The Red Hand of Ulster Part 23

"The situation--the very difficult and distressing situation is this,"

said c.l.i.thering, "stated roughly it is this. The Government has proclaimed to-morrow's meeting."

"That," I said, "is the pit into which--I don't want to be offensive--I'll say, your ox has fallen."

"And the town is full of troops and police. Any attempt to hold the meeting can only result in bloodshed, deplorable bloodshed, the lives of men and women, innocent women sacrificed."

"The strength of Babberly's position," I said, "is that he doesn't think bloodshed deplorable."

"But he does. He told me so in London. He repeated the same thing this morning."

"I don't mean Babberly personally," I said, "I mean his party; Malcolmson, you know, and our Dean. If you'd only gone to hear the Dean preach this morning you'd know what he thinks about blood. I've often heard him say that the last drop of it--mind that now, Sir Samuel--the last drop ought to be shed. That's going as far as any one very well could, isn't it?"

"But he must," said c.l.i.thering, "he must think bloodshed deplorable."

"No, he doesn't," I said. "You mustn't think everybody is like your Government. It's humanitarian. We're not. We're business men."

c.l.i.thering caught at the last phrase. It appealed to him. He did not know the meaning attached to it by Cahoon.

"That's just it," he said. "We want to appeal to you as business men.

We want to suggest a reasonable compromise."

"I'm afraid," I said, "that you've come to the wrong place. I'm not the least averse to compromises myself, in fact I love them. But the Belfast business man--You don't quite understand him, I'm afraid, Sir Samuel. Have you heard him singing his hymn?"

"No. What hymn? But leaving the question of hymns aside for the moment--"

"You can't do that," I said, "the hymn is the central fact in the situation."

c.l.i.thering thought this over and evidently failed to understand it.

"What I am empowered to suggest," he said, "is a compromise so very favourable to the Ulster claims that I can hardly imagine your rejecting it. The Government will allow the meeting to be held this day week if your committee will agree to the postponement."

"If," I said, "you will also withdraw your Home Rule Bill--"

"But we can't," said c.l.i.thering. "We can't do that. We'll insert any reasonable safeguards. We'll concede anything that Ulster likes to ask, but we're pledged, absolutely pledged, to the Bill."

"Well," I said, "as far as pledges are concerned, we're pledged against it."

"What we deprecate," said Sir Samuel, "is violence of any kind.

Const.i.tutional agitation, even if carried on with great bitterness is one thing. Violence--but I'm sure, Lord Kilmore, that we can rely on you to use your influence at the meeting this afternoon to secure the acceptance of the terms we offer. I'm sure we can count on you. You can't _want_ bloodshed."

I did not want bloodshed, of course. I do not suppose that anybody did. What c.l.i.thering could not understand was that some people--without wanting bloodshed--might prefer it to Home Rule. He left me, still I fancy relying on my well-known moderation. No man ever relied on a more utterly useless crutch. Moderation has never been of the slightest use anywhere in Ireland and was certainly a vain thing in Belfast that day.

I walked round to the club and found n.o.body in it except Conroy. He alone, among the leading supporters of the Loyalist movement, had failed to go to church. I thought I might try how he would regard the policy of moderation.

"I suppose," I said, "that you'll have to give up this meeting to-morrow."

"I don't think so," said Conroy.

"I've just been talking to Sir Samuel c.l.i.thering," I said, "and he thinks there'll be bloodshed if you don't."

"I reckon he's right there. We're kind of out for that, aren't we?"

"It won't be so pleasant," I said, "when it's your blood that's shed.

I don't mean yours personally, I mean your friends."

"The other side will do some of the bleeding," said Conroy.

"Still," I said, "in the end they'll win."

"I wouldn't bet too heavy on that," said Conroy.

"You don't mean to say that you think that a handful of north of Ireland farmers and mechanics can stand up against the British Empire?"

"It's fixed in my mind," said Conroy, "that the British lion will get his tail twisted a bit before he's through with this business. I don't say that he won't make good in the end. n.o.body but G.o.d Almighty can tell this minute whether he will or not; but he'll be considerable less frisky when he's finished than he is to-day."

"But," I said, "even supposing you clear the streets of the soldiers and police to-morrow--I do not see how you can; but if you do the Government will simply anchor a battleship off Carrickfergus and sh.e.l.l the whole town into a heap of ruins."

"I'm calculating on their trying that," said Conroy.

That was all I could get out of Conroy. I left him, feeling uneasily that his vote would certainly go against c.l.i.thering's compromise. His confidence in the fighting powers of the raw men whom Bob and others had taken to church with them struck me as absurd. His cool a.s.sumption of power to deal with the British fleet was arrogance run mad.

On my way back to my hotel I ran into a congregation which had just got out of some church or other. In the first rank--they were marching in very fair order--was Crossan. He saluted me and stopped.

"I'm thinking," he said, "that you won't have seen them."

He pointed to a small group of men who were bringing up the rear of the congregation's march. They were dragging a heavy object along with two large ropes. I recognized the leader of them at once. He was Cahoon's foreman friend, McConkey. I was pleased to find that he recognized me.

"I have her safe," he said. "Would you like to take a look at her?"

I did. She was a machine gun of a kind quite unknown to me; but her appearance was very murderous. McConkey led me up to her. He stroked her black side lovingly and patted her in various places.

"I was trying her yesterday," he said, "down on the slob land under the Sh.o.r.e Road. Man o' man, but she shoots bonny!"

I had no doubt of it. She was likely to be accountable for a good deal of bloodshed if there was any street fighting next day. The record of her bag would, I should think, haunt Sir Samuel c.l.i.thering for the rest of his life.

"I've a matter of five thousand cartridges," said McConkey in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "and there's another five thousand ordered."

CHAPTER XIX

The committee met at three o'clock in the afternoon. Sir Samuel c.l.i.thering was not, of course, a member of it; but he lurked about outside and waylaid us as we went in. He was in a condition of pitiful bewilderment. Alice whose adventures in Wonderland have been very dear to me since I first read them aloud to Marion, was once placed in a difficult and awkward position by the kings, queens and knaves of the pack of cards with which she was playing coming to life. This was sufficiently embarra.s.sing. But c.l.i.thering was much worse off than Alice. In her story all the cards came to life, and though the unexpectedness of their behaviour made things difficult for her there was a certain consistency about the whole business. A card player might in time adjust himself to a game played with cards which possessed wills of their own. But poor c.l.i.thering had to play with a pack in which one suit only, and it not even the trump suit, suddenly insisted that the game was a reality. The other three suits, the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Irish Nationalists still behaved in the normal way, falling pleasantly on top of each other, and winning or losing tricks as the rules of the game demanded. The Ulster party alone--Clubs, we may call them--would not play fairly. They jumped out of the player's hand and obstinately declared that the green cloth was a real battlefield. The higher court cards of the suit--Lady Moyne for instance, and Babberly--c.l.i.thering felt himself able to control. It was the knaves--I am sure he looked on McNeice as a knave--the tens, the sevens and the humble twos which behaved outrageously.

And c.l.i.thering was not the only player who was perplexed. I had been to luncheon with the Moynes. Babberly was there of course. So was Malcolmson. c.l.i.thering sat next but one to Lady Moyne. Malcolmson was between them. It was a curious alliance. The emissary of the Government, which had pa.s.sed measures which all good aristocrats disliked intensely, joined hands for the moment with the lady whose skill as a political hostess had frequently been troublesome to c.l.i.thering's friends. I do not suppose that such an alliance could possibly last long. Those whom misfortune, according to the old proverb, forces into bed together, always struggle out again at opposite sides when the clouds cease to be threatening. But while it lasted the alliance was firm enough. They were both bent on pressing the advantages of moderation on Malcolmson. They produced very little effect. Malcolmson is impervious to reason. He kept falling back, in replying to their arguments, on his original objection to Home Rule.

"I shall never consent," he said, "to be governed by a pack of blackguards in Dublin."