The Red Hand of Ulster Part 24

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. c.l.i.thering, 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 n.o.body liked to protest, because n.o.body, 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 c.l.i.thering. 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. n.o.body offered any interruption, but n.o.body 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 pa.s.sing the time they began to sing "O G.o.d, our help in ages past."

"It is of the utmost importance to us," said Babberly, "to retain the sympathies of the English const.i.tuencies. 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 const.i.tutional 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 paris.h.i.+oner 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sent.

"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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sured, 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.