The Red Hand of Ulster Part 12

"Very well," I said. "_They._ So long as you know who I mean, the p.r.o.noun 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 pa.s.sionately 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 d.a.m.ned," 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 d.a.m.ned 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 ma.s.sacre of Drogheda was agreeable enough to him, provided the inhabitants of the town were the people to whom he denied the t.i.tle 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 doc.u.ment which breathed the spirit of moderate const.i.tutionalism, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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--d.a.m.n 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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.