The Red Hand of Ulster/Chapter 12

UR meeting on the 12th of July was held in the Botanic Gardens, and nobody marched past anything. A platform, not unlike the Grand Stand at a country race meeting, was built on the top of a long slope of grass. At the bottom of the slope was a level space, devoted at ordinary times to tennis-courts. Beyond that the ground sloped up again. The botanists who owned the gardens must, I imagine, have regretted that our meeting was a splendid success. I did not see their grounds afterwards, but there cannot possibly have been much grass left. The poor tennis-players must have been cut off from their game for the rest of the summer. The space in front of the platform was packed with men, and the air was heavy with the peculiarly pungent smell of orange peel. I cannot imagine how any one in the crowd managed to peel an orange. The men seemed to be so tightly packed as to make the smallest movement impossible. Possibly the oranges were deliberately peeled beforehand by the organizers of the meeting with a view to creating the proper atmosphere for the meeting. There certainly is a connection between the smell of oranges and political enthusiasm. I felt a wave of strong feeling come over me the moment I climbed to my seat; and as no one had at that time made a speech, it can only have been the oranges which affected me. I wish some philosopher would work out a theory of oranges. The 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.