a community of merchants, manufacturers and artisans
+actually meant to take up arms, shoot off guns and hack at the bodies
+of their fellow-men with swords and spears. This thing, at the
+beginning of the twentieth century, seemed incredible. To politicians
+it was simply unthinkable. For politics are a game played in strict
+accordance with a set of rules. For several centuries nobody in these
+islands had broken the rules. It had come to be regarded as impossible
+that any one could break them. No one expects his opponent at the
+bridge table to draw a knife from his pocket and run amuck when the
+cards go against him. Nobody expected that the north of Ireland
+Protestants would actually fight. To threaten fighting is, of course,
+well within the rules of the game, a piece of bluff which any one is
+entitled to try if he thinks he will gain anything by it. Half the
+politicians in both countries, and half the inhabitants of England,
+were laughing at the Belfast bluff. The rest of the politicians and
+the other half of the inhabitants of England were pretending to
+believe what Belfast said so as to give an air of more terrific
+verisimilitude to the bluff. Conroy, guided by the instinct for the
+true meaning of things which had led him to great wealth, believed
+that the talk was more than bluff. Bob Power, relying on what he knew
+of the character of one man, came to the same conclusion.
+
+"Who is the man you know?" said Conroy. "Not Babberly, is it?"
+
+"Oh Lord! no," said Bob. "Babberly is--well, Babberly talks a lot."
+
+"That's so," said Conroy. "But if it isn't Babberly, who is it?"
+
+"McNeice," said Bob, "Gideon McNeice."
+
+"H'm. He's something in some university, isn't he?"
+
+Conroy spoke contemptuously. He had a low opinion of the men who win
+honours in universities. They seemed to him to be unpractical
+creatures. He had, indeed, himself founded a university before he
+left America and handsomely endowed several professorial chairs. But
+he did so in the spirit which led Dean Swift to found a lunatic
+asylum. He wanted to provide a kind of hospital for a class of men who
+ought, for the sake of society, to be secluded, lest their theories
+should come inconveniently athwart the plans of those who are engaged
+in the real business of life.
+
+"McNeice," said Bob, "is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He was
+my tutor."
+
+Then he told Conroy the story of Gideon McNeice's life as far as he
+knew it at that time. It was a remarkable story, but not yet, as it
+became afterwards, strikingly singular.
+
+Gideon was the son of Ebenezer McNeice, a riveter in one of the great
+shipbuilding yards in Belfast. This Ebenezer was an Orangeman and, on
+the 12th of July, was accustomed to march long distances over dusty
+roads beating a big drum with untiring vigour. His Protestantism was a
+religion of the most definite kind. He rarely went to church, but he
+hated Popery with a profound earnestness. Gideon was taught, as soon
+as he could speak, to say, "No Pope, no Priest, no Surrender, Hurrah!"
+That was the first stage in his education. The second was taken at a
+National school where he learned the multiplication table and the
+decimal system with unusual ease. The master of a second-rate
+intermediate school heard of the boy's ability. Being anxious to earn
+the fees which a generous government gives to the masters of clever
+boys, this man offered to continue Gideon's education without asking
+payment from Ebenezer. The speculation turned out well. Gideon did
+more than was expected of him. He won all the exhibitions, medals and
+prizes possible under the Irish Intermediate system. At last he won a
+mathematical sizarship in Trinity College.
+
+Belfast--perhaps because of the religious atmosphere of the city,
+perhaps because of the interest taken by its inhabitants in
+money-making--has not given to the world many eminent poets,
+philosophers or scholars. Nor, curiously enough, has it ever produced
+an eminent theologian, or even a heretic of any reputation. But it has
+given birth to several mathematicians of quite respectable standing.
+Gideon McNeice was one of them. After the sizarship he won a
+scholarship, and then, at an unusually early age, a fellowship. It is
+generally believed that the examination for fellowship in Trinity
+College in Dublin is so severe that no one who is successful in it is
+ever good for anything afterwards. Having once passed that examination
+men are said to settle down into a condition of exhausted mediocrity.
+Gideon McNeice proved to be an exception to the rule. Having won his
+fellowship and thereby demonstrated to the world that he knew all that
+there is to know about the science of mathematics, he at once turned
+to theology. Theology, since he lived in Ireland, led him straight to
+politics. He became one of the fighting men of the Irish Unionist
+party. He also, chiefly because of his very bad manners, became very
+unpopular among the fellows and professors of the College.
+
+It must not be supposed that he had the smallest sympathy with the
+unfortunate Irish aristocracy, who, having like the Bourbons failed
+either to learn or to forget, still repeat the watch-words of
+long-past centuries and are greatly surprised that no one can be
+found to listen to them. Gideon McNeice's Unionism was of a much more
+vigorous and militant kind. He respected England and had no objection
+to singing "God save the King" very much out of tune, so long as
+England and her King were obviously and blatantly on the side of
+Protestantism. He was quite prepared to substitute some other form of
+government for our present Imperial system if either the King, his
+representative the Lord Lieutenant, or the Parliament of Westminster,
+showed the smallest inclination to consider the feelings of the Roman
+Catholic hierarchy.
+
+It was thus that Bob Power, who was by no means a fool, described
+McNeice's character. Conroy was interested.
+
+"I should like," he said, "to see that man and talk to him. Suppose
+you go over to Dublin to-morrow and bring him here."
+
+"You won't like him," said Bob. "He's--well, domineering is the only
+word I can think of."
+
+"For that matter," said Conroy, "I am domineering too."
+
+This was true. Conroy had good manners, unusually good manners for a
+millionaire, but underneath the manners lay a determination to get his
+own way in small matters as well as great. Bob, who knew both men,
+expected that they would become deadly enemies in the course of
+twenty-four hours. He was mistaken. To say that they became friends
+would be misleading. They probably disliked each other. But they
+certainly became allies, planned together and worked together the
+amazing scheme which ended in the last--we are justified in assuming
+that it really was the last--rebellion of Irishmen against the power
+of England.
+
+Conroy supplied the money and a great deal of the brains which went to
+the carrying through of the plan. He had, as a financier with
+world-wide interests, a knowledge of European markets and manufactures
+which was very useful if not absolutely necessary. He had, as his
+inspiration, an extraordinarily vivid hatred of England. This was
+partly an inheritance from his Irish ancestors, men who had been
+bullied for centuries and laid the blame of their sufferings on
+England. Partly it was the result of the contempt he learned to feel
+for Englishmen while he held his leading position in London society.
+With McNeice's violent Protestantism he never can have had the
+smallest sympathy. His ancestors were probably, almost certainly,
+Roman Catholics. If he professed any form of Christianity it must have
+been that of some sect unrepresented in England. No one ever heard of
+his attaching himself, even temporarily, to either church or chapel.
+McNeice also supplied brains and enthusiasm. His intelligence was
+narrower than Conroy's, but more intensely concentrated. He knew the
+men with whom he intended to deal. By birth and early education he
+belonged to that north Irish democracy which is probably less
+imaginative and less reasonable but more virile than any other in the
+world. He believed, as his fathers had believed before him and his
+relations believed along with him, that the Belfast man has a natural
+right to govern the world, and only refrains from doing so because he
+has more important matters to attend to. He believed, and could give
+excellent reasons in support of his belief, that the other inhabitants
+of Ireland were meant by providence to be Gibeonites, hewers of wood
+and drawers of water for the people of Antrim and Down. He had quite
+as great a contempt for the Unionist landlords, who occasionally spoke
+beside him on political platforms, as he had for the Nationalist
+tenants who were wrestling their estates from them.
+
+Bob Power went to Dublin, and with great difficulty persuaded McNeice
+to pay Conroy a visit in London. For a fortnight the two men remained
+together, discussing, planning, devising. Others, among them James
+Crossan, manager of the Kilmore Co-operative Stores, and Grand Master
+of the Orangemen of the county, were summoned to the conference.
+
+Then the first steps were taken. McNeice went back to Ireland and
+began, with the aid of James Crossan, his work of organization. Conroy
+sold his house in London, realized by degrees a considerable part of
+his large fortune, placed sums of money to his credit in French and
+German banks and gave over the command of his yacht, the _Finola_, to
+Bob Power. From this time on Conroy disappeared from London society.
+Stories were told in clubs and drawing-rooms about the sayings and
+doings of "His Royal Magnificence J. P. C.," but these gradually grew
+stale and no fresh ones were forthcoming. The newspapers still printed
+from time to time paragraphs which had plainly been sent to them by
+Conroy himself, but no one at the time took very much interest in
+them.
+
+"Mr. J. P. Conroy"--so people read--"has gone for a cruise in
+Mediterranean waters in his steam yacht, the _Finola_." It did not
+seem to matter whether he had or not. "Among his guests are--" Then
+would follow a list of names; but always those of people more eminent
+than fashionable. The Prime Minister went for a short cruise with
+him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went twice. Several admirals, a
+judge or two, and three or four well-known generals were on board at
+different times. Once he had two bishops, an Anglican who was known as
+a profound theologian, and a Roman Catholic prelate from the west of
+Ireland. The names of women rarely appeared on the list, but the
+Countess of Moyne was advertised as having accepted Conroy's
+hospitality twice. She was well placed among the notable men. She was
+a young woman of singular beauty and great personal charm. She might
+have been if she had chosen a leader of the society which lives to
+amuse itself. Her husband's great wealth and high social position
+would have secured her any place in that world which she chose to
+take. Being a woman of brains as well as beauty she chose to work
+instead of play, and had become a force, real though not formally
+recognized, in political life.
+
+It is a curious instance of the careful way in which Conroy worked out
+the details of his plans, that he should have used the _Finola_ in
+this way. The cruises which he took with his eminent guests were
+always well advertised and always short. But the _Finola_ was kept
+continually in commission. Her voyages when there were no great people
+on board were longer, were never advertised, and were much more
+exciting. But no one suspected, or could have suspected, that a
+millionaire's yacht, and it the temporary home of the leading members
+of the governing classes, could have been engaged in a secret trade,
+highly dangerous to the peace and security of the nation. It is
+difficult even now to imagine that after landing the Prime Minister
+and couple of bishops at Cowes the yacht should have started off to
+keep a midnight appointment with a disreputable tramp steamer in an
+unfrequented part of the North Sea; that Bob Power, after making
+himself agreeable for a fortnight to Lady Moyne, should have sweated
+like a stevedore at the difficult job of transhipping a cargo in
+mid-ocean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+I now reach the time when I myself came for the first time in touch
+with Conroy's plans and had my first meeting with Gideon McNeice.
+
+I am an insignificant Irish peer, far from wealthy, with a taste for
+literature, and, I think, a moderate amount of benevolent feeling
+towards those of my fellow-men who do not annoy me in any way. I sold
+the estate, which had long before ceased to be in any real sense my
+property, immediately after the passing of the Land Act of 1903. I
+have lived since then chiefly in Kilmore Castle, a delightfully
+situated residence built by my grandfather, which suits me very well
+indeed. I have occupied my time for years back in gathering materials
+for a history of all the Irish rebellions there have ever been. My
+daughter Marion used to help me in this work, by filing and
+classifying the various slips of paper on which I made notes. Now that
+she has got married and cannot help me any more I have given up the
+idea of finishing my great work. I am satisfying my evil itch for
+writing by setting down an account of the short struggle between
+north-eastern Ulster and the rest of the British Empire.
+
+The 5th of June was the day on which I first met Bob Power, first came
+into contact with McNeice, and first set eyes on the notorious
+_Finola_. It was the day fixed by my nephew Godfrey D'Aubigny for the
+first, for that year, of the series of garden-parties which I give
+annually. I detest these festivities, and I have every reason to
+believe that they must be quite as objectionable to my guests as they
+are to me. It is Godfrey who insists on their being held. He holds
+that I am bound to do some entertaining in order to keep up my
+position in the county. I am not in the least interested in my
+position in the county; but Godfrey is, and, of course, the matter is
+of some importance to him. He is heir to my title. I used to think and
+he used to think that he would ultimately enjoy my income too,
+securing it by marrying my daughter Marion. I am glad to say he has
+not succeeded in doing this. Marion has married a much better man.
+
+I was sitting in my study after breakfast, fiddling with my papers,
+but unable to settle down to work. The prospect of the party in the
+afternoon depressed and irritated me. Godfrey entered the room
+suddenly through the window. The fact that he is my heir does not seem
+to me to entitle him to come upon me like a thief in the night. He
+ought to go to the door of the house, ring the bell, and ask if I am
+willing to see him.
+
+"Good morning, Excellency," he said, "glorious day, isn't it?"
+
+Godfrey always addressed me as "Excellency." I cannot imagine why he
+does so. I have never been and never hope to be a Lord Lieutenant or a
+Colonial Governor. The title is not one which belongs to the office of
+a deputy lieutenant of a county, the only post of honour which I hold.
+
+"I expect we'll have a pretty good crowd this afternoon," he said.
+"Lady Moyne is motoring over. But that's not what I came to say to
+you. The fact is that something rather important has just happened."
+
+"The people in the gate lodge have burst the new boiler I put in for
+them, I suppose?" This is the kind of thing Godfrey considers
+important.
+
+"Not that I know of," he said; "but I'll go down and inquire if you
+think--"
+
+"I don't think anything about the matter," I said. "If it isn't that,
+what is it that you've come to tell me?"
+
+"A big steam yacht has just anchored in the bay," he said, "the
+_Finola_. She belongs to Conroy, the millionaire."
+
+Godfrey is intensely interested in millionaires. He always hopes that
+he may be able in some way to secure for himself some of their
+superfluous cash.
+
+"I think," he said, "you ought to go down and leave a card on him. It
+would only be civil."
+
+"Very well," I said, "you can go and leave my card, if you like."
+
+This was evidently what Godfrey expected me to say. He seemed
+grateful.
+
+"Very well, Excellency, I'll go at once. I'll invite him and his party
+to your menagerie this afternoon. I dare say it will amuse them to see
+the natives."
+
+Godfrey always calls my parties menageries, and my guests natives.
+Lady Moyne and her husband, who sometimes comes with her, are not
+counted as natives. Nor am I. Nor is Marion. Nor is Godfrey himself.
+This illustrates the working of Godfrey's mind. As a matter of fact
+the Moynes and my own family are about the only people of social
+importance in the locality who ought to be called natives. My other
+guests are all strangers, officials of one kind or another,
+stipendiary magistrates, police officers, bank managers, doctors,
+clergymen and others whom an unkind fate has temporarily stranded in
+our neighbourhood; who all look forward to an escape from their exile
+and a period of leisure retirement in the suburbs of Dublin.
+
+Godfrey left me, and I went on fidgetting with my papers until
+luncheon-time.
+
+Marion and I were just finishing luncheon when Godfrey came in again.
+
+"Well," I said, "have you captured your millionaire?"
+
+"He wasn't on board," said Godfrey. "There were two men there, Power,
+who's Conroy's secretary, and a horrid bounder called McNeice. They
+were drinking bottled stout in the cabin with Crossan."
+
+"Under those circumstances," I said, "you did not, I suppose, leave my
+cards."
+
+Godfrey has a standing feud with Crossan, who is not a gentleman and
+does not pretend to be. Godfrey, judged by any rational standard, is
+even less of a gentleman; but as the future Lord Kilmore he belongs to
+the ranks of an aristocracy and therefore has a contempt for Crossan.
+The two come into very frequent contact and quite as frequent
+conflict. Crossan manages the co-operative store which I started, and
+Godfrey regards him as one of my servants. Crossan, who has a fine
+instinct for business, also manages the commercial side of our local
+mackerel fishing. Godfrey thinks he would manage this better than
+Crossan does. Their latest feud was concerned with the service of
+carts which take the fish from our little harbour to the nearest
+railway station. Crossan is politically a strong Protestant and an
+Orangeman of high attainment. Godfrey has no particular religion, and
+in politics belongs to that old-fashioned school of Conservatives who
+think that the lower orders ought to be respectful to their betters.
+Crossan having been taught the Church Catechism in his youth, admits
+this respect as theoretical duty; but gets out of performing it in
+practice by denying that Godfrey, or for the matter of that any one
+else, is his better. Godfrey's constant complaints about Crossan are
+the thorns which remind me that I must not regard my lot in life as
+altogether pleasant. I felt justified in assuming that Godfrey had not
+left my cards on men who degraded themselves so far as to drink
+bottled stout in company with Crossan.
+
+I was wrong. Godfrey did leave my cards. I can only suppose that his
+respect for the private secretary of a millionaire was stronger than
+his dislike of Crossan. He had even, it appeared, invited both Power
+and McNeice to view my "menagerie." For this he felt it necessary to
+offer some excuse.
+
+"He is one of the Powers of Kilfenora," he said, "so I thought it
+would be no harm. By the way, Marion, what are you going to wear? I
+should say that your blue _crepe de chine_--"
+
+Godfrey is something of an expert in the matter of woman's clothes.
+Marion, I know, frequently consults him and values his opinion highly.
+Unfortunately the subject bores me. I cut him short with a remark
+which was intended for a snub.
+
+"I hope you have a new suit yourself, Godfrey. The occasion is an
+important one. If both Lady Moyne and Conroy's private secretary are
+to be here, you ought to look your best."
+
+But it is almost impossible to snub Godfrey. He answered me with a
+cheerful friendliness which showed that he appreciated my interest in
+his appearance.
+
+"I have a new grey suit," he said. "It arrived this morning, and it's
+a capital fit. That's the advantage of employing really good tailors.
+You can absolutely trust Nicholson and Blackett."
+
+I have often wondered whether Nicholson and Blackett could absolutely
+trust Godfrey. I have several times paid his debts, and I do not
+intend to do so any more. If they were debts of an intelligible kind I
+should not mind paying them occasionally. But Godfrey has no
+ostensible vices. I have never heard of his doing anything wild or
+disreputable. He does not gamble or borrow money in order to give
+jewels to pretty actresses. He owes bills to shop-keepers for ties and
+trousers. His next remark showed me that Nicholson and Blackett were
+becoming uneasy.
+
+"By the way, Excellency," he said, "I'd be glad if you'd be civil to
+the Pringles this afternoon. Get her tea or something."
+
+Mr. Pringle is the manager of the branch of the bank in which Godfrey
+keeps his account. I imagine that he and his wife owe their
+invitations to my garden parties to the fact that Godfrey's account is
+always overdrawn. This demand that I should be especially civil to the
+Pringles suggested to me that Godfrey contemplated sending a cheque to
+Nicholson and Blackett. I have no particular objection to being civil
+to the Pringles. I have to be civil to some one. I readily promised
+to get both tea and an ice for Mrs. Pringle; hoping that Godfrey would
+go away. He did not. He began talking again about Marion's blue dress.
+It was with the greatest difficulty that I got him out of the house
+half an hour later by saying that if he did not go home at once he
+would not have time to dress himself with the care which the new grey
+suit deserved.
+
+It annoys me very much to think Godfrey is heir to my title. It used
+to annoy me still more to think that Marion meant to marry him. She
+assures me now that she never intended to; but she used to take an
+interest in his talk about clothes and he certainly intended to marry
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+There are some churches in which it is considered desirable to keep
+the sexes apart. The men are placed on one side of the central aisle,
+the women on the other. At my garden-parties this separation takes
+place naturally without the intervention of any authority. The men
+gather in a group under a certain chestnut-tree and talk to each other
+gloomily in low tones. The women--there are always more women than
+men--seat themselves in three distinct rows round the sides of the
+tennis-court. The short row across the top of the tennis-court is
+reserved by an unwritten, but apparently very strict law for the
+ladies of the highest social position. The Dean's wife, for instance,
+sits in that row. The seats at the other end of the court are occupied
+by people like the Pringles, those who are just eligible for
+invitations to my parties, but have, so to speak, no social position
+to spare. They always remind me of St. Paul's "righteous" who
+"scarcely are saved." The long side of the tennis-court opposite the
+chestnut-tree, which forms a kind of male seraglio, is given over to
+those of middling station, ladies who are, perhaps, in a position to
+shake hands with Lady Moyne, and who do not, perhaps, call on Mrs.
+Pringle.
+
+To this strictly observed etiquette there are two exceptions. My
+nephew Godfrey does not stand under the chestnut-tree, but keeps close
+to the side of Lady Moyne. The other men make it quite clear that
+they do not want him. No man whom I have ever met can tolerate
+Godfrey's company. He follows Lady Moyne about because he believes her
+to be a lady of political influence, and he hopes she will get him a
+well-paid post under the government. He is one exception. The other is
+Lady Moyne herself. She declines to sit in a row. She walks about,
+sometimes walks away from the rest of the party.
+
+My daughter Marion's duty on these occasions is to drag young men from
+the shelter of the chestnut-tree and make them play tennis with young
+women called from one or other of the rows in which their mothers have
+planted them. Marion finds this a difficult duty, requiring her utmost
+tact. My own duty, which I fulfil in the most conscientious manner, is
+to make as many complete journeys round the tennis-court as possible,
+saying something to every lady in all three rows, and giving a kind of
+general address of a friendly and encouraging kind to the men under
+the chestnut-tree.
+
+On this particular afternoon two unusual incidents broke the monotony
+of my party. Lady Moyne refused to be satisfied with the company of
+Godfrey. She sat down beside the Dean's wife and made herself
+extremely agreeable for nearly ten minutes. Then she crossed the
+corner of the tennis-court, seriously interfering with the game in
+progress, and "cut out" the Dean from the middle of the group of men
+under the chestnut-tree. "Cut out" is strictly the right phrase to
+use. It is applied or used to be applied to the operation of capturing
+and carrying off ships at anchor under the protecting guns of friendly
+forts. It requires great dash and gallantry to "cut out" a ship. The
+whole audience gaped in astonishment at Lady Moyne's daring when she
+captured the Dean. She walked off with him, when she got him, to the
+shrubbery at the far end of the lawn. They were a singularly
+ill-assorted pair. Lady Moyne is invariably exquisite, a small woman
+with dainty ways and great vivacity. The Dean is an ecclesiastic as
+different as possible from the suave dignitaries who lead lives of
+scholarly leisure in cathedral closes. We picture the ideal dean, a
+slender man, slightly stooped, thin-lipped, with a suggestion of mild
+asceticism in his face. He steps slowly through the long window of his
+study. He paces the closely shaven lawn. The crows caw reverently in
+lofty trees. He holds a calf-bound volume of Plato in his hand. From
+time to time he glances from the cramped Greek text to the noble,
+weatherworn towers of his cathedral. His life is delicately scented
+with a fine mixture of classical culture and Tallis' ferial responses.
+Our Dean--he is also rector of our parish--is a man of a wholly
+different kind. He is, for one thing, wholly unconnected with any
+cathedral and has probably never paced a lawn beneath the shadow of
+historic towers in all his life. This kind of detached, independent
+dean is not found, I believe, anywhere except in Ireland. He is tall,
+cadaverous, rugged, and he can open his eyes so wide that the whites
+of them show all round the irises. Besides being a dean and the rector
+of our parish, he is honorary Grand Chaplain to the Black Preceptory
+of the Orange Order. Crossan, a stern judge of ecclesiastics, has the
+highest opinion of him. It was surmised by a lady in the second row to
+whom I happened to be talking at the time, that Lady Moyne wanted to
+consult with him about the best way of defeating the Home Rule Bill.
+Lady Moyne is, of course, a strong Unionist.
+
+The second unusual incident of the afternoon followed the arrival of
+Bob Power. He came late, and Godfrey, driven from the side of Lady
+Moyne, fastened on to him at once. Bob shook him off and joined
+Marion. Marion, who had her duties to do and could not allow Bob to
+take possession of her, introduced him to a humble maiden who sat with
+her mother in the third row. Bob, it appears, selected the damsel
+himself after looking all round the tennis-court. To the great scandal
+of every one present he led her away from the tennis-court, and found
+his way to the garden. There--I judged by the condition of her gloves
+when they returned--they picked strawberries. I have every reason to
+believe that Miss Pringle--the girl was the daughter of Godfrey's
+banker--enjoyed this garden-party as she had never enjoyed one before.
+She was actually laughing, and was looking very pretty when Bob
+brought her back to the refreshment tent for tea.
+
+I felt so pleased with Bob for his audacity that I asked him to dine
+with us. He refused, saying that he would be busy on the yacht, but he
+promised to call on us next morning.
+
+The garden-party wore itself to an end as even the dreariest
+festivities always do. Marion and I dined together in a condition of
+irritable exhaustion. After dinner we played Patience for an hour in
+the library. Then Marion took a novel, and I settled down to read _The
+Times_. The night was very close and we sat with both windows wide
+open.
+
+_The Times_ had articles and letters on two subjects, the Home Rule
+Bill, which was a menace to the Empire and a danger to Irish
+Loyalists; and the German Navy, which was also a menace to the Empire
+and a danger to every one in the United Kingdom whether loyal or not.
+After reading the leading articles I passed on to the letters
+addressed to the editor. These are always, in my opinion, the most
+interesting part of any newspaper. The editor and leader writers are
+no doubt abler men than most of their correspondents; but then they
+write because they must, and they write in a hurry. The correspondents
+on the other hand write because they have something in them--something
+foolish as a rule, but none the less interesting--which is struggling
+for expression in print. They also--being for the most part retired
+military officers--have abundant leisure and are able to take days,
+perhaps weeks, in the preparation of their compositions.
+
+In that particular number of _The Times_, two retired colonels had
+written letters. One of them was disquieted by the growth of the
+German Navy. He was uninteresting. The other--a Colonel Malcolmson,
+whom I meet occasionally at my club--had delivered himself of a plan
+of campaign, an actual fighting programme, which he recommended to the
+Ulstermen, supposing that they meant to declare war against any one
+who wanted them to govern themselves. This letter interested me very
+much. Malcolmson offered his lawn as a parade and drill ground for
+volunteers. He also said that he thoroughly understood modern guns,
+and was prepared to take command of any artillery which Ulster might
+happen to possess. I lay back in my chair and tried to form a mental
+picture of Malcolmson, who is stout and has a bristly white moustache,
+aiming an immense cannon at an income tax collector. The vision was a
+pleasant one to linger over, and I added to the scene before my mind
+the figure of an athletic policeman threatening to smash Malcolmson's
+cannon with a baton. The Nationalist leaders then appeared in the
+background waving Union Jack flags, and urging the policeman to fresh
+exertions in the cause of law and order. I even seemed to hear them
+denouncing Malcolmson as one of those who march through rapine and
+bloodshed to the dismemberment of an Empire.
+
+I was aroused from my agreeable reverie by Marion. She was standing at
+the window looking out across the bay on the far shore of which stands
+the little town of Kilmore, from which my ancestor, who was a Union
+peer, took his title.
+
+"I wonder what they're doing in the village to-night," she said.
+"There are a lot of lights moving about in the harbour and on the
+quay."
+
+I shook myself free of the vision of Malcolmson's artillery duel with
+the tax collector, and joined Marion at the window. A half moon lit
+the scene before me dimly, making patches of silver light here and
+there on the calm waters of the bay. The _Finola_, looking very large,
+lay at anchor, broadside on to us, opposite the pier. On her deck
+lights moved to and fro, yellow stars in the grey gloom. On the pier
+were more lights, lanterns evidently, some stationary, others
+flickering in rapid motion. The night was so still that I could hear
+distinctly the rattle of oars in rowlocks. Boats were plying between
+the _Finola_ and the shore.
+
+"Can they be landing anything from the yacht?" said Marion.
+
+"I don't think so," I said. "Yachts do not carry cargoes, and if they
+did they wouldn't land them in the middle of the night."
+
+I looked at my watch. It was almost twelve o'clock. Then another noise
+was added to the rattling of oars. A cart, unmistakably a cart,
+lumbered across the stones at the end of the pier. After a while this
+cart emerged from the black shadows of the houses and we could see it
+toiling up the hill which leads out of the town. A very slight
+southerly breeze was setting across the bay from the town to us. We
+could hear the driver shouting encouragement to his horse as he
+breasted the hill. The cart was evidently heavily loaded.
+
+"The boats haven't been out," said Marion. "There cannot have been a
+catch of mackerel."
+
+When there is a catch of mackerel the fish are packed in boxes on the
+pier, and carts, laden like the one we watched, climb the hill. There
+is a regularly organized service of those carts under the control of
+Crossan.
+
+"It can't be fish," I said, "unless the _Finola_ has been making a
+catch and has come in here to land them."
+
+Another cart bumped its way off the pier, and in a minute or two we
+saw it climbing the hill. Then the lights on the _Finola's_ deck went
+out one by one. The boats ceased plying between the yacht and the
+shore.
+
+"I don't see why they should land fish in the middle of the night,"
+said Marion.
+
+The activity of the people on the pier increased. More lights appeared
+there and moved very rapidly to and fro.
+
+"Unless they're landing what they're ashamed of," said Marion, "I
+don't see why they're doing it at night."
+
+Mysteries always irritate me. I answered Marion impatiently.
+
+"You can't be so foolish as to suppose that Conroy is smuggling. It
+wouldn't be any temptation to a millionaire to cheat the revenue out
+of the duty on a few pounds of tobacco."
+
+Several more carts followed each other in a slow procession up the
+hill. It seemed as if Crossan's entire staff of men and horses was
+engaged in this midnight transport service.
+
+"Mr. Conroy might not know anything about it," said Marion. "It may be
+done--"
+
+"I don't suppose Bob Power--"
+
+"There was another man on board," said Marion, "and Godfrey seemed to
+think that he was--well, not a very nice kind of man."
+
+"The fact that Godfrey called him a cad," I said, "rather goes to show
+that he is a man with a great deal of good in him. Besides, as it
+happens, I know all about him. His name is McNeice and he is a Fellow
+of Trinity College. It's ridiculous to suppose that he's landing a
+cargo of port wine for consumption in the common room. Fellows of
+College don't do that kind of thing. Besides, he's a good scholar. I
+had some correspondence with him when I was writing my article on St.
+Patrick's birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow."
+
+That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a
+dutiful kiss and went to bed.
+
+I stood at the window and watched until the last cart had mounted the
+hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to
+the _Finola_. The town and bay were still again.
+
+I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of
+working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short
+article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire
+running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind,
+under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind
+refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility
+of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the _Finola_.
+The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand
+it. Marion's smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It
+is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from
+our shores. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were
+pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest
+with any passer-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only
+two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not
+the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the
+revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland
+officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot
+show a respectable past history.
+
+I was driven back finally on my own theory--inherently very
+improbable--that the _Finola_ had, in the course of her voyage, netted
+an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get
+rid of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my
+history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The
+sun, I recollect, was shining so brightly outside that I had the
+blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob's entrance had
+much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the
+sunshine with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but
+tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the
+sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was,
+had not affected his spirits.
+
+As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my literary
+work. I always absolutely hate it when Godfrey is the interrupter. But
+I found myself quite pleased when Bob Power said that we ought not to
+sit indoors on so fine a day. Marion ran off to get her hat and joined
+us on the lawn. Bob Power led us straight to the garden, and when we
+got there, made for the strawberry bed. He owned to a pleasant
+recollection of the feast he had enjoyed the day before.
+
+There is a good deal of the school-boy about Bob Power, and Marion is
+quite young enough to enjoy gorging herself with ripe strawberries. I,
+alas! am nearly sixty years of age. A very small number of
+strawberries satisfies me, and I find that stooping to gather them
+from beneath their nets tires me after a short time. Bob Power and
+Marion wandered far into the remoter parts of my strawberry bed. I
+stayed near the pathway. Their voices reached me and their laughter;
+but I could not hear what they were saying to each other. I felt
+suddenly lonely. They were getting on very well without me. I went on
+by myself and inspected my melon frames. I left them after a while and
+took a look at my poultry yard.
+
+The rearing of poultry is one of the things which I do in order to
+benefit my country. Quite ordinary chickens satisfy my personal
+needs, and the egg of the modest barndoor fowl is all I ask at
+breakfast-time. But an energetic young lady in a short tweed skirt and
+thick brown boots explained to me two years ago that Ireland would be
+a much happier country if everybody in it kept fowls with long
+pedigrees. She must have been right about this, because the government
+paid her a small salary to go round the country saying it; and no
+government, not even ours, would pay people to say what is not true.
+Her plan for introducing the superior hens into the homes of the
+people was that I should undertake the care of such birds as she sent
+me, and give their eggs, under certain conditions, to any one who
+asked for them. This I agreed to do, and my new fowl yard, arranged
+exactly as the young lady in thick boots wished, is my latest effort
+in patriotism.
+
+The hens which inhabited it were very fine-looking birds, and the cock
+who dominated them was a credit to any government. I watched them with
+real pleasure for some time. Then it occurred to me as curious that a
+government which recognized the value of good blood in birds, bulls,
+boars, horses, and even bees--if bees have blood--should be not only
+indifferent but actually hostile to our human aristocracy. For years
+past animals of pedigree have been almost forced upon Ireland. Men of
+pedigree have as far as possible been discouraged from remaining in
+this country. This idea struck me as very suitable for one of my light
+newspaper articles. I was unwilling to lose grip of it and allow it to
+fade away as Malcolmson and his cannons had faded the night before. I
+took a sheet of paper and a pencil from my pocket and sat down on a
+stone to make a rough draft of the article. Before I had written three
+sentences I heard Marion's voice.
+
+"Oh, there you are, father. We were looking for you everywhere. Mr.
+Power and I want you to come and play tennis with us."
+
+I rose and stuffed my paper into my pocket. I felt quite glad that
+they had found me, although I do not care for playing tennis, and, as
+a rule, enjoy writing articles.
+
+"You will get on much better without me," I said.
+
+"Oh no," said Marion; "Mr. Power is sure to beat me in a single; but I
+think I'd have a pretty good chance if you are on his side."
+
+I was to act as a handicap. My efforts to help Power were reckoned to
+be worth one, perhaps two strokes in every game for Marion. This was
+not complimentary to me; but I dare say my tennis deserves no more
+respectful treatment. I agreed to be a handicap, and I was a good one.
+Marion won the first set. I got exceedingly hot, but, up to the middle
+of the second set, I enjoyed myself. Then Godfrey appeared. He watched
+my efforts with an air of cold superiority and contemptuous surprise.
+My heart failed me and I was obliged to ask to be allowed to stop.
+
+Bob Power invited us to lunch on the _Finola_. Marion accepted the
+invitation joyfully. Godfrey also accepted, although I do not think
+Power meant to ask him. But Godfrey is not the kind of man to miss the
+chance of getting into touch, however remotely, with any one as rich
+as Conroy. Power eyed him with an expression of frank dislike.
+Godfrey, it seemed to me, did not much like Power. He was probably
+annoyed at the way in which Power made himself agreeable to Marion.
+Godfrey regarded Marion as, in a sense, his property, although there
+was nothing in the way of an engagement between them.
+
+McNeice, whom I had hoped to meet, was not on the yacht. The steward
+explained to us that he was spending the day with Crossan. I could see
+that the thought of any one spending the day with Crossan outraged
+Godfrey's sense of decency. By way, I suppose, of annoying Power, he
+asked what had been happening on the _Finola_ at twelve o'clock the
+night before.
+
+"I was awakened up," he said, "by the noise of carts going along the
+street and I looked out. I could see lights on the yacht and on the
+pier. What on earth were you doing at that time of night?"
+
+"Coaling," said Power, shortly.
+
+It was plain to me that he disliked being asked questions. It must
+have been plain to Godfrey, too, for he immediately asked another.
+
+"How did you get coal in a place like this?"
+
+"Dear me," said Marion, "how very unromantic! I thought you were
+smuggling!"
+
+Godfrey's face assumed an expression of quite unusual intelligence. He
+suspected Power of evil practices of some sort. Marion's suggestion
+of smuggling delighted him.
+
+"But where did you get the coal?" he persisted.
+
+"My dear Godfrey," I said, "for all you or I know there may be
+hundreds of tons of it piled up in the co-operative store. Crossan has
+a wonderful business instinct. He may have speculated on a visit from
+some large steamer and be making a large profit. I am the principal
+shareholder, and nothing pleases me better than to see the store
+succeeding."
+
+I knew, as a matter of fact, that Crossan had no coal. I also knew
+that the _Finola_ was not coaling. The carts were loaded when they
+were going up the hill. They would have been empty if they had been
+going to get coal for the _Finola_. I made my remark in the hope of
+discouraging Godfrey from asking more questions.
+
+"I wish you would smuggle something," said Marion. "I should love to
+have some French lace laid at my door in a bale in the middle of the
+night."
+
+Marion reads novels, and the smugglers in these import French lace. In
+real life the only people who try to cheat the nation out of its duty
+on lace are tourist ladies, and they would not share their spoils with
+Marion.
+
+"But why did you coal in the middle of the night?" said Godfrey.
+
+One of Godfrey's most striking characteristics is his persistent
+curiosity. There is hardly anything in the world which Godfrey will
+not find out if he is given time. A secret has the same attraction for
+him that cheese has for a mouse. Some day, I hope, he will find a trap
+baited with a seductive mystery.
+
+"We always coal at night," said Power.
+
+"Of course," said Marion, "the dirt shows so much less at night than
+it would in daylight."
+
+"But," said Godfrey, "I don't understand why you--"
+
+I rose and said that we must go ashore. I invited Power to dinner, and
+urged him to bring McNeice with him if possible. I made it quite plain
+that I was not inviting Godfrey. Power accepted the invitation, and
+sent us off in a boat. I said good-bye firmly to Godfrey at the end of
+the pier. I was annoyed with him for cross-questioning our host at his
+own table. Marion and I walked home. Godfrey walked up the hill
+towards the co-operative store. I am sure he did not want to see
+Crossan. I cannot suppose that he would venture to catechise McNeice.
+I expect he meant to prowl round the premises in hopes of discovering
+casks of smuggled brandy or cases full of tobacco.
+
+McNeice came to dinner, and I am bound to say that I found myself very
+nearly in agreement with Godfrey's opinion of him. He was a singularly
+ill-mannered man. Power devoted himself to Marion, and I felt at once
+that their conversation was not of a kind that was likely to be
+interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing
+and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He
+sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared
+at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more
+quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our
+correspondence about St. Patrick. The subject roused him.
+
+"There are," he said, "seventeen different theories about the place of
+that man's birth."
+
+I knew nine myself, my own, of which I was a little proud, being the
+ninth. I did not expect McNeice to deliver a harangue on the whole
+seventeen, but that is what he did. Having bolted his fish, he began
+in a loud, harsh voice to pour contempt on all attempts at
+investigating the early history of our national saint. He delayed our
+progress through dinner a good deal, because he would neither refuse
+nor help himself to the _entree_ which my butler held at his elbow. It
+was not until he had finished with the whole seventeen theories about
+the saint that he turned his attention to dinner again. I ventured to
+suggest that he had not even mentioned my own theory.
+
+"Oh," he said, "you have a theory too, have you?"
+
+My theory, at the time of its first appearance, occupied ten whole
+pages of the _Nineteenth Century_, and when republished, with notes,
+in pamphlet form, was reviewed by two German papers. I felt hurt by
+his ignorance of it, and reminded him again that we had corresponded
+about the subject while I was writing the article.
+
+"If you've time to waste on that sort of thing," he said, "why not
+devote it to living bishops instead of one who has been dead over a
+thousand years?"
+
+The idea of investigating the origins of our existing bishops was new
+to me but not in the least attractive.
+
+"Wouldn't it be rather waste of labour," I said, "to build up an
+hypothesis about the birthplace of a living bishop when--"
+
+"It's certainly waste of labour to build up an hypothesis about a dead
+one."
+
+"I meant to say," I added, "that if one did want to know such a
+thing--"
+
+"Nobody does," said McNeice.
+
+"It would," I went on, "be much simpler to write and ask him."
+
+I gathered from the way in which he spoke that McNeice did not like
+bishops; but I was not prepared for the violence of the speech which
+he made to me after dinner. Marion and Power were at the piano, which
+stands in a far-off corner of my rather oversized drawing-room.
+McNeice settled himself in front of the fire, his long legs straddled
+far apart, the bow of his white tie twisted under his ear. He is a man
+of singularly ferocious appearance. He has very bushy eyebrows which
+meet across the bridge of his nose, shining green eyes, a large jaw
+heavily underhung, and bright red hair.
+
+He addressed me for more than half an hour on the subject of bishops
+in general. I should be very sorry to write down the things he said.
+Some of them were quite untrue. Others were utterly unjust. It is
+quite wrong, for instance, to impute it as a crime to a whole class of
+men that their heads are bald. Nobody can help being bald if his hair
+will not grow any more than he can help being fat if his stomach will
+swell. Fatness was another of the accusations which McNeice hurled
+against the bishops. I suppose this violent hatred of an inoffensive
+class of men was partly the result of McNeice's tremendous
+Protestantism. The poet Milton, I think, felt in the same way about
+the prelates of his day. Partly it may have been the expression of his
+naturally democratic temperament. Bishops like to be called "my lord"
+by servants and clergymen. McNeice, I imagine, has a quite evangelical
+dislike of such titles. I dare say that it was the fact of my being a
+lord which made him so rude to me.
+
+On the afternoon of my garden-party I happened to be standing close
+beside Lady Moyne when she was saying good-bye to the Dean. Her final
+remark was addressed quite as much to him as to me.
+
+"What we have got to do," she said, "is to make use of this virile
+democracy of ours; to mould it into an instrument for the preservation
+of social order. The introduction of the Home Rule Bill gives us just
+about the chance we want."
+
+I found myself wondering, while the diatribe against the bishops was
+in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice
+into a weapon for her hand. It seemed to me more probable at the
+moment that McNeice would in the end tumble her beautiful head from
+the block of a guillotine into the basket of sawdust which waited
+underneath.
+
+Marion and Bob Power were singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan's
+operas while McNeice preached to me. They at least were having an
+enjoyable evening. I dare say McNeice enjoyed himself too. If so, my
+dinner-party was not given in vain. One cannot reasonably expect more
+than three out of every four people to be happy at the same time. It
+was my misfortune that I happened to be the fourth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The _Finola_ steamed out of our bay next morning. Marion saw her go,
+and became quite lyrical at breakfast about the beauty of her "lines,"
+a word which, as applied to the appearance of a yacht, she can only
+have learned from Bob Power. I was not able to share her rapture
+because the _Finola_ went out at 6 a. m., an hour at which I make it a
+settled rule to be in bed. Marion is generally in bed at 6 a. m. too.
+She made an exceptional effort that morning.
+
+For a week I enjoyed almost unbroken peace, and accumulated quite a
+large sheaf of notes for my work on the Irish Rebellions. Even Godfrey
+refrained from worrying me. But such happiness was too good to last
+long. On Saturday morning three things happened, every one of them of
+a disturbing kind. I received a letter from Lady Moyne in which she
+invited me to spend three days during the following week at Castle
+Affey. Castle Affey is Lord Moyne's chief Irish place. He has three
+others in various parts of the country and one in England. It is about
+ten miles from my home. Lady Moyne invited Marion too; but this was
+evidently an after thought, and she discounted the value of the
+invitation by saying that her party was to consist almost entirely of
+men and might be dull for Marion. I suspected politics at once, and
+advised Marion to refuse the invitation. I accepted it. Politics bore
+me a good deal; but it is interesting to watch politicians at their
+game. It is also pleasant, very pleasant, to be in the company of Lady
+Moyne. The prospect of the visit was as I have said disturbing. I
+prefer monotony. But if things must fall splashing into the pool of my
+life, I would as soon they took the form of visits to Castle Affey as
+any other.
+
+The next thing which happened that morning was a deputation. It
+consisted of six out of the twenty carters whom Crossan has organized
+in the interests of our fishing industry. They made the modest request
+that I should drive my nephew Godfrey out of the neighbourhood. I felt
+the strongest possible sympathy with them. If I were a carter, a
+fisherman, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, and lived in Kilmore, I should
+certainly wish Godfrey to live somewhere else. I did not even question
+the members of the deputation about their special reasons for wanting
+to get rid of Godfrey. They told me in general terms that he was
+interfering in business which was "none of his." I wanted no evidence
+in support of such a statement. Godfrey always interferes in
+everything. A very freckled young man who seemed to be junior member
+of the deputation, added that Godfrey "spied" upon them. Of course
+Godfrey spied on them. He spies on me.
+
+Strong as my sympathy was with the perfectly reasonable request of the
+deputation, I could not act as I was asked. Godfrey is, of course, in
+my employment. He collects the head rents still payable to me from
+some parts of the town which were not sold when I parted with the rest
+of my estate. For this I pay him L200 a year. I could, I suppose,
+dismiss him if I chose; but the plain fact is that if I dismissed
+Godfrey he would immediately starve or go to the workhouse. He is
+quite unfit to earn his living in any way. Once, after great
+exertions, I secured for him a kind of minor clerkship in a government
+office. His duties, so far as I was able to learn, were to put stamps
+on envelopes, and he was provided with a damp sponge to prevent any
+injury which might happen to his tongue through licking the stamps. At
+the end of a year he was dismissed as hopelessly incompetent. He came
+back to me, beautifully dressed, with a small despatch-box full of
+tradesmen's bills, and a grievance against the government. It was
+plain to me after that experiment that Godfrey could never earn his
+own living. I did not see my way to let him drift into the workhouse.
+He is, little as I like him, the heir to my title, and, in mere
+decency, I could not allow the cost of his support to fall on the
+rates.
+
+This is just one of the ways in which the democratic spirit of
+independence has affected us all without our knowing it. In the
+seventeenth century any member of the aristocracy who was afflicted
+with an heir like Godfrey had him shut up in the Bastille, or the
+Tower, by means of _lettres de cachet_ or whatever corresponded to
+such instruments in England. There the objectionable young man ate
+bread and drank water at the expense of the public funds. Nobody seems
+to have suffered any discomfort at the thought that the cost of the
+support of his relative was falling either on the rates or the taxes.
+(I am not sure which it was but it must have been one or the other.)
+Nowadays we are horribly self-conscious in such matters. The
+debilitated labourer began it, objecting, absurdly, to being fed by
+other people in the workhouse. His spirit spread to the upper classes,
+and it is now impossible, morally, for me, a peer, to send my heir to
+the workhouse. Fortunately public opinion is swinging round again. The
+latest type of working-man has no objection to receiving an Old Age
+Pension, and likes to hear of his children being given free breakfasts
+at school. In time this new feeling will soak through to the class to
+which I belong. Then I shall be able, without a qualm, to send Godfrey
+to the workhouse. At present, I regret to say, I cannot.
+
+I explained all this carefully to the deputation. It pained me to have
+to say no to their request, but I said it quite firmly. My decision, I
+think, was understood. My feelings I fear were not.
+
+Very soon after the deputation left, Godfrey himself arrived. He
+wanted me to dismiss Crossan. I am not at all sure that I could
+dismiss Crossan even if I wanted to do so. He is the manager of our
+co-operative store, and although most of the money which went to the
+starting of that enterprise was mine there is a considerable number of
+small shareholders. Crossan also runs the fishing business and our saw
+mill. I capitalized both these industries, lending money to the men to
+buy nets and good boats, and buying the various saws which are
+necessary to the making of planks. This no doubt gives me some hold
+over Crossan, but not enough to enable me to dismiss him as I might a
+cook. Besides, I do not want to dismiss Crossan. He is managing these
+different enterprises in such a way that they earn fair interest on
+the capital I put into them.
+
+"I've been looking into things a bit, Excellency," said Godfrey.
+
+I quite believed that. The deputation of carters said the same thing
+in other words.
+
+"And you'll find yourself in an awkward place one of these days if
+that fellow Crossan is allowed to go on as he's going."
+
+"I hope you're not going to drag up that dispute about the carters,
+Godfrey. I'm sick of it."
+
+The dispute about the carters is really an unpleasant business. As
+originally organized there were eight Protestant carters and four
+Roman Catholics. A year ago Crossan dismissed the four Roman Catholic
+carters, and one of the Protestants who was suspected of religious
+indifference. Their places were filled by five Orangemen of the most
+determined kind. Now the profits of this carting business are
+considerable. The five men who were dismissed appealed to Godfrey.
+Godfrey laid their case before me. I gathered that Godfrey had a high
+opinion of the outcasts who always spoke to him with the respect due
+to his position. He had a low opinion of the five interlopers who were
+men of rude speech and democratic independence of manner. I was
+foolish enough to speak to Crossan about the matter. He met me with a
+blunt assertion that it was impossible to trust what he called
+"Papishes." There, as a lover of peace rather than justice, I wanted
+to let the matter rest; but Godfrey took up the subject again and
+again in the course of the following year. He persisted, not out of
+any love for justice though this once he was on the side of justice,
+but simply out of hatred of Crossan.
+
+"It's not only the dismissal of those carters," said Godfrey. "There's
+a great deal more behind that. There's something going on which I
+don't understand."
+
+"If you don't understand it," I said, "you can't expect me to."
+
+"Look here, Excellency, you remember the time that yacht of Conroy's,
+the _Finola_, was in here?"
+
+"Of course I do. You went and left my cards on Bob Power."
+
+"I'm very sorry now that I did. There's something fishy about that
+yacht. What was she doing on the night she was here?"
+
+"Coaling," I said; "I don't see why I should dismiss Crossan because
+Conroy's yacht came in here for coal."
+
+"She wasn't coaling," said Godfrey.
+
+I knew that, of course; so I said nothing, but left Godfrey to
+develope his grievance whatever it was.
+
+"Ever since that night," said Godfrey, "there has been something or
+other going on in the yard behind the stores. Those carters are in it,
+whatever it is, and a lot more men, fishermen and young farmers.
+They're up there every night."
+
+"Probably dancing," I said.
+
+"Much more likely to be drinking."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense, Godfrey. You know perfectly well
+that the store has not got a licence, and there's no drink sold there.
+Besides Crossan is a fanatical teetotaller."
+
+"That wouldn't stop him," said Godfrey, "if he could sell the stuff
+cheap and make money on it; if"--here he sank his voice--"if it hadn't
+paid duty."
+
+Now Crossan is one of those Christians who has added to the original
+Ten Commandments a Mohammedan prohibition of alcohol in any form.
+Godfrey, I have no doubt, would break any of the commandments which he
+recognized, if he saw his way to making a small profit on the sin. But
+I did not think that even a 25 per cent. dividend would tempt Crossan
+to disregard his self-imposed prohibition of alcohol.
+
+"That's all nonsense," I said. "In the first place the _Finola_ didn't
+come in here to land a cargo of smuggled goods."
+
+"Then what did she come for?"
+
+I did not know, so I ignored Godfrey's question.
+
+"And in the second place Crossan wouldn't debauch the whole place by
+making the men drunk night after night on smuggled spirits. Why, only
+three weeks ago he spoke to me seriously about the glass of claret I
+drink at dinner. He did it quite respectfully and entirely for my
+good. I respected him for it."
+
+"He's up to some mischief," said Godfrey, sulkily, "and it won't be
+too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find
+out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night
+for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark,
+twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of
+the Orange Lodge. I've watched them."
+
+"Did you watch them coming out again?"
+
+"I did, twice," said Godfrey. "They didn't go home till nearly one
+o'clock in the morning. I couldn't stop up every night, so I only saw
+them twice."
+
+"Well," I said, "were they drunk?"
+
+"No," said Godfrey, unwillingly, "they were not. They walked quite
+straight."
+
+"That explodes your theory then. If they had been drinking smuggled
+spirits for hours and hours, they would have been drunk."
+
+"They were at some mischief," said Godfrey.
+
+"They were probably getting up a concert," I said.
+
+"No, they weren't, for--"
+
+"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "I've listened to you pretty patiently
+for a long time; but I really cannot spare you the whole morning. If
+you have anything to do I wish you'd go and do it. If you haven't
+you'd better go to bed and sleep off your absurd suspicions."
+
+One has to speak very plainly to Godfrey. Hints are simply wasted on
+him. Even after my last remark he hesitated for a moment. Then he
+turned and went.
+
+I felt in the mood to write a short story which I have had in my mind
+for some time. I very often write short stories; but have never yet
+got an editor who cares to print any of them. The one I had in my mind
+when Godfrey left me was, however, likely to be particularly good. It
+was to be the autobiography of a murderer; not an ordinary murderer
+who slays through desire of gain or in obedience to an inborn criminal
+instinct. My murderer was to be a highly respectable, God-fearing man,
+a useful citizen, a good father, a man of blameless life and almost
+blameless thoughts, generous, high-principled, beloved. He was to slay
+his victim with one of the fire-irons on his hearth. The murderous
+impulse was to take possession of him quite suddenly but with
+absolutely irresistible force. He was to kill a man who had been
+boring him for hours. My intention was to write the story in such a
+way as to win public sympathy for my murderer and to make every one
+feel that the dead man deserved his fate. I meant to model the dead
+man on my nephew Godfrey.
+
+I still think that a very good short story might be written along
+those lines, but I doubt whether I shall ever write it. I wrote about
+two thousand words that morning before I was interrupted by the
+luncheon gong. I was unable to go on writing after luncheon because
+the conversation I had with Marion distracted my mind and turned my
+thoughts to another subject.
+
+"Father," she said, "do you think that Mr. Power could really have
+been smuggling things in that yacht?"
+
+"No," I said; "he couldn't possibly."
+
+"It's very queer," said Marion.
+
+"What's queer?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. Only this morning Rose had a new gold brooch, quite a
+handsome one."
+
+Rose is Marion's maid, a pleasant and I believe efficient girl of
+agreeable appearance.
+
+"Even if Mr. Power was smuggling," I said, "it's exceedingly unlikely
+that he'd bring in a cargo of gold brooches to give to the servants in
+the district."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Marion. "In fact Rose told me that her
+young man gave her the brooch. He's a very nice, steady young fellow
+with a freckly face and he drives one of the carts for Crossan."
+
+He must, I suspect, be the same young man who accused Godfrey of being
+a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection
+of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.
+
+"He promised her a gold bracelet next week," said Marion, "and Rose is
+very mysterious about where he gets the money."
+
+"As long as he doesn't steal it from me," I said, "I don't care where
+he gets it."
+
+"It's very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men
+in the village have heaps of money lately, and I thought it might
+have something to do with smuggling."
+
+This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered
+Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose's young man and the
+others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who
+frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was,
+of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form
+of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one
+of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and
+philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish
+peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of
+kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have
+made Rose's freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch.
+The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the _Finola's_ midnight
+activity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+All competent critics appear to agree that art ought to be kept
+entirely distinct from moral purposes. A picture meant to urge us on
+to virtue--and there are such pictures--is bad art. A play or a novel
+with a purpose stands condemned at once. The same canon of criticism
+must, I suppose, apply to parties of all kinds, dinner-parties,
+garden-parties, or house-parties. A good host or hostess ought, like
+the painter and the novelist, to aim at making her work beautiful in
+itself; and should not have behind the hospitality a cause of any
+kind, charitable or political.
+
+I myself dissent, humbly, of course, from this view. Pictures like
+_Time, Death and Judgment_--I take it as an example of the kind of
+picture which is meant to make us good because I once saw it hung up
+in a church--appeal to me strongly. I do not like novels which aim at
+a reform of the marriage laws; but that is only because sex problems
+bore me horribly. I enjoy novels written with any other purpose. I
+hate parties, such as those which Godfrey instigates me to give, which
+have no object except that of merely being parties, the bare
+collection together of human beings in their best clothes. I was,
+therefore, greatly pleased when I discovered that my original guess
+was right and that Lady Moyne's party was definitely political. I
+found this out when I arrived in the drawing-room before dinner. I was
+a little too early and there was no one in the room except Moyne. He
+shook hands with me apologetically and this gave me a clue to the
+nature of the entertainment before me. He dislikes politics greatly,
+and would be much happier than he is if he were allowed to hunt and
+fish instead of attending to such business as is carried on in the
+House of Lords. But a man cannot expect to get all he wants in life.
+Moyne has a particularly charming and clever wife who enjoys politics
+immensely. The price he pays for her is the loss of a certain amount
+of sport and the endurance of long periods of enforced legislative
+activity.
+
+"I ought to have told you before you came," he said, "that--well, you
+know that my lady is very strongly opposed to this Home Rule Bill."
+
+Moyne is fifteen years or so older than his wife. He shows his respect
+for her by the pretty old-fashioned way in which he always speaks of
+her as "my lady."
+
+"The fact is," he went on, "that the people we have with us at
+present--"
+
+"Babberly?" I asked.
+
+Moyne nodded sorrowfully. Babberly is the most terrific of all
+Unionist orators. If his speeches were set to music, the orchestra
+would necessarily consist entirely of cornets, trumpets and drums. No
+one could express the spirit of Babberly's oratory on stringed
+instruments. Flutes would be ridiculous.
+
+"Of course," said Moyne, still apologetically, "it really is rather a
+crisis you know."
+
+"It always is," I said. "I've lived through seventy or eighty of
+them."
+
+"But this is much worse than most," he said. "A man called Malcolmson
+arrived this afternoon, a colonel of some sort. Was in the artillery,
+I think."
+
+"You read his letter in _The Times_, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I did. But I needn't tell you, Kilmore, that that kind of thing
+is all talk. My wife--"
+
+"I fancy Lady Moyne would look well as _vivandiere_," I said,
+"marching in front of an ambulance waggon with a red cross on it."
+
+Moyne looked pained. He is very fond of Lady Moyne and very proud of
+her. This is quite natural. I should be proud of her too if she were
+my wife.
+
+"Her idea," said Lord Moyne, "is--"
+
+Just then our Dean came into the room. His presence emphasised the
+highly political nature of the party. Unless she had asked Crossan,
+Lady Moyne could not have got hold of any one of more influence with
+our north of Ireland Protestant democracy. The Dean cannot possibly be
+accustomed to the kind of semi-regal state which is kept up at Castle
+Affey. I should be surprised to hear that he habitually dresses for
+dinner. It was only natural, therefore, that he should be a little
+overawed by the immensity of the rooms and the number of footmen who
+lurk about the halls and passages. When he began explaining to me the
+extreme iniquity of the recent Vatican legislation about mixed
+marriages, he spoke in a quite low voice. As a rule this subject moves
+the Dean to stridency; but the heavy magnificence of Castle Affey
+crushed him into a kind of whisper. This encouraged me. If the Dean
+had been in his usual condition of vigour, I should not have ventured
+to do anything except agree with him heartily. Feeling that I might
+never catch him in a subdued mood again, I seized a chance of
+expressing my own views on the mixed marriage question. It seems to
+me that the whole difficulty about the validity of these unions might
+be got over by importing a few priests of the Greek Church into
+Ireland. The Vatican, I believe, recognizes that these Orientals
+really are priests. The Protestants could not reasonably object to
+their ministrations since they refuse to acknowledge the jurisdiction
+of the Pope. A mixed marriage performed by one of them would,
+therefore, be valid in the opinion of the ecclesiastical advisers of,
+let us say, the bridegroom. It would be quite unobjectionable to those
+responsible for the soul of the bride. I put my plan as persuasively
+as I could; but the Dean did not seem to see any merit in it. Indeed I
+have never met any one who did. That is the great drawback to trying
+to help the Irish nation out of its difficulties. No one will ever
+agree to a reasonable compromise.
+
+I took Lady Moyne in to dinner and enjoyed myself very much. She
+was--as indeed she always is--beautifully dressed. Although she talked
+a good deal to Babberly who sat on the other side of her, she left me
+with the impression that I was the person who really interested her,
+and that she only turned occasionally to her other neighbour from a
+sense of duty. Babberly talked about Unionist clubs and the vigorous
+way in which the members of them were doing dumb bell exercises, so as
+to be in thoroughly good training when the Home Rule Bill became law.
+The subject evidently interested him very much. He has a long white
+beard of the kind described as patriarchal. When he reaches exciting
+passages in his public speeches, and even when he is saying something
+emphatic in private life, his beard wags up and down. On this occasion
+it rose and fell like a foamy wave. That was what convinced me that
+he was really interested in the activity of the Unionist clubs. Lady
+Moyne smiled at him in her bewilderingly bewitching way, and then
+turned round and smiled at me.
+
+"But," I said, "do you actually mean to go out and do battle?"
+
+"It won't be necessary," said Babberly. "Once the English people
+understand that we mean to die rather than see our lives and
+liberties--"
+
+"Nowadays," said Lady Moyne, "when the industrial proletariate is
+breaking free from all control, it is a splendid thing for us to have
+a cause in which we take the lead, which will bind our working classes
+to us, and make them loyal to those who are after all their best
+friends and their natural leaders."
+
+I quite saw Lady Moyne's point. Crossan would not be at all likely to
+follow her or regard her as his best friend in ordinary matters. He
+might even resent her interference with his affairs. But on the
+subject of Home Rule Crossan would certainly follow any one who took
+his side of the great controversy. If Lady Moyne wore an orange sash
+over her pretty dresses Crossan would cheer her. While Home Rule
+remained a real danger he would refrain from asking why Lord Moyne
+should spend as much on a bottle of champagne for dinner, as would
+feed the children of a labourer for a week. It did not surprise me to
+find that Lady Moyne was clever enough to understand Crossan. I wanted
+to know whether Babberly understood.
+
+"But," I said to him, "suppose that the men you are enrolling take
+what you say seriously--"
+
+"I assure you, Lord Kilmore," said Babberly, "we are quite serious."
+
+I could hear Malcolmson at the other end of the table explaining to
+Moyne a scheme for establishing a number of artillery forts on the
+side of the Cave Hill above Belfast Lough. His idea apparently, was to
+sink any British warship which was ill-advised enough to anchor there
+with a view to imposing Home Rule on us. Malcolmson, at all events,
+was quite serious.
+
+"It will never come to fighting," said Babberly again. "After all, the
+great heart of the English people is sound. They will never consent to
+see their brethren and co-religionists handed over--"
+
+Lady Moyne turned to me and smiled again. I am sixty years of age, but
+her smile gave me so much pleasure that I failed to hear the rest of
+what Babberly said.
+
+When at the end of dinner Lady Moyne left us, we congregated round the
+other end of the table, and everybody talked loud; everybody, that is,
+except Moyne and me. Moyne looked to me very much as if he wanted to
+go to sleep. He blinked a good deal, and when he got his eyes open
+seemed to hold them in that state with considerable effort. I did not
+feel sleepy, and became more and more interested as the conversation
+round me grew more violent. Babberly talked about a campaign among the
+English constituencies. He had a curious and quite pathetic faith in
+the gullibility of the British working-man. Nobody listened much to
+Babberly. The Dean prosed on about the effects of the _Ne Temere_
+decree. We all said that we agreed with him, and then stopped
+listening. Malcolmson got on to field guns, and had an elaborate plan
+for training gunners without actual practice. Babberly did not like
+this talk about artillery. He kept on saying that we should never get
+as far as that. A Mr. Cahoon, who came from Belfast, and spoke with
+the same kind of accent as McNeice, prophesied doleful things about
+the paralyzing of business under a Home Rule Parliament. What
+interested me was, not the conversation which beat fiercely on my
+ears, but the personal question, Why had Lady Moyne invited me to this
+party?
+
+I am constitutionally incapable of becoming excited about politics,
+and have therefore the reputation, quite undeserved, of being that
+singular creature, a Liberal peer. Why, being the kind of Gallio I am,
+I should have been, like a second Daniel, thrown among these lions, I
+could not understand. They were not the least likely to convert me to
+their own desperate intensity of feeling. If Lady Moyne wanted to
+convert me a far better plan would have been to invite me to her house
+after the politicians had gone away. Circe, I imagine, did not attract
+new lovers by parading those whom she had already turned into swine.
+Nor could I suppose that I had been brought to Castle Affey in order
+to convert people like Malcolmson to pacific ways of thought. In the
+first place, Lady Moyne did not want him converted. He and his like
+were a valuable asset to the Conservative party. And even if she had
+wanted them converted I was not the man to do it. I am mildly
+reasonable in my outlook upon life. To reason with Malcolmson is much
+the same as if a man, meaning well, were to offer a Seidlitz powder to
+an enraged hippopotamus.
+
+It was not until next day that I found a solution of my problem. Moyne
+buttonholed me after breakfast, and invited me, rather wistfully I
+thought, to go round the stables with him. He wanted my opinion of a
+new filly. I went, pursued by the sound of the Dean's voice.
+
+He was telling the story of a famous case of wife desertion brought
+about by the _Ne Temere_ decree. He was telling it to Cahoon, the
+Belfast manufacturer, who must, I am sure, have heard it several times
+before.
+
+I used, long ago, to be a good judge of horses. I still retained my
+eye for a neat filly. Moyne's latest acquisition was more than neat. I
+stroked her neck, and patted her flanks with genuine appreciation.
+Moyne looked quite cheerful and babbled pleasantly about hunting. Then
+Lady Moyne came through the door of the stable. I was very glad to see
+her. Her dress, a simple brown tweed, suited her admirably, and her
+smile, less radiant, perhaps, than it was the night before when set
+off by her diamonds, was most attractive. Moyne, too, though I knew
+that he did not want to talk politics, was glad to see her. She came
+into the horse-box, and fondled the filly. Then she sighed.
+
+"What a lot we have to go through for a good cause!" she said. "Those
+terrible men!"
+
+"Heavy going," said Moyne, "that kind of thing at breakfast. Let's
+take out the new car, and go for a spin."
+
+"I should love to," she said, "but I must not. I only ran out to speak
+to you for a minute, Lord Kilmore."
+
+Her eyes led me to believe at dinner the night before that I was the
+one man among her guests that she really wanted to talk to. Now her
+lips said the same thing plainly. I did not believe it, of course;
+but I felt quite as much gratified as if it had been true.
+
+"Mr. Conroy comes this afternoon," she said.
+
+"That millionaire fellow?" said Moyne, who was evidently not well up
+in the list of his visitors.
+
+"And I want you to take him in hand," said Lady Moyne to me--not to
+her husband. "He's very clever, and it's most important to get him
+interested in our movement."
+
+"You'd much better take him in hand yourself," I said. "If any one
+could interest him--"
+
+"I shall, of course; but I can't always be with him. I'm dreadfully
+afraid that if Mr. Babberly talks to him--but you know what Mr.
+Babberly is. He's splendid in Parliament and on a platform; perfectly
+splendid. We've nobody like him. But he might not quite suit Mr.
+Conroy. Then poor dear Colonel Malcolmson does talk such nonsense. Of
+course it's very good in its way, and I do hope the Liberals will lay
+to heart what he says about fighting before it's too late--"
+
+"Mr. Conroy is a business man," I said, "and has a reputation for
+shrewdness."
+
+"That's just it," said Lady Moyne, "and the others--the Dean and that
+curious Mr. Cahoon. They're dears, perfect dears in the way they stand
+up for the Union and the Empire, but--" She shrugged her shoulders,
+and smiled.
+
+"I quite understand," I said; "but, after all, I'm rather an old bore,
+too."
+
+"You!" said Lady Moyne. "You're a literary man, and that's so rare,
+you know, in our class. And, besides, you're a Liberal. I don't mean
+in any offensive sense of the word; only just that you're not a party
+man. I must run away now; but you will do your best with Mr. Conroy,
+won't you? We want a big subscription from him."
+
+The Dean caught me a little later in the morning, and, though I told
+him I had letters to write, he insisted on explaining to me that, as a
+clergyman, he considered it wrong to take any active part in politics.
+
+"The Church," he said, "cannot allow herself to become attached to any
+party. She must stand above and beyond party, a witness to divine and
+eternal righteousness in public affairs."
+
+I am, on the whole, glad that I heard the Dean say this. I should
+certainly have believed he was taking a side in politics, if he had
+not solemnly assured me that he was not. I might even have thought,
+taking at their face value certain resolutions passed by its General
+Synod, that the Church was, more or less, on the side of the
+Unionists, if the Dean had not explained to me that she only appeared
+to be on their side because they happened to be always in the right,
+but that she would be quite as much on the side of the Liberals if
+they would only drop their present programme which happened in every
+respect to be morally wrong. This cleared my mind for me, and I felt
+quite ready to face Conroy at luncheon, and dispel any difficulties he
+might feel about the Church and politics.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Mr. Conroy arrived at luncheon-time, and Lady Moyne took him in hand
+at once. I watched her talking to him during the meal and afterwards
+when they walked together round the lawn. I came to the conclusion
+that Lady Moyne would have no difficulty in obtaining any subscription
+she wanted from the millionaire. They were, of course, intimate with
+each other. Lady Moyne had been Conroy's guest in the days when his
+London house was a centre of social life. She had sailed with him on
+the _Finola_. But this was the first time she had him at Castle Affey;
+and therefore the first time he had seen Lady Moyne in her character
+as hostess. It is not to be wondered at that he yielded to her charm.
+Like all women of real capacity Lady Moyne was at her best in her own
+house.
+
+But she was too clever a hostess to devote herself entirely to one
+guest. She took Babberly for a drive later in the afternoon and I felt
+that my time had come. I determined to be true to my trust and to make
+myself agreeable to Conroy. Unfortunately he did not seem to want my
+company. He went off for a long walk with Malcolmson. This surprised
+me. I should have supposed beforehand that talk about artillery would
+have bored Conroy; and Malcolmson, since this Home Rule struggle
+began, has talked of nothing else.
+
+I spent the afternoon with Mr. Cahoon, and we talked about Home Rule,
+of course.
+
+"What those fellows want," he said, "is to get their hands into our
+pockets. But it won't do."
+
+"Those fellows" were, plainly, the Nationalist leaders.
+
+"Taxation?" I said.
+
+"Belfast will be the milch cow of the Dublin Parliament," said Cahoon.
+"Money will be wanted to feed paupers and pay priests in the south and
+west. We're the only people who have any money."
+
+I had never before come in contact with a man like Cahoon, and I was
+very much interested in him. His contempt, not only for our
+fellow-countrymen in Leinster, Munster and Connacht, but for all the
+other inhabitants of the British Isles was absolute. He had a way of
+pronouncing final judgment on all the problems of life which
+fascinated me.
+
+"That's all well enough in its way," he would say; "but it won't do in
+Belfast. We're business men."
+
+I think he said those words five times in the course of the afternoon,
+and each time they filled me with fresh delight. If the man had been a
+fool I should not have been interested in him. If he had been a simple
+crude money maker, a Stock Exchange Imperialist, for instance, I
+should have understood him and yawned. But he was not a fool. A man
+cannot be a fool who manages successfully a large business, who keeps
+in touch with the swift vicissitudes of modern international commerce,
+who has organized into a condition of high efficiency an industrial
+army of several thousand working-men and women. And Mr. Cahoon, in a
+curious hard way, was touched with idealisms; I discovered,
+accidentally, that he devotes his spare time on Saturdays to the
+instruction of young men in cricket and football. His Sunday
+afternoons he gives to an immense Bible-class for boys of fifteen or
+sixteen. He has built and maintains, on the sole condition that he
+does not actually lose money by it, a kind of model village in a
+suburban district of Belfast. In order to look after this village
+properly he gets up at five o'clock in the morning on three days in
+the week. In winter, when his social work is in full swing, he spends
+almost all his evenings at a large Working-Men's club. He spends his
+summer holidays in the seaside camp of The Boys' Brigade. It would be
+difficult to find a man who crams more work into what are supposed to
+be his leisure hours. He has, of course, little time for reading and
+he never travels. His devotion to good works leaves him no opportunity
+for culture, and accounts for the fact that he believes the things
+which Babberly says on platforms. He would, I did not actually try him
+with the subject, but I have no doubt he would, have brushed the
+philosophy of Emmanuel Kant into the world's waste-basket with his
+unvarying formula: It wouldn't do in Belfast. They are business men
+there.
+
+We worried on about his fear of the over-taxation of Belfast and the
+industrial North. I tried to get from him some definite account of the
+exact taxes which he feared. I tried to get him to explain how he
+proposed to fight, against whom he intended to fight, who might be
+expected to fight on his side. I do not think he got angry with me for
+my persistency, but his contempt for me steadily increased. I am not a
+business man and so I could not possibly, so he hinted, understand how
+they feel about the matter in Belfast.
+
+"But do you think," I said, "that your workmen will go out and be shot
+in order to save you from paying an extra penny in the pound income
+tax? That's what it comes to, you know, and I don't see why they
+should do it. They don't pay income tax, or for that matter death
+duties."
+
+Cahoon looked me full in the face for nearly half a minute without
+replying. Then he took out his watch and looked at it. Then he took me
+by the arm and led me towards the yard.
+
+"Did you ever see the Green Loaney Scutching Mill?" he said.
+
+I had never seen any scutching mill. I have only a vague idea of what
+a scutching mill is.
+
+"It'll not be more than twenty miles from this," said Cahoon. "And in
+my car we'll do it and be back for dinner."
+
+I did not particularly want to spend the rest of the afternoon rushing
+about the country in Cahoon's motor car. I preferred to stay quietly
+on the Castle Affey lawn and talk about Home Rule.
+
+"But about the working-man," I said, "and the prospect of his
+fighting--"
+
+"You'll be better able to talk about that," said Cahoon, "when you've
+seen the man I'm going to take you to. Seeing's believing."
+
+I was, of course, quite willing to go with Cahoon if he would really
+show me a citizen soldier in a scutching mill. We got out the motor
+car and started.
+
+"He's a man by the name of McConkey," said Cahoon.
+
+"A good name," I said. "One expects something from a McConkey."
+
+Cahoon did not say anything for about ten minutes. Then he went on--
+
+"McConkey is foreman in the mill."
+
+"The scutching mill?" I asked.
+
+It was, of course, the scutching mill. I only asked the question in
+order to keep up the conversation. The long silences were
+embarrassing. Cahoon did not answer me. At the end of another quarter
+of an hour of furious driving he gave me a little further information
+about McConkey.
+
+"He neither drinks nor smokes."
+
+This led me to think that he might be some relation to my friend
+Crossan, possibly a cousin.
+
+"I happen to know," said Cahoon a little later, "that he has upwards
+of L500 saved."
+
+Undoubtedly McConkey and Crossan are close relations, brothers-in-law
+perhaps.
+
+We reached the Green Loaney Scutching Mill at about half-past five
+o'clock. Cahoon, who seemed to know all about the establishment, led
+me through some very dusty purlieus. McConkey, when we came upon him,
+did not seem particularly pleased to see Cahoon. He looked at me with
+suspicious malignity.
+
+"There's a gentleman here," said Cahoon, "who wants to know whether
+you mean to fight rather than submit to Home Rule."
+
+"Aye," said McConkey, "I do."
+
+Then he looked me square in the face without winking. Cahoon did the
+same thing exactly. Neither of them spoke. It was clearly my turn to
+say something; but with four hard grey eyes piercing my skin I found
+it difficult to think of a remark. In the end I said:
+
+"Really?"
+
+They both continued to stare at me. Then McConkey broke the silence
+again.
+
+"You'll no be a Papist?" he said.
+
+"Certainly not," I replied. "In fact I am a church-warden."
+
+McConkey thrust his hand deep into a hip pocket in the back of his
+trousers and drew out a somewhat soiled packet of yellow tracing
+paper.
+
+"Look at thon," he said.
+
+I unfolded the tracing paper and found on it drawings of a machine
+gun. Cahoon peered over my shoulder.
+
+"She's a bonny wee thing," said McConkey.
+
+She looked to me large and murderous. Cahoon expressed his admiration
+for her, so I said nothing.
+
+"I'll no be that badly off for something to fight with," said
+McConkey, "when the time comes."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that you've bought that weapon?"
+
+"I haven't her bought yet," said McConkey; "but I have the money by
+me."
+
+"And you actually mean--" I said.
+
+"Ay. I do."
+
+I looked at Cahoon. He was still studying the drawings of the gun.
+
+"It'll be queer," said McConkey, slowly, "if she doesna' land a few of
+them in hell before they have me catched."
+
+I turned to Cahoon again.
+
+"Do you really think," I said, "that he--?"
+
+"We're business men," said Cahoon, "and we don't throw away our
+money."
+
+"But," I said, "who are you going to shoot at? It would be silly to
+attack a tax collector with a gun like that. I don't see who--"
+
+"Oh," said Cahoon, "don't fret about that. We'll find somebody to
+shoot at."
+
+"There'll be plenty," said McConkey, "when the time comes."
+
+"The real difficulty," said Cahoon, "is that--"
+
+"They'll no be wanting to stand up till us," said McConkey.
+
+The relations of Capital with Labour are, I understand, strained in
+other parts of the United Kingdom. Here, with Home Rule on the
+horizon, they seem to be actually cordial. There is certainly a good
+deal to be said for Lady Moyne's policy. So long as Cahoon and
+McConkey have a common taste for making domestic pets of machine guns
+they are not likely to fall out over such minor matters as wages and
+hours of work.
+
+I had a good deal to think of as Cahoon drove me back to Castle Affey.
+My main feeling was one of great personal thankfulness. I shall never,
+I hope, take part in a battle. If I do I hope I shall be found
+fighting against some properly organized army, the men and officers of
+which have taken up the business of killing in a lofty professional
+spirit. I cannot imagine anything more likely to shatter my nerve than
+to be pitted against men like McConkey, who neither drink nor smoke,
+but save and spend their savings on machine guns. The regular soldier
+has his guns bought for him with other people's money. He does not
+mind much if no gory dividend is earned. McConkey, on the other hand,
+spends his own money, and being a business man, will hate to see it
+wasted. He would not be satisfied, I imagine, with less than fifty
+corpses per cent. as a return on his expenditure.
+
+At dinner that evening Conroy made a suggestion for our evening's
+entertainment.
+
+"Lady Moyne," he said, "ought to read us the speech which she is to
+make next week to the Unionist women."
+
+I had never heard of the Unionist women before, and knew nothing of
+their wish to be spoken to. The Dean assured me that they were
+numerous and quite as enthusiastic as their husbands and brothers.
+Cahoon said that he was giving his mill hands a half holiday in order
+that the girls might go to listen to Lady Moyne. Babberly struck in
+with a characteristic speech.
+
+"The influence of women," he said, "can hardly be over-estimated. We
+must never forget that the most impressionable years of a man's life
+are those during which he is learning to say his prayers beside his
+mother's knee."
+
+This, as I recognized was a mere paraphrase of the proverb which
+states that the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. The
+secret of Babberly's great success as an orator is that he has a
+striking power of putting platitudes into new words.
+
+I ventured to suggest that, so far as the present political situation
+was concerned it was hardly worth while trying to get at the children
+who were learning to say their prayers. The Home Rule Bill would be
+either rejected or passed long before any of that generation had
+votes. Lady Moyne was good enough to smile at me; but Babberly felled
+me at once.
+
+"The women whom we expect to influence," he said, "have fathers,
+brothers and husbands as well as young children."
+
+After dinner we had the speech. A secretary, who had once been Lady
+Moyne's governess and still wore pince-nez, brought a quantity of
+type-written matter into the drawing-room. Moyne wanted me to slip
+away with him to the billiard room; but I refused to do so. I wanted
+to watch Lady Moyne making her speech. I am glad that I resisted his
+appeal. Lady Moyne not only read us the speech. She delivered it to
+us, treated us, indeed, to a rehearsal, I might even call it a dress
+rehearsal, for she described at some length the clothes she intended
+to wear. They must have been the most sumptuous in her wardrobe.
+
+"The poor dears," she said, "want something to brighten their lives.
+Besides, they'll take it as a compliment to them if I'm like Solomon
+in all his glory."
+
+I gathered from this remark that the audience was to consist mainly of
+the wives and sisters of McConkey and other men of the same class.
+Cahoon's wife, if he had one, would not require a display of Lady
+Moyne's best clothes to seal her attachment to the Union.
+
+The speech was an uncommonly good one. A phrase in it frequently
+repeated, appealed to me very strongly. Lady Moyne spoke about "our
+men." I do not know why it is, but the phrase "our women" as used for
+instance by military officers who have been to India, always strikes
+me as singularly offensive. It suggests seraglios, purdahs and other
+institutions by which Turks, and Orientals generally, assert and
+maintain the rights of property with regard to the other sex. "Our
+men," on the other hand, is redolent of sentimental domesticity. I
+never hear it without thinking of women who are mothers and makers of
+men; who sew on trouser buttons and cook savoury messes for those who
+are fighting the battle of life for them in a rough world, sustained
+by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It
+is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all
+it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast
+working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun
+bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the
+moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from
+tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened
+him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of
+the machine gun. So Lady Moyne in her gorgeous raiment, sustained Lord
+Moyne, her man. That was the suggestion of the possessive pronoun, and
+the audience was not allowed to miss it. Poor Moyne did miss it, for
+he was nearly asleep in a chair. But McConkey's wife would not. Her
+heart would glow with a sense that she and Lady Moyne were sisters in
+their anxious care for the men entrusted to them.
+
+That single phrase made such a violent emotional appeal to me that I
+missed all the rest of the speech. Each time I began to recover a
+little from hearing it and was prepared to give my attention to
+something else, Lady Moyne used to repeat it, and then I was
+hypnotized again. I have no doubt, however, that the speech was a
+powerful appeal for the maintenance of the Union. Conroy said so
+afterwards and Babberly entirely agreed with him. The Dean suggested
+that something might be put in about the sanctity of the marriage
+tie, a matter of particular importance to women and likely to be
+seriously affected by the passing of a Home Rule Bill. Lady Moyne
+thanked him for calling her attention to the omission. The secretary,
+who had once been a governess, adjusted her pince-nez and took a note.
+
+In the smoking-room that evening Conroy took command of the
+conversation, and for the first time since I arrived at Castle Affey
+we got off politics. He told us a good deal about how he made his
+fortune. Most men who have made fortunes enjoy talking about how they
+made them. But their stories are nearly always most uninteresting. My
+impression is that they do not themselves understand how they came to
+be rich. But Conroy understood, or at all events thought he
+understood, his own success. He believed that he was rich because he
+had, more than other men, a love of the excitement which comes with
+risk. He had the spirit of the true adventurer, the man who pursues
+novelty and danger for their own sakes. Every story he told us
+illustrated and was meant to illustrate this side of his character. He
+despised the rest of us, especially me perhaps. We, Cahoon, the Dean,
+even Malcolmson, though he was a bristly fighting man, certainly Moyne
+who had gone quietly to bed--we were tame barndoor fowls, eating the
+sordid messes spread for us by that old henwife, civilized society.
+Conroy was a free bird of the wild. He snatched golden grain for
+nutriment from the hand of a goddess. These were not his words or his
+metaphors, but they represented the impression which his talk and his
+stories left on my mind.
+
+At twelve o'clock I rose to say good night. As I did so a servant
+entered the room and told Conroy that his motor was ready for him at
+the door. Conroy left the room at once, and left the house a few
+minutes later.
+
+I suppose we ought, all of us, to have been surprised. Motor drives in
+the middle of the night are an unusual form of amusement, and it was
+impossible to suppose that Conroy could have any business requiring
+immediate personal attention in the neighbourhood of Castle Affey. But
+his talk during the evening had left its impression on other minds as
+well as mine. We bid each other good night without expressing any
+astonishment at Conroy's conduct. Cahoon refrained from saying that
+inexplicable midnight expeditions were not the kind of things they
+cared for in Belfast. Even he recognized that a man who had
+accumulated as large a fortune as Conroy's must not be judged by
+ordinary standards.
+
+I, unfortunately, failed to go to sleep. I tried to read the works of
+Alexander Pope, of which I found a well-bound copy in my bedroom. But
+my mind only became more active. I got up at last and covered six
+sheets of the Castle Affey note paper with a character sketch of
+Conroy. I maintained that he was wrong in supposing that a capacity
+for daring is the secret of becoming rich. Bob Power, for instance, is
+as daring as any man living and certainly loves risk for its own sake,
+but Bob will not die a rich man. Nor will Conroy. Wealth falls into
+the hands of such men occasionally, as vast hoards of gold did one
+hundred and fifty years ago into the holds of pirate ships. But no one
+ever heard of a buccaneer who died with a large fortune safely
+invested. Before Conroy dies his fortune will have taken to itself
+wings and fled back to that goddess of his who gave it. This was the
+substance of my article. Marion typed it out for me when I went home,
+but neither of the editors who usually print my articles would have
+it. I suppose that they did not know Conroy personally. If they had
+known him they would have appreciated my character sketch. I called
+it, I remember, "Our Contemporary Pirates," a title which ought to
+have been attractive.
+
+At three o'clock, just as I was finishing my article, I heard Conroy's
+motor on the gravel outside my window.
+
+He appeared at breakfast looking fresh and cheerful. None of us asked
+him where he had been the night before, and he did not offer us any
+information.
+
+After breakfast he asked me to go for a walk with him. Lady Moyne, who
+heard the invitation given, looked pleased, and I recollected at once
+that I had promised to interest Conroy in the Unionist cause and lead
+him on to the point of giving a large subscription to our funds.
+
+These party funds have always been rather a puzzle to me. I have never
+understood why it should be necessary for rich Liberals, rich
+Conservatives and American Irishmen to spend enormous sums of money in
+persuading people to vote. The theory of democratic government is, I
+suppose, that the citizen expresses his opinion freely in a polling
+booth. If he has not got an opinion it would surely be better to leave
+him alone. If he has an opinion and attaches any importance to it he
+will go to the polling booth without being dragged there by a kind of
+special constable hired for the purpose. If the money of the party
+funds were given to the voters in the form of bribes, the expenditure
+would be intelligible. It might even be justified; since an occasional
+tip would be most welcome to nearly every elector. But to spend tens
+of thousands of pounds on what is called organization seems very
+foolish. However I am not a practical politician, and my immediate
+object was not to explain the theory of political finance to Conroy,
+but to work him up into the frame of mind in which he would sign
+cheques.
+
+I cannot flatter myself that I did this or even helped to do it.
+Conroy did not give me a chance. He began to talk about the Irish land
+question, a thing in which I no longer take any but an academic
+interest. He asked me if I still owned a small estate in Co. Galway
+which had belonged to my father. I told him that I had long ago sold
+it and was uncommonly glad to do so.
+
+"Not a paying proposition?" said Conroy.
+
+"Oh," I said, "it paid very well; but the fact is, what with the
+agitation about grazing lands, and the trouble about people in
+congested districts--"
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that your ancestors mismanaged the property
+some."
+
+I expect they did. But I did not expect to have their misdeeds brought
+home to me in a vigorous personal way.
+
+"Your father," said Conroy, "or your grandfather, turned my
+grandfather off a patch of land down there in 1850."
+
+My grandfather had, I have heard, a theory that small holdings of land
+were uneconomic. He evicted his tenants and made large grass farms.
+Nowadays we hold the opposite opinion. We are evicting large tenants
+and establishing small holdings. Our grandsons, I dare say, will go
+back again to the large farms. I explained to Conroy that he ought not
+to blame my grandfather who was acting in accordance with the most
+advanced scientific theories of his time.
+
+Conroy was very nice about the matter. He said he had no grudge
+against either me or my grandfather. He had, however, so he told me
+frankly, a prejudice against everything English; an inherited
+prejudice, and not quite so irrational as it looked. It was after all
+the English who invented the economic theories on which my grandfather
+acted. He talked so much about his dislike of England and everything
+English that I did not like to introduce the subject of the
+subscription to Lady Moyne's political fund. He did, in the end,
+subscribe largely. When I heard about his L1000 cheque I supposed that
+he must have counted the Union with us a misfortune for England and so
+wished to perpetuate it. Either that was his motive, so I thought, or
+else Lady Moyne had captivated him as she always captivates me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+I had no sooner settled down quietly at home and got to work again on
+my history than I was assailed by Godfrey. I wish very much that he
+was Conroy's nephew and not mine. Conroy goes driving in a motor in
+the middle of the night, so he must like disturbances. I hate them.
+
+"I'm sorry, Excellency, but I am afraid I shall have to interrupt
+you."
+
+Godfrey, besides being objectionable in other ways, is a liar. He is
+not sorry, he is very glad, when he gets the chance of interrupting
+me. I should resent the disturbance less if he acknowledged frankly
+that he enjoyed annoying me.
+
+"It can't be time," I said, "for another garden-party yet; but, if it
+is, I'd rather you made out the invitation list yourself. I'm busy.
+Besides making out lists is one of the things you're good at. I should
+be sure to leave out somebody."
+
+"I don't want to talk about garden-parties," said Godfrey. "This is
+something much more serious."
+
+"There's no use coming to me about it," I said. "I told you last time
+that your tailor could bring you into the County Court if he liked. I
+shan't pay him again."
+
+The inference was a natural one. Godfrey had said that he wanted to
+talk about something more important than a garden-party. But the
+inference was wrong. Godfrey looked offended.
+
+"I sent Nicholson and Blackett a cheque last week," he said.
+
+I waited patiently. If Godfrey's business had nothing to do with
+garden-parties or tailors' bills, I could only suppose that he meant
+to make some fresh complaint about Crossan.
+
+"Pringle cashed it all right," said Godfrey, after a short pause. "I
+went in there the day after your party and played tennis with his
+daughter. They were awfully pleased."
+
+I dare say they were. People attach a surprising amount of importance
+to Godfrey's social patronage. I myself should be more inclined to
+cash his cheques for him if he stayed away from my house. But I did
+not want to argue with Godfrey about Pringle's taste in guests.
+
+"What's Crossan been doing to you?" I asked at last.
+
+"He hasn't been doing anything to me."
+
+"Then for goodness' sake, Godfrey, let the man alone."
+
+"I don't like the way he's going on."
+
+"You never did. There's nothing fresh about that. You've complained
+about him regularly every week for five years."
+
+This was an exaggeration. I am sometimes away from home for more than
+a week at a time and Godfrey does not always complain about Crossan in
+his letters.
+
+"Look here, Excellency," said Godfrey, "it's far better for you to
+know what Crossan's doing. He's going about all over the country day
+after day. He's got a motor car."
+
+I can quite understand that Crossan's owning a motor car must have a
+very irritating effect on Godfrey. I cannot afford to keep one. That
+any one else in the district over which I ought, according to
+Godfrey's theory, to be a kind of king, should assume a grandeur
+impossible for me is simply an aggravated kind of insolence. No wonder
+that Godfrey, with the honour of the family at heart, resented
+Crossan's motor car. I tried to soothe him.
+
+"It's probably quite an inferior machine," I said. "It will break down
+soon."
+
+"It's not only that," said Godfrey, "though I think Crossan ought to
+stay at home and mind his business. He must be neglecting things.
+But--I wish you'd walk up to the store with me, Excellency. Crossan's
+away."
+
+"I'd much rather go when Crossan's at home," I said; "but, of course,
+if you won't leave me in peace until I do, I may as well go at once."
+
+I got my hat and walking stick. On the way up to the store Godfrey
+preserved an air of mysterious importance. I had no objection whatever
+to his doing this; because he could not talk and look mysterious at
+the same time, and I particularly dislike being talked to by Godfrey.
+I expect he tried to be dignified with a view to impressing me, but
+just before we reached the store he broke down and babbled fatuously.
+
+"Marion told me yesterday," he said, "that she'd had a letter from
+that fellow Power."
+
+"She told me that too," I said.
+
+"Well, I think you ought to put a stop to it. It's not right."
+
+"My dear Godfrey," I said, "you appear to forget that he's one of the
+Powers of Kilfenora and private secretary to a millionaire."
+
+This twofold appeal to the highest and strongest feelings which
+Godfrey possesses ought to have silenced him. He did, I think, feel
+the force of what I said. But he was not satisfied.
+
+"If you knew all that was going on," he said, "you wouldn't like it."
+
+We reached the store. The young woman who controls the sale of
+miscellaneous goods was alert and smiling behind her counter. Whatever
+Crossan might be doing she at all events was attending to her
+business. Godfrey took no notice of her. He led me through the shop to
+the yard behind it. He pushed open the door of one of the outhouses.
+
+"That door ought to be locked," he said.
+
+This was true. I was somewhat surprised to find it open.
+
+"I forced the lock this morning," said Godfrey, "with a screw driver."
+
+"In that case," I said, "you can hardly blame Crossan for its being
+open. Why did you do it?"
+
+"I wanted to see what he had inside," said Godfrey, "and I wanted you
+to see."
+
+There was a good deal inside. In fact the outhouse, a large building,
+was filled from floor to ceiling with packing-cases, some of them very
+large indeed. Godfrey pointed to a small one near the door.
+
+"Just lift that up, will you, Excellency?" said Godfrey.
+
+"No, I won't. Why should I? I'm not a railway porter, and it looks
+heavy."
+
+"It is heavy. Just watch me for a moment if you don't want to lift it
+yourself."
+
+Godfrey with evident difficulty lifted the packing-case, staggered a
+few steps with it and then set it down. The packing-case may have been
+heavy but it was quite small. It seemed to me that Godfrey was making
+a rather pitiful exhibition of his physical feebleness.
+
+"You ought to do things with dumb bells," I said. "The muscles of your
+arms are evidently quite soft."
+
+Godfrey took no notice of the taunt. He was in a state of tremendous
+moral earnestness.
+
+"I want your permission to open these cases," he said.
+
+"I won't give you any such permission," I said. "How can I? They're
+not my packing-cases."
+
+Godfrey argued with me for quite a long time, but I remained firm. For
+some reason which I could not understand, Godfrey was unwilling to
+open the packing-cases without permission from somebody. I should have
+supposed that having already forced a door he would not have boggled
+at the lid of a packing-case; but he did. He evidently had some vague
+idea that the law takes a more serious view of smashing packing-cases
+than it does of housebreaking. He may have been right. But my record
+so far was clear. I had not forced the lock of the door.
+
+"What do you suppose is in those cases?" said Godfrey.
+
+"Artificial manure," I said.
+
+Our store does a large business in artificial manure. It generally
+comes to us in sacks, but there is no reason why it should not come
+in packing-cases. It is tremendously heavy stuff.
+
+"Those cases were landed from the _Finola_," said Godfrey. "She
+wouldn't come here with a cargo of artificial manure."
+
+"If you've brought me all the way up here to accuse Conroy of
+smuggling," I said, "you've wasted your own time and mine."
+
+"I don't accuse Conroy of smuggling," said Godfrey. "In fact, I'm
+going to write to him to-night to tell him what's going on."
+
+"Very well," I said. "You can if you like, but don't mix my name up
+with it."
+
+We walked back together as far as the village. Godfrey was silent
+again. I could see that he still had something on his mind, probably
+something which he wanted me to do. He kept on clearing his throat and
+pulling himself together as if he were going to say something of
+importance. I was uncomfortable, for I felt sure that he intended to
+attack me again about Marion's correspondence with Bob Power. I have
+never, since she was quite a little girl, interfered with Marion's
+freedom of action. I had not the smallest intention of making myself
+ridiculous by claiming any kind of authority over her, especially in a
+matter so purely personal as the young man she chose to favour.
+Besides, I like Bob Power. At worst there was nothing against him
+except his smuggling, and smuggling is much less objectionable than
+the things that Godfrey does. I should rather, if it came to that,
+have a son-in-law who went to prison occasionally for importing
+spirits without consulting the government than one who perpetually
+nagged at me and worried me. But I did not want to provoke further
+arguments by explaining my feelings to Godfrey. I was therefore rather
+relieved when he finally succeeded in blurting out what was in his
+mind.
+
+"I hope, Excellency," he said, "that you will take the first chance
+you get of speaking to Crossan."
+
+In sudden gratitude for escaping a wrangle about Marion and Bob Power
+I promised hurriedly that I would speak to Crossan. I was sorry
+afterwards that I did promise. Still, I very much wished to know what
+was in the packing-cases. I did not really believe it was artificial
+manure. I did not believe either that it was smuggled brandy.
+
+My chance came two days later. I met Crossan in the street. He was
+standing beside his motor car, a handsome-looking vehicle. He
+evidently intended to go for a drive. I felt at once that I could not
+ask him a direct question about the packing-cases. I determined to get
+at them obliquely if I could. I began by admiring the motor.
+
+"She's good enough, my lord," said Crossan.
+
+He is a man of few words, and is sparing of his praise. "Good enough"
+is, from Crossan, quite an enthusiastic compliment.
+
+"If your lordship would care about a drive any day," he said, "it'll
+be a pleasure to me."
+
+Crossan always interjects "my lord" and "your lordship" into the
+middle of the remarks he makes to me; but he says the words in a very
+peculiar tone. It always seems to me that he wishes to emphasize the
+difference in our social station because he feels that the advantage
+is all on his side. "The rank," so his tone suggests, "is but the
+guinea stamp. The man"--that is in this case Crossan himself--"is the
+gowd for a' that."
+
+"You can get about the country pretty quickly in that car," I said.
+
+Crossan looked at me with a perfectly expressionless face for some
+time. Then he said said--
+
+"If you think, my lord, that I'm neglecting my work, you've only to
+say so and I'll go."
+
+I hastened to assure him that I had no intention of finding fault with
+him in any way. My apology was as ample as possible. After another
+minute spent in silent meditation Crossan expressed himself satisfied.
+
+"It suits me as little to be running round the country," he said, "as
+it would suit your lordship."
+
+"I quite understand that," I said. "But then I don't do it. You do."
+
+"It has to be," said Crossan.
+
+I did not quite see why it had to be; but Crossan spoke with such
+conviction that I dared not contradict him and did not even like to
+question him. Fortunately he explained himself.
+
+"I'm the Grand Master, as your lordship is aware," he said.
+
+"Worshipful" is the title of courtesy applied to Grand Masters, and
+I'm sure no one ever deserved it better than Crossan.
+
+"If we're not ready for them, my lord, they'll have our throats cut in
+our beds as soon as ever they get Home Rule."
+
+"They," of course were the "Papishes," Crossan's arch enemies.
+
+I wanted very much to hear more of his activities among the Orangemen.
+I wanted to know what steps he, as Grand Master, was taking to
+prevent cut-throats creeping in on us while we slept. I thought I
+might encourage him by telling him something he would be pleased to
+hear.
+
+"McConkey," I said, "who is foreman in the Green Loaney Scutching
+Mill, is buying a splendid quick-firing gun."
+
+The remark did not have the effect I hoped for. It had an exactly
+opposite effect. Crossan shut up like a sea anemone suddenly touched.
+
+"Your lordship's affairs won't be neglected," he said stiffly. "You
+may count on that."
+
+I felt that I could. I have the utmost confidence in Crossan's
+integrity. If a body of "Papishes" of the bloodiest kind were to come
+upon Crossan and capture him; if they were to condemn him to death
+and, being God-fearing men, were to allow him half an hour in which to
+make his soul; he would spend the time, not in saying his prayers, not
+even in cursing the Pope, but in balancing the accounts of the
+co-operative store, so that any auditor who took over the books
+afterwards might find everything in order.
+
+"If you really feel it to be your duty," I said, "to go round the
+district working up--"
+
+"You'll have heard of the Home Rule Bill, maybe," said Crossan.
+
+I had heard of it, several times. After my visit to Castle Affey I
+even understood it, though it was certainly a measure of great
+complexity. I think I appreciated the orthodox Protestant view of it
+since the day I talked to McConkey. I wanted Crossan to realize how
+fully I entered into his feelings, so I quoted a phrase from one of
+Babberly's speeches.
+
+"In this supreme crisis of our country's destiny," I said, "it is the
+duty of every man to do his uttermost to avert the threatened ruin of
+our common Protestantism."
+
+That ought to have pacified Crossan even if it did not rouse him to
+enthusiasm. Huge crowds have cheered Babberly for saying these moving
+words. But Crossan received them from me in sullen silence.
+
+"It would be well," he said at last, "if your lordship and others like
+you were more in earnest."
+
+Crossan is not by any means a fool. I have occasionally been tempted
+to think he is, especially when he talks about having his throat cut
+at night; but he has always shown me in the end that he has in him a
+vein of strong common sense. He recognized that I was talking bombast
+when I spoke about the supreme crisis; but, curiously enough, he is
+quite convinced of Babberly's sincerity when he says things of that
+sort.
+
+It was nearly an hour after Crossan left me when I recollected that I
+had not found out anything about the packing-cases. The subject
+somehow had not come up between us, though I fully intended that it
+should. Our talk about Home Rule gave me no clue to what was in the
+cases. I could scarcely suppose that they were full of gorgets for
+distribution among Orangemen, defensive armour proof against the
+particular kind of stabs which Crossan anticipated.
+
+Godfrey called on me the next morning in a white heat of righteous
+indignation. He had received an answer to the letter which he wrote to
+Conroy. Before showing it to me he insisted on my reading what he
+called his statement of the case. It occupied four sheets of quarto
+paper, closely type-written. It accused Bob Power and McNeice of
+using the _Finola_ for smuggling without the owner's knowledge. It
+made out, I am bound to say, quite a good case. He had collected every
+possible scrap of evidence, down to Rose's new brooch. I suppose
+Marion told him about that. He said at the end of the letter that he
+had no motive in writing it except a sincere wish for Conroy's
+welfare. This was quite untrue. He had several other motives. His love
+of meddling was one. Hatred of Crossan was another. Jealousy of Bob
+Power was a third.
+
+"Now is there anything objectionable in that letter? Anything that one
+gentleman would not write to another?"
+
+I admitted that on the whole it was a civil letter.
+
+"Now look at his answer," said Godfrey.
+
+Conroy's answer was on a post-card. It consisted of six words only.
+
+"Do not be a damned fool."
+
+"Well," I said, "that's sound advice even if it's not very politely
+expressed."
+
+"Conroy's in it too," said Godfrey, vindictively, "and I'll make them
+all sorry for themselves before I've done with them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+I find by consulting my diary that it was on the 30th of June that I
+went to Dublin. I am not often in Dublin, though I do not share the
+contempt for that city which is felt by most Ulstermen. Cahoon, for
+instance, will not recognize it as the capital of the country in which
+he lives, and always speaks of Dublin people as impractical, given
+over to barren political discussion and utterly unable to make useful
+things such as ships and linen. He also says that Dublin is dirty,
+that the rates are exorbitantly high, and that the houses have not got
+bath-rooms in them. I put it to him that there are two first-rate
+libraries in Dublin.
+
+"If I want a book," he said, "I buy it. We pay for what we use in
+Belfast. We are business men."
+
+"But," I explained, "there are some books, old ones, which you cannot
+buy. You can only consult them in libraries."
+
+"Why don't you go to London, then?" said Cahoon.
+
+The conversation took place in the club. I lunched there on my way
+through Belfast, going on to Dublin by an afternoon train. I was, in
+fact, going to Dublin to consult some books in the College Library.
+Marion and I had been brought up short in our labours on my history
+for want of some quotations from the diary of a seventeenth-century
+divine, and even if I had been willing to buy the book I should have
+had to wait months while a second-hand bookseller advertised for it.
+
+Trinity College, when I entered the quadrangle next day, seemed
+singularly deserted. The long vacation had begun a week before.
+Fellows, professors and students had fled from the scene of their
+labours. Halfway across the square, however, I met McNeice. He seemed
+quite glad to see me and invited me to luncheon in his rooms. I
+accepted the invitation and was fed on cold ham, stale bread and
+bottled stout.
+
+Thackeray once hinted that fellows of Trinity College gave their
+guests beer to drink. Many hard words have been said of him ever since
+by members of Dublin University. I have no wish to have hard things
+said about me; so I explain myself carefully. McNeice's luncheon was
+an eccentricity. It is not on cold ham solely, it is not on stale
+bread ever, that guests in the Common Room are fed. If, like Prince
+Hal, they remember amid their feasting "that good creature, small
+beer," they do not drink it without being offered nobler beverages.
+When the University, in recognition of my labours on the Life of St.
+Patrick, made me a doctor of both kinds of law, I fared sumptuously in
+the dining hall and afterwards sipped port rich with the glory of suns
+which shone many many years ago on the banks of the upper Douro.
+
+After luncheon, while I was still heavy with the spume of the stout,
+McNeice asked me if I had seen the new paper which was being published
+to express, I imagine also to exacerbate, the opinions of the Ulster
+Unionists. He produced a copy as he spoke. It was called _The
+Loyalist_.
+
+"We wanted something with a bite in it," he said. "We're dead sick of
+the pap the daily papers give us in their leading articles."
+
+Pap is, I think, a soft innocuous food, slightly sugary in flavour,
+suitable for infants. I should never have dreamed of describing the
+articles in _The Belfast Newsletter_ as pap. An infant nourished on
+them would either suffer badly from the form of indigestion called
+flatulence or would grow up to be an exceedingly ferocious man. I
+felt, however, that if McNeice had anything to do with the editing of
+_The Loyalist_ its articles would be of such a kind that those of the
+_Newsletter_ would seem, by comparison, papescent.
+
+"We're running it as a weekly," said McNeice, "and what we want is to
+get it into the home of every Protestant farmer, and every working-man
+in Belfast. We are circulating the first six numbers free. After that
+we shall charge a penny."
+
+I looked at _The Loyalist_. It was very well printed, on good paper.
+It looked something like _The Spectator_, but had none of the pleasant
+advertisements of schools and books, and much fewer pages of
+correspondence than the English weekly has.
+
+"Surely," I said, "you can't expect it to pay at that price."
+
+"We don't," said McNeice. "We've plenty of money behind us.
+Conroy--you know Conroy, don't you?"
+
+"Oh," I said, "then Lady Moyne got a subscription out of him after
+all. I knew she intended to."
+
+"Lady Moyne isn't in this at all," said McNeice. "We're out for
+business with _The Loyalist_. Lady Moyne's--well, I don't quite see
+Lady Moyne running _The Loyalist_."
+
+"She's a tremendously keen Unionist," I said. "She gave an address to
+the working-women of Belfast the week before last, one of the most
+moving--"
+
+"All frills," said McNeice, "silk frills. Your friend Crossan is
+acting as one of our agents, distributing the paper for us. That'll
+give you an idea of the lines we're going on."
+
+Crossan, I admit, is the last man I should suspect of being interested
+in frills. The mention of his name gave me an idea.
+
+"Was it copies of _The Loyalist_," I asked, "which were in the
+packing-cases which you and Power landed that night from the
+_Finola_?"
+
+McNeice laughed.
+
+"Come along round with me," he said, "and see the editor. He'll
+interest you. He's a first-rate journalist, used to edit a rebel paper
+and advocate the use of physical force for throwing off the English
+rule. But he's changed his tune now. Just wait for me one moment while
+I get together an article which I promised to bring him. It's all
+scattered about the floor of the next room in loose sheets."
+
+I read _The Loyalist_ while I waited. The editor was unquestionably a
+first-rate journalist. His English was of a naked, muscular kind,
+which reminded me of Swift and occasionally of John Mitchel. But I
+could not agree with McNeice that he had changed his tune. He still
+seemed to be editing a rebel paper and still advocated the use of
+physical force for resisting the will of the King, Lords and Commons
+of our constitution. It is the merest commonplace to say that Ireland
+is a country of unblushing self-contradictions; but I do not think
+that the truth of this ever came home to me quite so forcibly as when
+I read _The Loyalist_ that it would be better, if necessary, to
+imitate the Boers and shoot down regiments of British soldiers than to
+be false to the Empire of which "it is our proudest boast that we are
+citizens." The editor--such was the conclusion I arrived at--must be a
+humorist of a high order.
+
+His name was Diarmid O'Donovan and he always wrote it in Irish
+characters, which used to puzzle me at first when I got into
+correspondence with him. We found him in a small room at the top of a
+house in a side street of a singularly depressing kind.
+
+McNeice explained to me that _The Loyalist_ did not court notoriety,
+and preferred to have an office which was, as far as possible, out of
+sight. He said that O'Donovan was particularly anxious to be
+unobtrusive. He had, before he became connected with _The Loyalist_,
+been editor of two papers which had been suppressed by the Government
+for advocating what the Litany calls "sedition and privy conspiracy."
+He held, very naturally, that a paper would get on better in the world
+if it had no office at all. If that was impossible, the office should
+be an attic in an inaccessible slum.
+
+O'Donovan, when we entered, was seated at a table writing vigorously.
+I do not know how he managed to write at all. His table was covered
+with stacks of newspapers, very dusty. He had cleared a small, a very
+small space in the middle of them, and his ink-bottle occupied a kind
+of cave hollowed out at the base of one of the stacks. It must have
+been extremely difficult to put a pen into it. The chairs--there were
+only two of them besides the editorial stool--were also covered with
+papers. But even if they had been free I should not have cared to sit
+down on them. They were exceedingly dirty and did not look safe.
+
+McNeice introduced me and then produced his own article. O'Donovan,
+very politely, offered me his stool.
+
+"McNeice tells me," he said, "that you are writing a history of Irish
+Rebellions. I suppose you have said that Nationalism ceased to exist
+about the year 1900?"
+
+"I hadn't thought of saying that," I said. "In fact--in view of the
+Home Rule Bill, you know--I should have said that Irish Nationalism
+was just beginning to come to its own."
+
+O'Donovan snorted.
+
+"There's no such thing as Irish Nationalism left," he said. "The
+country is hypnotized. We've accepted a Bill which deprives us of the
+most elementary rights of freemen. We've licked the boots of English
+Liberals. We've said 'thank you' for any gnawed bones they like to
+fling to us. We've--"
+
+It struck me that O'Donovan was becoming rhetorical. I interrupted
+him.
+
+"Idealism in politics," I said, "is one of the most futile things
+there is. What the Nationalist Party--"
+
+"Don't call them that," said O'Donovan. "I tell you they're not
+Nationalists."
+
+"I'll call them anything you like," I said, "but until you invent some
+other name for them I can't well talk about them without calling them
+Nationalists."
+
+"They--" said O'Donovan.
+
+"Very well," I said. "_They._ So long as you know who I mean, the
+pronoun will satisfy me. They had to consider not what men like you
+wanted, but what the Liberal Party could be induced to give. I don't
+say they made the best bargain possible, but--"
+
+"Anyhow," said McNeice, "we're not going to be governed by those
+fellows. That's the essential point."
+
+I think it is. The Unionist is not really passionately attached to the
+Union. He has no insuperable antipathy to Home Rule. Indeed, I think
+most Unionists would welcome any change in our existing system of
+government if it were not that they have the most profound and deeply
+rooted objection to the men whom McNeice describes as "those fellows,"
+and O'Donovan indicates briefly as "they."
+
+"And so," I said, turning to O'Donovan, "in mere despair of
+nationality you have gone over to the side of the Unionists."
+
+"I've gone over," said O'Donovan, "to the side of the only people in
+Ireland who mean to fight."
+
+Supposing that Ulster really did mean to fight O'Donovan's position
+was quite reasonable. But Babberly says it will never come to
+fighting. He is quite confident of his ability to bluff the
+conscientious Liberal into dropping the Home Rule Bill for fear of
+civil war. O'Donovan, and possibly McNeice, will be left out in the
+cold if Babberly is right. The matter is rather a tangled one. With
+Babberly is Lady Moyne, working at her ingenious policy of dragging a
+red herring across the path along which democracy goes towards
+socialism. On the other hand there is McNeice with fiery intelligence,
+and O'Donovan, a coldly consistent rebel against English rule in any
+shape and form. They have their little paper with money enough behind
+it, with people like Crossan circulating it for them. It is quite
+possible that they may count for something. Then there is Malcolmson,
+a man of almost incredible stupidity, but with a knowledge, hammered
+into him no doubt with extra difficulty, of how to handle guns.
+
+O'Donovan and McNeice were bending over some proof sheets and talking
+in low whispers; there was a knock at the office door, and a moment
+later Malcolmson entered. He looked bristlier than ever, and was
+plainly in a state of joyous excitement. He held a copy of the first
+number of _The Loyalist_ in his hand. He caught sight of me at once.
+
+"I'm damned," he said, "if I expected to see you here, Kilmore. You're
+the last man in Ireland--"
+
+"I'm only here by accident," I said, "and I'm going away almost at
+once. Let me introduce you to Mr. McNeice and Mr. O'Donovan."
+
+Malcolmson shook hands with the two men vigorously. I never shake
+hands with Malcolmson if I can possibly help it, because he always
+hurts me. I expect he hurt both McNeice and O'Donovan. They did not
+cry out, but they looked a good deal surprised.
+
+"I happened to be in Dublin," said Malcolmson, "and I called round
+here to congratulate the editor of this paper. I only came across it
+the day before yesterday, and--"
+
+"You couldn't have come across it any sooner," I said, "for it's only
+just published."
+
+"And to put down my name as a subscriber for twenty copies. If you
+want money--"
+
+"They don't," I said, "Conroy is financing them."
+
+"Conroy has some sound ideas," said Malcolmson.
+
+"You approve of the paper, then?" said McNeice.
+
+"I like straight talk," said Malcolmson.
+
+"We aim at that," said O'Donovan.
+
+"I'm dead sick of politics and speech making," said Malcolmson. "What
+I want is to have a slap at the damned rebels."
+
+"Mr. O'Donovan's point of view," I said, "is almost the same as yours.
+What he wants--"
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said Malcolmson, "and I need only say that when
+the time comes, gentlemen, and it won't be long now if things go on as
+they are going--you'll find me ready. What Ireland wants--"
+
+Malcolmson paused. I waited expectantly. It is always interesting to
+hear what Ireland wants. Many people have theories on the subject, and
+hardly any one agrees with any one else.
+
+"What Ireland wants," said Malcolmson dramatically, "is another Oliver
+Cromwell."
+
+He drew himself up and puffed out his chest as he spoke. He must, I
+think, have rather fancied himself in the part of a twentieth century
+Puritan horse soldier. I looked round at O'Donovan to see how he was
+taking the suggestion. Oliver Cromwell I supposed, could not possibly
+be one of his favourite heroes. But I had misjudged O'Donovan. His
+sympathy with rebels of all nations was evidently stronger than his
+dislike of the typical Englishman. After all, Cromwell, however
+objectionable his religious views may have been, did kill a king.
+O'Donovan smiled quite pleasantly at Malcolmson. I dare say that even
+the idea of a new massacre of Drogheda was agreeable enough to him,
+provided the inhabitants of the town were the people to whom he denied
+the title of Nationalists and Malcolmson wanted to have a slap at
+because they were rebels.
+
+Then McNeice got us all back to practical business in a way that would
+have delighted Cahoon. McNeice, though he does live in Dublin, has
+good Belfast blood in his veins. He likes his heroics to be put on a
+business basis. The immediate and most pressing problem, he reminded
+us, was to secure as large a circulation as possible for _The
+Loyalist_.
+
+"You get the paper into the people's hands," he said to Malcolmson,
+"and we'll get the ideas into their heads."
+
+Malcolmson, who is certainly prepared to make sacrifices in a good
+cause, offered to hire a man with a motorcycle to distribute the paper
+from house to house over a wide district.
+
+"I know the exact man we want," he said. "He knows every house in
+County Antrim, and the people like him. He's been distributing Bibles
+and selling illuminated texts among the farmers and labourers for
+years. He's what's called a colporteur. That," he turned to O'Donovan
+with his explanation, "is a kind of Scripture reader, you know."
+
+If any one in the world except Malcolmson had suggested the employment
+of a Scripture reader for the distribution of _The Loyalist_, I should
+have applauded a remarkable piece of cynicism. But Malcolmson was in
+simple earnest.
+
+"Will you be able to get him?" I said. "The society which employs him
+may perhaps--"
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," said Malcolmson. "There can't be any
+objection. But if there is--I happen to be a member of the committee
+of the society. I'm one"--he sunk his voice modestly--"of the largest
+subscribers."
+
+I am inclined to forget sometimes that Malcolmson takes a leading part
+in Church affairs. At the last meeting of the General Synod of the
+Church of Ireland he said that the distribution of the Bible among the
+people of Ireland was the surest means of quenching the desire for
+Home Rule. Free copies of _The Loyalist_ for the people who already
+have Bibles and a force of artillery are, so to speak, his reserves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The 12th of July, was, of course, indicated by nature itself as a day
+in every way suitable for a great Unionist demonstration. Babberly and
+Lady Moyne were not the people to neglect an opportunity. They
+organized a demonstration. Then somebody--I think it must have been
+McNeice in the pages of _The Loyalist_--suggested that the thing
+should be called a review and not a demonstration. Malcolmson took the
+idea up warmly and forced Babberly's hand. English journalists of the
+Conservative kind--journalists of every kind swarmed over Belfast for
+a week beforehand--were delighted and trumpetted the thing as a
+review. Liberal journalists lost their tempers--the clever ones losing
+theirs most hopelessly--and abused the Orangemen in finely pointed
+paradoxical epigrams, which I dare say excited the admiration of
+sentimental Nationalists in Chelsea, but had not the smallest effect
+of any kind on the people of Belfast. They, just then, had no leisure
+time to spend in reading epigrams, and never at any time appreciated
+paradox. An English statesman of great ability announced to the world
+at large that a demonstration was one thing, and a review was quite a
+different thing. He went no further than to point out the fact that
+there was a distinction between the two things; but everybody
+understood that a demonstration was, in his opinion, quite harmless,
+whereas a review might end in getting somebody into trouble.
+
+The Nationalist leaders--"those fellows" as McNeice called
+them--issued a kind of manifesto. It was a document which breathed the
+spirit of moderate constitutionalism, and spoke the words of grave,
+serious patriotism. It made a strong appeal to the people of Belfast
+not to injure the cause of liberty, law and order by rash and
+ill-considered action. It said that no Nationalist wanted to see
+Babberly and Lord Moyne put into prison; but that most Nationalists
+had been made to sleep on plank beds for utterances much less
+seditious than this advertisement of a review. O'Donovan and McNeice
+tore this manifesto to pieces with jubilant scorn in the next number
+of _The Loyalist_.
+
+A Roman Catholic bishop issued a kind of pastoral to his flock urging
+them to remain at home on the 12th of July, and above all things not
+to attempt a counter demonstration in Belfast. It was a nice pastoral,
+very Christian in tone, but quite unnecessary. No sane Roman Catholic,
+unless he wanted a martyr's crown, would have dreamed of demonstrating
+anywhere north of the Boyne on that particular day.
+
+The newspapers were very interesting at this time, and I took in so
+many of them that I had not time to do anything except read them. I
+had not even time to read them all, but Marion used to go through the
+ones I could not read. With a view to writing an essay--to be
+published in calmer times--on "Different Points of View" we cut out
+and pasted into a book some of the finer phrases. We put them in
+parallel columns. "Truculent corner boys," for instance, faced "Grim,
+silent warriors." "Men in whom the spirit of the martial psalms still
+survives," stood over against "Ruffians whose sole idea of religion is
+to curse the Pope." "Sons of unconquerable colonists, men of our own
+race and blood," was balanced by "hooligans with a taste for rioting
+so long as rioting can be indulged in with no danger to their own
+skins." We were interrupted in this pleasant work by the arrival of a
+letter from Lady Moyne. She summoned me--invited would be quite the
+wrong word--to Castle Affey. I went, of course.
+
+Babberly was there. He and Lady Moyne were shut up in the library
+along with Lady Moyne's exhausted secretary. They were writing letters
+which she typed. I saw Moyne himself before I saw them.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said, "I'm very much afraid that some of our people
+are inclined to go too far. Malcolmson, for instance. I can't
+understand Malcolmson. After all the man's a gentleman."
+
+"But," I said, "Malcolmson wants to fight. He always said so."
+
+"Quite so, quite so. We all said so. I've said so myself; but it was
+always on the distinct understanding--"
+
+"That it would never come to that. I've heard Babberly say so."
+
+"But--damn it all, Kilmore!--it doesn't do to push things to these
+extremes. The whole business has been mismanaged. The people have got
+out of hand; and there's Malcolmson, a man who's dined at my table a
+score of times, actually egging them on. Now, what do you think we
+ought to do?"
+
+"The Government is threatening you, I suppose?"
+
+"It's growling," said Moyne. "Not that I care what the Government
+does to me. It can't do much. But I do not want her ladyship mixed up
+in anything unpleasant. It won't do, you know. People don't like it. I
+don't mind for myself, of course. But still it's very unpleasant. Men
+I know keep writing to me. You know the sort of thing I mean."
+
+I did. The members of the English aristocracy still preserve a curious
+sentiment which they call "loyalty." It is quite a different thing
+from the "loyalty" of Crossan, for instance, or McNeice. I fully
+understood that there were men in clubs in London who would look
+coldly at poor Moyne (men of such importance that their wives'
+treatment of Lady Moyne would matter even to her) if he were
+discovered to be heading an actual rising of Ulster Protestants. I
+promised to do what I could to get Moyne out of his difficulty.
+
+I found that Babberly and Lady Moyne had worked out a very feasible
+plan without any help from me.
+
+"That fellow Malcolmson has rushed things," said Babberly, "and
+there's an abominable rag called _The Loyalist_--"
+
+"By the way," I said, "I hear that the Nationalists at their last
+meeting in Dublin joined in singing 'God Save the King.'"
+
+I wanted to hear what Babberly thought of this. I was disappointed.
+The fact did not seem to interest him.
+
+"I don't know who edits the thing," he went on, still referring to
+_The Loyalist_.
+
+"Conroy is behind it," I said. "I happen to know that."
+
+"But surely," said Lady Moyne, "Mr. Conroy cannot want to encourage
+violence. He has just as much to lose as any of us--more than most of
+us--by any kind of outbreak of the democracy."
+
+"Lady Moyne has suggested to Malcolmson," said Babberly, "that he
+should agree to call this 12th of July business a March Past."
+
+"Is that any improvement on Review?" I asked.
+
+"Of course," said Lady Moyne, "the Government doesn't want to be
+driven to take steps against us. There would be horrible rioting
+afterwards if they struck Moyne's name off the Privy Council or did
+anything like that. It would be just as unpleasant for them as it
+would be for us, more so in fact."
+
+"Your idea," I said, "is to give the Government a loophole of escape."
+
+"Malcolmson has agreed all right," said Babberly, "and if only that
+wretched little paper--did you say Conroy was in it?"
+
+"I'll write to Mr. Conroy at once," said Lady Moyne. "I'm sure his
+connection with a paper of that kind is simply a mistake."
+
+She turned to the table and began to write her letter. The secretary
+in a distant corner of the room was still typing out a long
+pronouncement which Babberly intended to forward to _The Times_. A
+minute or two later Lady Moyne turned to me with one of her brightest
+smiles.
+
+"We want you to be with us on the 12th," she said.
+
+In England or Scotland a countess who gives an invitation for "the
+12th" is understood to mean the 12th of August, and her guest must be
+ready to shoot grouse. In North-Eastern Ulster "the 12th" meant the
+12th of July, and the party, in this case at all events, was likely to
+end in the shooting of policemen.
+
+"At the Review?" I said, "I mean to say the March Past? But I never go
+to political meetings. I'm no good at all as a speaker."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter about your speaking. We should love to hear
+you, of course. But if you'd really rather not--!"
+
+I think Lady Moyne was relieved when I assured her that I really would
+rather not.
+
+"But you'll be on the platform," she said. "We want you very much
+indeed."
+
+"I don't see," I said, "that I'll be the least use to you."
+
+"The point is," said Babberly, "that you're a Liberal."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't say that," said Lady Moyne. "That's only foolish
+gossip. I'm perfectly certain that Lord Kilmore never was--"
+
+"Never," I said. "But then I never was a Conservative either."
+
+"That's just it," said Lady Moyne. "Don't you see?"
+
+"The point is," said Babberly, "that if you are on the platform it
+will be quite clear--I mean to say as it's generally understood that
+you're inclined to Liberalism--"
+
+I began to understand a little. Last time I was at Castle Affey Lady
+Moyne made a great point of my associating myself with her party in
+opposing Home Rule. The fact that I was a Liberal (though not in any
+offensive sense of the word) gave weight to the opposition; and I
+might help to make the other Liberals (who were Liberals in the most
+offensive possible sense) take the threats of Babberly seriously. This
+time I was to sit on the platform side by side with Malcolmson and
+Cahoon, because, being a Liberal, or rather suspected of being
+inclined to Liberalism, my presence might induce the other Liberals,
+who were Liberals indeed, not to take Babberly's remarks at their face
+value. That is the drawback to the kind of detached position which I
+occupy. I am liable to be used for such various purposes that I get
+confused. However, I ought, no doubt, to be very thankful that I am
+useful in any way.
+
+"If you think, my dear Lady Moyne," I said, "that my presence at the
+March Past will be of the slightest service to you--"
+
+"It will," she said. "It will, indeed, of the very greatest service,
+and Moyne will be delighted."
+
+I was thinking of Moyne when I made the promise. I do not mean to say
+that I should have undertaken to perch myself like a fool on a wooden
+platform in the middle of a mob simply out of friendship for Moyne. I
+would not have done it unless Lady Moyne had looked at me with a
+particular expression in her eyes, unless I had hoped that she would
+give my hand a little squeeze of intimate friendship when I was
+bidding her good night. Still I did think of Moyne too, and was quite
+genuinely pleased that I was able to help him out of a difficult
+position.
+
+I found him later on roaming about among the cucumber frames in a
+desolate corner of the garden. A man who was digging potatoes directed
+me to that curious retreat.
+
+"It's all right, Moyne," I said. "We've got the whole thing settled
+most satisfactorily. You needn't be afraid of any disagreeable public
+scandal."
+
+"Thank God!" said Moyne, fervently. "How did you manage it?"
+
+"I can't take any credit for the arrangement," I said. "Lady Moyne and
+Babberly had it all cut and dried before they consulted me at all."
+
+"What are they going to do?"
+
+"Well, in the first place they've got Malcolmson and the rest of that
+lot to stop calling the thing a Review. It's to be officially known
+for the future as a March Past."
+
+"Who is to march past what?" said Moyne.
+
+"I forgot to ask that," I said, "but I rather fancy the audience is to
+march past you."
+
+"I don't see," said Moyne, "that there's much difference between
+calling it a March Past and calling it a Review. They're both military
+terms; and what I object to is being associated with--"
+
+"Lady Moyne seemed to think," I said, "that it made all the difference
+in the world; and that the Government would grasp at the olive
+branch."
+
+"I suppose it will be all right," said Moyne doubtfully.
+
+"The next part of the plan," I said, "is that I am to be on the
+platform."
+
+"You'll rather hate that, won't you, Kilmore?"
+
+"I shall detest it."
+
+"And I don't see what good it will do."
+
+"Nor do I; but Lady Moyne and Babberly both say that as I'm a
+Liberal--"
+
+"Surely to God you're not that!" said Moyne.
+
+"No, I'm not. But I'm suspected of being inclined that way. Therefore
+my being on the platform will prove to the world that you're not
+nearly so much of a Unionist as you've been trying to make out."
+
+"But I am," said Moyne.
+
+"I know that, of course; but Lady Moyne wants to persuade people that
+you're not, just for the present, till this fuss about the Review
+wears off."
+
+"I suppose it will be all right," said Moyne, again.
+
+It was all right. An announcement was made in all the leading papers
+that no one had ever intended to hold a Review on the 12th of July,
+but that the Unionist leaders had expressed their unalterable
+determination to have a March Past. The Liberal papers said that this
+abandonment of the principal item on their programme showed more
+distinctly than ever that the Ulster Unionists were merely swaggering
+cowards who retreated before the firm front showed by the Government
+in face of their arrogant claims. The Unionist papers said that
+Belfast by insisting on the essential thing while displaying a
+magnanimous disregard for the accidental nomenclature, had
+demonstrated once and for ever the impossibility of passing the Home
+Rule Bill.
+
+A few days later my name appeared amongst those of other gentlemen who
+intended to take seats on the platform in Belfast. The Unionist papers
+welcomed the entry into public life of a peer of my well-known
+intellectual powers and widely recognized moderation. The Liberal
+papers said that the emptiness of Ulster's opposition to Home Rule
+might be gauged by the fact that it had welcomed the support of a
+dilettante lordling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Our meeting on the 12th of July was held in the Botanic Gardens, and
+nobody marched past anything. A platform, not unlike the Grand Stand
+at a country race meeting, was built on the top of a long slope of
+grass. At the bottom of the slope was a level space, devoted at
+ordinary times to tennis-courts. Beyond that the ground sloped up
+again. The botanists who owned the gardens must, I imagine, have
+regretted that our meeting was a splendid success. I did not see their
+grounds afterwards, but there cannot possibly have been much grass
+left. The poor tennis-players must have been cut off from their game
+for the rest of the summer. The space in front of the platform was
+packed with men, and the air was heavy with the peculiarly pungent
+smell of orange peel. I cannot imagine how any one in the crowd
+managed to peel an orange. The men seemed to be so tightly packed as
+to make the smallest movement impossible. Possibly the oranges were
+deliberately peeled beforehand by the organizers of the meeting with a
+view to creating the proper atmosphere for the meeting. There
+certainly is a connection between the smell of oranges and political
+enthusiasm. I felt a wave of strong feeling come over me the moment I
+climbed to my seat; and as no one had at that time made a speech, it
+can only have been the oranges which affected me. I wish some
+philosopher would work out a theory of oranges. The blossom of the
+tree is used at weddings as a symbol of enduring love, perhaps as an
+aid to affection. The mature fruit pervades political meetings, which
+are all called together with a view to promoting strife and general
+ill feeling. What would happen if any one came to a meeting crowned
+with the blossoms? What would become of a bride if she were decked
+with the fruit? Is there any connection whatever between the fruit and
+the lily? It is certainly associated with political action of the most
+violent kind.
+
+Poor Moyne, who took the chair, wore one of the lilies, a very small
+one, in the lapel of his coat. Lady Moyne carried a large bouquet of
+them. Babberly wore one. So did Malcolmson. Our Dean would have worn
+one if he could; but it is impossible to fix a flower becomingly into
+the button-hole of a clerical coat. We began by singing a hymn. The
+Dean declaimed the first two lines of it, and then the bands took up
+the tune. Considering that there must have been at least forty bands
+present, all playing, I think we got through the hymn remarkably well.
+We certainly made an impressive amount of noise. I think it was
+Babberly who suggested the hymn. He had an idea that it would impress
+the English Nonconformists. I do not think it did; but, so far as our
+meeting was concerned, that did not matter. We were not singing
+it--any of us, except Babberly--with a view to impressing other
+people. We were singing with the feeling in our breasts, that we were
+actually marching to battle under the divine protection. The reporters
+of the Unionist papers made the most of the prevailing emotion. They
+sent off telegrams of the most flamboyant kind about our Puritan
+forefathers.
+
+Poor Moyne, who is a deeply religious man, did not sing the hymn. He
+has a theory that hymns and politics ought not to be mixed. I heard
+him arguing the position afterwards with the Dean who maintained that
+the question of Home Rule was not a political one. Political questions
+are those, so he argued, with regard to which there is a possibility
+of difference of opinion among honest men. But all honest men are
+opposed to Home Rule, which is therefore not a political question.
+
+My seat was in the very front of the platform, and when we had
+finished the hymn I noticed that the smell of perspiration was
+beginning to overpower the oranges. It is my misfortune to have an
+unusually acute sense of smell. No one afflicted with such an
+infirmity ought to take any part in the politics of a modern
+democratic state.
+
+Moyne introduced Babberly to the audience, and everybody cheered,
+although no one heard a word he said. Moyne has not a good voice at
+any time, and his objection to the hymn had made him nervous.
+
+Babberly was not nervous, and he has a very good voice. I imagine that
+at least half the audience heard what he said, and the other half knew
+he was saying the right things because the first half cheered him at
+frequent intervals.
+
+He began, of course, by saying that our forefathers bled and died for
+the cause which we were determined to support. This, so far as my
+forefathers and Moyne's are concerned, is horribly untrue. The
+ancestors of both of us commanded regiments of the volunteers who
+achieved the only Home Rule Parliament which ever sat in Ireland. My
+own great grandfather afterwards exchanged his right to legislate in
+Dublin for the peerage which I now enjoy. But Moyne and I were no
+doubt in a minority in that assembly. Babberly's forefathers may
+possibly have bled and died for the Union; but I do not think he can
+be sure about this. His father lived in Leeds, and nobody, not even
+Babberly himself, knows anything about his grandfather.
+
+When the audience had stopped cheering Babberly's forefathers, he went
+on to tell us that Belfast had the largest shipbuilding yard, the
+largest tobacco factory, the largest linen mill, and the second
+largest School of Art Needlework in the United Kingdom. These facts
+were treated by everybody as convincing reasons for the rejection of
+the Home Rule Bill, and a man, who was squeezed very tight against the
+platform just below me, cursed the Pope several times with singular
+vindictiveness.
+
+Babberly's next statement was that he defied the present Government to
+drive us out of the British Empire, which we had taken a great deal of
+trouble in times past to build up. This was, of course, a perfectly
+safe defiance to utter; for no one that I ever heard of had proposed
+to drive Babberly, or me, or Moyne out of the Empire.
+
+Then we got to the core of Babberly's speech. Some fool, it appeared,
+wanted to impeach Babberly, and Babberly said that he wanted to be
+impeached. I am a little hazy about the exact consequences of a
+successful impeachment. There has not been one for a long time; but I
+have an idea that the victim of the process is called before the House
+of Lords and beheaded. How far recent legislation may have curtailed
+the powers of the House of Lords in the matter I do not know; but
+even under our new constitution impeachment must remain a very serious
+matter. It was, we all felt, most heroic of Babberly to face this kind
+of undefined doom in the way he did.
+
+This was the last thing which Babberly said in his speech. He talked a
+great deal more, but he did not say anything else which it is possible
+to write down. I do not think I have ever heard any public speaker
+equal to Babberly in eloquence. He gave one incontestable proof of his
+power as an orator that day in Belfast. He must have spoken for very
+nearly an hour, and yet no one noticed that he was not saying anything
+for the greater part of the time. I did not notice it, and probably
+should never have found it out if I had not tried afterwards to write
+down what he said.
+
+After Babberly came the Dean. I suffer a great deal from the Dean's
+sermons on Sundays; but I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. He is not
+Babberly's rival in eloquence; but he has a knack of saying the kind
+of things which people listen to. He began by telling us what he would
+do if he found himself in command of the forces of Ulster at the
+beginning of a great war. "Lord Moyne," he said, "should organize my
+transport and commissariat."
+
+I cannot imagine any job at which Moyne would be more certain to fail
+totally. But the Dean justified himself.
+
+"I have stopped in Lord Moyne's house," he said, "and I know how well
+he manages the food supply of a large establishment. My friend Mr.
+Babberly should draw up the plan of campaign. His cautious intellect
+should devise the schemes for circumventing the wiles and stratagems
+of the enemy. He should map out the ambuscades into which the
+opposing troops should fall. You have listened to Mr. Babberly to-day.
+You will agree with me about his fitness for the work to which I
+should put him."
+
+I had listened to Babberly and I did not agree with the Dean. But I
+formed one of a very small minority. Moyne began to look uneasy. It
+seemed to me that he did not much like this military metaphor of the
+Dean's. I imagine that he would have been still more uncomfortable if
+he had been obliged to take an active part in a campaign planned by
+Babberly.
+
+"For the command of a forlorn hope," said the Dean, "for the leading
+of a desperate charge, for the midnight dash across the frontier--"
+
+Some one in the audience suggested the Boyne as the boundary of the
+frontier.
+
+"I should select Colonel Malcolmson."
+
+The audience highly approved of his choice. It seemed to me that the
+people did not quite grasp the fact that the Dean was speaking only
+metaphorically. Some thought of the same kind struck Moyne. He
+fidgetted uneasily, Babberly made an effort to stop the Dean, but that
+was impossible.
+
+"For settling the terms of peace with the beaten enemy--"
+
+"We'll beat them," said several people in the crowd.
+
+"I should call upon my good friend Lord Kilmore."
+
+This gave me a severe shock. For a moment I thought of standing up and
+refusing to act as military ambassador of the Ulster army. Then I
+recollected that if Moyne managed the transport and Babberly planned
+the campaign it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any
+beaten enemy. I kept my seat and watched Babberly whispering
+earnestly to Lady Moyne.
+
+Malcolmson followed the Dean. Moyne leaned over to me and expressed a
+hope that Malcolmson was not going to commit us to anything
+outrageous. From the look of Malcolmson's eye as he rose I judged that
+Moyne's hope was a vain one.
+
+"The Dean," said Malcolmson, "has spoken to you about the campaign. I
+ask you, are you prepared to undertake one?"
+
+"Good Heavens!" said Moyne.
+
+Babberly squeezed his way past Lady Moyne.
+
+"This won't do," he said to Moyne, "Malcolmson mustn't go too far."
+
+"The Dean," said Malcolmson, "has told us where to find our
+commanders. Looking round upon this vast assembly of determined men I
+can tell the Dean where to look for the rank and file of the army."
+
+"You'll have to stop him," said Babberly.
+
+I dare say the thought of the impeachment which was hanging over his
+head made him nervous.
+
+"I can't," said Lord Moyne.
+
+"I ask those present here," said Malcolmson, "who, when the supreme
+moment comes are prepared to step forward into the ranks, to hold up
+their hands and swear."
+
+Malcolmson did not make it quite clear what oaths we were to employ.
+But his audience appeared to understand him. Thousands of hands were
+held up and there was a kind of loud, fierce growl, which I took to be
+the swearing. Lord Moyne turned to me.
+
+"What am I to do, Kilmore?"
+
+"I don't know," I said.
+
+Malcolmson and the ten or twelve thousand men in front of him were
+still growling like a very angry thunderstorm at a distance. The thing
+was exceedingly impressive. Then some one started the hymn again. I
+never heard a hymn sung in such a way before. If the explosions of
+large guns could be tuned to the notes of an octave the effect of
+firing them off, fully loaded with cannon balls, would be very much
+the same. Malcolmson, beating time very slowly with his hand from the
+front of the platform, controlled this human artillery. Lady Moyne
+came to me and shouted in my ear. It was necessary to shout on account
+of the terrific noise made by Malcolmson's hymn.
+
+"As soon as he sits down you'll have to get up and say something."
+
+"I can't," I yelled. "I'm no good at all as a public speaker."
+
+The beginning of Lady Moyne's next shout I could not hear at all. Only
+the last words reached me.
+
+"--on account of your being a Liberal, you know."
+
+For the first time since I have known her I refused to do what Lady
+Moyne asked me. Very likely I should have given in at last and made an
+indescribable fool of myself; but before she succeeded in persuading
+me, Malcolmson's hymn stopped. Malcolmson himself, apparently
+satisfied with his performance, sat down.
+
+"What on earth am I to do?" said Moyne.
+
+"You can write to the papers, to-morrow," I said.
+
+"But now?" said Moyne, "now."
+
+"The only thing I can think of," I said, "is to start them singing
+'God Save the King.' That will commit them more or less--at least it
+may."
+
+Moyne rose to his feet and asked all the bands present to play "God
+Save the King." Babberly backed him and the bands struck up.
+
+Considering that the audience had just pledged themselves with
+inarticulate oaths and most terrifying psalmody to march in
+Malcolmson's army, their enthusiasm for the King was striking. They
+sang the National Anthem quite as whole-heartedly as they had sung the
+hymn. They are a very curious people, these fellow-countrymen of mine.
+
+Moyne cheered up a little when we got back to the club.
+
+"That was a capital idea of yours, Kilmore," he said. "I don't see how
+they can very well accuse us of being rebels after the way we sang the
+National Anthem."
+
+"I wonder if they'll impeach Babberly," I said.
+
+"Oh, that's only a Labour Member," said Moyne. "He doesn't really mean
+it. Those fellows never do."
+
+"Do you think our people really meant it to-day?" I said.
+
+"Meant what? God Save the King? Of course they did."
+
+"I was thinking of the hymn," I said.
+
+"I hope to God," said Moyne, "they didn't mean that."
+
+This is a curious view of hymn-singing for a religious man to take.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+I cannot make out why everybody thinks I am a Liberal. Lady Moyne was
+the first who mentioned to me this slur on my character. Babberly
+evidently believed it. Then, shortly after the Belfast meeting, I had
+a letter, marked "Private and Confidential," from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. Although Clithering is not a member of the Government, he
+is in close touch with several very important Ministers. Under
+ordinary circumstances I should not mention Clithering's name in
+telling the story of his letter. I know him to be a conscientious,
+scrupulously honourable man, and I should hate to give him pain. Under
+ordinary circumstances, that is, if things had gone in Ulster in the
+way things usually do go, Clithering would have felt it necessary to
+assert publicly in the papers that he did not write the letter. This
+would have been very disagreeable for him because he does not like
+telling lies; and the unpleasantness would certainly be aggravated by
+the fact that nobody would believe him. So many important and exciting
+things, however, have happened in Ulster since I got the letter that I
+do not think Clithering will now want to deny that he wrote it. I
+have, therefore, no hesitation in mentioning his name.
+
+This letter was written in the best politico-diplomatic style. I had
+to read it nine times before I could find out what it was about. When
+I did find out I made a translation of it into the English of ordinary
+life, so as to make quite sure of not acting beyond my instructions.
+I was first of all complimented on not being a party politician. This,
+coming from one of the Government wire-pullers, meant, of course, that
+I was in his opinion a strong Liberal. I have noticed for years that
+the only party politicians in these islands are the people who are
+active on the other side; and that party politics are the other side's
+programme. My correspondent evidently agreed with Lady Moyne and
+Babberly that as I was not a Conservative, I must be a supporter of
+the Government.
+
+Having made this quite unwarranted assumption, the letter went on to
+suggest that I should ask Conroy if he would like a peerage. The point
+was not made quite clear, but I gathered that Conroy could have any
+kind of title that he liked, up to an earldom. I know, of course, that
+peerages are given in exchange for subscriptions to party funds, by
+the party, whichever it may be, which receives the subscriptions. I
+did not know before that peerages were ever given with a view to
+inducing the happy recipient not to subscribe to the funds of the
+other party. But in Conroy's case this must have been the motive which
+lay behind the offer. He had certainly given Lady Moyne a handsome
+cheque. He was financing McNeice's little paper in the most liberal
+way. He had, I suspected, supplied Crossan with the motor car in which
+he went about the country tuning up the Orange Lodges. It seemed quite
+likely it was his money with which Rose's young man bought the gold
+brooch which had attracted Marion's attention. Conroy was undoubtedly
+subsidizing Ulster Unionism very generously. I suppose it must have
+been worth while to stop this flow of money. Hence the suggestion
+that Conroy might be given a peerage. This, at least, was the
+explanation of the letter which I adopted at the time. I have since
+had reason to suppose that the Government knew more than I did about
+the way Conroy was spending his money, and was nervous about something
+more important than Babberly's occasional demonstrations.
+
+My first impulse was to burn the letter and tell my correspondent that
+I was not a politician of any sort, and did not care for doing this
+kind of work. Then my curiosity got the better of my sense of honour.
+A man cannot, I think, be both an historian and a gentleman. It is an
+essential part of the character of a gentleman that he should dislike
+prying into other people's secrets. The business of the historian, on
+the other hand, is to rake about if necessary through dust-bins, until
+he finds out the reasons, generally disreputable, why things are done.
+A gentleman displays a dignified superiority to the vice of curiosity.
+For the historian curiosity is a virtue. I am, I find, more of an
+historian than a gentleman. I wanted very much to find out how Conroy
+would take the offer of a peerage. I also wanted to understand
+thoroughly why the offer was made.
+
+Some weeks were to pass before I learned the Government's real reason
+for wanting to detach Conroy from the Unionist cause; but luck
+favoured me in the matter of sounding Conroy himself. I had a letter
+from him in which he said that he was coming to our neighbourhood for
+a few days. I immediately asked him to stay with me.
+
+Then I tried, very foolishly, to make my nephew Godfrey feel
+uncomfortable.
+
+"Conroy," I said, "is coming here to stay with me next Tuesday."
+
+"How splendid!" said Godfrey. "I say, Excellency, you will ask me up
+to dinner every night he's here, won't you?"
+
+"I thought," I said, "that you wouldn't like to meet Conroy."
+
+"Of course I'd like to meet him. He might give me a job of some kind
+or get me one. A man like that with millions of money must have plenty
+of jobs to give away."
+
+When Godfrey speaks of a job he means a salary. Nearly everybody does.
+
+"If I can only get the chance of making myself agreeable to him," said
+Godfrey, "I'm sure I'll be able to get something out of him."
+
+"I'm surprised," I said, "at your wanting to meet him at all. After
+the post-card he wrote you--"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind that in the least," said Godfrey. "I never take
+offence."
+
+This is, indeed, one of Godfrey's chief vices. He never does take
+offence. It was Talleyrand, I think, who said that no man need ever
+get angry about anything said by a woman or a bishop. Godfrey improves
+on this philosophy. He never gets angry with any one except those whom
+he regards as his inferiors.
+
+"It would be a good opportunity," said Godfrey, "for your second
+menagerie party. We've only had one this year. I expect it would amuse
+Conroy."
+
+"I'm nearly sure it wouldn't."
+
+"We'll have to do something in the way of entertaining while he's
+here," said Godfrey. "I suppose you'll have the Moynes over to
+dinner?"
+
+I knew that the Moynes were in London, so I told Godfrey that he could
+write and ask them if he liked. I tried to be firm in my opposition to
+the garden-party, but Godfrey wore me down. It was fixed for
+Wednesday, and invitations were sent out. I discovered afterwards that
+Godfrey told his particular friends that they were to have the honour
+of meeting a real millionaire. In the case of the Pringles he went so
+far as to hint that Conroy was very likely to give him a lucrative
+post. On the strength of this expectation, Pringle, who is an easy man
+to deceive, allowed Godfrey to cash a cheque for L10.
+
+Conroy arrived on Sunday afternoon, travelling, as a millionaire
+should, in a motor car. Godfrey dined with us that night, and made
+himself as agreeable as he could. Conroy had, apparently, forgotten
+all about the post-card. I did not get a minute alone with my guest
+that night and so could do nothing about the peerage. I thought of
+approaching him on the subject next morning after breakfast, though
+that is not a good hour for delicate negotiations. But even if I had
+been willing to attack him then, I hardly had the chance. Godfrey was
+up with us at half-past ten. He wanted to take Conroy on a personally
+conducted tour round the objects of interest in the neighbourhood.
+Conroy said he wanted to go to the house of a man called Crossan who
+lived somewhere near us, and would be very glad if Godfrey would act
+as guide. It is a remarkable proof of Godfrey's great respect for
+millionaires that he consented to show Conroy the way to Crossan's
+house. They went off together, and I saw no more of Conroy till
+dinner-time.
+
+He deliberately avoided my garden-party, although Godfrey had
+explained to him the night before that my guests would be "quite the
+funniest lot of bounders to be found anywhere."
+
+The Pringles must have been disappointed at not meeting Conroy. Miss
+Pringle, whose name I found out was Tottie, looked quite pretty in a
+pink dress, and smiled almost as nicely as she did when Bob Power took
+her to gather strawberries. Mrs. Pringle asked Godfrey to dine with
+them that night, and Tottie looked at him out of the corner of her
+eyes so as to show him that she would be pleased if he accepted the
+invitation. Pringle himself joined in pressing Godfrey. I suppose he
+must really have believed in the salary which Godfrey expected to get
+from Conroy.
+
+Godfrey promised to dine with them. He explained his position to me
+afterwards.
+
+"I needn't tell you, Excellency," he said, "that I don't want to go
+there. I shall get a rotten bad dinner and Mrs. Pringle is a rank
+outsider."
+
+"Miss Pringle," I said, "seems a pleasant girl. She's certainly
+pretty."
+
+"Poor little Tottie!" said Godfrey. "That sort of girl isn't bad fun
+sometimes; but I wouldn't put up with boiled mutton just for the sake
+of a kiss or two from her. The fact is--"
+
+"Your banking account," I said.
+
+"That's it," said Godfrey. "Pringle's directors have been writing
+rather nasty letters lately. It's perfectly all right, of course, and
+I told him so; but all the same it's better to accept his invitation."
+
+Godfrey is the most unmitigated blackguard I've ever met.
+
+"I hardly see Tottie Pringle as the next Lady Kilmore," said Godfrey;
+"but, of course, that's the game."
+
+I do not believe it. Tottie Pringle--I do not for a moment believe
+that she ever allowed Godfrey to kiss her--does not look the kind of
+girl who--
+
+"You'll make my excuses to Conroy, won't you, Excellency? Tell him--"
+
+"What is the exact amount of the over-draft?" I said; "he'll probably
+want to know."
+
+"Better not say anything about that," said Godfrey. "Tell him I had a
+business engagement."
+
+Godfrey's necessity gave me my opportunity. I had Conroy all to myself
+after dinner, and I sounded him very cautiously about the title. The
+business turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. At
+first Conroy was singularly obtuse. He did not seem to understand what
+I was hinting at. There was really no excuse for him. Our surroundings
+were very well suited for delicate negotiations. I had given him a
+bottle of champagne at dinner. I had some excellent port on the table
+afterwards. My dining-room is a handsome apartment, a kind of large
+hall with a vaulted roof. The light of the candles on the table
+mingled in a pleasantly mysterious way with the twilight of the summer
+evening. The long windows lay wide open and a heavy scent of lilies
+crept into the room. The lamp on the sideboard behind me lit up the
+impressive portrait of my great grandfather in the uniform of a
+captain of volunteers, the Irish volunteers of 1780. Any one, I should
+have supposed, would have walked delicately among hints and
+suggestions in such an atmosphere, among such surroundings. But Conroy
+would not. I was forced at last to speak rather more plainly than I
+had intended to. Then Conroy turned on me.
+
+"What does your Government think I should want the darned thing for?"
+he said.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the usual reasons."
+
+"What are they?" said Conroy, "for I'm damned if I know."
+
+"Well," I said, "when you put it that way I don't know that I can
+exactly explain. But most people like it. I like it myself, although
+I'm pretty well used to it. I imagine it would be much nicer when you
+came to it quite fresh. If you happen to be going over to London, you
+know, it's rather pleasant to have the fellow who runs the
+sleeping-car bustling the other people out of the way and calling you
+'my lord.'"
+
+Conroy sat in grim silence.
+
+"There's more than that in it," I said. "That's only an example, quite
+a small example of the kind of thing I mean. But those little things
+count, you know. And, of course, the extra tip that the fellow expects
+in the morning wouldn't matter to you."
+
+Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and
+flurried.
+
+"There are other points, too," I went on. "For instance a quite pretty
+girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew Godfrey--at least
+he says she does--simply because he'll be Lord Kilmore when I'm dead.
+You've met my nephew Godfrey, so you'll realize that she can't
+possibly have any other motive."
+
+"What," said Conroy, "does your Government expect me to do in return
+for making me attractive to Tottie Pringle?"
+
+"It's not my Government," I said. "I'm not mixed up with it or
+responsible for it in any way."
+
+"I always understood," said Conroy, "that you are a Liberal."
+
+"Everybody understands that," I said, "and it's no use my
+contradicting it. As for what the Government wants you to do, I
+haven't been actually told; but I fancy you'd be expected to stop
+giving subscriptions to Lady Moyne."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That's all I can think of. But, of course, there may be other
+things."
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that your Government can't be quite fool
+enough to mind much about what Lady Moyne does with my money. The
+pennies she drops into the slot so as to make Babberly talk won't hurt
+them any."
+
+This was very much my own opinion. If I were a member of the
+government--I rather think I actually was, a few weeks later--Babberly
+would merely stimulate me.
+
+"You can tell your Government from me--" said Conroy.
+
+"It's not my Government."
+
+"Well tell _that_ Government from me, that when I want a title I'll
+put down the full market price. At present I'm not taking any."
+
+Next day Conroy went off with Crossan in his motor car. He did not
+come back. I got a telegram from him later in the afternoon asking me
+to forward his luggage to Belfast. I forget the excuse he made for
+treating me in this very free and easy way; but there was an excuse, I
+know, probably quite a long one, for the telegram filled three sheets
+of the paper which the post-office uses for these messages.
+
+Conroy's sudden departure was a bitter sorrow and disappointment to
+Godfrey. He came up to dinner that night with three new pearl studs in
+the front of his shirt.
+
+"What I can't understand," he said, "is why a man like Conroy should
+spend his time with your upper servants; people like Crossan, whom I
+shouldn't dream of shaking hands with."
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that he's not going to give you that job you
+hoped for."
+
+"He may," said Godfrey. "I think he liked me right enough. If only he
+could be got to believe that Power is robbing him right and left."
+
+"But is he?"
+
+"He's doing what practically comes to the same thing. Once Conroy
+finds out--and he will some day--I should think I'd have a middling
+good chance of getting his secretaryship. He must have a gentleman for
+that job, otherwise he'd never be able to get along at all. I don't
+suppose he knows how to do things a bit. He evidently doesn't know how
+to behave. Look at the way he's gone on with Crossan since he's been
+here. Now if I were his secretary--"
+
+Godfrey mumbled on. He evidently has hopes of ousting Bob Power. He
+may possibly succeed in doing so. Godfrey has all the cunning
+characteristic of the criminal lunatic.
+
+Three days later he got his chance of dealing with Bob Power. The
+_Finola_ anchored in our bay again and Bob Power was in command of
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Bob Power spent the afternoon with us. Strictly speaking, I ought to
+say he spent the afternoon with Marion. I only saw him at tea-time. He
+let me understand then that he would like to stay and dine with us. I
+felt that I ought to be vexed at the prospect of losing another quiet
+evening. Conroy had cost me two evenings. My visit to Castle Affey, my
+political March Past, and my expedition to Dublin had robbed me of
+nine others. I could ill afford to spare a twelfth to Bob Power. Yet I
+felt unreasonably pleased when he promised to dine with us. There is a
+certain flavour of the sea about Bob, a sense of boisterous good
+fellowship, a joyous irresponsibility, which would have been
+attractive to me at any time, and were singularly pleasant after my
+political experiences. I was not at all so well pleased when a note
+arrived from Godfrey in which he asked whether he too could dine with
+us.
+
+He arrived long before dinner, before I had gone upstairs to dress,
+and explained himself.
+
+"I heard," he said, "that Power was up here, so I thought I'd better
+come too."
+
+"How lucky it is," I said, "that Pringle didn't invite you to-night."
+
+"I shouldn't have gone if he had. I should have considered it my duty
+to come here. After all, Excellency, some one ought to look after
+Marion a bit."
+
+"For the matter of that," I said, "some one ought to look after Tottie
+Pringle."
+
+"You never can tell," said Godfrey, "what silly fancy a girl will take
+into her head, and that fellow Power is just the sort who might--"
+
+Godfrey nodded sagaciously. It has always been understood that Godfrey
+is to marry Marion at some future time. I have always understood this
+and, on personal grounds, dislike it very much; though I do not deny
+that the arrangement is convenient. My title is not a very ancient or
+particularly honourable one, but I do not like to think of its being
+dragged in the gutter by a pauper. If Godfrey married Marion he would
+have the use of her income. Godfrey has certainly understood this plan
+for the future. He may treat himself occasionally to the kisses of
+Tottie Pringle, but he is not the man to allow kissing to interfere
+with his prospect of earning a competence. Whether Marion understood
+her fate or not, I do not know. She always endured Godfrey with
+patience. I suppose that this condition of affairs gave Godfrey a
+certain right to nod sagaciously when he spoke of looking after
+Marion. But I resented both his tone and the things he said. I left
+him and went up to dress.
+
+Marion's behaviour during the evening fully justified Godfrey's fears,
+though I do not think that anything would have excused him for
+expressing them to me. She was amazingly cheerful during dinner, and
+in so good a temper, that she continued smiling at Godfrey even when
+he scowled at her. Bob Power was breezily agreeable, and I should have
+thoroughly enjoyed the stories he told us if I had not been conscious
+all the time that Godfrey was frowning at my right ear. He sat on
+that side of me and Bob Power on the other, so my ear was, most of the
+time, the nearest thing to my face that Godfrey could frown at.
+
+After dinner Bob and Marion behaved really badly; not to Godfrey, but
+to me. No one could behave badly to Godfrey because he always deserves
+worse than the worst that is done to him. But I am not a very
+objectionable person, and I have during the last twenty-two years
+shown a good deal of kindness to Marion. I do not think that she and
+Bob ought to have slipped out of the drawing-room window after singing
+one short song, and left me to be worried by Godfrey for the whole
+evening. Only one way of escape presented itself to me. I pretended to
+go to sleep. That stopped Godfrey talking after a time; but not until
+I had found it necessary to snore. I heard every word he said up to
+that point. I woke up with a very good imitation of a start when Bob
+and Marion came in again. That happened at ten o'clock, and Bob
+immediately said good night. Under ordinary circumstances Godfrey
+stays on till nearly eleven; but that night he went away five minutes
+after Bob left.
+
+Next morning there was trouble. It began with Marion's behaviour at
+breakfast. As a rule she is a young woman of placid and equable
+temper, one who is likely in the future to have a soothing effect on
+her husband. That morning she was very nearly hysterical. When we went
+into my study after breakfast she was quite incapable of work, and
+could not lay her hands on any of the papers which I particularly
+wanted. I was irritated at the moment, but I recognized afterwards
+that she had some excuse, and in any case my morning's work would have
+been interrupted.
+
+At half-past ten I got a note from Godfrey--written in pencil and
+almost illegible--in which he asked me to go down to see him at once.
+He said that he was in severe pain and for the time confined to bed.
+
+"You're sure," he said, "to have heard a garbled account of what
+happened, before you get this letter. I want to tell you the _facts_
+before I take further action."
+
+The word "facts" was underlined shakily. I had, of course, heard no
+account of anything which had happened. I handed the letter to Marion.
+
+"Do you know what this means?" I asked.
+
+Marion read it.
+
+"Rose told me this morning," she said, "that there had been some kind
+of a row last night. She said Godfrey was killed."
+
+"That isn't true at all events," I said. "He's still alive."
+
+"Of course I didn't believe her," said Marion.
+
+"But I think you ought to have told me at breakfast," I said. "I hate
+having these things sprung on me suddenly. At my time of life even
+good news ought to be broken to me gradually. Any sudden shock is bad
+for the heart."
+
+"I thought there might be no truth in the story at all," said Marion,
+"and you know, father, that you don't like being worried."
+
+I don't. But I am worried a great deal.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that I'd better go down and see him. He says
+he's in great pain, so he's not likely to be agreeable; but still I'd
+better go."
+
+"Do," said Marion; "and, of course, if there's anything I can do,
+anything I can send down to him--"
+
+"I don't expect he's as bad as all that," I said. "Men like Godfrey
+are never seriously hurt. But if he expresses a wish for chicken jelly
+I'll let you know at once."
+
+I started at once. I met Bob Power just outside my own gate. He was
+evidently a little embarrassed, but he spoke to me with the greatest
+frankness.
+
+"I'm extremely sorry, Lord Kilmore," he said, "but I am afraid I hurt
+your nephew last night."
+
+"Badly?"
+
+"Not very," said Bob. "Collar bone and a couple of ribs. I saw the
+doctor this morning."
+
+"Broken?"
+
+"Yes. It wasn't altogether my fault. I mean to say--"
+
+"I'm sure it was altogether Godfrey's," I said. "The thing which
+surprises me is that nobody ever did it before. Godfrey is nearly
+thirty, so for twenty years at least every man he has met must have
+been tempted to break his ribs. We must, in spite of what everybody
+says, be a Christian nation. If we were not--"
+
+"He would keep following me about," said Bob. "I told him several
+times to clear away and go home. But he wouldn't."
+
+"He has a fixed idea that you're engaged in smuggling."
+
+"Even if I was," said Bob, "it would be no business of his."
+
+"That's just why he mixes himself up in it. If it had been his
+business he wouldn't have touched it. There's nothing Godfrey hates
+more than doing anything he ought to do."
+
+"I'm awfully glad you take it that way," said Bob. "I was afraid--"
+
+"My dear fellow," I said, "I'm delighted. But you haven't told me yet
+exactly how it happened."
+
+"I was moving a packing-case," said Bob, "a rather large one--"
+
+He hesitated. I think he felt that the packing-case might require some
+explanation, especially as it was being moved at about eleven o'clock
+at night. I hastened to reassure him.
+
+"Quite a proper thing for you to be doing," I said, "and certainly no
+business of Godfrey's. Every one has a perfect right to move
+packing-cases about from place to place."
+
+"He told me he was going for the police, so--"
+
+"I don't think you need have taken any notice of that threat. The
+police know Godfrey quite well. They hate being worried just as much
+as I do."
+
+"So I knocked him down."
+
+"You must have hit him in several places at once," I said, "to have
+broken so many bones."
+
+"The fact is," said Bob, "that he got up again."
+
+"That's just the sort of thing he would do. Any man of ordinary good
+feeling would have known that when he was knocked down he was meant to
+stay down."
+
+"Then the two other men who were with me, young fellows out of the
+town, set on him."
+
+"Was one of them particularly freckly?" I asked.
+
+"I didn't notice. Why do you ask?"
+
+"If he was it would account for my daughter's maid getting hold of an
+inaccurate version of the story this morning. But it doesn't matter.
+Go on with what you were saying."
+
+"There isn't any more," said Bob. "They hammered him, and then we
+carried him home. That's all."
+
+"I am going down to see him now," I said. "He's thinking of taking
+further action."
+
+"Let him," said Bob. "Is Miss D'Aubigny at home?"
+
+"Yes, she is. If you're going up to see her--"
+
+"I would," said Bob, "if I thought she wouldn't be angry with me."
+
+"She's nervous," I said, "and excited; but she didn't seem angry."
+
+Just outside the town I met Crossan and, very much to my surprise,
+McNeice walking with him. Crossan handed me a letter. I put it into my
+pocket and greeted McNeice.
+
+"I did not know you were here," I said. "When did you come?"
+
+"Last night," said McNeice. "Crossan brought me on his motor."
+
+"Were you in time for the scrimmage?"
+
+"You'd maybe better read the letter I've given you, my lord," said
+Crossan.
+
+"If I'd been there," said McNeice, "your nephew would probably be dead
+now. In my opinion he ought to be."
+
+"The letter I've just given your lordship," said Crossan, "is an
+important one."
+
+"I'm sure it is," I said. "But I haven't time to read it now."
+
+"What's in it, my lord, is this. I'm resigning the management of your
+business here, and the sooner you're suited with a new man the
+better."
+
+"If my nephew Godfrey has been worrying you, Crossan," I said, "I'll
+take steps--"
+
+"It's not that, my lord. For all the harm his talk ever did me I'd
+stay on. But--"
+
+He looked at McNeice as if asking permission to say more.
+
+"Political business," said McNeice.
+
+"Of course," I said, "if it's a matter of politics, everything must
+give way to politics. But I'm very sorry to lose you, Crossan. My
+business affairs--"
+
+"You'll have no business affairs left, my lord, if the Home Rule Bill
+passes."
+
+"But you're going to stop it," I said.
+
+"We are," said Crossan.
+
+He certainly believed that he was. At the present moment he believes
+that he did stop it.
+
+I found Godfrey propped up in bed. His face had a curiously unbalanced
+appearance owing to the way in which one side of his jaw was swollen.
+Bob Power's original blow must have been a hard one. I noticed when he
+spoke that one of his eye teeth was broken off short. He began to pour
+out his complaint the moment I entered the room.
+
+"A murderous assault was made on me last night," he said. "After I
+left your house I walked down--"
+
+"Don't talk if it hurts you, Godfrey," I said.
+
+He was speaking in a muffled way which led me to think that the inside
+of his mouth must be nearly as much swollen as the outside.
+
+"That fellow Power had a band of ruffians with him. If he had fought
+fair I shouldn't have minded, but--"
+
+"What were you doing," I said, "to make him attack you? He must have
+had some reason."
+
+"I wasn't doing anything. I was simply looking on."
+
+"That may have been the most objectionable thing possible," I said. "I
+don't say that his violence was justified; but it may have been quite
+excusable if you insisted on looking on at something which he didn't
+want you to see."
+
+Godfrey actually tried to smile. He could not do so, of course, on
+account of the condition of his mouth, but I judged by the expression
+of his eyes that he was trying to. Godfrey's smiles are always either
+malicious or idiotic. This one, if it had come off, would have been
+malicious.
+
+"I saw all I wanted to," he said, "before they attacked me. In fact, I
+was just going for the police--"
+
+"I suppose you sent for the police this morning?" I said.
+
+"No, I didn't. I don't trust the police. I wouldn't trust the
+magistrates here, except you, of course, Excellency. What I'm going to
+do is write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"Good gracious, Godfrey! Why the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What
+interest can you expect him to take in your fights? If you are going
+to make a political matter of it at all, you'd far better try the
+Secretary of State for War. It's much more in his line."
+
+"But the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the man who's responsible for
+the revenue, isn't he?"
+
+"You can't expect him to give you a pension simply because Power
+knocked out your teeth."
+
+"He'll stop Power smuggling," said Godfrey.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that it's no use my telling you that he was not
+smuggling?"
+
+"I saw him at it," said Godfrey, "and I'm going to write to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer."
+
+"What on earth do you expect to gain by that?" I asked.
+
+"He ought to be grateful to me for putting him on the track of the
+smuggling," said Godfrey. "I should think he'd want to do something
+for me afterwards. He might--"
+
+"Give you a job," I said.
+
+"Yes," said Godfrey. "I always heard that fellows in the Treasury got
+good salaries."
+
+I was greatly relieved when I left Godfrey. I expected that he would
+want to take some sort of legal proceedings against Bob Power which
+would have involved us all in a great deal of unpleasantness. I should
+not have been surprised if he had tried to blackmail Bob or Conroy, or
+both, and I should have disliked that very much. But his letter to the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be merely foolish. In the first
+place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer would never see Godfrey's letter. It would be opened, I
+supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it
+and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the
+spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the
+waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever would happen.
+
+I was, I own, entirely wrong. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did see
+the letter. I take that for granted, because the Prime Minister saw
+it, and I cannot see how it could have got to him except through the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. The spelling may have been as bad as
+Godfrey's spelling usually is, but the letter evidently gave a
+detailed account of what had happened, the kind of account which
+impresses people as being true. The letter was, in fact, the first
+direct evidence the Government got about what Conroy and McNeice and
+Bob were doing. I dare say there were suspicions abroad before. The
+offer of a peerage to Conroy showed that there was good reason to
+placate him. But it was Godfrey's absurd letter which first suggested
+to the minds of the Cabinet that Conroy was using his yacht, the
+_Finola_, for importing arms into Ulster. Even then I do not think
+that anybody in authority suspected how thoroughly Conroy and Bob were
+doing the work. They may have thought of a cargo of rifles, and a few
+thousand cartridges. The existence of the Ulster artillery was a
+surprise to them at the very moment when the guns first opened fire.
+
+So far from having no consequences at all, Godfrey's ridiculous letter
+actually precipitated the conflict which took place. I do not think
+that it made any difference to the result of the fighting. That would
+have been the same whether the fighting came a little sooner or a
+little later. But the letter and the action of the Government which
+followed it certainly disorganized Conroy's plans and hustled McNeice.
+
+I found McNeice in my study when I got home. I told him, by way of a
+joke, about the letter which Godfrey intended to write. To my surprise
+he did not treat it as a joke. I suppose he realized at once what the
+consequences of such a letter might be.
+
+"They ought to have put him past writing letters," he growled, "when
+they had him."
+
+Then, without even saying good-bye to me, he got up and left the room.
+In less than an hour he and Crossan were rushing off somewhere in
+their motor car. They may have gone to hold a consultation with
+Conroy. He was in Belfast at the time.
+
+I found Bob Power and Marion in the garden, but not, as I expected,
+eating gooseberries. They were sitting together on a seat opposite a
+small artificial pond in which I try to keep gold fish. When I came
+upon them they were sitting up straight, and both of them were gazing
+intently into the pond. This surprised me, because all the last
+consignment of gold fish had died, and there was nothing in the pond
+to look at.
+
+I told Bob about Godfrey and the letter to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. His reception of the news was even more disappointing than
+McNeice's was. He neither laughed, as I hoped, nor even scowled. In
+fact, if I had not spoken quite distinctly, I should have thought that
+he did not hear what I said.
+
+"Lord Kilmore," he said, "I think I ought to tell you at once--"
+
+Then he stopped and looked at Marion. She became very red in the face.
+
+"Father," she said, "Bob and I--"
+
+Then she stopped too. I waited for a long time. Neither of them did
+more than begin a sentence; but Bob took Marion's hand and held it
+tight. I thought it better to try to help them out.
+
+"I don't know," I said, "whether I've guessed rightly--"
+
+"Of course you have, father," said Marion.
+
+"If not," I said, "it'll be very embarrassing for all of us when I
+tell you what my guess is."
+
+"Marion and I--" said Bob.
+
+"Have spent the morning," I said, "in finding out that you want to
+marry each other?"
+
+"Of course we have," said Marion.
+
+"Of course," said Bob.
+
+The discovery that they both wanted the same thing made them
+ridiculously happy. Marion kissed me with effusive ardour, putting her
+left arm tight round my neck, but still holding on to Bob with her
+right hand. Bob, after our first raptures had subsided a little,
+insisted on going down to Godfrey's lodgings, and apologizing for
+breaking his ribs. I told him that an apology delivered in that spirit
+would merely intensify Godfrey's wish to write to the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer. But nothing I said moved Bob in the least. He was so
+happy that he wanted to abase himself before some one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Babberly is in some ways a singularly unlucky man. A place for him,
+and that a high one, ought to have been quite secure in the next
+Unionist Cabinet. Now he will never hold office under any government,
+and yet no one can say that his collapse was in any way his own fault.
+
+On the very day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received
+Godfrey's letter, Babberly announced his intention of holding another
+Unionist demonstration in Belfast. He did not mean any harm by this.
+He intended nothing worse than another eloquent speech and expected
+nothing more serious than the usual cheers. He regards demonstrations
+very much as my nephew Godfrey does garden-parties. They are
+troublesome functions, requiring a good deal of labour and care for
+their successful accomplishment, but they are necessary. People expect
+something of the kind from time to time; and--if I do not give
+garden-parties, I should not, so Godfrey says, keep up my position in
+the county. If Babberly did not, so to speak, give demonstrations he
+would lose his position in the political world. Babberly's position
+is, of course, vastly more important than mine.
+
+Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the
+papers--perhaps I should say published a manifesto--urging the extreme
+importance of Babberly's demonstration. This was necessary because
+McNeice and O'Donovan, in _The Loyalist_, had lately adopted a
+sneering tone about demonstrations. And _The Loyalist_ was becoming an
+effective force in the guidance of Ulster opinion. Thanks to the
+exertions of Crossan, Malcolmson and some others the paper was very
+widely circulated and wherever it went it was read. Lady Moyne, I
+knew, disliked _The Loyalist_ and was uneasy about the tone of its
+articles. She felt it necessary to stimulate the popular taste for
+demonstrations, and wrote Moyne's manifesto for him. It was a very
+good manifesto, full of weighty words about the present crisis and the
+necessity of standing shoulder to shoulder against the iniquitous plot
+of the Government for the dismemberment of the Empire.
+
+Very much to my surprise, and I am sure to Lady Moyne's, _The
+Loyalist_ printed a strong article in support of the proposed
+demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering than its
+reference to Babberly and Lord Moyne; nothing better calculated to
+insure the success of the performance than the way in which it urged
+all Unionists to attend it. "Assemble in your Thousands" was the
+phrase used four times over in the course of the article. There was
+only one sentence in it which could cause any one the slightest
+uneasiness.
+
+"Previous demonstrations," so the article concluded, "have served
+their purpose as expressions of our unalterable convictions. This one
+must do something more. _It must convince the world that we mean what
+we say._"
+
+That, of course, was nothing more than Babberly had proclaimed a dozen
+times in far more eloquent language. Nor was the fact that McNeice
+printed the last sentence in italics particularly startling. Babberly
+had emphasized the same statement with all the violence possible. But,
+so tense was the public mind at this time, everybody was vaguely
+anxious and excited. We felt that McNeice attached more meaning to the
+words than Babberly did.
+
+A member of the Cabinet happened to be speaking two days later at a
+large public meeting in Croydon. He was supposed to be explaining the
+advantages of the new Insurance Act to the mistresses and servants of
+the smaller middle-class households. There were, I believe, very few
+people with sufficient faith in his power of apology to go to hear
+him; but, of course, there were plenty of newspaper reporters. The
+Cabinet Minister addressed them, and, ignoring for the time the
+grievances of the British house-and-parlourmaid, he announced that the
+Government was going to stand no nonsense from Ulster.
+
+"The leaders," he said, "of the unfortunate dupes who are to assemble
+next week in Belfast, must understand once for all that in a
+democratically governed country the will of the majority must prevail,
+and His Majesty's Government is fully determined to see that it does
+prevail, at any cost."
+
+This, again, was nothing more than the usual thing. Only the last
+three words conveyed anything in the nature of a threat, and many
+papers did not report the last three words. Babberly, I think, was
+quite justified in supposing that the Cabinet Minister was saying no
+more than, according to the rules of the game, he was bound to say;
+that he was, in fact, giving a garden-party of his own to keep up his
+position in the county. At all events Babberly replied to the
+Government's pronouncement with a defiance of the boldest possible
+kind. _The Loyalist_, in a special number, published in the middle of
+the week, patted Babberly on the back, and said that the men of Ulster
+would, if necessary, assert their right of public meeting with rifles
+in their hands.
+
+This was not going much further than Babberly himself had often gone
+in earlier stages of the controversy. It is true that he had always
+spoken of "arms" which is a vague word and might mean nothing worse
+than the familiar paving stones. _The Loyalist_ specified the kind of
+arms, mentioned rifles, which are very lethal weapons. Still, viewed
+from a reasonable standpoint, there was nothing very alarming in the
+word rifles.
+
+Two days later Moyne motored over to my house. He seemed greatly
+disturbed, so I took him into my study and gave him tea. While we were
+drinking it he told me what was the matter with him.
+
+"Look here, Kilmore," he said, "do you know anything about a rumour
+that's flying about?"
+
+"There are so many," I said.
+
+"About the importation of arms into this country."
+
+I had my suspicions, rather more than suspicions, for I had been
+thinking over the somewhat remarkable performances of Bob Power and
+the _Finola_. I did not, however, want to say anything definite until
+I knew how much information Moyne had. After all Bob Power had now
+arranged to be my son-in-law. I do not know what the law does to
+people who import arms into a peaceful country; but the penalty is
+sure to be severe, and I did not want Marion's wedding-day to be
+blighted by the arrest of the bridegroom.
+
+"They say," said Moyne, "that some of the cargoes have been landed
+here under your windows."
+
+"I can only assure you," I said, "that I have never in my life
+imported so much as a pocket pistol."
+
+"I had a long letter from Babberly this morning," said Moyne. "He had
+an interview with the Prime Minister yesterday. It appears that the
+Government has some information."
+
+"Why doesn't the Government act upon it then?"
+
+"They are acting. They want me and Babberly to come out and denounce
+this kind of thing, to discountenance definitely--"
+
+"That's all well enough," I said, "but I don't see why you and
+Babberly should be expected to get the Government out of a hole. In
+fact it's your business to keep them in any holes they fall into."
+
+"Under ordinary circumstances," said Moyne, "we shouldn't, of course,
+stir hand or foot. We'd let them stew in their own juice. And I may
+tell you that's the line Babberly thinks we ought to take. But I don't
+know. If there's any truth in these rumours, and there may be, you
+know, it seems to me that we are face to face with a very serious
+business. Party politics are all right, of course; and I'm just as
+keen as any man to turn out this wretched Government. They've done
+mischief enough, but--well, if there's any truth in what they say, it
+isn't exactly a question of ordinary politics, and I think that every
+loyal man ought to stand by--"
+
+"If there's any truth in the rumours--" I said.
+
+"The country's in a queer state," said Moyne. "I don't understand
+what's going on."
+
+"If the people have got rifles," I said, "they're not likely to give
+them up because you and Babberly tell them to."
+
+"Babberly says there's nothing in it," said Moyne, doubtfully, "and
+her ladyship agrees with him. She thinks it's simply a dodge of the
+Government to spike our guns."
+
+It is curious that Moyne cannot help talking about guns, even when
+he's afraid that somebody or other may really have one. He might,
+under the circumstances, have been expected to use some other
+metaphor. "Cook our goose," for instance, would have expressed his
+meaning quite well, and there would have been no suggestion of
+gunpowder about the words.
+
+"I don't see," I said, "how you can very well do anything when both
+Lady Moyne and Babberly are against you."
+
+"I can't--I can't, of course. And yet, don't you know, Kilmore, I
+don't know--"
+
+I quite appreciated Moyne's condition of mind. I myself did not know.
+I felt nearly certain that Bob Power had been importing arms in the
+_Finola_. I suspected that Crossan and others had been distributing
+them. And yet it seemed impossible to suppose that ordinary people,
+the men I lunched with in the club, like Malcolmson, the men who
+touched their hats to me on the road, like Rose's freckly-faced lover,
+the quiet-looking people whom I saw at railway stations, that those
+people actually meant to shoot off bullets out of guns with the
+intention of killing other people. Of course, long ago, this sort of
+killing was done, but then, long ago, men believed things which we do
+not believe now. Perhaps I ought to say which I do not believe now.
+Malcolmson may still believe in what he calls "civil and religious
+liberty." Crossan certainly applies his favourite epithet to the
+"Papishes." He may conceivably think that they would put him on a rack
+if they got the chance. If he believed that he might fight. And yet
+the absurdity of the thing prevents serious consideration.
+
+The fact is that our minds are so thoroughly attuned to the
+commonplace that we have lost the faculty of imaginative vision of
+unusual things. Commonplace men--I, for instance, or Babberly--can
+imagine a defeat of the Liberal Government or a Unionist victory at
+the General Election, because Liberal Governments have been defeated
+and Unionist victories have been won within our own memories. We
+cannot imagine that Malcolmson and Crossan and our large Dean would
+march out and kill people, because we have never known any one who did
+such things. Men with prophetic minds can contemplate such
+possibilities, because they have the power of launching themselves
+into the unseen. We cannot. This is the reason why cataclysms, things
+like the Flood recorded in the Book of Genesis, and the French
+Revolution, always come upon societies unprepared for them. The
+prophets foretell them, but the common man has not the amount of
+imagination which would make it possible for him to believe the
+prophets. "They eat and drink, marry, and are given in marriage,"
+until the day when the thing happens.
+
+Looking back now and considering, in the light of what actually
+happened, my own frame of mind while I was talking to Moyne, I can
+only suppose that it was my lack of imagination which prevented my
+realizing the meaning of what was going on around me.
+
+The next event which I find it necessary to chronicle is Conroy's
+visit to Germany. I heard about it from Marion. She got a letter
+almost every day from Bob Power, and it was understood that he was to
+pay us a short visit at the end of that week. He explained, much to
+Marion's disappointment and mine, that this visit must be postponed.
+
+"The chief," it was thus he wrote of Conroy, "has gone over to
+Germany. He's always going over to Germany. I fancy he must have
+property there. But it doesn't generally matter to me whether he goes
+or not. This time--worse luck--he has taken it into his head to have
+the yacht to meet him at Kiel. I have to go at once."
+
+At the moment I attached no importance whatever to Conroy's visit to
+Germany. Now I have come to think that he went there on a very serious
+business indeed. His immense financial interests not only kept him in
+touch with all the money markets of the world. They also gave him a
+knowledge of what was being done everywhere by the great manufacturers
+and the inventors. Moreover Conroy's immense wealth, when he chose to
+use it, enabled him to get things done for him very quietly. He could
+secure the delivery of goods which he ordered in unconventional ways,
+in unusual places. He could, for instance, by means of lavish
+expenditure and personal interviews, arrange to have guns put
+unobtrusively into innocent looking tramp steamers and transhipped
+from them in lonely places to the hold of the _Finola_. Whether the
+German Government had any idea of what was going on I do not know.
+Foreign governments are supposed to be well supplied with information
+about the manufacture and destination of munitions of war. The English
+Government, I am sure, had not up to the last moment any definite
+information. Its suspicions were of the very vaguest kind before the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer received Godfrey's letter.
+
+The Belfast demonstration--Babberly's defiance of the Government's
+warning--was fixed for the first Monday in September. On the 24th of
+August, ten days before the demonstration, _The Loyalist_ became a
+daily instead of a weekly paper. Its circulation increased
+immediately. It was on sale everywhere in the north of Ireland, and it
+was delivered with striking regularity in out of the way places in
+which it was almost impossible to get any other daily paper. It
+continued to press upon its readers the necessity of attending
+Babberly's demonstration in Belfast. It said, several times over, that
+the demonstration was to be one of armed men. Parliament was sitting
+late, debating wearily the amendments proposed by Unionists to the
+Home Rule Bill. A Nationalist member arrived at Westminster one day
+with a copy of _The Loyalist_ in his pocket. He called the attention
+of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the language used in one of the
+leading articles, and asked what steps were being taken to prevent a
+breach of the peace in Belfast on the first Monday in September.
+Before the Chief Secretary could answer Babberly burst in with another
+question.
+
+"Is it not a fact," he asked, "that the paper in question is edited by
+a notorious Nationalist, a physical force man, a declared rebel, one
+of the chosen associates of the honourable gentleman opposite?"
+
+The Chief Secretary replied that he had no knowledge of the political
+opinions of the editor in question further than as they obtained
+expression in his paper. He appeared to be a strong Unionist.
+
+Considering that O'Donovan had been in prison three times, and that
+papers edited by him had been twice suppressed by the Government, the
+Chief Secretary must have meant that he had no official knowledge of
+O'Donovan's opinions. The distinction between knowledge and official
+knowledge is one of the most valuable things in political life.
+
+Babberly displayed the greatest indignation at this answer to his
+question.
+
+"Is the fair fame of the men of Ulster," he asked, "to be traduced, is
+their unswerving loyalty to the Crown and Constitution to be
+impeached, on the strength of irresponsible scribblings emanating from
+a Dublin slum?"
+
+The office of _The Loyalist_ is in a slum. So far Babberly was well
+informed. He cannot have known that the "scribblings" were by the pen
+of an eminent fellow of Trinity College, or that the money which paid
+for printing and circulation was Conroy's.
+
+The Nationalist member pressed for a reply to his original question.
+He said that he desired nothing except that the Government should
+perform the elementary duty of preserving law and order.
+
+That particular Nationalist member had, in the days past, been put
+into prison with the utmost regularity whenever a government undertook
+to perform the elementary duty he now desired to see undertaken. And
+no government ever, in old times, undertook such work except when
+goaded to desperation by Babberly. The seething of a kid in its
+mother's milk is forbidden by the law of Moses, which shows that it
+must be a tempting thing to do. That Nationalist member felt the
+temptation strongly. He evidently had hopes of sacrificing Babberly on
+the altar of the twin gods so long worshipped by the Ulster members,
+incarcerating him in the sacred names of law and order. But the Chief
+Secretary did not see his way to make Babberly the hero of a state
+trial. He replied that the Government was fully alive to the duty of
+preserving order in Belfast, and refused to commit himself to any
+definite plan for dealing with Babberly.
+
+The newspapers made the most of the incident, and O'Donovan's record
+was scrutinized by both parties. A lively discussion ensued as to
+whether a "Hill-sider"--some one discovered that picturesque
+description of O'Donovan--could become a militant Unionist. The text
+from the prophet Jeremiah about the spots on the leopard was quoted
+several times with great effect.
+
+McNeice's name was not mentioned, nor was Conroy's. We may suppose
+that his connection with the University saved McNeice. Trinity College
+has, of late years, displayed such a capacity for vigorous
+self-defence, that the boldest politician hesitates to attack it or
+any one under its immediate protection. Conroy escaped because no one,
+not even an Irish member, cares to ride atilt against a millionaire.
+We respect little else in heaven or earth, but we do, all of us,
+respect money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+On the Wednesday before the day fixed for the Belfast demonstration, a
+meeting of the Ulster Unionist leaders was held in London. Moyne was
+at it. Lady Moyne, although the absurd conventions of our political
+life prevented her being present in person, was certainly an influence
+in the deliberations. She gave a dinner-party the night before in
+Moyne's town house. Babberly, of course, was at the dinner, and with
+him most of the small group of Ulster Members of Parliament. Three or
+four leading members of the Opposition, Englishmen who had spoken on
+Ulster platforms and were in full sympathy with the Ulster dislike of
+Home Rule, were also present. Cahoon was not. He travelled from
+Belfast during the night of the dinner-party and only reached London
+in time for the meeting of the Party next day. I do not know whether
+Cahoon was invited to the dinner or not. Malcolmson was invited. He
+told me so himself, but he did not accept the invitation. He said he
+had business in Belfast and he went to London with Cahoon. The Dean
+was at the dinner-party. His name appeared in the newspaper lists of
+guests next morning. McNeice was not there. Lady Moyne did not like
+McNeice, and, although he was a member of the "Ulster Defence
+Committee," he was never admitted to what might be called the social
+gatherings of the party.
+
+The newspapers, in their columns of fashionable intelligence, printed
+a full list of the guests at this dinner, and even noted the dresses
+worn by some of the chief ladies. It was described as a brilliant
+function, and Lady Moyne figured as "one of the most successful of our
+political hostesses." I have no doubt that she was successful in
+impressing her views on Babberly and the others. Whether she thought
+it worth while to spend time that night in talking to the Dean I do
+not know. Immediately under the account of the dinner-party there was
+a short paragraph which stated that Conroy, "the well-known
+millionaire yachtsman," had returned from a cruise in the Baltic Sea,
+and that the _Finola_ was lying off Bangor in Belfast Lough.
+
+In quite a different part of the papers there were comments and
+articles on the meeting of the Ulster leaders to be held that
+afternoon. The articles in Liberal papers oscillated between
+entreaties and threats. One of them, in a paper supposed to be more or
+less inspired by the Government, pleased me greatly. It began with a
+warm tribute to the loyalty which had always characterized the men of
+Ulster. Then it said that troops were being moved to Belfast in order
+to overcome a turbulent populace. It went on from that to argue that
+troops were entirely unnecessary, because Ulstermen, though pig-headed
+almost beyond belief in their opposition to Home Rule, would not
+hesitate for a moment when the choice was given them of obeying or
+defying the law. They would, of course, obey the law. But, so the
+article concluded, if they did not obey the law the resources of
+civilization were by no means exhausted.
+
+As no law had, up to that time, been made forbidding the holding of
+the Belfast demonstration, this article was perhaps premature in its
+attempt to impale Babberly and his friends on the horns of a dilemma.
+
+The Conservative papers assumed an air of calm confidence. One of
+them, the editor of which was in close touch with Babberly, said
+plainly that dear as the right of free speech was to the Unionist
+leaders they would cheerfully postpone the Belfast demonstration
+rather than run the smallest risk of causing a riot in the streets.
+Political principles, it is said, were sacred things, but the life of
+the humblest citizen was far more sacred than any principle, and the
+world could confidently rely on Babberly's being guided in his
+momentous decision by considerations of the loftiest patriotism.
+
+I have no doubt that Babberly fully intended to do as that paper said
+he would do. I feel certain that the informal consultation of the
+politicians at Lady Moyne's dinner-party had ended in a decision to
+postpone the demonstration. But things had passed beyond the control
+of Babberly and Lady Moyne. No newspaper was able to give any report
+of the proceedings of the meeting held that afternoon. But Malcolmson,
+Cahoon and McNeice were all present, and the Dean, having escaped the
+overpowering atmosphere of Moyne House, was able to express his
+opinions freely and forcibly. On the other hand Lady Moyne was not
+there, and Moyne, when it comes to persuading men, is a very poor
+substitute for her. The English Unionists could not be there, so the
+weight of their moderation was not felt. The meeting broke up without
+reaching any decision at all; and the Belfast demonstration remained
+on the list of fixtures for the next week.
+
+Sir Samuel Clithering, originally a manufacturer of hosiery in the
+midlands, was at this time acting regularly as an official ambassador
+of the Cabinet. The fact that he was a leading Nonconformist was, I
+fancy, supposed to commend him in some obscure way to the Ulster
+party. He spent the evening after the meeting in flying about in his
+motor between the House of Commons where Babberly was proposing
+amendments to the Bill, Moyne House where Lady Moyne and her secretary
+sat over her typewriter, a military club in St. James' Street where
+Malcolmson sat smoking cigars, and a small hotel in the Strand where
+McNeice and Cahoon were stopping. The Dean had left London for Belfast
+immediately after the meeting. I have no doubt that Sir Samuel
+Clithering did his best; but diplomacy applied to men like McNeice and
+Malcolmson is about as useful as children's sand dykes are in checking
+the advance of flowing tides.
+
+It is a source of regret to me that my account of what happened in
+London is meagre and disjointed. I was not there myself and events
+became so much more exciting afterwards that nobody has any very clear
+recollection of the course of these preliminary negotiations.
+
+My own personal narrative begins again two days after the London
+meeting, that is to say on the Friday before the Belfast
+demonstration.
+
+Godfrey came up to see me at eleven o'clock with his arm in a sling.
+
+"Excellency," he said, "the Dean has just hoisted a large flag on the
+tower of the church. I'm sure you don't approve of that."
+
+It is, I hope, unnecessary to say that Godfrey is at feud with the
+Dean. The Dean is a straightforward and honourable man. He and Godfrey
+live in the same town. A quarrel between them was therefore
+inevitable.
+
+As a matter of fact I do not approve of the hoisting of flags on the
+church tower. In Ireland we only hoist flags with a view to irritating
+our enemies, and--I am not an expert in Christian theology but it
+seems to me that church towers are not the most suitable places for
+flaunting defiances. The Dean and I argued the matter out years ago
+and arrived at a working compromise. I agreed to make no protest
+against flags on the 12th of July. The Dean promised not to hoist them
+on any other day. This is fairly satisfactory to the Dean because he
+can exult over his foes on the day of the year on which it is most of
+all desirable to do so. It is fairly satisfactory to me because on
+three hundred and sixty-four days out of every year the church
+remains, in outward appearance at least, a house of prayer, and I am
+not vexed by having to regard it as a den of politicians. That is as
+much as can be expected of any compromise, and I was always quite
+loyal to my share of the bargain. The Dean, it now appeared, was not;
+and Godfrey saw his chance of stirring up strife.
+
+"I don't think," I said, "the Dean can have anything to do with the
+flag. He is in London."
+
+"He came back yesterday," said Godfrey, "and the flag he has hoisted
+is a large Union Jack."
+
+Now the Union Jack is of all flags the most provocative. Any other
+flag under the sun, even the Royal Standard, might be hoisted without
+giving any very grave offence to any one. But the Union Jack arouses
+the worst feelings of everybody. Some little time ago a fool flew a
+Union Jack out of the window of a Dublin house underneath which the
+Irish leader happened at the moment to be proclaiming his loyalty to
+the Empire and his ungovernable love for the English people. The fool
+who hoisted the flag was afterwards very properly denounced for having
+gone about to insult the Irish nation. The Dean might, I think, have
+set floating a banner with three Orange lilies emblazoned upon it like
+the fleur-de-lys of ancient France. No one's feelings would have been
+much hurt and no one's enthusiasm unusually stirred. But it is
+characteristic of the Dean that when he does a thing at all he does it
+thoroughly.
+
+"Just come and look at it," said Godfrey. "It's enormous."
+
+We went into the library, from the windows of which a clear view can
+be obtained of the town and the church which stands above it. There
+certainly was a flag flying from the church tower. I took a pair of
+field-glasses and satisfied myself that it was the Union Jack.
+
+"Would you like me to speak to the Dean about it?" said Godfrey.
+
+"Certainly not," I said. "Any interference on your part would
+merely--and these are rather exciting times. The Dean is entitled, I
+think, to a little license. I don't suppose he means to keep it there
+permanently."
+
+Then, borne to us by a gentle breeze across the bay, came the sound of
+the church bells. We have a fine peal of bells in our church,
+presented to the parish by my father. They are seldom properly rung,
+but when they are--on Christmas Day, at Easter and on the 12th of
+July--the effect is very good.
+
+"Surely," I said, "the Dean can't be having a Harvest Thanksgiving
+Service yet? It's not nearly time."
+
+Then I noticed that instead of one of the regular chimes the bells
+were playing a hymn tune. It was, as I might have guessed, the tune
+to which "O God, our help in ages past" is sung in Ireland. The hymn,
+since Babberly's first demonstration in Belfast, had become a kind of
+battle song. It is, I think, characteristic of the Irish Protestants
+that they should have a tune of their own for this hymn. Elsewhere, in
+England, in Scotland, in the United States and the Colonies this
+metrical version of the 90th Psalm is sung to a fine simple tune
+called St. Ann. But we are not and never have been as other men are.
+Without a quiver of our nerves we run atilt at the most universally
+accepted traditions. The very fact that every one else who uses the
+hymn sings it to the tune called St. Ann would incline us to find some
+other tune if such a thing were obtainable. We found one which
+musicians, recognizing that we had some right to claim it as ours,
+called "Irish" or "Dublin." This tune emerged suddenly from nowhere in
+response to no particular demand in the middle of the eighteenth
+century. It is anonymous, but it was at once wedded to the words of
+that particular hymn, and we have used it ever since. It is difficult
+to give an opinion on the comparative merits of two hymn tunes, and I
+hesitate to say that ours is a finer one than that used by the rest of
+the English-speaking world. I am, however, certain that there is in
+our tune an unmistakable suggestion of majestic confidence in an
+eternal righteousness, and that it very well expresses the feeling
+with which we sing the hymn at political demonstrations and elsewhere.
+It came to me that day across the waters of the bay, hammered slowly
+out by the swinging bells, with a tremendous sense of energy. The
+English St. Ann seemed lilty and almost flippant in comparison.
+
+I raised my glasses again and took another look at the Union Jack,
+blown out from its flag-post and displaying plainly its tangled
+crosses. Then I noticed that men were entering the churchyard singly,
+in pairs and in little groups of three and four.
+
+"The Dean," I said, "must have some sort of service in church to-day.
+If it isn't the Harvest Thanksgiving it must be an anniversary of
+something. What happened at this time of year, Godfrey? I can't
+remember anything."
+
+I still stared through my glasses. I was struck by the unusual fact
+that only men were going into the church. Then, quite suddenly, I saw
+that every man was carrying a gun. I laid down my glasses and turned
+to Godfrey.
+
+"I wish," I said, "that you'd go down to the town--not to the church,
+mind, Godfrey, but into the town, and ask somebody--ask the police
+sergeant at the barrack what is going on in the church."
+
+Godfrey is always at his very best when he has to find out something.
+He would have made almost an ideal spy. If any one is ever wanted by
+the nation for the more disagreeable part of secret service work I can
+confidently recommend Godfrey.
+
+Half an hour later he returned to me hot and breathless.
+
+"The police sergeant told me, Excellency, that the Dean's going to
+march all the Orangemen and a lot of other men along with them to
+Belfast for the Unionist demonstration. They are having service in the
+church first and they've all got rifles."
+
+I have all my life steadily objected to politics being mixed with
+religion. I hold most strongly that the Church ought not to be
+dominated by politicians. The Church is degraded and religion is
+brought into contempt when they are used by party leaders. But--the
+bells had ceased ringing. The hymn was now, no doubt, being sung by
+the men within. It occurred to me suddenly that on this occasion it
+was not the politicians who were taking possession of religion, but
+religion which was asserting its right to dominate politics. This is
+plainly quite a different matter. I can even imagine that politics
+might be improved if religion asserted itself a little more frequently
+than it does. I still maintain that it is only right and fair to keep
+politics out of the Church. I am not at all sure that it is right to
+keep the Church out of politics.
+
+"I told the sergeant," said Godfrey, "that he had better go and stop
+them at once."
+
+"Oh, did you?" I said. "Do you know, Godfrey, that's just the kind of
+suggestion I'd expect you to make under the circumstances."
+
+"Thanks awfully, Excellency," said Godfrey. "I'm awfully glad you're
+pleased."
+
+There are besides the sergeant three constables in our police barrack.
+They are armed as a rule with short round sticks. On very important
+occasions they carry an inferior kind of firearm called a carbine.
+There were, I guessed about three hundred men in the church, and they
+were armed with modern rifles. Godfrey's faith in the inherent majesty
+of the law was extremely touching.
+
+"Did he go?" I asked.
+
+"I don't think he intends to," said Godfrey, "but he did not give me a
+decided answer."
+
+Our police sergeant is a man of sense.
+
+"Did you say," I asked, "that they're going to march to Belfast?"
+
+"That's what the sergeant told me," said Godfrey.
+
+"Actually walk the whole way?"
+
+Belfast is a good many miles away from us. It would, I suppose, take a
+quick walker the better part of two days to accomplish the journey.
+
+"He said 'march,'" said Godfrey. "I suppose he meant to walk."
+
+This is, as we are constantly reminded, the twentieth century. I
+should have supposed that any one who wanted to get from this place to
+Belfast would have gone in a train. Our nearest railway station is
+some way off, but one might walk to it in an hour and a half. Once
+there, the journey to Belfast can be accomplished in another two
+hours. It seems rather absurd to spend two days over it, but then the
+whole thing is rather absurd. The rifles are absurd. The gathering of
+three hundred men into a church to indulge in a kind of grace before
+meat as preparation for a speech from Babberly is rather absurd. To
+set a peal of bells playing--but I am not quite sure about the hymn
+tune. It did not sound to me absurd as it came across the bay. I am, I
+trust, a reasonable man, not peculiarly liable to be swept off my feet
+by waves of emotion; but there was something in the sound of that hymn
+tune which prevented me from counting it, along with our other
+performances, as an absurdity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The Dean and his men did actually march to Belfast. I saw them there
+two days later. I also saw them start, ranged in very fair order with
+the Dean at their head. The most surprising thing about their march
+was that they had no band. There are at least two bands in the town. I
+subscribe to both of them regularly and have occasionally given a
+donation to a third which enjoys an intermittent existence, springing
+into sudden activity for a week or two and then disappearing for
+months. I asked the police sergeant, who is a South of Ireland man and
+very acute of mind, why none of the bands accompanied the army. The
+explanation he gave me was interesting and suggestive.
+
+"There isn't as much as a boy in the district," he said, "who'd
+content himself with a drum when he might have the handling of a
+rifle."
+
+And yet an excessive fondness for drums has been reckoned--by English
+politicians--one of the failings of the Ulster man.
+
+I went to Belfast next morning quite unexpectedly. No peal of bells
+heartened me for my start, partly because all the bell-ringers and
+nearly all the able-bodied members of the church in the parish had
+marched forth with the Dean. Partly also, I suppose, because I did not
+travel in a heroic way. I am much too old to undertake a two-days'
+walking tour, so I went by train. Godfrey saw me off. I owed this
+attention, I am sure, to the fact that Marion was with me. She told
+Godfrey that she was going to marry Bob Power, but Godfrey did not on
+that account cease to regard her as his property. He had hopes, I
+fancy, that Bob Power would be killed in some fight with a Custom
+House officer. Marion, on the other hand, was vaguely afraid that
+either Bob or I would get injured while rioting in Belfast. That was
+her reason for going with me.
+
+I went because I received on Friday evening a very urgent letter from
+Lady Moyne. She and Lord Moyne had just arrived in Belfast, and her
+letter was sent to me by a special messenger on a motor bicycle. She
+wished me to attend an extraordinary meeting of the "Ulster Defence
+Committee" which, in defiance of our strong sabbatarian feeling, was
+to be held on Sunday afternoon.
+
+"We elected you a member of the committee at a meeting held yesterday
+in London," she wrote, "so you have a perfect right to be present and
+to vote."
+
+That meeting must have been held after McNeice, Malcolmson and Cahoon
+returned to Ireland. They regard me as a Laodicean in the matter of
+Home Rule, and would never have consented to my sitting on a committee
+which controlled, or at all events was supposed to control, the
+actions of the Ulster leaders.
+
+"It's most important, dear Lord Kilmore," the letter went on, "that
+you should be present on Sunday. Your well-known moderation will have
+a most steadying influence, and if it should come to a matter of
+voting, your vote may be absolutely necessary."
+
+After getting a letter of that kind I could not well refuse to go to
+Belfast. Even without the letter I should, I think, have gone. I was
+naturally anxious to see what was going to happen.
+
+I spent my time in the train reading several different accounts of an
+important Nationalist meeting held the day before in a village in
+County Clare, the name of which I have unfortunately forgotten. Three
+of the chief Nationalist orators were there, men quite equal to
+Babberly in their mastery of the art of public speaking. I read all
+their speeches; but that was not really necessary. None of them said
+anything which the other two did not say, and none of them left out
+anything which the other two had said.
+
+They all began by declaring that under Home Rule all Irishmen should
+receive equal consideration and be treated with equal respect. They
+all looked forward to the day when they would be walking about the
+premises at present occupied by the Bank of Ireland in Dublin with
+their arms round Babberly's neck. The dearest wish of their hearts--so
+they all said, and the people of County Clare cheered heartily--was to
+unite with Lord Moyne, Babberly, Malcolmson and even the Dean in the
+work of regenerating holy Ireland. Any little differences of religious
+creed which might exist would be entirely forgotten as soon as the
+Home Rule Bill was safely passed. They then went on to say that the
+Belfast people, and the people of County Antrim and County Down
+generally, were enthusiastically in favour of Home Rule. The fact that
+they elected Unionist members of Parliament and held Unionist
+demonstrations was accounted for by the existence of a handful of
+rack-renting landlords, a few sweating capitalists and some clergymen
+whose churches were empty because the people were tired of hearing
+them curse the Pope.
+
+Poor Moyne has sold every acre of his property and the Dean's only
+difficulty with the majority of his large congregation is that he does
+not curse the Pope often enough to please them. Cahoon, I am told,
+only sweats in the old-fashioned intransitive sense of the word. He is
+frequently bathed in perspiration himself. I never heard of his
+insisting on his workmen getting any hotter than was natural and
+necessary. But these criticisms are beside the mark. No one supposes
+that a political orator means to tell the truth when he is making a
+speech. Politics could not be carried on if he did. What the public
+expects and generally insists on is that the inevitable lies should
+have their loins girt about with a specious appearance of
+truthfulness. Every speaker must offer distinct and convincing proofs
+that his statements are strictly accurate reflections of fact. The
+best and simplest way of doing this is by means of bold challenge. The
+speaker offers to deposit a large sum of money with the local mayor to
+be paid over to a deserving charity, if any opponent of the speaker
+can, to the satisfaction of twelve honourable men, generally named,
+disprove some quite irrelevant truism, or can prove to the
+satisfaction of the same twelve men the falsity of some universally
+accepted platitude. This method is very popular with orators, and
+invariably carries conviction to their audiences.
+
+The Nationalist members in County Clare broke away into a variant of
+the familiar plan. They challenged the Government.
+
+"Let the Government," they said, all three of them, "proclaim the
+meeting to be held in Belfast on Monday next, and allow the public to
+watch with contempt the deflation of the wind-distended bladder of
+Ulster opposition to Home Rule. We venture to say that the little
+group of selfish wire-pullers at whose bidding the meeting has been
+summoned, will sneak away before the batons of half a dozen policemen,
+and their followers will be found to be non-existent."
+
+The Government, apparently, believed the Nationalist orators, or half
+believed them. Sir Samuel Clithering was sent over to Belfast, to
+report, confidentially, on the temper of the people. He must have sent
+off his despatch before the Dean's army marched in, before any of the
+armies then converging on the city arrived, before the Belfast people
+had got out their rifles. The Government in the most solemn and
+impressive manner, proclaimed the meeting. That was the news with
+which we were greeted when our train drew up at the platform in
+Belfast.
+
+The proclamation of meeting is one of the regular resources of
+governments when Irish affairs get into a particularly annoying
+tangle. There have been during my time hundreds of meetings proclaimed
+in different parts of the country. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief
+Secretary never get any thanks for their action. The people who want
+to hold the meeting always accuse the Government of violating the
+right of free speech and substituting a military tyranny for the Magna
+Charta. The other people who do not want the meeting to be held always
+say that the Government ought to have proclaimed it much sooner than
+it did, and ought to have imprisoned, perhaps beheaded, the men who
+intended to speak at the meeting.
+
+Bob Power met us on the platform, which was horribly crowded, and
+immediately conducted Marion to a motor car which he had in waiting
+outside the station. Then he came back to me and we went together in
+search of Marion's luggage. It was while we were pushing our way
+through the crowd that he told me the great news. I said that the
+failure of the demonstration would be a disappointment to the Dean and
+his riflemen who would have to walk all the way home again without
+hearing Babberly's speech.
+
+"I'm not so sure about that," said Bob. "We may have the meeting in
+spite of their teeth."
+
+"You can't possibly," I said, "hold a meeting when--dear me! Who are
+those?"
+
+There was a crowd round the luggage van where we were trying to
+discover Marion's trunk. An unmannerly porter shoved me back, and I
+bumped into a man who had something hard and knobby in his hand. I
+looked round. He was a soldier in the regular khaki uniform with a
+rifle in his hand. The bayonet was fixed. I felt deeply thankful that
+it was pointing upwards and not in a horizontal direction when the
+porter charged me. It might quite easily have gone through my back.
+This man appeared to be a kind of outpost sentry. Behind him, all
+similarly armed, were twenty or thirty more men drawn up with their
+backs to the wall of the station. A youth, who looked bored and
+disgusted, was in command of them and stood at the end of the line.
+His sword struck me as being far too big for him.
+
+"Who on earth are those?" I said.
+
+"Those," said Bob, "are the troops who are overawing us. Some of them.
+There are lots more. You'll see them at every street corner as we go
+along. By jove! I believe that's Nosey Henderson in command of this
+detachment. Excuse me one moment, Lord Kilmore. Henderson was with me
+at Harrow. I'll just shake hands with him."
+
+He turned to the young officer as he spoke.
+
+"Hullo Nosey," he said, "I didn't know you were in these parts."
+
+"Ordered up from the Curragh," said Henderson. "Damned nuisance this
+sort of police duty. We oughtn't to be asked to do it."
+
+"Your particular job," said Bob, "is to overawe the railway porters, I
+suppose."
+
+"Been here since nine o'clock this morning," said Henderson, "and
+haven't had a blessed thing to eat except two water biscuits. What's
+the row all about? That's what I can't make out."
+
+"Oh! It's quite simple," said Bob. "Our side wants to hold a
+meeting--"
+
+"You are on a side then, are you?"
+
+"Of course I am," said Bob. "I'm in command of a company of
+volunteers. We don't run to khaki uniforms and brass buttons, but
+we've got guns all right."
+
+"I say," said Henderson, "tell me this now. Any chance of a scrap?
+Real fighting, you know? I've been asking all sorts of fellows, and
+nobody seems to be able to say for certain."
+
+"We shan't begin it," said Bob; "but, of course, if you get prodding
+at us with those spikes you have at the end of your guns--"
+
+"There are a lot of fellows in this town that would be all the better
+of being prodded. Every porter that walks along the platform spits
+when he passes us in a damned offensive way. You would think they
+were looking for trouble."
+
+The crowd round the luggage van cleared away a little and we found
+Marion's trunk. Bob handed it over to a porter and we joined Marion in
+the motor car.
+
+The scene outside the station was striking. A considerable body of
+dragoons, some mounted, some on foot beside their horses, were grouped
+together near the great gate which led into the railway company's
+yard. Their accoutrements and the bridles of their horses jangled at
+every movement in a way very suggestive of military ardour. The
+trappings of horse soldiers are evidently made as noisy as possible.
+Perhaps with the idea of keeping up the spirits of the men. Some
+Highlanders, complete in their kilts, stood opposite the dragoons at
+the other end of the yard. A sergeant was shouting explosive
+monosyllables at them in order to make them turn to the left or to the
+right as he thought desirable. Behind them were some other soldiers,
+Englishmen I presume, who wore ordinary trousers. They were sitting on
+a flight of stone steps eating chunks of dry bread. Their rifles were
+neatly stacked behind them. Round the motor car were about thirty men
+whom I hesitate to call civilians, because they had rifles in their
+hands; but who were certainly not real soldiers, for they had no
+uniforms. They looked to me like young farmers.
+
+"My fellows," said Bob, pointing to these men. "Pretty tidy looking
+lot, aren't they? I brought them along as a sort of guard of honour
+for Marion. They're not really the least necessary; but I thought you
+and she might be pleased to see them."
+
+Here and there, scattered among the military and Bob's irregular
+troops, were black uniformed policemen, rosy-faced young men, fresh
+from a healthy life among the cattle ranches of Roscommon, drafted to
+their own immense bewilderment into this strange city of Belfast,
+where no one regarded them with any reverence, or treated them with
+the smallest respect. The motor car started, creeping at a walking
+pace through the mingled crowd of armed men who thronged the entrance
+to the station. Our guard of honour, some of them smoking, some
+stopping for a moment to exchange greetings with acquaintance, kept up
+with us pretty well. Then, as we got clear of the station and went
+faster, we left our guard behind. One man indeed, with a singular
+devotion to duty, poked his rifle into the car and then ran alongside
+of us with his hand on the mudguard. He carried Marion's trunk into
+the hotel when we got there.
+
+Our drive was an exciting one. At every street corner there were
+parties of soldiers. Along every street stalwart policemen strolled in
+pairs. There were certainly hundreds of armed irregulars. For the most
+part these men seemed to be under no control; but occasionally we met
+a party marching in something like military formation, led by an
+officer, grave with responsibility. One company, I remember, got in
+our way and for a long time could not get out of it. Their officer had
+been drilling them carefully and they were all most anxious to obey
+his orders. The difficulty was that he could not recollect at the
+moment what orders he ought to give to get them out of our way. He
+halted them to begin with. Then in firm tones, he commanded a
+half-right turn and a quick march. We had to back our car to avoid
+collision with the middle part of the column. Their officer halted
+them again. We offered to go back and take another route to our hotel;
+but the officer would not hear of this. He told his men to stand at
+ease while he consulted a handbook on military evolutions. In the end
+he gave the problem up.
+
+"Get out of the way, will you," he said, "and form up again when the
+car is past."
+
+This was unconventional, but quite effective. The men--and it is to
+their credit that not one of them smiled--broke their formation,
+scattered to right and left and reformed after we had passed. This
+took place in a narrow side street in which there was very little
+traffic. I recognized the wisdom of the officer in choosing such a
+place for his manoeuvres.
+
+In the main streets the business of the town seemed to be going on
+very much as usual. It was Saturday afternoon. Shops and offices were
+closing. Young men and girls passed out of them and thronged the trams
+which were leaving the centre of the city. They took very little
+notice of the soldiers or the police. In the poorer streets women with
+baskets on their arms were doing their weekly shopping at the stalls
+of small butchers and greengrocers. Groups of factory girls marched
+along with linked arms, enjoying their outing, unaffected apparently
+by the unusual condition of their streets. The newspaper boys did a
+roaring trade, shrieking promises of sensational news to be found in
+the pages of the _Telegraph_ and _Echo_.
+
+Marion became intensely excited.
+
+"Doesn't it look just as if the town had been captured by an enemy,"
+she said, "after a long siege?"
+
+"It hasn't been captured yet," said Bob.
+
+I have often tried to understand how it was that Bob Power came to
+take the active part he did in the fighting which followed, and how he
+came to be in command of a body of volunteers. He had not, so far as I
+know, any actual hatred of the idea of Home Rule. He was too
+light-hearted to be in full sympathy with fanatical Puritans like
+Crossan and McNeice. He certainly had no hatred of the British Empire
+or the English army. He was, up to the last moment, on friendly terms
+with those of the army officers whom he happened to know. He chatted
+with them and with detached inspectors of police in the same friendly
+way as he did with Henderson at the railway station.
+
+I can only suppose that he regarded the whole business--to begin with
+at all events--as a large adventure of a novel and delightful kind. He
+went into it very much as many volunteers went into the Boer War,
+without any very strong convictions about the righteousness of the
+cause in which he fought, certainly without any realization of the
+horror of actual bloodshed.
+
+There are men of this temperament, fortunately a good many of them. If
+they did not exist in large numbers the world's fighting would be very
+badly done. The mere mercenary--uninspired by the passion for
+adventure--will at the best do as little fighting as possible, and do
+it with the smallest amount of ardour. Fanatics cannot be had to
+order. Some kind of idea--in most cases a religious idea--is necessary
+to turn the ordinary church-going business man or farmer into an
+efficient fighting unit. The kind of patriotism which is prepared to
+make sacrifices, to endure bodily pain and risk death, is very rare.
+It is on the men who enjoy risk, who love struggle, who face death
+with a laugh, the men of Bob Power's reckless temperament, that the
+world must rely when it wants fighting done. Hitherto men of this kind
+have been plentiful. Whether our advancing civilization is going to
+destroy the breed is a question which, I am pleased to say, need not
+be answered by my generation. There are enough Bob Powers alive to
+last my time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+I fully intended to go to church on Sunday morning. I was, in fact,
+waiting for Marion at the door of the hotel, when Sir Samuel
+Clithering came to see me.
+
+"I shall be so much obliged," he said, "if you will spare me a few
+minutes."
+
+I did not want to spare any minutes to Sir Samuel Clithering. In the
+first place I had promised to take Marion to the cathedral. "A Parade
+Service"--I quote the official title of the function--was to be held
+for the benefit of the volunteers and Marion naturally wanted to see
+Bob Power at the head of his men. I wanted to hear the men singing
+that hymn again, and I wanted to hear what sort of sermon the
+Dean--our Dean, not the Dean of the cathedral--would preach on such an
+occasion. He was advertised to preach, as "Chaplain General of the
+Loyalists." These were three good reasons for not giving Sir Samuel
+Clithering the few minutes he demanded. I had, also, a fourth. I had
+held, as I have related, previous communications with Clithering. I
+suspected him of having more peerages in his pocket for distribution,
+and I did not want to undertake any further negotiations like that
+with Conroy. He might even--and I particularly disliked the idea--be
+empowered to offer our Dean an English bishopric.
+
+I kept this last reason to myself, but I stated the other three fully
+to Sir Samuel. He seemed dissatisfied.
+
+"Everybody's going to church," he complained. "I can't get Lord Moyne.
+I can't get Babberly. I can't get Malcolmson, and it's really most
+important that I should see some one. Going to church is all very
+well--"
+
+"As a leading Nonconformist," I said.
+
+"Free Churchman," said Sir Samuel.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Free Churchman. You ought not to object to people
+going to church. I've always understood that the Free Churchmen are
+honourably distinguished from other Christians by their respect for
+the practice of Sunday worship."
+
+"Of course, I don't object to people going to church. I should be
+there myself if it were not that--"
+
+He hesitated. I thought he might be searching for an appropriate text
+of Scripture so I helped him.
+
+"Your ass," I said, "has fallen into a pit, and you want--"
+
+This was evidently not exactly the text he wanted. He seemed
+astonished when I quoted it.
+
+"Ass!" he said. "What ass?"
+
+"The Government," I said. "It is in rather a hole, isn't it?"
+
+"Capital," said Clithering, laughing without the smallest appearance
+of mirth, "capital! I didn't catch the point for a moment, but I do
+now. My ass has fallen into a pit. You put the matter in a nutshell,
+Lord Kilmore. I don't mind confessing that a pit of rather an
+inconvenient size does lie in front of us. I feel sure that you, as a
+humane man, won't refuse your help in the charitable work of helping
+to get us out."
+
+Marion came downstairs in her best hat. It was not for nothing that
+Bob Power and I and the running volunteer had struggled with her
+trunk. Her frock, also, was charming.
+
+"Your daughter," said Clithering. "Now my dear young lady, you must
+spare your father to me for an hour. Affairs of state. Affairs of
+state. But you'll allow me to send you to church in my car. My private
+secretary is in it, and I shall tell him to see you safely to church,
+to secure a seat for you--"
+
+"The Dean has reserved seats for us," I said.
+
+"Capital, capital. We can regard that as settled then. My private
+secretary--an excellent young fellow whom I picked up at Toynbee
+Hall--a student of our social problems--a man whom I'm sure you'll
+like."
+
+He conducted Marion to the door and handed her over to the private
+secretary from Toynbee Hall. I resigned myself and led Clithering to a
+deserted smoking-room.
+
+"I never saw so much church-going anywhere," he said. "It's most
+remarkable. I don't think the Government quite appreciates--"
+
+As a matter of fact the percentage of church-going men on that
+particular Sunday was considerably over the average. On the other hand
+there were much fewer women than usual. Every church of every
+Protestant denomination was holding a "Parade Service" for volunteers,
+and most of the women who tried to get in had to be turned away from
+the doors. I thought it well to rub the facts in a little.
+
+"Rack-renting landlords," I said. "Sweating capitalists, and clergymen
+whose churches are empty because their congregations are tired of
+hearing them curse the Pope!"
+
+"Eh?" said Clithering, "what's that? what's that?"
+
+"Only a quotation," I said. "I forget if it was a Cabinet Minister--"
+
+"Not at all," said Clithering. "I recollect the words now. It was one
+of the Irish Members. No Cabinet Minister would dream of saying such
+things. We have a high sense of the importance of the Ulster problem.
+Nothing, I assure you, is further from our minds than the desire to
+minimize or treat with undue flippancy the conscientious objections,
+even the somewhat unreasonable fears of men whom we recognize as--"
+
+Clithering paused. I had not anything particular to say, so I waited
+for him to begin again.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that a meeting of the Unionist Defence
+Committee is to be held this afternoon."
+
+"Yes," I said. "I'm going to it. I'm not really a member of the
+committee, at least I wasn't until yesterday; but--"
+
+"I quite understand, quite understand. In fact--speaking now in the
+strictest confidence--I may say that the suggestion to add your name
+to the committee was made--well it was made to Lady Moyne by a very
+important person. It was generally recognized that a man of your
+well-known moderation--"
+
+I was beginning to dislike being called a man of moderation nearly as
+much as I disliked being called a Liberal.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
+
+"The situation--the very difficult and distressing situation is this,"
+said Clithering, "stated roughly it is this. The Government has
+proclaimed to-morrow's meeting."
+
+"That," I said, "is the pit into which--I don't want to be
+offensive--I'll say, your ox has fallen."
+
+"And the town is full of troops and police. Any attempt to hold the
+meeting can only result in bloodshed, deplorable bloodshed, the lives
+of men and women, innocent women sacrificed."
+
+"The strength of Babberly's position," I said, "is that he doesn't
+think bloodshed deplorable."
+
+"But he does. He told me so in London. He repeated the same thing this
+morning."
+
+"I don't mean Babberly personally," I said, "I mean his party;
+Malcolmson, you know, and our Dean. If you'd only gone to hear the
+Dean preach this morning you'd know what he thinks about blood. I've
+often heard him say that the last drop of it--mind that now, Sir
+Samuel--the last drop ought to be shed. That's going as far as any one
+very well could, isn't it?"
+
+"But he must," said Clithering, "he must think bloodshed deplorable."
+
+"No, he doesn't," I said. "You mustn't think everybody is like your
+Government. It's humanitarian. We're not. We're business men."
+
+Clithering caught at the last phrase. It appealed to him. He did not
+know the meaning attached to it by Cahoon.
+
+"That's just it," he said. "We want to appeal to you as business men.
+We want to suggest a reasonable compromise."
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that you've come to the wrong place. I'm not
+the least averse to compromises myself, in fact I love them. But the
+Belfast business man--You don't quite understand him, I'm afraid, Sir
+Samuel. Have you heard him singing his hymn?"
+
+"No. What hymn? But leaving the question of hymns aside for the
+moment--"
+
+"You can't do that," I said, "the hymn is the central fact in the
+situation."
+
+Clithering thought this over and evidently failed to understand it.
+
+"What I am empowered to suggest," he said, "is a compromise so very
+favourable to the Ulster claims that I can hardly imagine your
+rejecting it. The Government will allow the meeting to be held this
+day week if your committee will agree to the postponement."
+
+"If," I said, "you will also withdraw your Home Rule Bill--"
+
+"But we can't," said Clithering. "We can't do that. We'll insert any
+reasonable safeguards. We'll concede anything that Ulster likes to
+ask, but we're pledged, absolutely pledged, to the Bill."
+
+"Well," I said, "as far as pledges are concerned, we're pledged
+against it."
+
+"What we deprecate," said Sir Samuel, "is violence of any kind.
+Constitutional agitation, even if carried on with great bitterness is
+one thing. Violence--but I'm sure, Lord Kilmore, that we can rely on
+you to use your influence at the meeting this afternoon to secure the
+acceptance of the terms we offer. I'm sure we can count on you. You
+can't _want_ bloodshed."
+
+I did not want bloodshed, of course. I do not suppose that anybody
+did. What Clithering could not understand was that some
+people--without wanting bloodshed--might prefer it to Home Rule. He
+left me, still I fancy relying on my well-known moderation. No man
+ever relied on a more utterly useless crutch. Moderation has never
+been of the slightest use anywhere in Ireland and was certainly a vain
+thing in Belfast that day.
+
+I walked round to the club and found nobody in it except Conroy. He
+alone, among the leading supporters of the Loyalist movement, had
+failed to go to church. I thought I might try how he would regard the
+policy of moderation.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that you'll have to give up this meeting
+to-morrow."
+
+"I don't think so," said Conroy.
+
+"I've just been talking to Sir Samuel Clithering," I said, "and he
+thinks there'll be bloodshed if you don't."
+
+"I reckon he's right there. We're kind of out for that, aren't we?"
+
+"It won't be so pleasant," I said, "when it's your blood that's shed.
+I don't mean yours personally, I mean your friends."
+
+"The other side will do some of the bleeding," said Conroy.
+
+"Still," I said, "in the end they'll win."
+
+"I wouldn't bet too heavy on that," said Conroy.
+
+"You don't mean to say that you think that a handful of north of
+Ireland farmers and mechanics can stand up against the British
+Empire?"
+
+"It's fixed in my mind," said Conroy, "that the British lion will get
+his tail twisted a bit before he's through with this business. I don't
+say that he won't make good in the end. Nobody but God Almighty can
+tell this minute whether he will or not; but he'll be considerable
+less frisky when he's finished than he is to-day."
+
+"But," I said, "even supposing you clear the streets of the soldiers
+and police to-morrow--I do not see how you can; but if you do the
+Government will simply anchor a battleship off Carrickfergus and shell
+the whole town into a heap of ruins."
+
+"I'm calculating on their trying that," said Conroy.
+
+That was all I could get out of Conroy. I left him, feeling uneasily
+that his vote would certainly go against Clithering's compromise. His
+confidence in the fighting powers of the raw men whom Bob and others
+had taken to church with them struck me as absurd. His cool assumption
+of power to deal with the British fleet was arrogance run mad.
+
+On my way back to my hotel I ran into a congregation which had just
+got out of some church or other. In the first rank--they were marching
+in very fair order--was Crossan. He saluted me and stopped.
+
+"I'm thinking," he said, "that you won't have seen them."
+
+He pointed to a small group of men who were bringing up the rear of
+the congregation's march. They were dragging a heavy object along with
+two large ropes. I recognized the leader of them at once. He was
+Cahoon's foreman friend, McConkey. I was pleased to find that he
+recognized me.
+
+"I have her safe," he said. "Would you like to take a look at her?"
+
+I did. She was a machine gun of a kind quite unknown to me; but her
+appearance was very murderous. McConkey led me up to her. He stroked
+her black side lovingly and patted her in various places.
+
+"I was trying her yesterday," he said, "down on the slob land under
+the Shore Road. Man o' man, but she shoots bonny!"
+
+I had no doubt of it. She was likely to be accountable for a good deal
+of bloodshed if there was any street fighting next day. The record of
+her bag would, I should think, haunt Sir Samuel Clithering for the
+rest of his life.
+
+"I've a matter of five thousand cartridges," said McConkey in a hoarse
+whisper, "and there's another five thousand ordered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The committee met at three o'clock in the afternoon. Sir Samuel
+Clithering was not, of course, a member of it; but he lurked about
+outside and waylaid us as we went in. He was in a condition of pitiful
+bewilderment. Alice whose adventures in Wonderland have been very dear
+to me since I first read them aloud to Marion, was once placed in a
+difficult and awkward position by the kings, queens and knaves of the
+pack of cards with which she was playing coming to life. This was
+sufficiently embarrassing. But Clithering was much worse off than
+Alice. In her story all the cards came to life, and though the
+unexpectedness of their behaviour made things difficult for her there
+was a certain consistency about the whole business. A card player
+might in time adjust himself to a game played with cards which
+possessed wills of their own. But poor Clithering had to play with a
+pack in which one suit only, and it not even the trump suit, suddenly
+insisted that the game was a reality. The other three suits, the
+Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Irish Nationalists still behaved
+in the normal way, falling pleasantly on top of each other, and
+winning or losing tricks as the rules of the game demanded. The Ulster
+party alone--Clubs, we may call them--would not play fairly. They
+jumped out of the player's hand and obstinately declared that the
+green cloth was a real battlefield. The higher court cards of the
+suit--Lady Moyne for instance, and Babberly--Clithering felt himself
+able to control. It was the knaves--I am sure he looked on McNeice as
+a knave--the tens, the sevens and the humble twos which behaved
+outrageously.
+
+And Clithering was not the only player who was perplexed. I had been
+to luncheon with the Moynes. Babberly was there of course. So was
+Malcolmson. Clithering sat next but one to Lady Moyne. Malcolmson was
+between them. It was a curious alliance. The emissary of the
+Government, which had passed measures which all good aristocrats
+disliked intensely, joined hands for the moment with the lady whose
+skill as a political hostess had frequently been troublesome to
+Clithering's friends. I do not suppose that such an alliance could
+possibly last long. Those whom misfortune, according to the old
+proverb, forces into bed together, always struggle out again at
+opposite sides when the clouds cease to be threatening. But while it
+lasted the alliance was firm enough. They were both bent on pressing
+the advantages of moderation on Malcolmson. They produced very little
+effect. Malcolmson is impervious to reason. He kept falling back, in
+replying to their arguments, on his original objection to Home Rule.
+
+"I shall never consent," he said, "to be governed by a pack of
+blackguards in Dublin."
+
+It was really a very good answer, for every time he made it he drove a
+wedge into the coalition against him. Lady Moyne was bound to admit
+that all Irishmen outside Ulster are blackguards, and that the
+atmosphere of Dublin is poisonous. Clithering, on the other hand, was
+officially committed to an unqualified admiration for everything south
+of the Boyne. I do not think that Malcolmson appreciated his dialectic
+advantage. His mind was running on big guns rather than arguments.
+
+Lady Moyne squeezed my hand as we parted after luncheon, and I think I
+am not exaggerating in saying that there were tears in her eyes. She
+succeeded at all events in giving me the impression that her future
+happiness depended very largely on me. I determined, as I had
+determined several times before, to be true to the most charming lady
+of my acquaintance.
+
+Moyne took the chair at our meeting. Next him sat Babberly. Cahoon,
+McNeice and Malcolmson sat together at the bottom of the table. I was
+given a chair on Moyne's other side. Conroy would not sit at the table
+at all. He had two chairs in a corner of the room. He sat on one of
+them and put his legs on the other. He also smoked a cigar, which I
+think everybody regarded as bad form. But nobody liked to protest,
+because nobody, except me and McNeice, knew which side Conroy was
+going to take in the controversy before us. Babberly, I feel sure,
+would have objected to the cigar if he had thought that Conroy
+favoured extreme defiance of the Government. Malcolmson, like many
+military men, is a great stickler for etiquette. He would have snubbed
+the cigar if he thought Conroy was inclined to moderation. As things
+were, we all warmly invited Conroy to desert his private encampment
+and join us round the table.
+
+"I guess I'm here as an onlooker," said Conroy. "You gentlemen can
+settle things nicely without me, till it comes to writing cheques.
+Then I chip in."
+
+Moyne murmured a compliment about Conroy's extreme generosity in the
+past, and Babberly said that further calls on our purses were, for the
+present, unnecessary. Then we all forgot about Conroy. The Dean sat
+half way down the table on my side. There was also present a Member of
+Parliament, a man who had sat by Babberly's side in the House of
+Commons all through the dreary months of June, July and August,
+supporting consistently every move he made towards wrecking the Home
+Rule Bill. There ought to have been several others of the moderate
+party at the meeting. Their letters of apology were read to us. They
+all had urgent business either in England or Scotland, which prevented
+their being in Belfast. I do not think their absence made much
+difference in the result of our deliberations. We had got beyond the
+stage at which votes matter much.
+
+Moyne was pitifully nervous. He stated our position very fairly. It
+was, he said, a hateful thing to have to give in to the Government. He
+did not like doing it. On the other hand he did not like to take the
+responsibility of urging the people of Belfast to commit a breach of
+the peace. Lives, he said, would certainly be lost if we attempted to
+hold our meeting in the face of the force of armed men which the
+Government had collected in our streets. He would feel himself guilty
+of something little short of murder if he did not advise the
+acceptance of the compromise offered by Clithering. It was, after all,
+a fair, more than a fair compromise. Nothing would be lost by
+postponing the meeting for a week.
+
+It was rather a feeble speech. Nobody offered any interruption, but
+nobody expressed any approval of what he said. When he sat down
+Babberly rose at once.
+
+Now Babberly is no fool. He knows that florid orations are out of
+place at committee meetings. He did not treat us to any oratory. He
+gave us tersely and forcibly several excellent reasons for postponing
+our demonstration.
+
+"The Government," he said, "is weakening. Its offer of a compromise
+shows that it is beginning at last to feel the full force of the
+Ulster objection to Home Rule."
+
+Here McNeice interrupted him.
+
+"If that's so," he said, "we must make our objection more unmistakably
+obvious than before."
+
+"Quite so," said Babberly; "but how? Is it--"
+
+"By fighting them," said McNeice.
+
+"If by fighting them," said Babberly, "you mean asking the unarmed
+citizens of Belfast to stand up against rifles--"
+
+"Unarmed?" The word came from Conroy in his corner. Every one was
+startled. We had not expected Conroy to take any part in the
+discussion.
+
+"Undrilled, undisciplined," said Babberly. "What can be the result of
+such a conflict as you suggest? Our people, the men who have trusted
+us, will be mowed down. We shall place ourselves hopelessly in the
+wrong. We shall alienate the sympathies of our friends in England."
+
+A large crowd had gathered in the street outside the windows of the
+room in which we were sitting. I suppose that the men found waiting a
+tiresome business. By way of passing the time they began to sing "O
+God, our help in ages past."
+
+"It is of the utmost importance to us," said Babberly, "to retain the
+sympathies of the English constituencies. Any illegal violence on our
+part--"
+
+"You should have thought of that before you told the English people
+that we meant to fight," said McNeice.
+
+"If you follow my advice to-day," said Babberly, "there will be no
+necessity for fighting."
+
+The hymn outside gathered volume. It seemed to me that thousands of
+voices were joining in the singing of it. It became exceedingly
+difficult to hear what Babberly was saying. I leaned forward and
+caught his next few sentences.
+
+"By keeping within the limits of constitutional action at this crisis
+we shall demonstrate that we are, what we have always boasted
+ourselves, the party of law and order. We shall win a bloodless
+victory. We shall convince the Government that we possess self-control
+as well as determination."
+
+Then the noise of the singing outside became so great that it was
+impossible to hear Babberly at all. McNeice tilted his chair back and
+began to hum the tune. Malcolmson beat time to the singing with his
+forefingers. Their action seemed to me to be intentionally insulting
+to Babberly. The crowd outside reached the end of a verse and there
+was a pause.
+
+"Damn that hymn!" said Babberly.
+
+This roused the Dean. It would have roused any dean with a particle of
+spirit in him. After all, a high ecclesiastic cannot sit still and
+listen to profane condemnation of one of the Psalms of David, even if
+it has undergone versification at the hands of Dr. Watts. The conduct
+of McNeice and Malcolmson was offensive and provocative. The noise
+made by the crowd was maddening. There is every excuse for Babberly's
+sudden loss of temper. But the Dean's anger was more than excusable.
+It was justified. He sprang to his feet, and I knew at once that he
+was very angry indeed. I could see a broad white rim all round the
+irises of his eyes, and a pulse in his temples was throbbing visibly.
+I recognized the symptoms. I had seen them once before at a vestry
+meeting when some ill-conditioned parishioner said that the Dean's
+curate was converting to his own uses the profits of the parish
+magazine. The periodical, as appeared later on, was actually run at a
+loss, and the curate had been seven-and-ninepence out of pocket the
+previous year.
+
+The Dean said something to Babberly, but the crowd had begun the
+fourth verse of the hymn, and we could not hear what he said. I got up
+and shut both windows. The atmosphere of our committee-room was hot,
+and likely to become hotter; but it is better to do business in a
+Turkish bath than not to do it at all. There was plainly no use our
+talking to each other unless we were able to hear. My action gave
+Babberly time to regain his temper.
+
+"I apologize," he said. "I apologize to all of you, and especially to
+you, Mr. Dean, for an intemperate and uncalled-for exclamation."
+
+The Dean sat down. The pulse in his forehead was still throbbing, but
+the irises of his eyes ceased to look like bulls' eyes in the middle
+of targets.
+
+"I have been a consistent supporter of the Union," said Babberly, "for
+twenty years. In season and out of season I have upheld the cause we
+have at heart on English platforms and in the House of Commons. I
+know better than you do, gentlemen, what the temper of the English
+people is. I know that we shall sacrifice their friendship and
+alienate their sympathy if we resort to the argument of lawlessness
+and violence."
+
+"It's the only argument they ever listen to," said McNeice. "Look at
+the Nationalists. What arguments did they use?"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Babberly, "are you going to ask Ulstermen to fire on
+the King's troops?"
+
+"I reckon," said Conroy, "that we mean to use our guns now we've got
+them."
+
+Babberly made a curious gesture with his hands. He flung them out from
+him with the palms upwards and then sat down. McNeice rose next.
+
+"For the last two years," he said, "we've been boasting that we meant
+to resist Home Rule with force if necessary. That's so, isn't it?"
+
+Malcolmson growled an assent.
+
+"English politicians and Irish rebels said we were bluffing. Our own
+people--the men outside there in the street--thought we were in
+earnest. The English went on with their Bill. Our people drilled and
+got rifles. Which of the two was right about us? Were we bluffing or
+were we in earnest? We've got to answer that question to-morrow, and
+we'll never get another chance. If we don't fight now, we'll never
+fight, for there won't be a man left in Ulster that will believe in us
+again. I don't know that there's any more to be said. I propose that
+Lord Moyne puts the question to the meeting and takes a vote."
+
+Then Cahoon rose to his feet.
+
+"Before you do that, my lord," he said, "I'd like to say a word. I'm a
+business man. I've as much at stake as any one in this room. My
+fortune, gentlemen, is in bricks and mortar, in machinery and plant
+not ten miles from this city. I've thought this matter out, and I came
+to a conclusion years ago. Home Rule won't do for Belfast, and Belfast
+isn't going to have it. If I saw any way of stopping it but the one
+I'd take it. There are thousands, yes, gentlemen, thousands of men,
+women, and children depending on my business for their living. Home
+Rule means ruining it and starving them. I don't like fighting, but,
+by God, I'll fight before I submit to Home Rule."
+
+Lord Moyne looked slowly round the room. His face was quite pale. It
+seemed to me that his eyes had grown larger. They had a look of terror
+in them. His hands trembled among the papers in front of him. He saw
+at once what the result of a vote would be. He looked at me. I shook
+my head. It was quite plain that nothing I could say would influence
+the meeting in the least.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Moyne, "are we to attempt to hold our meeting
+to-morrow? Those who are in favour of doing so say 'Aye.'"
+
+Cahoon, McNeice, Malcolmson, the Dean and Conroy voted "aye."
+
+"The 'ayes' have it," said Moyne.
+
+"Before we part," said Babberly, "I wish to say that I leave Belfast
+to-night--"
+
+Malcolmson muttered something. Babberly held up his hand.
+
+"No," he said. "You are wrong. I'm not afraid. I'm not taking care of
+my own skin. But I have lived a loyal man and I mean to die a loyal
+man. I decline to take part in the rebellion."
+
+I have heard Babberly speak on various occasions and admired his
+eloquence. This time I recognized his sincerity. He was speaking the
+truth.
+
+"I shall go back to England," he said, "and, of this you may rest
+assured, that I shall do what can be done in Parliament and elsewhere
+to save you and the men whom I must call your victims from the
+consequences of to-day's madness and to-morrow's crime."
+
+He left the room. The five men who had voted "Aye" were gathered in a
+knot talking eagerly. I took Moyne's arm and we went out together.
+
+"Her ladyship must be got away," he said. "And your daughter, Kilmore.
+She's here, isn't she? This town will be no place for women to-morrow.
+Luckily I have the car. You'll take them, won't you? Castle Affey will
+be the best place for the present."
+
+"What are you going to do yourself?" I asked.
+
+We passed through the door and down the flight of steps to the street.
+The crowd outside caught sight of us at once. Some one shouted aloud.
+
+"More traitors!"
+
+The news of the result of the meeting and the part we took in it had
+somehow reached the people already. An angry roar went up from the
+crowd. Those who were nearest to us cursed us. A police-officer with
+eight men forced a way through the crowd. At a word from their officer
+the men drew their batons and stood in front of us.
+
+"I think, my lord," said the officer to Moyne, "that you'd better go
+back. We had the greatest difficulty in getting Mr. Babberly through,
+and the crowd is angrier now."
+
+"I'm going on," said Moyne.
+
+"I cannot be responsible," said the officer. "I haven't enough men to
+control this crowd. If you go on--"
+
+Moyne pushed his way through the cordon of police. I followed him. At
+first the people drew back a little and let us pass into the middle of
+the crowd. Then one man after another began to hustle us. Moyne linked
+his arm in mine and helped me along. A man struck him in the face with
+the flat of his hand. It was a sharp slap rather than an actual blow.
+Moyne flushed deeply, but he neither spoke nor struck back. Then
+suddenly the people seemed to forget all about us. A wild cheer burst
+from them. Hats were flung into the air. Sticks were waved. Some one
+began firing shots from a revolver in rapid succession. It was a
+fusillade of joy, a kind of salute to McNeice who appeared at the
+window of the committee-room. Moyne and I pushed our way on. When we
+were clear of the crowd Moyne spoke to me again.
+
+"You'd better take them at once," he said. "It's impossible to know
+what'll happen here to-night."
+
+"But you?" I said.
+
+"Oh, I shall stay."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Moyne," I said. "You're the one of all others who
+ought not to stay. Don't you see that whatever way things go you're in
+for it? The mob thinks you're a traitor. I wouldn't trust those
+fellows we've just left not to kill you. And when the soldiers have
+shot them down and the subsequent investigation begins, the Government
+is bound to fix on you as a ringleader. There'll be panic to-morrow
+and savage vindictiveness the next day. McNeice and Malcolmson will
+frighten the Government and the Government will have you hanged or
+beheaded afterwards for causing the trouble. The English people will
+clamour for a victim, and you're exactly the sort of victim they'll
+like. Your one chance is to get out of this. Go to Castle Affey
+to-night, and telegraph to _The Times_ to-morrow to say that you
+dissociate yourself--"
+
+Moyne stopped me.
+
+"Look here, Kilmore," he said. "I've heard all you have to say, and I
+agree with it, more or less. I don't suppose I'll be either murdered
+by the mob or shot by the military, but--"
+
+"You will," I said, "if you stay here."
+
+"Even if I am," he said, "I'll have to stay."
+
+"In the name of goodness, why?"
+
+"You know the way we've been talking for the last two years--our side,
+I mean."
+
+I knew the way Babberly had been talking. I knew the way Lady Moyne
+had goaded him and others to talk, but poor Moyne hardly ever talked
+at all. All he ever wanted was to be left alone.
+
+"Well, I can't exactly go back on them now when they're doing what we
+said they ought to do. I've got to see the thing through. After all
+it's my fault that those poor fellows are in this horrible mess."
+
+He glanced back as he spoke. He was thinking of the angry crowd we had
+left behind us.
+
+"So you'll take care of the ladies," he said. "Run them down to Castle
+Affey and make yourself as comfortable as you can. They won't be
+expecting you, but they'll manage some sort of dinner."
+
+"I'm not going," I said. "I'm staying on in Belfast."
+
+"But why should you? You've no responsibility. You've never taken any
+part in our--It's very good of you to think of staying. It really is.
+And I appreciate the spirit in which--But--"
+
+"For goodness' sake, Moyne," I said, "don't give me credit for any
+kind of heroism. That _noblesse oblige_ attitude of yours doesn't suit
+me a bit. It isn't in my line."
+
+"But hang it all, Kilmore, you can't be staying here for the fun of
+it."
+
+"I've often told you," I said, "that I'm writing a history of the
+Irish Rebellions. I naturally want to see one, and there isn't likely
+to be another in my time. That's my only reason for staying in
+Belfast."
+
+We found Lady Moyne waiting for us when we reached the hotel. She was
+wearing a long cloak, and had a motor-veil tied over her head. She was
+evidently prepared to start at once.
+
+"I've ordered the car," she said. "It ought to be round now. Marion's
+coming with me, Lord Kilmore. I think she'd be better out of Belfast
+for the next few days."
+
+The news of the decision of our committee seemed to have spread with
+quite unexampled rapidity. We came straight from the meeting, and we
+found that Lady Moyne had already recognized the necessity for flight.
+
+"I'm glad you're going," said Moyne, "and I'm glad you're taking
+Marion with you. But how did you know? Who told you what--?"
+
+"That young man who's Mr. Conroy's secretary," said Lady Moyne. "I
+forget his name."
+
+"Bob Power," I said.
+
+"He came in to see Marion, and he told us."
+
+Bob must have known beforehand what the committee's decision was to
+be. I realized that Conroy must have had the whole plan cut and dried;
+that the meeting at which Moyne presided was simply a farce. However,
+there was nothing to be gained by discussing that.
+
+"I think," I said, "that Moyne ought to go with you. I don't think
+Belfast is particularly safe for him just now; and--"
+
+"Moyne must stay, of course," said Lady Moyne.
+
+"There'll be trouble afterwards," I said. "He ought not to be mixed up
+in it. If he clears out at once--"
+
+Lady Moyne looked at me with an expression of wonder on her face. Her
+eyes opened very wide.
+
+"Surely," she said, "you don't expect him to run away."
+
+"Of course not," said Moyne; "of course not. And there's really no
+risk. I'll--"
+
+"That's not the kind of people we are," said Lady Moyne.
+
+"I'll join you at Castle Affey in a couple of days," said Moyne.
+
+"Castle Affey," said Lady Moyne. "I'm not going to Castle Affey. I'm
+going to London."
+
+"What for?" I said. "And how are you going to get there? There are no
+steamers on Sunday night."
+
+"I'm taking possession of Mr. Conroy's yacht," said Lady Moyne. "She's
+lying off Bangor, and that young man, Mr. Power, said we could have
+her. We'll get across to Stranraer this evening, and I'll have a
+special train and be in London to-morrow morning."
+
+"London!" said Moyne. "But why London? Surely Castle Affey--"
+
+"I must see the Prime Minister early to-morrow. He must be
+persuaded--he must be forced if necessary--to telegraph orders to
+Belfast. Don't you realize? I don't blame you, I don't blame either of
+you for the failure of your meeting this afternoon. I'm sure you did
+your best. But--but what will happen here to-morrow? We can't leave
+the people to be shot down like dogs. After all, they're _our_
+people."
+
+"But what can you do?" said Moyne. "The Prime Minister won't see you."
+
+"If necessary I shall force him," said Lady Moyne. "He shall see me."
+
+Lady Moyne is, as I have always said, a remarkable woman. Many members
+of her sex have been trying for years to force their way into the
+presence of the Prime Minister. They have hitherto failed.
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "that Marion won't be much use to you if you're
+going to come into collision with the police in any way."
+
+Lady Moyne smiled.
+
+"I hope I shan't be reduced to those methods," she said; "but if I am
+I shall leave Marion at home."
+
+I had not the slightest doubt that Lady Moyne would succeed in seeing
+the Prime Minister. He has probably sense enough to know that though
+he may resist other women successfully, he cannot possibly make head
+against her.
+
+"If there is no rioting here to-night," said Lady Moyne, "I shall be
+in time. That young man, Mr. Power, seemed to think that everything
+would be quiet until to-morrow. I hope he's right."
+
+"He's sure to be," I said. "Conroy is running the revolution and
+settles exactly what is to happen."
+
+"He was very confident," said Lady Moyne. "Ah! here's Marion. Now we
+can start. Good-bye, Lord Kilmore. Do your best here. I'll make the
+best arrangement I can with the Prime Minister."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Moyne and I dined together in the hotel. We should have got a better
+dinner at the club, and I wanted to go there. But Moyne was afraid of
+the other men's talk. It was likely that there would be some very
+eager talk at the club; and Moyne, whose name still figured on
+placards as chairman of next day's meeting would have been a butt for
+every kind of anxious inquiry.
+
+We did not altogether escape talk by staying in the hotel.
+
+Just as we were sitting down to dinner I was told that Bob Power
+wished to see me. Moyne wanted me to send him away; but I could not
+well refuse an interview to the man who was to be my son-in-law. I
+gave that as my excuse to Moyne. In reality I was filled with
+curiosity, and wanted to hear what Bob would say to us. I told the
+waiter to show him in. He carried no visible weapon of any kind, but
+he was wearing a light blue scarf round his left arm. I suppose I
+stared at it.
+
+"Our nearest approach to a uniform," he said. "Something of the sort
+was necessary."
+
+"But why light blue?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It's a good colour, easily seen. The men are to
+wear orange, of course. I'm an officer."
+
+"Captain or Colonel or Knight at Arms?" I asked.
+
+"We haven't bothered about titles," said Bob, who did not seem to
+recognize the question. "We haven't had time to settle details of any
+sort. In fact I haven't much time now. I just dropped in to tell you
+that you needn't be nervous about to-night. We have our men well under
+control, and the police ought to be able to deal with the rabble. If
+they can't--if there's any sign of rioting--we step in and stop it at
+once."
+
+He pulled a revolver from his coat pocket as he spoke. It gave us the
+necessary information about the way in which rioting was to be
+stopped.
+
+"I shall be on patrol all night," he said. "My orders--"
+
+"By the way," I said, "excuse my asking a stupid sort of question. But
+who gives you your orders? Who is Commander-in-Chief?"
+
+"Conroy, of course. Didn't you know? He organized the whole thing.
+Wonderful head Conroy has. I don't wonder he became a millionaire. He
+has his men under perfect control. They may not look starchy when you
+see them in the streets, but they'll do what they're told. I thought
+you and Lord Moyne would be glad to know, so I dropped in to tell you.
+I must be off now."
+
+He got as far as the door and then turned.
+
+"Marion and Lady Moyne got away all right," he said. "I saw them off."
+
+Then he left us.
+
+"That's good news as far as it goes," I said.
+
+"I'm not sure," said Moyne. "I'm not at all sure. If there had been a
+riot to-night, the ordinary sort of riot--but I don't know. It's very
+hard to know what to hope for."
+
+If there had been an ordinary riot that night, and if it had been
+sternly and promptly suppressed, there would perhaps have been no
+battle next day. If, on the other hand, Conroy and Bob and the others
+could keep their men under control, if they could secure the peace of
+the city for the night, then the fighting next day was likely to be
+serious. As Moyne said, it was very hard to know what to hope for.
+
+The waiter brought in our fish, and with it a message from Sir Samuel
+Clithering. He wanted to see Moyne. I had had enough of Clithering for
+one day, so I made no objection when Moyne flatly refused to see him.
+
+I suppose a man cannot be a successful manufacturer of hosiery in the
+English midlands without possessing the quality of persistence.
+Clithering had it. He sent another message to say that his business
+was very important. Moyne said that he and his business might go to
+hell together. I hope the waiter translated this message into
+parliamentary language. Clithering is a Nonconformist, and therefore a
+man of tender conscience. I should not like him to be shocked.
+
+The hotel cook was doing his best for us. He sent us up an _entree_.
+With it came a note from Clithering.
+
+"I'm sending a telegram to the Prime Minister describing the condition
+of affairs here. May I say that you have refused to preside at the
+meeting to-morrow?"
+
+Moyne showed me the note. Then he scribbled an answer on the back of
+it.
+
+"You may tell the Prime Minister that if a meeting is held I shall
+preside. The announcements made in the papers and posters stand good."
+
+"Do you think that's wise?" I asked.
+
+"I think it's right," said Moyne.
+
+It is a great pity that right things very seldom are wise. I have
+hardly ever met anything which could possibly be called prudent which
+was not also either mean or actually wrong.
+
+Our next interruption was due to a newspaper reporter. He represented
+several papers, among others one in New York. He had the names of all
+of them printed on his card, but they did not impress Moyne. Our
+waiter, who was beginning to swell with a sense of his own importance,
+drove off that newspaper reporter. Three others, all of them
+representing papers of high standing, sent in their cards in quick
+succession. Moyne laid a sovereign on the table and told the waiter
+that he could have it as a tip on condition that no one got into the
+room while we were at dinner.
+
+The waiter got the sovereign in the end; but he did not deserve it.
+While we were drinking our coffee a young man overwhelmed our waiter
+and forced his way into the room. There were two doors in our room,
+which is one of what is called a suite. As the young man entered by
+one, Moyne, leaving his coffee and his sovereign behind him, left by
+the other. He shut it with a slam and locked it.
+
+"Lord Moyne, I presume?" said the young man.
+
+"Lord Moyne," I said, "has just left."
+
+"May I ask," he said, "if I have the honour of addressing Mr.
+McNeice?"
+
+I explained that I was not McNeice. Then, in order to get him to go
+away, if possible, I added that I was not Malcolmson, or Cahoon, or
+Conroy, or the Dean.
+
+"If you'll pardon my curiosity," he said, "I should like to ask--"
+
+I saw that I should be obliged to tell him who I was in the end. I
+told him at once, adding that I was a person of no importance
+whatever, and that I had no views of any kind on what he would no
+doubt want to call "the situation."
+
+"May I ask you one question?" he said. "Is Lord Moyne going to take
+the chair to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "he is. But if you're going to print what I say in any
+paper I won't speak another word."
+
+"As a matter of fact," he said, "the wires are blocked. There's a man
+in the post office writing as hard as he can and handing one sheet
+after another across the counter as quick as he can write them. Nobody
+else can send anything."
+
+"Clithering, I expect."
+
+"Very likely. Seems to fancy himself a bit, whoever he is. Nobody else
+can get a message through."
+
+He seemed an agreeable young man. Moyne had probably gone to bed and I
+did not want to spend a lonely evening.
+
+"Have a glass of claret," I said.
+
+He sat down and poured himself off half a tumbler-full. Then it struck
+him that he owed me some return for my hospitality.
+
+"My name," he said, "is Bland. I was with Roberts' column in the
+Orange Free State."
+
+"Ah!" I said. "A war correspondent."
+
+"I did the Greek War, too," he said. "A poor affair, very. Looks to me
+as if you were going to do better here. But it's a curious situation."
+
+"Very," I said, "and most unpleasant."
+
+"From my point of view," said Bland, "it's most interesting. The usual
+thing is for one army to clear out of a town before the other comes
+in or else to surrender after a regular siege. But here--"
+
+"I'm afraid," I said, "that our proceedings are frightfully
+irregular."
+
+"None the worse for that," said Bland kindly. "But they _are_ a bit
+peculiar. I've read up quite a lot of military history and I don't
+recollect a single case in which two hostile armies patrolled the
+streets of the same city without firing a shot at one another. By the
+way, have you been out?"
+
+"Not since this afternoon," I said.
+
+"It would be quite worth your while to take a stroll round," said
+Bland. "There's not the slightest risk and you may never have a chance
+of seeing anything like it again."
+
+I quite agreed with Bland. The odds are, I suppose, thousands to one
+against my ever again seeing two hostile armies walking up and down
+opposite sides of the street. I got my hat and we went out together.
+
+We were almost immediately stopped by a body of lancers. Their leader
+asked us who we were and where we were going.
+
+"Press correspondents," said Bland, "on our way to the telegraph
+office."
+
+This impressed the officer. He allowed us to go on without ordering
+his men to impale us. I was glad of this. I am not particularly afraid
+of being killed, but I would rather meet my end by a sword cut or a
+bullet than by a lance. I should feel like a wild pig if a lancer
+speared me. No one could die with dignity and self-respect if he felt
+like a wild pig while he was passing away.
+
+"In ordinary wars," said Bland, "the best thing to say is that you
+are a doctor attached to the Ambulance Corps. But that's no use here.
+These fellows don't want doctors!"
+
+Then we met a party of volunteers. They stopped us too, and challenged
+us very sternly. Bland gave his answer. This time it did not prove
+wholly satisfactory.
+
+"Protestant or Papist?" said the officer in command.
+
+"Neither," said Bland, "I'm a high caste Brahmin."
+
+Fortunately I recognized the officer's voice. It was Crossan who
+commanded this particular regiment. It never was safe, even in the
+quietest times, to be flippant with Crossan. On a night like that and
+under the existing circumstances, Bland might very well have been
+knocked on the head for his joke if I had not come to his rescue.
+
+"Crossan," I said, "don't make a fuss. Mr. Bland and I are simply
+taking a walk round the streets."
+
+"If he's a Papist," said Crossan, "he'll have to go home to his bed.
+Them's my orders. We don't want rioting in the streets to-night."
+
+I turned to Bland.
+
+"What is your religion?" I asked.
+
+"Haven't any," he said. "I haven't believed any doctrine taught by any
+Church since I was six years old. Will that satisfy you?"
+
+"I was afeard," said Crossan, "that you might be a Papist. You can go
+on."
+
+This shows, I think, that the charges of bigotry and intolerance
+brought against our Northern Protestants are quite unfounded. Crossan
+had no wish to persecute even a professed atheist.
+
+We did not go very far though we were out for nearly two hours. The
+streets were filled with armed men and everybody we met challenged
+us. The police were the hardest to get rid of. They were no doubt
+soured by the treatment they received in Belfast. Accustomed to be
+regarded with awe by rural malefactors and denounced in flaming
+periods, of a kind highly gratifying to their self-importance, by
+political leaders, they could not understand a people who did not
+mention them in speeches but threatened their lives with paving
+stones. This had been their previous experience of Belfast and they
+were naturally suspicious of any stray wayfarers whom they met. They
+were not impressed when Bland said he was a newspaper reporter. They
+did not seem to care whether he believed or disbelieved the Apostles'
+Creed. One party of them actually arrested us and only a ready lie of
+Bland's saved us from spending an uncomfortable night. He said, to my
+absolute amazement, that we were officials of an exalted kind, sent
+down by the Local Government Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the
+condition of Belfast. This struck me at the time as an outrageously
+silly story, but it was really a rather good one to tell. The Irish
+police are accustomed to sworn inquiries as one of the last resorts of
+harassed Governments. It seemed to the sergeant quite natural that
+somebody should be in Belfast to hold one.
+
+We came across McConkey with his machine gun at a street corner. He
+had got a new crew to pull it along. I suppose the first men were
+utterly exhausted. But McConkey himself was quite fresh. Enthusiasm
+for the weapon on which he had spent the savings of a lifetime kept
+him from fatigue.
+
+The experience was immensely interesting; but I began to get tired
+after a time. The necessity for explaining what we were--or rather
+what we were not--at the end of every fifty yards, began to make me
+nervous. Bland's spirits kept up, but Bland is a war correspondent and
+accustomed to being harried by military authorities. I am not. It was
+a comfort to me when we ran into Bob Power's regiment outside the
+Ulster Hall.
+
+"Bob," I said, "I want to get back to my hotel. I wish you'd see me
+safe, chaperone me, convoy me, or whatever you call the thing I want
+you to do."
+
+Bland tugged at my sleeve.
+
+"Get him to take me to the post-office," he said. "I'll have another
+go at getting a telegram through."
+
+"Bob," I said, "this is my friend Mr. Bland. He's a war correspondent
+and he wants to get to the post-office."
+
+My return to the hotel was simple enough. The police kept out of the
+way of Bob's men. The other soldiers let him and his regiment pass
+without challenge. Bland, faithful to his professional duties, poured
+out questions as we went along.
+
+"How's it managed?" he said. "Why aren't you at each other's throats?"
+
+"So far as we're concerned," said Bob, "there's nothing to fight
+about. We don't object to the soldiers or the police. We're loyal
+men."
+
+"Oh, are you?" said Bland.
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Unless our meeting's interrupted to-morrow," I said.
+
+"Of course," said Bob.
+
+"That explains your position all right," said Bland. "But I don't
+quite understand the others. I should have thought--"
+
+"The soldiers," said Bob, "have strict orders not to provoke a
+conflict. I met Henderson just now and he told me so. You remember
+Henderson, Lord Kilmore? The man I was talking to at the railway
+station. He'd only had two water biscuits to eat all day yesterday.
+When I met him just now he told me he'd had nothing since breakfast
+to-day but one bit of butterscotch. He said he wished we'd fight at
+once if we were going to fight and get it over."
+
+"But the police--" said Bland, still trying to get information. "I
+should have thought the police--"
+
+"They tried to arrest us," I said. "In fact they did arrest us but
+they let us go again."
+
+"I dare say they'd like to arrest us," said Bob, "but you see we've
+all got guns."
+
+"Ah," said Bland, "and the ordinary inhabitants of the city--?"
+
+"They're in bed," said Bob, "and we've all agreed that they'd better
+stay there. Nobody wants a riot."
+
+"Thanks," said Bland. "If I can get my wire through I'll let the world
+know the exact position of affairs."
+
+"If you are wiring," said Bob, "you might like to mention that there
+was jolly nearly being a fight at the gasworks. The military people
+got it into their heads that we intended to turn off the gas and
+plunge the town into darkness so as to be able to murder people
+without being caught. They took possession of the works and put a
+party of Royal Engineers in charge. Fairly silly idea! But some fool
+on our side--a fellow who's been dragging a quick-firing gun about
+the streets all day--"
+
+"McConkey," I said. "I know him."
+
+"I didn't hear his name," said Bob, "but he got it into his head that
+the Royal Engineers were going to turn off the gas so that the
+soldiers could make short work of us. He wanted to wipe out those
+engineers with his gun. I don't suppose he'd have hit them, but he'd
+certainly have tried if some one hadn't run and fetched Conroy. He
+settled the matter at once."
+
+"How?" said Bland. "This story will be a scoop for me. I don't expect
+any one else knows it."
+
+"He handed the gasworks over to the police," said Bob.
+
+"But did that satisfy any one?" I asked. "I should have thought that
+both the original parties would have fallen upon the police."
+
+"Not at all," said Bob. "The police are so much the weakest party in
+the town that it's plainly to their interest to keep the gas burning.
+Even the man with the machine gun saw that."
+
+I found Moyne waiting for me when I got back to the hotel. He was very
+depressed and took no more than a mere sip of the whisky and soda
+which I ordered for him. I made an effort to cheer him a little before
+I went to bed.
+
+"I don't think," I said, "that there'll be a battle to-morrow."
+
+"I am sure there will. What's to stop it?"
+
+"The fact is," I said, "that everybody will be too exhausted to fight.
+McConkey, for instance, is still hauling that field gun of his about
+the streets. He simply won't have strength enough left to-morrow to
+shoot it off. All the soldiers and all the volunteers are marching up
+and down. They mean to keep it up all night. I should say that you and
+I and three or four other sensible people who have gone to bed will
+have the town entirely to ourselves to-morrow."
+
+Moyne smiled feebly.
+
+"I wish it was all well over," he said. "I hope the Prime Minister
+won't be disagreeable to--. It would have been better, much better, if
+she'd gone to Castle Affey."
+
+"You needn't be a bit afraid of that," I said.
+
+This time I spoke with real assurance. No man living could be
+disagreeable to Lady Moyne, if she smiled at him. When she left
+Belfast she was so much in earnest and so anxious, that she would
+certainly smile her very best at the Prime Minister.
+
+"I don't know," said Moyne. "He may hold her responsible to some
+extent. And she is, you know. That's the worst of it, she is. We all
+are."
+
+"Not at all," I said.
+
+"Oh, but we are," said Moyne. "I feel that. I wish to goodness we'd
+never--"
+
+"What I mean is that the Prime Minister won't hold her responsible.
+After all, Moyne, he's a politician himself. He'll understand."
+
+"But we said--we kept on saying--Babberly and all of us--"
+
+Moyne was becoming morbid.
+
+"Don't be a fool," I said. "Of course we said things. Everybody does.
+But we never intended to do them. Any one accustomed to politics will
+understand that. I expect the Prime Minister will be particularly
+civil to Lady Moyne. He'll see the hole she's in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+I went down to the club next morning at about half-past ten o'clock,
+hoping to see Conroy. He, so I thought, might be able to tell me what
+was likely to happen during the day. Moyne could tell me nothing. I
+left him in the hotel, desperately determined to take the chair at any
+meeting that might be held; but very doubtful about how he was to do
+it.
+
+The streets were much less obviously martial than they had been the
+night before. There were no soldiers to be seen. There were only a
+very few volunteers, and they did not seem to be doing anything
+particular. The police--there were not even many of them--looked quite
+peaceable, as if they had no more terrific duties to perform than the
+regulation of traffic and the arrest of errant drunkards. I began to
+think that I had accidentally told Moyne the truth the night before.
+All our warriors seemed to be in bed, exhausted by their marching and
+counter-marching. I did not even see McConkey with his machine gun.
+This disappointed me. I thought McConkey was a man of more grit. One
+night's work ought not to have tired him out.
+
+Clithering was in the club. He, at all events, was still active. Very
+likely he was caught the night before by some patrolling party and
+forced to go to bed. Unless he happened to be carrying some sort of
+certificate of his religious faith in his pocket, Crossan would almost
+certainly have put him to bed. The moment he saw me he came fussing
+up to me.
+
+"I'm very glad to be able to tell you," he said, "that the troops are
+to be kept in barracks to-day unless they are urgently required. I'm
+sure you'll agree with me that's a good plan."
+
+"It depends," I said, "on the point of view you take. It won't be at
+all a good plan for the police if there's any fighting."
+
+"I telegraphed to the Prime Minister last night," said Clithering; "I
+sent a long, detailed message--"
+
+"I heard about that," I said, "from one of the war correspondents, a
+man called Bland. You rather blocked the wires, and he couldn't get
+his messages through."
+
+"It was of the utmost possible importance," said Clithering, "that the
+Prime Minister should thoroughly understand the situation. Our
+original idea was that the appearance of large bodies of troops in the
+streets would overawe--"
+
+"They weren't overawing any one," I said.
+
+"So I saw. So I saw yesterday afternoon. I telegraphed at once. I gave
+it as my opinion that the troops, so far from overawing, were
+exasperating the populace. I suggested--I'm sure you'll agree with me
+that the suggestion was wise--in fact I urged very strongly that the
+troops should be kept out of sight to-day--under arms and ready for
+emergencies--but out of sight. I am in great hopes that the people
+will settle down quietly. Now, what do you think, Lord Kilmore?"
+
+"They'll be quite quiet," I said, "if you let them hold their
+meeting."
+
+"Oh, but that's impossible," said Clithering. "I quite agree with the
+Prime Minister there. Any sign of weakness on the part of the
+Government at the present crisis would be fatal, absolutely fatal. The
+Belfast people must understand that they cannot be allowed to defy the
+law."
+
+"Then you'd better trot out your soldiers again, all you've got."
+
+Clithering did not seem at all pleased with this suggestion.
+
+"We shall rely upon the police," he said, "to put a stop to the
+meeting. I do not anticipate that there will be any organized--"
+
+"On the whole," I said, "I'm very glad I'm not a policeman."
+
+"Surely," said Clithering, "the responsible leaders of the Unionist
+party will understand the criminal folly of--You don't anticipate--"
+
+"I'm nothing of a prophet," I said; "but if you ask my opinion I'd say
+that the police will be wiped out in about ten minutes. They're a very
+fine body of men; but there aren't nearly enough of them. If you
+really want to stop the meeting you'll have to get out the soldiers,
+and even with them--"
+
+"But we want to avoid bloodshed," said Clithering. "We cannot have the
+citizens of Belfast shot down by the military. Think of the
+consequences, the political consequences. A Tory Government might--but
+we! Besides, the horrible moral guilt."
+
+"It's no affair of mine," I said; "but I should have thought--I dare
+say I am wrong. There may be no moral guilt about killing policemen."
+
+
+"But they won't be killed," said Clithering. "Our one aim is to avoid
+bloodshed."
+
+"You're trying the police rather high," I said. "They'll do what you
+tell them, of course. But I don't think it's quite fair to ask them to
+face ten times their own number of men all armed with magazine rifles
+when they have nothing but those ridiculous little carbines."
+
+"Oh, but the police are not to have firearms," said Clithering.
+"Strict orders have been given--batons ought to be quite sufficient.
+We must avoid all risk of bloodshed."
+
+"Good gracious!" I said. "Do you expect a handful of police with
+small, round sticks in their hands--Oh! go away, Clithering. You mean
+well, I dare say, but you're absurd."
+
+It is very seldom that I lose my temper in this sudden way. I was
+sorry a moment afterwards that I had given way to my feelings. Poor
+Clithering looked deeply hurt. He turned from me with an expression of
+pained astonishment and sat down by himself in a corner. I pitied him
+so much that I made an effort to console him.
+
+"I dare say it will be all right," I said. "The police will probably
+have sense enough to go away before they're shot. Then the meeting
+will be held quite peaceably. I don't know what the political
+consequences of that may be, but you'll get off the moral guilt, and
+there'll be no bloodshed."
+
+This ought to have cheered and consoled Clithering; but it did not. It
+made him more nervous than ever.
+
+"I must go at once," he said, "and see the General in command.
+Everything must be--"
+
+He left the room hurriedly without finishing his sentence. This
+annoyed me. I wanted to know what everything must be.
+
+The reading-room of the club is on the first floor, and the window
+commands an excellent view of Donegal Place, one of the principal
+thoroughfares of Belfast. The club stands right across the eastern end
+of the street, and the traffic is diverted to right and left along
+Royal Avenue and High Street. At the far, the western end, of Donegal
+Place, stands the new City Hall, with the statute of Queen Victoria in
+front of it. There again the traffic is split at right angles. Some of
+the best shops in the town lie on either side of this street. A
+continuous stream of trams passes up and down it, to and from the
+junction, which is directly under the club windows, and is the centre
+of the whole Belfast tramway system. It is always pleasant to stand at
+the reading-room window and watch the very busy and strenuous traffic
+of this street. As a view point on that particular morning the window
+was as good as possible. Donegal Place is the chief and most obvious
+way from the northern and eastern parts of the city to the place where
+the meeting was to be held.
+
+Between eleven o'clock and twelve the volunteers began to appear in
+considerable numbers. I saw at once that I had been wrong in supposing
+that they meant to spend the day in bed. One company after another
+came up Royal Avenue or swung round the corner from High Street, and
+marched before my eyes along Donegal Place towards the scene of the
+meeting. Small bodies of police appeared here and there, heading in
+the same direction. Now and then a few mounted police trotted by,
+making nearly as much jangle as if they had been regular soldiers.
+The hour fixed for the meeting was one o'clock, but at noon the number
+of men in the street was so great that ordinary traffic was stopped. A
+long line of trams, unable to force their way along, blocked the
+centre of the thoroughfare. The drivers and conductors left them and
+went away. Crowds of women and children collected on the roofs of
+these trams and cheered the men as they marched along.
+
+At half-past twelve Moyne drove along in a carriage. The Dean was
+beside him, and Cahoon had a seat with his back to the horses. The
+progress of the carriage was necessarily very slow. I could not see
+Moyne's face, but he sat in a hunched-up attitude suggestive of great
+misery. The Dean sat bolt upright, and kept taking off his hat to the
+crowd when cheers broke out. Cahoon, whose face I could see, seemed
+cheerful and confident.
+
+At the back of the carriage, perched on a kind of bar and holding on
+tightly to the springs, was Bland. Barefooted urchins often ride in
+this way, and appear to enjoy themselves until the coachman lashes
+backwards at them with his whip. I never saw a grown man do it before,
+and I should have supposed that it would be most uncomfortable. Bland,
+however, seemed quite cheerful, and I admired the instinct which led
+him to attach himself to Moyne's carriage. He made sure of being
+present at the outbreak of hostilities, since the meeting could
+neither be held nor stopped till Moyne arrived; and he had hit upon
+far the easiest way of getting through the crowd which thronged
+Donegal Place.
+
+At a quarter to one Bob Power and his company arrived. Instead of
+marching to the scene of the meeting Bob halted and drew his men
+across the end of the street right underneath the club windows.
+Crossan, with another company of volunteers, joined him.
+
+Bob and Crossan consulted together, and Bob gave an order which I
+could not hear. Two of his men laid down their rifles and ran along
+the street, one taking each side of the line of trams. They shouted to
+the people on the roofs of the trams as they passed them. The orders,
+if they were orders, were obeyed. There was a hurried stampede of
+women and children. They climbed down from the trams and ran along the
+street towards my end of it. Bob's men opened their ranks and let them
+go through.
+
+One after another the shops in the streets were closed. Roller blinds
+and shutters covered the windows. A telegraph boy on a red bicycle
+rode through Bob's lines into the empty street. He stopped and
+dismounted, evidently puzzled by the deserted appearance of the
+street. Two of the volunteers seized him and took the envelope from
+his wallet. They sent him back to the post-office. The poor boy was so
+frightened that he left his bicycle behind him.
+
+Bob gave an order and one of his men took the bicycle and rode off in
+the direction of the meeting. A few minutes later one of the club
+waiters brought the telegram to me. It was from Lady Moyne.
+
+"Saw the Prime Minister this morning. He is taking all possible
+measures to avoid bloodshed. Has telegraphed instructions to the
+military authorities. Tell Moyne. Am sending duplicate message to him.
+Want to make sure of reaching him."
+
+I glanced at my watch. It was five minutes past one; evidently too
+late to tell Moyne anything. Whatever was happening at the scene of
+the meeting had begun to happen at one o'clock. I waited.
+
+Ten minutes later a motor car, driven at a furious pace, dashed round
+the corner at the far end of the street, and sped towards us. A single
+passenger sat beside the driver. I recognized him at once. It was
+Clithering. Halfway down the street he suddenly caught sight of Bob's
+volunteers. He clutched the driver by the arm. The car stopped
+abruptly, backed, turned round and sped back again. I lost sight of it
+as it swept round the corner.
+
+Then followed another period of waiting in tense silence. The men
+beneath me--there must have been about five hundred of them--did not
+speak. They scarcely moved. Bob and Crossan stood in front of them,
+rigid, silent.
+
+Bob's scout, the man who had mounted the telegraph boy's red bicycle,
+appeared in front of the Town Hall and came tearing along the street.
+He sprang to the ground in front of Bob and Crossan and spoke to them
+eagerly. They turned almost at once and gave an order. Their men lay
+down. I heard the rattle of their rifles on the pavement. I could see
+their hands fiddling with the sights, slipping along the barrels and
+stocks, opening and snapping shut the magazines. The men were nervous,
+but, except for the movements of their hands, they showed no signs of
+great excitement. One man, near the end of the line, deliberately
+unbuttoned his collar and threw it away. Another took off his coat,
+folded it up carefully, and laid it on the ground behind him. It
+struck me that it was his vest coat, a Sunday garment which he was
+unwilling to soil. Bob walked slowly along the line, speaking in low
+tones to the men. Crossan stood rigidly still a few paces in front of
+the line, watching the far end of the street.
+
+Another cyclist appeared and rode towards us. One of the men fired his
+rifle. Crossan turned round, walked back to the man, and struck him on
+the head. Then he wrenched the rifle from his hands, threw it into the
+street, and kicked the man savagely. The man made no resistance. He
+got up and slowly left the ranks, walking away shamefacedly with
+hanging head. I do not think that Crossan had spoken to him, nor did
+he speak to any one else. His action explained itself. He turned his
+back on the men and once again stared down the empty street.
+Discipline was evidently to be strictly preserved in the ranks of the
+volunteers. There was to be no shooting until the order was given.
+
+When Crossan's proceedings ceased to be interesting I looked round to
+see what had become of the cyclist. I caught sight of him in the
+custody of two volunteers. He was shoved through the door of the club.
+I could only see the top of his head, and so failed to recognize him
+until he entered the room and came over to me.
+
+"Bland," I said. "How did you get here?"
+
+"I spotted this window," said Bland, "as I rode along, and I asked
+them to put me in here. Is it a club?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "What happened at the meeting?"
+
+"Get me a whisky and soda," said Bland, "if you're a member."
+
+I rang the bell.
+
+"What happened?" I said. "Did they hold the meeting?"
+
+"They were holding it," said Bland, "when I left. But it wasn't much
+of a meeting."
+
+I ordered a whisky and soda from a terrified waiter.
+
+"What about the police?" I asked.
+
+"They ran over the police," said Bland. "I don't think they killed
+many. There wasn't any shooting. The whole thing was done with a rush.
+Damned well done. You couldn't call it a charge. The police were drawn
+up in the middle of an open space where four or five roads met. The
+men kind of flowed over them. When the place was clear again, there
+weren't any police. That's all. Ah! here's the whisky!"
+
+He was evidently thirsty for he drank the whole tumbler-full at a
+draught.
+
+"What about Moyne?" I said. "What did he do?"
+
+"Oh! He stood up on the back seat of a carriage and began to make a
+speech. But that didn't matter."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't stay to listen. I expect he urged them not to
+kill any one. But it does not matter what he said. The men with
+rifles, the volunteers, began to march off at once, in good order,
+some in one direction, some in another. In five minutes there wasn't
+anybody left to listen to Lord Moyne except a few corner boys. I can
+tell you this, Lord Kilmore, there's a man with a head on his
+shoulders behind this insurrection. He has those men of his holding
+all the most important parts of the town. I got hold of a bicycle--"
+
+"How?" I said. "You're very wonderful, Bland. How did you get a
+bicycle in the middle of a battlefield?"
+
+"Stole it," said Bland. "It belonged to a policeman, but he is
+probably dead, so he won't mind. I rode after two or three different
+parties of volunteers just to see where they were going. When I got
+back to the place of the meeting there was a body of cavalry trotting
+up. I had a sort of feeling that the battle would come this way. It
+ought to. This is the most important place in the town. All lines of
+communication meet here. Your side has brains enough to see that. The
+question is, will the soldiers attack them here? I chanced it. If
+there's any good fighting to-day it ought to be here."
+
+I am not sure whether the General in command of the troops had the
+brains to recognize that the post which Bob Power held was the key to
+the whole situation. He did a good deal of desultory street fighting
+in other places, and though he made a strong show of attacking Bob
+Power in the end I think he was drawn into it by accident.
+
+Bland lit a cigarette, and he and I stood at the window watching.
+
+A crowd of men appeared at the far end of the street, running in wild
+disorder. They ran quite silently with bent heads and outstretched
+hands. Behind them, immediately behind them, came a squadron of
+dragoons galloping. As the fugitives turned into the street the
+soldiers overtook them and struck right and left with their swords.
+They were using the flats, not the edges of the blades. The fugitives
+staggered under the blows. Some of them stumbled and fell; but I do
+not think that any one was seriously hurt.
+
+"Lord Moyne's audience," said Bland. "The corner boys. There's not an
+armed man among them."
+
+I noticed that when he pointed it out to me. The flying men, wild
+with terror, rushed into the empty trams. For the moment they were
+safe enough. The dragoons could not get at them without dismounting.
+They pulled up their horses.
+
+Bob Power gave an order. Rifles cracked all along his line. The men
+must have emptied their magazines before they stopped firing. The
+officer of the dragoons gave an order. His squadron wheeled and
+galloped back the way they came. Five horses lay plunging on the
+ground. Four men dragged themselves clear of their saddles and ran
+after their comrades. The other lay where he fell.
+
+Six men detached themselves from Bob's lines and ran forward. In a few
+minutes they were dragging the terrified fugitives from the trams and
+driving them along the street. They came towards us, wailing aloud in
+high shrill voices, like women. Behind them came Bob's volunteers,
+carrying the wounded dragoon, and supporting a couple of the fugitives
+who had been knocked down by the soldiers. The howling men were pushed
+through the ranks to the rear. The volunteers closed up again in
+silence. Not even when the dragoons turned and galloped away did they
+break their silence. I have heard of soldiers going into battle with
+shouts and greeting moments of success with cheers. These men fired on
+their enemies without a shout and saw them fly without a cheer. Five
+minutes later a company of infantry marched into the street, extended
+into open order, and fired. Bob's men fired. More infantry came. They
+deployed along the front of the City Hall. The rifle fire from both
+ends of the street was rapid and continuous. It was the first time in
+my life that I had ever been in danger of being killed by a bullet. I
+confess that for a few minutes I was so nervous that I was unable to
+give any attention to the fighting going on in front of me. So many
+rifles were going off at the far end of the street that it seemed
+certain that not only Bland and I but every one of Bob's men must
+necessarily die at once. To my very great surprise I was not hit. My
+nervousness began to disappear. I peered out of the window and noticed
+that none of Bob's men were either killed or wounded.
+
+"I suppose," I said to Bland, "that this is a regular battle. You've
+had some experience so you ought to know."
+
+"Oh yes," said Bland, "it's a battle right enough--of sorts."
+
+A bullet snicked through the window glass above my head and buried
+itself in the wall at the far end of the room. I looked at the
+volunteers again. They did not seem to be suffering. I took a glance
+at the soldiers at the far end of the street. The firing did not seem
+even to annoy them.
+
+"There seems to me," I said, "to be very little damage done. Don't
+they usually kill each other in battles?"
+
+"The shooting's damned bad," said Bland, "damned bad on both sides. I
+never saw worse. I wonder if they mean to shoot straight."
+
+Bob's men, I think, were doing their best; but they were certainly
+making very bad practice. It did not seem to me that during the first
+twenty minutes they hit a single living thing except the four dragoon
+horses. The walls of the houses on both sides of the street were
+filled with bullet marks. A curious kind of shallow furrow appeared
+about halfway down the street. At first it seemed a mere line drawn on
+the ground. Then it deepened into a little trench with a ridge of dust
+beyond it.
+
+"There must be a ton or two of good bullets buried there," said Bland.
+"They haven't sighted for the distance."
+
+"I don't blame the volunteers," I said, "but the soldiers really ought
+to shoot better. A lot of money is spent on that army every year, and
+if they can't hit a single enemy at that distance--"
+
+"I rather think," said Bland, "that the soldiers are firing up into
+the air on purpose. That bullet which came through our window is the
+only one which hit anything. It's shocking waste of ammunition."
+
+The door of the reading-room opened behind me. I turned and saw Sir
+Samuel Clithering. He staggered into the room and looked deadly white.
+For a moment I thought he must be blind. He plunged straight into a
+table which stood in the middle of the room in front of him.
+
+"My God! My God!" he cried.
+
+Then he was violently sick. He must have got into the club somehow
+from the back. I went over to him, intending to get him out of the
+room before he was sick again. He clutched my arm and held me tight.
+
+"Stop it," he said. "Stop it. Promise them anything, anything at all;
+only get them to stop."
+
+I did not quite know what Clithering wanted me to do. It seemed absurd
+to go down to Bob Power and offer, on behalf of the Government, to
+introduce amendments into the Home Rule Bill. Yet something of the
+sort must have been in Clithering's mind when he urged me to promise
+anything. He probably had some vague idea of consulting the wishes of
+the electorate. That is the sort of thing Clithering would think of
+doing in an emergency.
+
+"It's horrible, too horrible," he said. "Oh God! Bloodshed!
+Bloodshed!"
+
+"Cheer up," I said, "I don't think a single man on either side has
+been hit yet."
+
+"I say," said Bland from the window, "did the soldiers get orders to
+fire over the people's heads?"
+
+"Yes," said Clithering. "Strict orders. The Cabinet was unanimous. The
+Prime Minister telegraphed this morning."
+
+"Rather rough on the peaceable inhabitants of the town," said Bland,
+"the men who have kept out of the battle. I suppose you forgot that
+bullets come down again somewhere."
+
+"I was in one of the back streets," wailed Clithering, "far away--"
+
+"Exactly," said Bland, "it's just in back streets that those things
+happen."
+
+"It was a woman," said Clithering, "a girl with a baby in her arms. I
+did not know what had happened. I ran over to her. She and the
+baby--both of them. I shall never forget it. Oh!"
+
+Then he was sick again. Clithering is a highly civilized man. I
+suppose one must be highly civilized if one is to keep pace with the
+changing fashions in stockings. It was out of what is called "Fancy
+Hosiery" that Clithering made most of his money. I felt very sorry for
+him, but his performances were making me feel sick too. I joined Bland
+again at the window.
+
+"They've got a machine gun," said Bland. "Things will get brisker
+now."
+
+I looked out anxiously and saw with a sense of relief that it was
+Bob's side which had got the new gun. McConkey and his assistants had
+turned up from somewhere and were dragging their weapon into position
+under the window of a large jeweller's shop on the left flank of Bob's
+firing line. This was bad enough. In street fighting at close quarters
+a gun of this kind is very murderous and ought to do a terrible amount
+of destruction. But things would have been much worse if the soldiers
+had had it. They, I suppose, would have known how to use it. I doubted
+McConkey's skill in spite of his practice on the slob lands below the
+Shore Road.
+
+"The soldiers will have to shoot in earnest now," said Bland. "If that
+fellow can handle his gun he'll simply mow them down."
+
+It looked at first, I am bound to say, as if McConkey had really
+mastered his new trade. He got his weapon into position and adjusted a
+belt of cartridges, working as coolly as if he were arranging the
+machinery of the Green Loaney Scutching Mill. He seemed to find a
+horrible satisfaction in what he was doing. Twice I saw him pat the
+muzzle of the thing as if to give it encouragement. I dare say he
+talked to it.
+
+"He's damned cool," said Bland. "I've seen fellows who'd been fighting
+for months not half so--"
+
+Then McConkey started his infernal machine. The effect was most
+surprising. Two tramcars, which were standing close to the far end of
+the street, simply disappeared. There was a kind of eruption of
+splintered wood, shattered glass and small fragments of metal. When
+that subsided there was no sign of there ever having been tramcars in
+that particular spot. McConkey evidently noticed that he had not aimed
+his pet quite straight. He stopped it at once.
+
+An officer--I think it was Bob's friend Henderson--sprang to his feet
+at the far end of the street and ran along the line of soldiers
+shouting an order.
+
+"They'll begin in earnest now," said Bland. "Why doesn't he rattle
+them again with the gun?"
+
+McConkey had the best will in the world, but something had gone wrong
+with his gun; it was a complicated machine, and he had evidently
+jammed some part of it. I saw him working frenziedly with a large iron
+spanner in his hand; but nothing he could do produced the least
+effect. It would not go off.
+
+In the meantime Henderson's soldiers stood up and stopped firing. The
+volunteers stopped firing too. The soldiers formed in a line. There
+was silence in the street for a moment, dead silence. I could hear
+McConkey's spanner ringing against the iron of his gun. Then Bob Power
+shouted.
+
+"They're going to charge us. Up, boys, and come on! We'll meet them
+halfway."
+
+"They're all gone mad together," said Bland. "You can't charge down
+magazine rifles. It's impossible."
+
+"It seems to me," I said, "that if this battle is ever to be finished
+at all they'll have to get at each other with their fists. So far
+weapons have been a total failure."
+
+Clithering crawled across the room while we were speaking and clutched
+me by the legs. I do not think it was fear of the bullets which made
+him crawl. He had been so very sick that he was too weak to walk.
+
+"What's happening?" he said. "For God's sake tell me. Are there many
+killed?"
+
+"No one yet on this side," I said. "There may be a few soldiers hit,
+but I don't suppose you mind about them. There's just going to be a
+charge. Get up and you'll be able to see it."
+
+Clithering caught the edge of the window-sash and dragged himself to
+his feet. He was just in time to see Bob's men rush along the street.
+They did not charge in any sort of order. They simply spread out and
+ran as fast as they could, as fast as I ever saw men run. Some of them
+took their rifles with them. Others, evidently agreeing with me that
+they would do more destruction with their fists, left their rifles
+behind. They covered fifty or sixty yards, and were still going fast
+when they discovered that the soldiers were not waiting for them.
+Henderson walked alongside the leading men of the column with his
+ridiculously long sword in his hand. Two mounted officers brought up
+the rear. Two men, with their rifles sloped over their shoulders,
+marched briskly across the end of the street. In the middle of the
+column were eight stretchers carried along. Bob's men, in spite of
+their bad shooting, had wounded that number of their enemies. I found
+out afterwards that they had killed three others outright. The
+discipline of the British army must be remarkably good. In spite of
+this heavy loss the soldiers obeyed orders, and steadily refrained
+from trying to kill Bob's men. Their final disappearance was a
+crowning proof of their obedience. I watched this body of infantry
+march out of sight into the next street. They were not running away.
+They were not even retreating. They gave me the impression of having
+stopped the battle in a way that was quite customary because it was
+time for them to do something else--get some dinner perhaps.
+
+This performance produced, as might be expected, a most disconcerting
+effect upon Bob's warriors. They stopped running and stared at their
+departing foes. Then they turned round and gaped at each other. Then
+they applied to Bob Power for information. They wanted to know,
+apparently, whether they had gained a great and glorious victory, or
+were to regard the departure of the enemy as some subtle kind of
+strategy. Bob seemed as much puzzled as every one else. Even Bland, in
+spite of his experience of battles in two great wars, was taken aback.
+
+"Well, I'm damned," he said.
+
+"Thank God, thank God!" said Clithering.
+
+Then he crumpled up and fainted. He meant, I think, to express the
+relief he felt at the cessation of hostilities. He had not heard, or
+if he heard, had not heeded, Bland's remark. Clithering is not the
+type of man to thank God for any one's damnation, and he had no
+special dislike of Bland.
+
+"I'm damned," said Bland again.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that it's rather unusual in battles to do that
+sort of thing--march off, I mean--without giving some sort of notice
+to the other side. It strikes me as rather bad form. There ought to be
+a rule against it."
+
+Bob's men returned, sheepishly and dejectedly, to their original
+posts. Crossan was arguing with McConkey about the condition of the
+machine gun. The young man who had taken off his coat before the
+battle picked it up from the ground, brushed it carefully, and put it
+on. Bob Power walked along the street with a note-book in his hands.
+He appeared to be writing down the names of the shop-keepers whose
+windows were broken. He is a young man of active and energetic
+disposition. I suppose he felt that he must do something.
+
+Bland stared through the window for some time. He hoped, I dare say,
+that the soldiers would come back, with reinforcements, perhaps with
+artillery. At last he gave up this idea.
+
+"Let's have a drink," he said. "We want one."
+
+He turned abruptly and stumbled over Clithering, who had fallen just
+beside him. I got hold of a waiter, the only one left in the club, and
+made him bring us a whisky and soda. Bland squirted the syphon into
+Clithering's face, and I poured small quantities of whisky into his
+mouth. Clithering is a rigid teetotaller, and has for years been
+supporting every Bill for the suppression of public houses which has
+been brought before Parliament. The whisky which he swallowed revived
+him in the most amazing way.
+
+"Have they gone?" he asked.
+
+"If you mean the soldiers," said Bland, "they have. I can't imagine
+why, but they have."
+
+"I telegraphed to the Prime Minister," said Clithering. "It was hours
+and hours ago. Or was it yesterday? It was just before I saw the woman
+shot. I told him that--that the soldiers--they were only meant to
+overawe the people--not to kill them--I said the soldiers must be
+withdrawn to barracks--I said they must not be allowed--"
+
+I do not know whether it was exhaustion after nervous strain or the
+whisky which affected Clithering. Whisky--and he had swallowed nearly
+a glassful--does produce striking effects upon teetotallers; so it may
+have been the whisky. Clithering turned slowly over on his side and
+went sound asleep. Bland and I carried him upstairs to a bedroom on
+the top storey of the club. There were, Bland said, three bullets
+buried in the mattress, so it was fortunate that we had not carried
+Clithering up earlier in the day.
+
+"Let's get the waiter," said Bland, "if he hasn't gone away, and tell
+him to undress this fool!"
+
+"It's hardly necessary to undress him, is it?"
+
+"Better to," said Bland, "and take away his clothes. Then he'll have
+to stay there, and won't be able to send any more telegrams."
+
+"It's rather a good thing he sent that last one," I said. "If he
+hadn't, somebody would certainly have been killed in the charge."
+
+"I suppose that telegram accounts for it," said Bland. "I mean for the
+behaviour of the soldiers. Orders sent straight from Downing Street. I
+say, what a frightful temper the Commanding Officer must be in this
+minute! I wonder if I could get an interview with him."
+
+He looked questioningly at me. I fancy he hoped that I would give him
+a letter of introduction to the General in command of the district.
+
+"His language," said Bland, "would be a tremendous scoop for me. Could
+you--?"
+
+"No," I said, "I couldn't. I don't know him, and even if I did--"
+
+"Oh, well," said Bland, "it can't be helped. And, any way, I dare say
+I shouldn't have been able to get my telegram through. The wires are
+sure to be blocked."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+I looked at my watch and found that it was three o'clock. The battle
+had lasted more than two hours.
+
+"I had no idea," I said to Bland, "that fighting was such interesting
+work. The time has flown."
+
+"I'm uncommonly hungry," said Bland. "Let's try and find something to
+eat."
+
+When he mentioned the subject of eating I found that I too was very
+hungry. I felt, however, that it was scarcely right, certainly it was
+not suitable to sit down to luncheon in a club while a revolution was
+in full swing under the windows. People ought to be serious
+immediately after battles.
+
+"Oughtn't we to be doing something?" I asked.
+
+"Doing what?"
+
+"Well, I don't know. Seeing after the wounded, perhaps."
+
+Attending to wounded men is properly speaking work for women; but both
+Lady Moyne and Marion were in London.
+
+"There are sure to be a few somewhere," I said. "They've been fighting
+all over the town, and I don't suppose the soldiers were as careful
+everywhere else as they were here."
+
+"Are you a surgeon as well as a lord?" asked Bland.
+
+"Oh no. I don't know anything about surgery. My idea--"
+
+"Then I expect the wounded, if there are any, would rather you left
+them alone. Besides, a town like this must have hundreds of doctors in
+it. They'll all be out after the wounded by this time as keen as
+vultures. It isn't every day that an ordinary practitioner gets the
+chance of gouging out bullets. They wouldn't let you interfere with
+their sport even if you paid them. There won't, as a matter of fact,
+be nearly enough wounded to go round the profession. They'd hate to
+have an amateur chipping in. Let's forage about a bit and get some
+food."
+
+It was not very easy to find food in the club, and the only surviving
+waiter was still undressing Clithering. But Bland is a good forager.
+He found two dressed crabs somewhere, and then came upon a game pie. I
+let him have the dressed crabs all to himself. He is a much younger
+man than I am and is a war correspondent. He ought to be able to
+digest anything.
+
+I fully intended to eat three helpings of game pie, for I was very
+hungry; but before I had finished the first of them I was interrupted.
+Crossan stalked into the room. He was the last man I wanted to see.
+His appearance and manner are, at the best of times, tragic.
+Clithering had been with me, off and on, most of the day, so I had got
+rather tired of tragedy.
+
+"I think it right to inform your lordship," said Crossan, "that Mr.
+Godfrey D'Aubigny has just been arrested in the streets."
+
+"Good!" I said. "I hope that whoever has him won't let him go."
+
+"He's to be tried by court martial," said Crossan, "on suspicion of
+being a spy."
+
+Godfrey actually haunts me. No sooner have I achieved a moment's
+peace and quietness--with the greatest difficulty in the middle of a
+rebellion--than Godfrey breaks in on me. How he came to be in Belfast
+I could only dimly guess. It seemed likely that, having heard that a
+battle was going on, he came to the scene of it in the hope of
+pillage.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "they won't actually hang him?"
+
+"It was him, as your lordship is aware," said Crossan, "that gave the
+first information to the Government."
+
+Crossan, in spite of the fact that he was a victorious general,
+preserved his peculiar kind of respect for my title. He did not,
+indeed, take off his hat when he entered the room, but that was only
+because soldiers, while on duty, never take off their hats.
+
+"Don't be absurd, Crossan," I said. "You know perfectly well that he
+hasn't intelligence enough to give anything but wrong information to
+any Government. What he told the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he
+wrote to him was that you were smuggling."
+
+"If your lordship doesn't care to interfere--," said Crossan.
+
+"Can I help in any way?" said Bland.
+
+He had been eating steadily and had finished the two crabs. I had not
+eaten more than three or four mouthfuls of game pie. I felt I might
+accept his offer.
+
+"If you've any experience of courts martial," I said, "I haven't--and
+if you really don't mind trotting off--"
+
+"Not a bit," said Bland. "In fact a court martial would be rather a
+scoop for me. I'm sure the public would want to know how it's run."
+
+"I shall feel greatly obliged to you," I said. "The fact is that a
+nephew of mine is going to be hanged as a spy. You said you were going
+to hang him, didn't you, Crossan?"
+
+"I think it likely, my lord," said Crossan.
+
+"Of course," I said, "he richly deserves it; and so far as my own
+personal feelings go I should be very glad if he were hanged. But, of
+course, he's my nephew and people might think I'd been unkind to him
+if I made no effort to save him. One must consider public opinion more
+or less. So if you could arrange to rescue him--"
+
+While I was speaking Clithering shambled into the room. He was wearing
+a suit of pyjamas not nearly big enough for him. The waiter who put
+him to bed was quite a small man. The pyjamas must have been his. He
+asked us to find his clothes for him, and said that he wanted to go to
+the post-office.
+
+"I must send a telegram to the Prime Minister," he said. "I must send
+it at once."
+
+Crossan eyed him very suspiciously.
+
+"It strikes me," said Bland, "that if you're caught sending telegrams
+to the Prime Minister you'll be hanged too."
+
+"They're just going to hang a nephew of mine," I explained, "for
+writing a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You can see for
+yourself that a telegram to the Prime Minister is much worse. I really
+think you'd better stay where you are."
+
+But Clithering was, unfortunately, in a mood of hysterical heroism. He
+said that he did not value his life, that lives were only given to men
+in order that they might lay them down, and that the noblest way of
+laying down a life was in the service of humanity.
+
+I could see that Crossan was getting more and more suspicious every
+minute.
+
+"It is in order to save the lives of others," he said, "that I want to
+send my telegram to the Prime Minister."
+
+Crossan actually scowled at Clithering. I expected that he would
+arrest him at once. There might have been, for all I knew, a Committee
+of Public Safety sitting in the Town Hall. I could imagine Crossan
+hauling the unfortunate Clithering before it on a charge of
+communicating with the Prime Minister. I could imagine Clithering,
+heroic to the last, waving his incriminating telegram in the faces of
+his judges. Bland saved the situation.
+
+"Come along, Colonel," he said. "Show me where that court martial of
+yours is sitting. Lord Kilmore will restrain this lunatic till we get
+back."
+
+Crossan may have been pleased at being addressed as Colonel. Or he may
+have trusted that I would prevent any telegram being sent to the Prime
+Minister. At all events, he stopped scowling at Clithering and went
+off with Bland. I offered Clithering some of the game pie, but he
+refused to touch it. He sat down at a corner of the table and asked me
+to lend him a pencil and some paper. I did so, and he composed several
+long telegrams. The writing evidently soothed him. When he had
+finished he asked me quite calmly whether I thought he would really be
+hanged if he went to the post-office. I was not at all sure that he
+would not. Clithering sighed when he heard my opinion. Then he sat
+silent for a long time, evidently trying to make up his mind to the
+hanging.
+
+"If I could get the telegram through first," he said at last, "I
+shouldn't so much mind--"
+
+"But you wouldn't," I said; "and what is the good of throwing away
+your life without accomplishing anything?"
+
+"It's terrible," said Clithering, "terrible."
+
+It was terrible, of course; but I was beginning to get tired of
+Clithering. Besides, he looked very ridiculous in pyjamas which only
+reached halfway down his legs and arms.
+
+"Don't you think," I said, "that it would be better for you to go back
+to bed? You'll be safe there, and it won't really matter much whether
+your telegram goes to the Prime Minister or not. A little sleep will
+do you all the good in the world."
+
+"We have murdered sleep," said Clithering.
+
+I never realized the full immensity of Clithering's fatuousness until
+he uttered that mangled quotation from Macbeth in the tone of an
+old-fashioned tragedian. I believe the man actually revelled in
+harrowing emotion. It would not have surprised me to hear him assure
+me that the "multitudinous seas" would not wash out the blood-stains
+from his hands. He might very well have asked for "some sweet
+oblivious antidote." If he had known the passages I am sure he would
+have quoted them.
+
+"Do go to bed," I said.
+
+Then Bland came in leading Godfrey with him.
+
+"I rescued him," said Bland, "without very much difficulty."
+
+"I call it frightful cheek," said Godfrey, "fellows like that who
+ought to be touching their hats to me and saying 'Sir' when they speak
+to me--Fancy them daring--"
+
+This view of the matter was very characteristic of Godfrey. I really
+believe that he would dislike being hanged much less if the
+executioner were one of the small class of men whom he recognizes as
+his social equals.
+
+"They gave him quite a fair trial," said Bland, "and had just
+condemned him when--"
+
+"That fellow Crossan in particular," said Godfrey.
+
+"The Colonel ran round to tell you," said Bland. "I rather fancy they
+wanted to get off carrying out the sentence if they could."
+
+"A lot of fellows," said Godfrey sulkily, "who ought to be wheeling
+barrows! But it's very largely your fault, Excellency. You always
+encouraged that class. If you'd kept them in their proper places--"
+
+"What on earth brought you to Belfast?" I said. "Why didn't you stay
+at home? Nobody wants you here. Why did you come?"
+
+Godfrey looked uneasily at Bland. He evidently did not want to make
+his reason for coming to Belfast public property. Godfrey is usually
+quite shameless. I could only imagine that he had done something of a
+peculiarly repulsive kind.
+
+"Well," I said, "why did you come?"
+
+He looked at Bland again, and then nodded sideways at me.
+
+"I suppose," I said, "that you thought there might be some assessment
+made by the Government of the amount of damage done in the town, and
+that if you started valuing things at once on your own hook, you might
+possibly get a job out of it."
+
+"But is there?" said Godfrey eagerly; "for if there is--"
+
+"So far as I know there isn't," I said.
+
+"Anyhow it wasn't that which brought me to Belfast. The fact is,
+Excellency, I couldn't very well stay at home. You remember,"--here
+his voice sunk to a whisper--"what I told you about the Pringles."
+
+"Your bank account?"
+
+"No. Not that. The girl, I mean. Tottie Pringle."
+
+"Oh yes, I remember."
+
+"Well, old Pringle began to get offensive. He seemed to think that I
+ought to--you know."
+
+"Marry her? I expect you ought."
+
+"Excellency?" said Godfrey in genuine horror and amazement.
+
+"By the way," said Bland, "I forgot to mention that I promised the
+court martial to get your nephew out of Belfast before to-morrow
+morning. I hope you don't mind. They wouldn't let him go on any other
+condition."
+
+"Quite right," I said. "Godfrey shall start to-night."
+
+"I don't see why I should," said Godfrey. "I don't think it's at all
+nice of you, Excellency, to--"
+
+"And while we're at it," I said, "we may as well ship off Clithering.
+Godfrey let me introduce you to--"
+
+I looked round and discovered that Clithering was not in the room.
+
+"I hope to goodness," I said, "that he's not gone out to get himself
+hanged. He rather wanted to a few minutes ago."
+
+"It's all right," said Bland. "I saw him going upstairs. I expect he's
+looking for his clothes."
+
+"Godfrey," I said. "I'm going to offer you a great chance. Sir Samuel
+Clithering is in every way a very big man. In the first place he's
+very rich. In the next place he's on intimate terms with the Prime
+Minister. In fact he's been sending him telegrams every hour or so for
+the last two days. You go upstairs and help him to find his clothes.
+Then take him over to London. The Fleetwood steamer is still running.
+If you can get him out of Belfast and lay him down safe and sound on
+his own doorstep the Government will be so grateful that they'll very
+likely make you a stipendiary magistrate."
+
+"But supposing he doesn't want to go?"
+
+"You'll have to make him," I said.
+
+"How?" said Godfrey. "How can I?"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Godfrey," I said. "Nag at him. You've got more than
+two hours before you, and nagging is a thing you're really good at."
+
+Bland took Godfrey by the arm and led him up to Clithering's bedroom.
+He locked them in together, and did not open the door again until half
+an hour before the steamer started. Then he took up Clithering's
+clothes to him. Godfrey had evidently spent the time as I advised.
+Clithering deserved it, of course; but he certainly looked as if he
+had been through a bad time when Bland let him out.
+
+There was a meeting of the Ulster Defence Committee at seven o'clock.
+It was summoned, so the notice which I received informed me, in order
+to make arrangements for preserving the peace of the town. This, I
+thought, was very proper work for the committee. The Cabinet was
+probably making other arrangements with the same object. Between them
+the committee and the Government had destroyed what little peace
+Belfast ever had. The least they could do was to restore it.
+
+Moyne took the chair as usual. He opened our proceedings by saying
+firmly and decisively, that he intended to surrender himself at once
+to the authorities.
+
+"We're the only authorities there are at present," said McNeice, "so
+if you want to surrender--"
+
+"We must resolve ourselves into a Provisional Government," said the
+Dean, who always likes to do things constitutionally.
+
+"The police," said Moyne feebly.
+
+"There aren't any," said McNeice.
+
+"Wiped out," said Malcolmson.
+
+"The General in command of the troops--" said Moyne.
+
+"The troops are shut up in their barracks," said McNeice.
+
+"Licked," said Malcolmson.
+
+"Say," said Conroy, "are you dead sure you whipped them?"
+
+"They bolted," said Malcolmson.
+
+"I don't reckon to be a military expert," said Conroy, "but it kind of
+occurs to me that those troops weren't doing all they knew. I don't
+say but you're quite right to boost your men all you can; but we'll
+make a big mistake if we start figuring on having defeated the British
+army."
+
+"I happen to know," I said, "that Mr. Conroy is quite right.
+Clithering--"
+
+"That spaniel!" said McNeice.
+
+"He told me," I said, "that the troops had orders to fire over our
+men's heads. The idea, I think, was not so much to injure as to
+overawe us."
+
+"It was a damned foolish idea," said McNeice sulkily.
+
+"You cannot," said the Dean, "overawe the men of Ulster."
+
+This is one of the Dean's most cherished opinions. I have heard him
+express it a great many times. I do not know whether the Dean had
+actually been fighting during the afternoon. I am sure he wanted to;
+but he may have considered it his duty to do no more than look on. Our
+Dean is particularly strong on Old Testament history. I am sure he
+recollected that Moses sat on the top of an adjacent hill while Joshua
+was fighting the Amalekites.
+
+"If you want to surrender yourself," said Conroy to Moyne, "I reckon
+you'll have the chance of handing yourself over to a British Admiral
+before long."
+
+"Have you any reason to suppose that the Fleet--?" said Moyne.
+
+"We're ready for them," said Malcolmson. "If the Government thinks it
+can force Home Rule on Ulster with the guns of the Channel Fleet, it's
+making a big mistake. It'll find that out before long."
+
+"If you like, Lord Moyne," said Conroy, "we'll put you under arrest
+and then nobody will be able to hold you responsible afterwards for
+anything that happens. You'll be quite safe."
+
+Whatever Moyne's motives may have been in wishing to surrender
+himself, I am perfectly sure that a desire for his own safety was not
+one of them. I imagine that he hoped, in a confused and troubled way,
+to get himself somehow on the side of law and order again. Moyne was
+never meant to be a rebel.
+
+Conroy's words were insulting, intentionally so, I think. He wished to
+get rid of Moyne before the committee discussed the defence of Belfast
+against the Fleet. He may have wished to get rid of me too. He
+succeeded. Moyne is not nearly so thorough-going a patrician as his
+wife; but he has sufficient class pride to dislike being insulted by a
+millionaire. He got up and left the room. He looked so lonely in his
+dignified retirement that I felt I ought to give him such support as I
+could. I rose too, took his arm, and went out with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+People who organize and carry through revolutions generally begin by
+cutting the telegraph wires, with a view to isolating the scene of
+action. I cannot help thinking that this is a mistake. We kept our
+telegraph offices open day and night, and I am strongly of opinion
+that we gained rather than lost by our departure from the established
+ritual of revolutions. The news which came to us from England was
+often encouraging, and generally of some value. Nor do I think that
+the Government gained any advantage over us by the messages which
+Clithering as their agent, or Bland and others in their capacity of
+public entertainers, sent from Belfast to London.
+
+When Moyne and I got back to our hotel we found two long telegrams and
+one short one waiting for us. The first we opened was from Lady Moyne.
+She had, it appeared, spent a very strenuous day. She caught the Prime
+Minister at breakfast in his own house, and probably spoiled his
+appetite. She ran other members of the Cabinet to earth at various
+times during the day. One unfortunate man she found playing a mixed
+foursome on a suburban golf links. She impressed upon him, as she had
+upon all his colleagues the appalling wickedness of shooting the
+citizens of Belfast. Every one, it appeared, agreed with her on this
+point. The Government's policy, so they told her and she told us, was
+to cow, not to kill, the misguided people who were rioting in
+Belfast. She besought Moyne to use all his influence to moderate the
+anti-Home Rule enthusiasm of Malcolmson and the Dean.
+
+Moyne smiled in a sickly way when we came to this advice.
+
+The other long telegram was from Babberly. I must say that Babberly at
+this crisis displayed immense energy and something like political
+genius. Having been all his life a strong Conservative, and a
+supporter of force as a remedy for every kind of social
+unpleasantness, he turned a most effective somersault and appealed
+suddenly to the anti-militarist feelings of the Labour Party. He
+succeeded--I cannot even imagine how--in organizing a mass meeting in
+Trafalgar Square to protest against the murder of the working-men of
+Belfast in the streets of their own city, by the hired mercenaries of
+the capitalist classes. The meeting was actually engaged in making its
+protest while Moyne and I were reading the telegrams. Babberly's case
+was really extraordinarily strong. Soldiers were shooting off guns in
+Belfast, and the people they fired at--or as we knew, fired over--were
+working-men. There was occasion for a strong and eloquent appeal to
+the sentiment of the solidarity of labour. Babberly was just the man
+to make it with the utmost possible effectiveness. I pictured him
+perched on the head of one of the British lions which give its quite
+peculiar dignity to Trafalgar Square, beseeching a crowd of confused
+but very angry men not to allow the beast to open its mouth or show
+its teeth. I could easily imagine that the news of Babberly's
+exertions, dribbling in during the day to the offices of harassed
+Ministers, might have reinforced with grave political considerations
+the hysterical humanitarian telegrams which Clithering was shooting
+off from the seat of war. A Tory Government might survive a little
+bloodshed. A Liberal Government convicted of having incited a soldier
+to shoot a working-man would be in a perilous position.
+
+"I must say," I said, "that Babberly is infernally clever. I don't
+quite know where he'll find himself afterwards, but--"
+
+"What does it matter about afterwards?" said Moyne, "if only we get
+out of the mess we're in, nothing that happens afterwards need trouble
+us in the least."
+
+"If this meeting of his is really a success," I said, "we may feel
+pretty confident that there'll be no more shooting anyhow."
+
+The next telegram, the short one, rather dashed our hopes of immediate
+peace. It was from Lady Moyne.
+
+"The Channel Fleet," she said, "has been ordered to Belfast Lough.
+Expected to arrive to-morrow morning. Advise unconditional surrender."
+
+Moyne is very fond of his wife, and has a sincere admiration for her
+abilities; but on the receipt of this telegram he lost his temper.
+
+"What on earth," he said, "is the use of advising unconditional
+surrender when Conroy and Malcolmson are engaged at this moment in
+making plans for sinking the Fleet with rifles?"
+
+"I quite agree with you," I said. "There's no kind of use our going to
+them again. But I don't expect they're relying entirely on rifles.
+Malcolmson always said he understood explosives. He may be laying
+submarine mines opposite Carrickfergus."
+
+Lady Moyne's telegram was not the only warning we received of the
+approaching visit of the Channel Fleet. Our system of leaving the
+telegraph wires intact proved to be an excellent one. Everybody in
+Belfast learnt that the Fleet was coming. Everybody, so far as I could
+learn, received the news with joy. Bland was tremendously excited. He
+called on me next morning, and invited me to go with him to see the
+British Fleet in action. He had been up very early and found a place,
+so he said, from which we could have a capital view of the bombardment
+of the town.
+
+"I've got two pairs of field-glasses," he said, "Zeiss prism
+binoculars. We'll see the whole show capitally."
+
+"Was there much other looting last night?" I asked.
+
+"There was none," said Bland. "I hired the glasses. I got them for
+five shillings. Cheap, I call it; but the optician who owned them
+seemed to think they'd be safer if I had them than they would be in
+his shop. More out of the way of shells, I expect."
+
+Moyne refused to come with us. He still cherished the hope of being
+able to surrender himself during the day to some one in recognizable
+authority. Bland and I set out together.
+
+We hurried along High Street, past the Albert Memorial and crossed the
+bridge to the south side of the river. The streets were full of
+volunteers, marching about, all in the highest spirits. The prospect
+of being shelled by the Fleet did not frighten them in the least.
+Having, as they believed, defeated the Army the day before, it seemed
+quite a simple matter to deal with the battleships.
+
+We made our way along the quays, passed through a shipbuilding yard,
+deserted by its workers, and came to a long muddy embankment which
+stretched out on the south side of the channel leading into the
+harbour. On the end of this embankment was a small wooden lighthouse.
+
+"That's our spot," said Bland. "I've got the key of the door."
+
+I will always say for Bland that he has the true instinct of a war
+correspondent. From the top of our tower we saw the Fleet far out in
+the offing. There were not nearly so many ships as I expected. I
+counted seven; disagreeable looking monsters with smoke pouring out of
+their funnels. They were too far off for us to see much of them even
+with the aid of our excellent glasses; but what I did see I did not
+like. Fighting against men requires courage, no doubt, especially when
+they have magazine rifles. But men are after all flesh and blood.
+Fighting against vast iron machines seems to me a much more terrifying
+thing. I wondered whether Malcolmson were also watching the ships and
+whether he were any more inclined than he had been the night before to
+unconditional surrender.
+
+While I was gazing out to sea, Bland tapped me on the arm and drew my
+attention to the fact that a company of volunteers was marching out
+along our muddy causeway. They were Bob Power's men and they came
+along whistling "The Protestant Boys," a tune which makes an excellent
+quick-step march. They had spades with them as well as rifles, and
+they set to work at once to entrench themselves.
+
+"They're going to dispute a landing," said Bland, "but I don't see
+what use that is. The Fleet can shell the whole place into ruins in
+two hours without coming within range of their rifles--and--however
+we'll see. The fellow who's running this revolution--Conroy, isn't
+it?--may have something up his sleeve."
+
+One of the battleships detached herself from her fellows and steamed
+rapidly into the Lough. Opposite Carrickfergus her engines were
+stopped, and she turned slowly in a half circle till she lay broadside
+on to us. I could see her distinctly, and I confess that the look of
+her terrified me.
+
+"Cleared for action," said Bland.
+
+A boat was lowered, a steam launch. In a minute or two she was
+speeding towards us, her white ensign trailing astern. Bob Power stood
+up outside his entrenchment and peered at her. As she drew closer we
+could see behind the shelter hood, the young officer who steered her.
+As she swerved this way and that, following the windings of the
+channel, we caught glimpses of a senior officer, seated in the stern
+sheets. Pushing through the calm water at high speed she threw up
+great waves from her bows. Her stern seemed curiously deep in the
+water. When she was almost abreast of our lighthouse Bob hailed her.
+Her engines were stopped at once. A sailor with a boathook in his hand
+sprang into her bow and stood there motionless while the boat glided
+on. I could see the young officer who steered gazing curiously at
+Bob's entrenchments. Then the senior officer stood up.
+
+"An Admiral," said Bland.
+
+He hailed Bob.
+
+"Are you in command here?" he said.
+
+As he spoke the launch stopped abreast of the entrenchments and lay
+motionless in the water.
+
+"I am in command of this detachment," said Bob.
+
+"Then," said the Admiral, "you are to lay down your arms at once."
+
+"You'd better come ashore," said Bob, "and see our commanding officer
+if you want to make terms with us."
+
+The Admiral flushed. He was quite close to us and we could see his
+face distinctly. He looked as if he wanted to say something explosive.
+The idea of being invited to make terms with rebels was evidently very
+objectionable to him. I suppose he must have had strict and binding
+orders from somebody. He did not say any of the things he wanted to.
+The launch's propeller gave a few turns in the water. Then the boat
+slipped up to the shore. The sailor with the boathook held her fast
+while the Admiral stepped out of her. Bob received him most
+courteously. The Admiral glared at Bob. The riflemen, crouched behind
+their mud bank, scowled at the Admiral. The young officer in the
+launch gave an order and his boat was pushed off from the shore. Bob
+and the Admiral walked off together towards the town.
+
+For an hour and a half the launch lay opposite us in the middle of the
+channel. Occasionally, as the ebbing tide carried her down, she
+steamed a little and regained her position opposite the entrenchments.
+Bob's men, realizing that there would be no shooting till the Admiral
+returned, rose from their trench. They strolled about the embankment,
+chatted, smoked, stared at the launch, stared at the battleship from
+which she came, and peered at the more distant fleet which lay hull
+down far out towards the entrance of the lough.
+
+"Unless Mr. Conroy has some game on that we know nothing about," said
+Bland, "he'd better climb down and make the best terms he can."
+
+I think that Bland was nervous. He made that remark or others like it
+several times while we were waiting for the Admiral's return. I
+candidly confess that I was more than nervous. I was desperately
+frightened. I am not, I hope, a coward. I believe that I was not
+afraid of being killed, but I could not take my eyes off the great
+iron ship which lay motionless, without a sign of life about her, a
+black, menacing monster on the calm water of the lough. I was seized,
+obsessed, with a sense of her immense power. She would destroy and
+slay with a horrible, unemotional, scientific deliberation.
+
+"Conroy had better surrender," said Bland. "He can't expect--"
+
+"He won't surrender," I said; "and if he wanted to, the men would not
+let him."
+
+"Damn it," said Bland. "He must. I've seen war, and I tell you he
+must."
+
+At last the Admiral returned. Bob was with him, and was evidently
+trying to make himself agreeable. He was chatting. Occasionally he
+laughed. The Admiral was entirely unresponsive. When he got close
+enough for us to see his face I saw that he looked perplexed and
+miserable. I was miserable and frightened, but the Admiral looked
+worse.
+
+Behind them there was an immense crowd of people; men, armed and
+unarmed, women, even children. It was a mere mob. There was no sign of
+discipline among them. Some young girls, mill-workers with shawls over
+their heads, pressed close on the Admiral's heels. Bob gave an order
+to his men, and they drew up across the end of our embankment. Bob and
+the Admiral passed through the line. The crowd stopped.
+
+The launch drew to shore again. The Admiral stepped on board her, and
+she steamed away.
+
+The crowd hung around the end of our embankment. Some children began
+chasing each other in and out among the men and women. A few girls
+went down to the water's edge and threw in stones, laughing at the
+splashes they made. Then a young man found an empty bottle and flung
+it far out into the channel. Fifty or sixty men and women threw stones
+at it, laughing when shots went wide, cheering when some well-aimed
+stone set the bottle rocking. Further back from the water's edge young
+men and girls were romping with each other, the girls crying shrilly
+and laughing boisterously, the men catching them round their waists or
+by their arms. It might have been a crowd out for enjoyment of a Bank
+Holiday.
+
+The launch reached the battleship, was hoisted and stowed on board.
+Almost immediately a long line of signal flags fluttered from the
+squat mast. Smoke began to pour from the funnels. The flags were
+hauled down and another festoon of them was hoisted in their place. I
+could see an answering stream of flags fluttering from one of the
+ships further out.
+
+Then, very slowly, the great steamer began to move. She went at a
+snail's pace, as it seemed to me, across the lough to the County Down
+coast. Very slowly she swept round in a wide circle and steamed back
+again northward. There was something terrifying in the stately
+deliberation with which she moved. It was as if some great beast of
+prey paced as a sentinel in front of his victim, so conscious of his
+power to seize and kill that he could afford to wait before he sprang.
+
+The crowd behind us was silent now. The laughter and the play had
+ceased. Children were crowding round the women seeking for hands to
+hold. Some of the women, vaguely terror-stricken, looked into the
+faces of the men. Others had drawn a little apart from the rest of the
+crowd and stood in a group by themselves, staring out at the
+battleship. There were middle-aged women and quite young women in this
+group. I raised my field-glasses and scanned their faces. There was
+one expression on them, and only one--not fear, but hatred. Women
+fight sometimes in citizen armies when such things have been called
+into existence. But it is not their fighting power which makes them
+important. That is, probably, always quite inconsiderable. What makes
+them a force to be reckoned with in war is their faculty for hating.
+They hate with more concentration and intensity than men do. These
+women were mindful, perhaps, of the girl with the baby whom Clithering
+had seen shot. They realized, perhaps, the menace for husbands,
+lovers, and sons which lay in the guns of the black ironclad parading
+sluggishly before their eyes. Remembering and anticipating death, they
+hated the source of it with uncompromising bitterness. The men in the
+crowd seemed crushed into silence by mere wonder and expectation of
+some unknown thing. They were not, so far as I could judge, afraid.
+They were not excited. They simply waited to see what was to happen to
+them and their town.
+
+Once more a string of flags fluttered from the ship's mast. Once more
+the answer came from her consorts. Then for the third time she swept
+round. We saw her foreshortened; then end on; then foreshortened again
+as her other side swung into view. At that moment--just before the
+whole length of her lay flat before our eyes she fired. At first I
+scarcely realized that she had fired. There was a small cloud of white
+smoke hanging over her near the bow. That was all for the moment. Then
+came the horrible sound of the great projectile racing through the
+air. Then it was past.
+
+Some women in the crowd, a few, shrieked aloud. Some girls ran wildly
+towards the town, driven, I suppose, to seek shelter of some kind.
+Most of the crowd stood silent. Then from some young men who stood
+together there came a kind of moaning sound. It gathered volume. It,
+as it were, took shape. Voice after voice took it up. The whole
+crowd--many hundreds of men and women--sang together the hymn they had
+all been singing for months past, "O God, our help in ages past." I do
+not know how far back towards the town the singing spread, but it
+would not surprise me to hear that ten thousand voices joined in it.
+
+Bland had his glasses raised. He was still gazing at the battleship.
+
+"A strange answer," I said, "to make to the first shell of a
+bombardment."
+
+"Yes," said Bland. "It reminds me of a profane rhyme which I used to
+hear:
+
+     "'There was a young lady of Zion
+     Who sang Sunday-school songs to a lion.'
+
+"But hers, I should say, was the more sensible proceeding of the two."
+
+I was not sure. It is just conceivable--it seemed to me at that
+moment even likely--that a hymn, sung as that one was, may be the most
+effective answer to a big gun. There are only certain things which
+guns can do. When they have destroyed life and ruined buildings their
+power is spent. But the singing of hymns may, and sometimes does,
+render men for a time at least, indifferent to the loss of their lives
+and the ruin of their houses. Against men in the frame of mind which
+hymn-singing induces the biggest guns are powerless. The original
+singers fall, perhaps, but the spirit of their singing survives. For
+each voice silenced by the bursting shells ten voices take up the
+song.
+
+The battleship, after firing the gun, swung round and once more slowly
+steamed across the lough. I waited, tense with excitement, for her to
+turn again. At the next turn, I felt sure, another shell would come. I
+was wrong. She turned, more slowly than ever as it seemed. No white
+smoke issued from her. Again she steamed northwards. Again, opposite
+Carrickfergus, close to the northern shore, she turned. Right in front
+of her bows the water was suddenly broken. It was as if some one had
+dropped a huge stone close to her. The spray of the splash must have
+fallen on her fore deck.
+
+"My God!" said Bland, "they're firing at her. Look! From the hill
+above the town."
+
+I could not look. My eyes were on the ship as she slowly turned. Her
+side came gradually into view. Then, quite suddenly and for no
+apparent reason, she staggered. I saw her list over heavily, right
+herself again, and steam on.
+
+"Hit!" said Bland. "Hit! Hit!"
+
+He danced beside me with excitement.
+
+Two puffs of smoke hung over the ship's decks, one forward, one aft,
+and blew clear again. But this time we heard no shrieking shells. She
+was firing, not at the town, but at the guns on the hill which
+threatened and wounded her. Then her signal flags ran up again. Before
+the answer came from the other ships the sea was broken twice close to
+her. I looked to see her stagger from another blow, heel over, perhaps
+sink. Her speed increased. In a minute she was rushing towards us,
+flinging white waves from her great bows. Then she swept round once
+more. Fire as well as smoke poured from her funnels. She steamed
+eastwards down the lough. We saw her join the other ships far out. She
+and they lay motionless together.
+
+The crowd behind us began to sing their hymn again.
+
+Bland and I left our lighthouse and went back towards the town. We
+passed Bob and his men in their trench but they scarcely noticed us.
+We pushed our way through the crowd. We passed the shipbuilding yard,
+now full of eager people, discussing the departure of the ship,
+canvassing the possibility of her coming back again.
+
+"What guns have they on the Cave Hill?" said Bland.
+
+"I don't know," I said. "I did not know that they had any guns."
+
+"I wonder where they got them," said Bland. "I wonder who has command
+of them."
+
+I could answer, or thought I could answer, both questions. As we
+struggled through the crowds which thronged the quay I told Bland of
+the visits of the _Finola_ to our bay and of the piles of huge
+packing-cases which Godfrey had shown me in the sheds behind the
+store.
+
+"But who fired them?" said Bland. "Who have you got who understands
+them? Those were big guns."
+
+"Malcolmson," I said, "always said he understood guns."
+
+"He does," said Bland. "If he'd shot just the least shade better he'd
+have sunk that ship."
+
+On the bridge we met McConkey, sweating profusely, taking his
+favourite weapon along at a rapid trot. He stopped when he saw us and
+halted his breathless team.
+
+"I have her working again," he said, "and she'll shoot the now."
+
+"You're too late," said Bland.
+
+"Is she sunken?" said McConkey. "Man o' man but I'm sorry for it. I
+wanted sore to have a shot at her."
+
+"She's not sunk," said Bland, "but she's gone. Steamed clean out of
+range of your gun."
+
+"I'd have liked well to have got to her before she quit," said
+McConkey. "Did you hear tell what she did with that shell she fired
+into the town?"
+
+"No," I said. "Did it kill many people?"
+
+"Sorra the one," said McConkey. "But I'll tell you what it did do."
+His voice sank to a hoarse but singularly impressive whisper. "It made
+flitters of the statue of the old Queen that was sitting fornint the
+City Hall. The like of thon is nice work for men that's wearing the
+King's uniform."
+
+Bland burst into a sudden fit of boisterous laughter.
+
+"You may laugh if it pleases you," said McConkey, "but I'm thinking
+it's time for loyal men to be getting guns of their own when the
+Government is that thick with rebels and Papishes that they'd go
+shooting at the ould Queen who was always a decent woman, so she was,
+and too good for the like of them."
+
+McConkey's story was perfectly true. The solitary shell which was
+fired into Belfast fell just outside the City Hall. It injured that
+building a good deal; and it entirely destroyed the statue of Queen
+Victoria. It is a curious evidence of the amazing loyalty of the
+people of Belfast that many of them were more angry at this insult to
+Majesty than they would have been if the shell had killed half a dozen
+volunteers. McConkey was not by any means the only man who saw in the
+accident evidence of an unholy alliance between the Liberal Government
+and the men whom Babberly was accustomed to describe as "Steeped to
+the lips in treason."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Bland and I stood together outside the City Hall and surveyed the
+shattered fragments of the statue. The shell must have exploded quite
+close to it, and I was immensely impressed at first with the terrific
+power of modern artillery. Then I began to think about the moral
+effects of the bombardment, and I saw my way to helping Bland in his
+profession. He had been very kind to me and very helpful. I wanted to
+do him a good turn if I could.
+
+"This," I said, "is a magnificent opportunity for you. You'll be able
+to send off a telegram to your newspaper which will make your fortune
+as a correspondent."
+
+"I don't see that," said Bland. "If there'd been a little slaughter I
+might have made something out of it. But a statue! Hang it all! One
+statue is rather a poor bag for the British Fleet. The people are
+proud of their navy. They've spent a lot of money on it, and they
+won't like being told that it has hit nothing but a statue, after a
+long morning's shooting."
+
+Bland had not grasped my idea. For a moment I was inclined to keep it
+for my own use and work it up into an article when I got time. But
+Bland deserved something from me. I resisted the temptation and gave
+him the idea.
+
+"I wish," I said, "that I were a special correspondent. I'd--"
+
+"Well," said Bland. "What would you say?"
+
+"I should take that New Zealander who stood on the broken arch of
+Westminster Bridge and--"
+
+"Macaulay's," said Bland. "I don't think that the public would stand
+him again. He's played out."
+
+"Not in the way I mean to use him. I should, so to speak, spiritualize
+him, and--"
+
+"Hold on a minute," said Bland.
+
+He got out a note-book and a pencil and prepared to write.
+
+"Now," he said, "go on."
+
+Bland's expectant attitude, and the fact that he was evidently going
+to take down what I said in shorthand, embarrassed me. When I write
+essays I like to work deliberately and to correct carefully. I aim at
+a polished elegance of style. I do not care for the kind of offhand
+composition Bland asked for.
+
+"'Interview with a Revolutionary Peer,'" said Bland, "'Lord Kilmore on
+the Ulster Situation.' You were just going to say--"
+
+"Oh, nothing much. Only that the feelings of that New Zealander--"
+
+"Meditating on the ruins of a shattered civilization," said Bland. "I
+can put in that part myself."
+
+"--Are nothing to yours--" I said.
+
+"_Yours_," said Bland.
+
+"Well, mine, if this must be an interview; but I'd rather you had the
+whole credit.--Are nothing to mine when I survey the vacant pedestal
+of that statue. You catch the idea now?"
+
+"No," said Bland. "I don't. Is there one?"
+
+"Yes, there is. These unrecognizable fragments of stone, the once
+majestic statue, Ulster's loyalty."
+
+"Good," said Bland. "I have it now." He began to write rapidly. "'To
+the thoughtful mind there was something infinitely tragic in the
+shattered statue of the great queen, symbol of the destruction of an
+ideal. England bought the friendship of Nationalist Ireland at a heavy
+price when the guns of her Fleet annihilated the loyalty of Ulster.'
+That's your idea."
+
+"You've got it exactly," I said.
+
+"I'll send it off at once."
+
+"Yes. You'd better hurry. It's almost certain to occur to Babberly,
+and the moment it does he'll put it into a speech. If he does, the
+whole credit will go to him."
+
+This impressed Bland. He hurried away towards the post-office. I felt
+that I was not likely to get anything more out of the statue. I put a
+small bit of it in my pocket to keep as a souvenir, and then strolled
+along Donegal Place.
+
+I met Crossan, who saluted me gravely.
+
+"The provisional Government," he said, "desires your lordship's
+presence in the City Hall."
+
+"I'm glad there's a provisional Government," I said. "We want
+something of the sort. Do you happen to know if I'm a member of it?"
+
+"I've been looking for you, my lord," said Crossan, severely, "for
+over an hour, and there's no time to waste."
+
+I hurried off. The Government, after driving off the British Fleet,
+was likely to be in a good temper, but I did not wish to keep it
+waiting for me too long.
+
+When I entered the room I found Conroy, McNeice, Malcolmson, Cahoon
+and the Dean seated at the table. Moyne was not there.
+
+"I congratulate you, gentlemen," I said, "on the result of the
+naval engagement. Malcolmson was perfectly magnificent. It was you,
+wasn't it, who--?"
+
+"I didn't see anything magnificent about it," said Malcolmson,
+sulkily.
+
+"We're damned well sick of being played with," said McNeice.
+
+"If the English Government means to fight us--" said the Dean,
+speaking explosively.
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that you think the Admiral was not in
+earnest in that bombardment?"
+
+"No more than the soldiers were yesterday," said McNeice. "They fired
+over our heads."
+
+"And we're not going to stand any more fooling," said Malcolmson.
+
+"We're business men," said Cahoon, "and this sort of play-acting won't
+do for Belfast."
+
+"Your boss politicians," said Conroy, "have been flooding us out with
+telegrams."
+
+There was a large pile of telegrams in front of him and some forty or
+fifty loose sheets of flimsy yellow paper were scattered about the
+table.
+
+"Their notion," said Conroy, "is that we should send a man over to
+negotiate."
+
+"An ambassador," I said, "Plenipotentiary?"
+
+"Lord Moyne won't go," said the Dean.
+
+"He's the proper man," I said. "Let's try to persuade him."
+
+"He's up at the barracks," said McNeice. "He's been there all morning
+trying to get the General to arrest him."
+
+"It would be far better," I said, "if he went to London and handed
+himself over to the Prime Minister."
+
+"European convention," said Conroy, "makes it necessary, so I am
+informed, that this particular kind of job should be done by a member
+of your aristocracy."
+
+I was, I think, with the exception of Moyne, the only member of the
+House of Lords in Belfast at the moment. The committee had evidently
+fixed on me as an ambassador.
+
+"There is," I said, "a tradition that the Diplomatic Service should
+be--but our circumstances are so very peculiar--I am not sure that we
+ought to feel bound--"
+
+"Will you go?" said Conroy.
+
+"Of course, I'll go," I said. "There's nothing I should like better."
+
+"The _Finola_ is lying off Bangor," said Conroy. "I'll run you and
+Power down there in my motor. He'll land you wherever you like."
+
+"Good," I said. "I suppose I'll go in my shirt with a rope round my
+neck, like the burghers of Calais."
+
+"If that's the regular costume," said Conroy.
+
+He spoke so severely that I thought I had better drop the subject of
+clothes.
+
+"Now, as to the terms which you are prepared to offer the Government,"
+I said.
+
+"We will not have Home Rule," said the Dean and Malcolmson together.
+
+"Of course not," I said. "That will be understood at once. Shall I
+demand Mr. Redmond's head on a charger? I don't suppose you want it,
+but it's always well to ask for more than you mean to take. It gives
+the other side a chance of negotiating."
+
+"All we ask," said McNeice, "is that the English clear out of this
+country, bag and baggage, soldiers, policemen, tax collectors, the
+whole infernal crew, and leave us free hand to clean up the mess
+they've been making for the last hundred years."
+
+"Either that," said Malcolmson, "or fight us in earnest."
+
+"They'll clear out, of course," I said. "If it's a choice between that
+and fighting. But what about governing the country afterwards?"
+
+"We'll do that," said Conroy, "and if we can't do it better than they
+did--"
+
+"Oh, you will," I said. "Anyhow, you can't do it worse. But--there's
+just one point more. What about the Lord Lieutenant?"
+
+"I don't know that he matters any," said Conroy.
+
+"He doesn't," I said, "not a bit. But he's there at present, and some
+arrangement will have to be made about him."
+
+"If the Dublin people like airing their best clothes before an
+imitation king," said Cahoon, "let them. It won't matter to us."
+
+This showed me that Cahoon, at least, has a statesman's mind. In
+unessential matters he is ready to yield to the sentiments of his
+inferiors.
+
+"I understand then," I said, "that the Lord Lieutenant with the purely
+ornamental part of the Viceregal staff is to be allowed to remain on
+the condition that he gives--shall we say eight balls and eight
+dinner-parties every year?--and that every other Englishman leaves the
+country at once. Those are your terms."
+
+"And no more talk about Home Rule," said the Dean firmly.
+
+"Very well," I said, "I'll start at once."
+
+Bob Power was waiting for me in Conroy's motor when I had packed my
+bag. The streets were very crowded as we drove through them, and the
+people cheered us tremendously. It was the first time I had ever been
+cheered, and I found the sensation agreeable. Besides cheering, the
+crowd sang a great deal. Some one had composed a song especially for
+the occasion, which had caught the fancy of the Belfast people, and
+spread among them with wonderful rapidity. The tune, I am told, dates
+from the days of the eighteenth-century volunteer movement.
+
+      "Do you think I'm a fool
+       To put up with Home Rule?
+     For I'm not, as you'll quickly discover, discover.
+       For soldier and rebel
+       I'm equally able;
+     I'll neither have one nor the t'other, the t'other."
+
+As poetry this is scarcely equal to Dr. Isaac Watts' version of the
+ninetieth of David's psalms. The rhyme of "rebel" with "able" is
+defective, and "discover" and "other" jar rather badly; but poets of
+high reputation have done worse in times of patriotic excitement, and
+the thing expressed the feelings of the Belfast people with perfect
+accuracy. A better poet might very well have failed to understand
+them.
+
+Bob and I made the sea-passage as short as possible by steaming to
+Port Patrick. I spent an anxious half-hour while we passed through the
+squadron of warships. Bob assured me that they would not do anything
+to us. When I complained that they had a truculent and angry look
+about them he said that that was nothing out of the common. All
+warships look truculent. I dare say they do. Warfare has become much
+more civilized and scientific than it used to be; but we cannot any
+of us afford as yet to neglect the wisdom of the mediaeval Chinese.
+They wore masks in order to terrify their foes. Our battleships are
+evidently designed with the same object.
+
+I reached London next morning, and at once sent word to the Prime
+Minister that I was ready to make a treaty with him. He sent Sir
+Samuel Clithering to act as an intermediary. We met in the library of
+Moyne House, which was neutral ground. Lady Moyne had been one of the
+original syndicate which, so to speak, placed our insurrection on the
+market. Her house was therefore friendly soil for me. She had
+afterwards disassociated herself, more or less, from Conroy and
+McNeice; while Moyne had been trying for two days to surrender
+himself. The Prime Minister's ambassador could therefore go to Moyne
+House without loss of dignity.
+
+Clithering brought my nephew Godfrey with him.
+
+"Mr. D'Aubigny," he said, "is acting for the present as one of my
+private secretaries."
+
+Clithering is a man who accumulates private secretaries rapidly. It
+would not have surprised me to hear that he had a dozen.
+
+"I brought him," Clithering went on, "to take notes of our
+conversation. I thought that you would prefer him to a stranger."
+
+I should very much have preferred the young man from Toynbee Hall who
+escorted Marion to the cathedral. I should, in fact, have preferred
+any other private secretary. But I had not the heart to say so. The
+experience of the last few days had softened me, and Godfrey looked
+immensely pleased with himself. He had on a new frock coat,
+beautifully cut, and a pair of trousers of an exquisite shade of grey.
+He also had a pale mauve tie with a pearl pin in it.
+
+Clithering began rather pompously. I dare say he really thought that
+he was in a position to dictate terms.
+
+"I hope," he said, "I sincerely hope that you fully realize the
+extraordinary forbearance with which the Government has treated
+this--this--"
+
+"Don't say rebellion," I said; "we're thoroughly loyal men and always
+have been."
+
+Clithering hesitated. He wanted to say rebellion, but he remembered
+that he was engaged in a game of diplomacy.
+
+"This _emeute_," he said at last.
+
+French is, after all, a greater language than English. I could not
+object to _emeute_. I should have objected to any English description
+of our rising.
+
+"We might," said Clithering, "have shot the people down. We might have
+bombarded the town. I am sure that you realize that."
+
+"We realize it," I said, "but we don't altogether appreciate it. In
+fact, we feel that your way of conducting the war has been rather
+insulting to us."
+
+"You don't mean to say," said Clithering, "that you really wanted
+us--to--to shoot in earnest?"
+
+"We did. In fact one of the alternatives which I am empowered to offer
+you--"
+
+"Offer us! But we--we are--I mean to say that the terms of settlement
+must, of course, be dictated by us."
+
+"Not at all," I said. "Godfrey, you can't write shorthand, I know; but
+you must try and take down what I'm going to say now as accurately as
+possible. I'll speak quite slowly. The Government--I mean, of course,
+so far as Ulster is concerned, the late Government--your
+Government--must either conduct the war in a proper business-like
+way--have you got that down, Godfrey?"
+
+"Do you mean," said Clithering, "that you want us--?"
+
+"I mean," I said, "that we have put our money into it. Conroy, in
+particular, has spent huge sums on cannons. We are determined to have
+a show of some sort. Your Government must therefore either agree to
+fight properly and not keep running away every time we get a shot in,
+or--"
+
+"Yes," said Clithering, "go on."
+
+"I'm waiting," I said, "till Godfrey gets that written down. Have you
+finished, Godfrey? Very well. Or--now take this down carefully--you
+English clear out of Ireland altogether, every man of you, except--"
+
+"But--but--but--" said Clithering.
+
+"And leave us to manage Ireland ourselves. Got that, Godfrey?"
+
+"But," said Clithering; "but--I thought you didn't want Home Rule."
+
+"We don't. We won't have it at any price."
+
+"But that is Home Rule of the most extreme kind."
+
+"There's no use splitting hairs," I said, "or discussing finicking
+points of political nomenclature. The point for you to grasp is that
+those are our terms."
+
+"Will you excuse me?" said Clithering. "This is all rather surprising.
+May I call up the Prime Minister on the telephone?"
+
+"Certainly," I said. "I'm in no hurry. But be sure you put it to him
+distinctly. I don't want to have any misunderstanding."
+
+There was no telephone in the library of Moyne House. Clithering had
+to ring for a servant who led him off to another room. Godfrey seized
+the opportunity of his absence to confide in me.
+
+"Poor old Clithering is a bit of a bounder," he said. "Makes
+stockings, you know, Excellency. And Lady Clithering is a fat
+vulgarian. It's all she can do to pick up her aitches. I shouldn't
+think of stopping in their house if--"
+
+"If any one else would give you food and pocket money."
+
+"There's that, of course," said Godfrey. "But what I was thinking of
+is the daughter. There is a daughter and she ought to have a tidy
+little pile. Now do you think it would be worth my while to marry into
+a family like that for forty thou.? Clithering ought to run to forty
+thou., with the title in sight. I wonder if you would mind sounding
+him, Excellency?"
+
+"At present," I said, "I'm arranging about the fate of Belfast, which
+is rather an important matter in some ways. But--"
+
+Godfrey did not seem to care much about the fate of Belfast.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that it really is settled about Marion and that
+fellow Power."
+
+"Quite," I said; "they're to be married at once."
+
+"Then I think, Excellency, if you don't mind speaking to old
+Clithering--I wouldn't like to commit myself until I was pretty sure
+of the money. There's only one daughter, so he can hardly offer less
+than forty thou."
+
+I fully intended to tell Godfrey what I thought of him; but words were
+not easy to find. I was still searching for a noun to go along with
+"damnable" when Clithering came back. He seemed greatly excited.
+
+"The Prime Minister," he blurted out, "is quite ready--He says he has
+no objection--In fact it's what we've been trying to do all along. Our
+Home Rule Bill was simply an attempt--"
+
+"Do try to be coherent," I said. "What did the Prime Minister say?"
+
+"He said we'd leave Ireland with the greatest pleasure," said
+Clithering.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+Something in the way Clithering spoke made me think the Prime Minister
+must have said more than that.
+
+"He added," said Clithering, "that--"
+
+Then he paused nervously.
+
+"Out with it," I said. "It's far better to have no secrets. Godfrey,
+take down the Prime Minister's words."
+
+"He added," said Clithering, "that there is only one thing which would
+please him better than to see the back of the last Irishman leaving
+Westminster, and that is--"
+
+"Go on," I said.
+
+"To hear that at the end of three weeks you'd all torn each other to
+pieces, and that there was nothing but a lot of trouser buttons left
+to show that Ireland had ever been an inhabited country. Of course he
+didn't mean it. If there was the least chance of any internecine
+strife our conscience would not allow us--after all we have a duty, as
+Englishmen--but there's no risk of bloodshed, is there, Lord Kilmore?"
+
+"Not the slightest. I may take it then that your Government agrees to
+our terms. You cart away your army and all your officials, except the
+Lord Lieutenant. We want him. He's to give parties for the Dublin
+doctors and the smaller landed gentry."
+
+"But about his salary," said Clithering. "Is that to be an Imperial
+charge, or are you--?"
+
+"I forgot to ask about that," I said, "but if there's any difficulty I
+expect Conroy will agree to pay it. It's not much, is it?"
+
+"I'm not sure of the exact figure; but I know it's never supposed to
+be enough."
+
+"I've no actual authority for saying so," I said, "but I expect we'll
+want to do the thing decently if we do it at all. Cahoon has the mind
+of a statesman, and in his opinion something will have to be done to
+soothe the Dublin public. A first-rate Viceregal establishment was his
+idea. However, we needn't go into details. The main thing is that we
+want a Lord Lieutenant. If your Government undertakes to supply
+suitable men from time to time I think I may promise that we'll find
+the money. Write that down, Godfrey."
+
+"When you speak of the English clearing out of Ireland," said
+Clithering, "and leaving you the country to yourselves, you don't of
+course mean absolute fiscal independence."
+
+"We do," I said.
+
+"You can't mean that," said Clithering. "It's costing us nearly two
+millions a year to run the country, and if that's withdrawn you will
+go bankrupt."
+
+"What McNeice said," I replied, "was that you were to clear out, bag,
+baggage, soldiers, police, tax-collectors, and the whole--"
+
+"Tax-collectors!" said Clithering. "I'm not sure--"
+
+"Didn't your Prime Minister say he'd be glad to get rid of us? What's
+the use of your arguing on about every little point?"
+
+"But," said Clithering, "the collection of the revenue! Between
+ourselves now, Lord Kilmore, do you think there would be any risk of
+your imposing a tariff on--"
+
+"Certain to," I said. "It will be one of the first things we do."
+
+"We can't agree to that," said Clithering. "Free Trade is a principle,
+a sacred principle with us. You can't expect--We are a Free Trade
+Government. Our consciences--"
+
+"Very well," I said. "Go on with the war. Bombard Belfast. Kill
+another woman. Smash the Albert Memorial with a shell."
+
+"Our consciences--" said Clithering.
+
+"Your consciences," I said, "will have to let you do one thing or the
+other."
+
+"Now take my own case," said Clithering. "I am interested, deeply
+interested, in hosiery. We do a big business in stockings."
+
+Godfrey winced. I do not wonder. The future Lady Kilmore must, of
+course, wear stockings, but it is not pleasant for Godfrey to think of
+her supply coming straight from the paternal factory.
+
+"The Irish trade," said Clithering, "is not among the most
+remunerative, but--"
+
+"We can only afford to wear the cheaper sorts," I said; "and a great
+many of us can't buy any at all. I don't think you need bother about
+the Irish trade."
+
+"Still, it is substantial. Now, a hostile tariff--or a bounty on
+Balbriggan--"
+
+"You'll have to establish a factory in Ireland," I said, "and dodge
+the tariff. Tipperary now. Labour is comparatively cheap, and--After
+all, it's a choice between that and letting the Fleet loose at Belfast
+again."
+
+Clithering thought this over. I think the idea of cheap labour in
+Tipperary cheered him up. When he next spoke it was in a most friendly
+tone.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that the shells which were fired--"
+
+"There was only one," I said.
+
+"I heard that no lives were lost," said Clithering. "I hope that the
+damage done to property was not serious."
+
+"One statue," I said, "was smashed to bits."
+
+"I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed. Now I wonder if you would allow
+me--I mean if the people of Belfast would allow me--as a personal
+expression of the warm feeling of friendliness I've always felt for
+the Irish people, _all_ the Irish people--I wonder if I might offer to
+replace the statue. I should esteem it an honour."
+
+"It was a very large statue," I said, "and must have cost--"
+
+"Oh, I should not allow considerations of money to stand in my way."
+
+This was handsome. I looked at Godfrey to see how he liked to hear his
+future wife's dowry being frittered away on statues. I could see that
+he was anything but pleased.
+
+"I shall convey your offer," I said, "to the people of Belfast. They
+may not want that exact statue again. We're not quite as keen on Kings
+and Queens as we were. But I feel quite sure something symbolic would
+appeal to us strongly. What would you think now of Ulster as an infant
+Hercules strangling a snake representing Home Rule? Any good sculptor
+would knock off something of that sort for you; about twelve feet by
+nine feet, not counting the pedestal. By the way, did we do much
+damage to your ship? The one Malcolmson hit with his cannon ball?"
+
+"I don't know," said Clithering. "I did not hear any details."
+
+"Because," I said, "if she is injured in any way--But perhaps she was
+insured?"
+
+"I don't think men-of-war are insured."
+
+"Well, they ought to be. But if that one wasn't I'm sure we'd like to
+make good any damage we did. Conroy has lots of money, and he'd be
+sorry if the English people were put to any expense in repairing a
+battleship we injured."
+
+I am not a practised ambassador, but I have always understood that
+diplomacy is a trade in which politeness pays. I was not going to be
+outdone by Clithering. When he offered Belfast a new statue I could
+hardly do less than promise that Conroy would mend the ship. I was
+very glad afterwards that I thought of it. Clithering was tremendously
+pleased, and made me quite a long speech. He said that he looked upon
+my offer as a kind of first-fruit of the new spirit of amity which
+was coming into existence between England and Ireland.
+
+This ended our negotiations to the satisfaction of every one
+concerned.
+
+Lady Moyne returned at once to Castle Affey and spent the summer in
+planning new ways of keeping the insurgent industrial democracy from
+invading the rights and privileges of the propertied classes. Last
+time I dined there she explained to me a scheme for developing the Boy
+Scout movement, which would, she thought, distract the attention of
+the public and push social questions into the background. Babberly
+escaped having to address a labour meeting in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He
+had promised to do this, but there was no necessity for him to keep
+his promise once the troops were withdrawn from Belfast. He returned
+to his duties in Parliament, and, as I gathered from the papers,
+harassed the Government successfully all through the autumn session.
+The Dean and Crossan played their hymn tune on our church bells every
+day for a fortnight. They still--and I am writing several months after
+the new Irish Government has been firmly established--congratulate
+each other on the way in which the third Home Rule Bill was defeated
+by the unfaltering attitude of the Ulster Loyalists.
+
+Godfrey, I regret to say, failed to marry Miss Clithering. She took a
+violent dislike to him after he had spent three weeks in her father's
+house. Not even the prospect of becoming Lady Kilmore would reconcile
+her to the marriage. I am therefore still responsible for his
+maintenance.
+
+I have, unfortunately, been obliged to give up writing my "History of
+Irish Rebellions." I do not understand Marion's system of filing, and
+I cannot find any of the papers I want. I cannot get Marion to explain
+things to me, or to take any trouble to help me. Since she married Bob
+Power she has lost all interest in my literary work.
+
+                         THE END
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
+intent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Red Hand of Ulster, by George A. Birmingham
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED HAND OF ULSTER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29533.txt or 29533.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/3/29533/
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/29533.zip b/29533.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9513906
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29533.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b306c5f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #29533 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29533)