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The Red Hand of Ulster

by George A. Birmingham · English · Gutenberg #29533 · 432,875 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Red Hand of Ulster

Author: George A. Birmingham


        
Release date: July 29, 2009 [eBook #29533]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE 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 sai

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