Augusta Goold’s scheme for enrolling Irish volunteers to help the Boers
was duly set forth in the next issue of the _Croppy_. It included two
appeals--one for money and one for men. The details were worked out
with the frank contempt for possibility which characterizes some of the
famous suggestions of Dean Swift. She had the same faculty that he had
for bringing absurdities within the range of the commonplace; but there
was this difference between them--Miss Goold quite believed in her own
plans, while the great Dean no doubt grinned over the proof-sheets of
his ‘Modest Proposal.’
It happened, most unfortunately, that the appeal synchronized with
another, also for funds, which was issued by Mr. O’Rourke, the leader
of the Parliamentary party. Since the death of John O’Neill the purse
of the party had been getting lean. The old tactics which used to draw
plaudits and dollars from the United States, as well as a tribute from
every parish in Ireland, had lately been unsuccessful. There were still
violent scenes in the House of Commons, but they no longer produced
anything except contemptuous smiles. Members of Parliament still
succeeded occasionally in getting the Chief Secretary to imprison them,
but the glory of martyrdom was harder to win than in the old days.
Latterly things had come to such a pass that even the reduced stipends
offered to the members fell into arrear. The attendance at Westminster
dropped away. The Government could afford to smile at Mr. O’Rourke’s
efforts to make himself disagreeable, and the Opposition were frankly
contemptuous of a people who could not profit them by more than a dozen
votes in a critical division. It became impossible to wring even a
modest Land Bill from the Prime Minister, and Mr. Chesney, now much at
ease in the Secretary’s office in the Castle, scarcely felt it necessary
to be civil to deputations which wanted railways. It was clear that
something must be done, or Mr. O’Rourke’s business would disappear.
He decided to appeal for funds _orbi et urbi_. The world--in this case
North America--was to be visited, exhorted, and, it was hoped, taxed by
some of his most eloquent lieutenants. Even Canada, with its leaven
of Orangemen, was to be honoured with the speeches of an orator of
second-rate powers. The city--Dublin, of course--was the chosen scene of
the leader’s personal exertions. Since his revolt against John O’Neill,
O’Rourke had been a little shy of Dublin audiences, but the pressing
nature of the present crisis almost forced him to pay his court to the
capital. He found some comfort in the recollection that during the five
years that had elapsed since O’Neill’s death he had missed no public
opportunity of shedding tears beside his tomb. He remembered, too, that
he had put his name down for a large subscription towards the erection
of a statue to the dead leader, a work of art which the existing
generation seemed unlikely to have the pleasure of seeing.
Thus it happened that on the very day of the publication of Miss Goold’s
scheme Mr. O’Rourke announced his intention of addressing an appeal for
funds to a public meeting in the Rotunda. Miss Goold was disconcerted
and irritated. She was well aware that Mr. O’Rourke’s appeal would give
the respectable Nationalists an excellent excuse for ignoring hers, and
unfortunately the respectable people are just the ones who have most
money. She was confident that she could rely on the extreme section of
the Nationalists, and on that element in the city population which loves
and makes a row, but she could not count on the moneyed classes. They
were, so far as their words went, very enthusiastic for the Boer
cause; but when it came to writing cheques, it was likely that the
counter-attractions of the Parliamentary fund would prove too strong.
Since it seemed that Mr. O’Rourke would certainly spoil her collection,
the obvious thing to do was to try to spoil his. If he afforded people
an excuse for not paying the travelling expenses of her volunteers to
Lorenzo Marques, she would, if possible, suggest a way of escape from
paying for his men’s journeys to London. After all, no one really wanted
to subscribe to either fund, and it might be supposed that the public
would very gladly keep their purses shut altogether.
For an Irishman it is quite possible to be genuinely enthusiastic and at
the same time able to see the humorous side of his own enthusiasm. This
is a reason why an Irishman is never a bore unless, to gain his private
ends, he wants to be. Even an Irish advocate of total abstinence, or an
Irish antivaccinationist, if such a thing exists, is not a bore,
because he will always trot out his conscientious objections with a
half-humorous, half-deprecating smile. This same capacity for avoiding
the slavery of serious fanaticism enables an Irishman to cease quite
joyfully from the pursuit of his own particular fad in order to corner
an obnoxious opponent. Thus Augusta Goold and her friends were genuinely
desirous of striking a blow at England, and really believed that their
volunteers might do it; but this did not prevent them from finding
infinite relish in the prospect of watching Mr. O’Rourke squirming on
the horns of a dilemma. They took counsel together, and the result of
their deliberations was peculiar. They proposed to invite Mr. O’Rourke
to join his appeal to theirs, to pool the money which came in, and to
divide it evenly between the volunteers and the members of Parliament.
It was Tim Halloran who hit upon the brilliant idea. Augusta Goold
chuckled over it as she grasped its consequences. Mr. O’Rourke, Tim
argued, would be unwilling to accept the proposal because he wanted all
the money he could get, more than was at all likely to be collected.
He would be equally unwilling to reject it, because he could then be
represented as indifferent to the heroic struggle of the Boers. In
the existing state of Irish and American opinion a suspicion of such
indifference would be quite sufficient to wreck his chances of getting
any money at all.
Of course, the obvious way of making such a proposal would have been by
letter to Mr. O’Rourke. Afterwards the correspondence--he must make a
reply of some sort--could be sent to the press, and sufficient publicity
would be given to the matter. This was what Tim Halloran wanted to do,
but such a course did not commend itself to Augusta Goold. It lacked
dramatic possibilities, and there was always the chance that the leading
papers might refuse to take any notice of the matter, or relegate
the letters to a back page and small print. Besides, a mere newspaper
controversy would not make a strong appeal to the section of the Dublin
populace on whose support she chiefly relied. A much more attractive
plan suggested itself. Augusta Goold, with a few friends to act as
aides-de-camp, would present herself to Mr. O’Rourke at his Rotunda
meeting, and put the proposal to him then and there in the presence of
the audience.
In the meantime the few days before the meeting were occupied in
scattering suggestive seed over the hoardings and blank walls of the
city. One morning people were startled by the sight of an immense
placard which asked in violent red letters, ‘What is Ireland going
to do?’ Public opinion was divided about the ultimate purpose of the
poster. The majority expected the announcement of a new play or novel;
a few held that a pill or a cocoa would be recommended. Next morning the
question became more explicit, and the hypothesis of the play and the
pill were excluded. ‘What,’ the new poster ran, ‘is Ireland going to do
for the Boers?’ The public were not intensely anxious to find an answer
to the conundrum thrust thus forcibly on their attention, but they
became curious to know who the advertisers were who hungered for the
information. Men blessed by Providence with sagacious-looking faces made
the most of their opportunity, and informed their friends that the thing
was a new dodge of O’Rourke’s to get money. Their reputation suffered
when the next placard appeared. The advertisers had apparently changed
their minds, for what they now wanted to know was, ‘What are the Irish
M.P.’s going to do for the Boers?’ Clearly Mr. O’Rourke could have
nothing to gain by insisting on an answer to such a question. The public
were puzzled but pleased. The bill-stickers of the city foresaw
the possibility of realizing a competence, for the next morning the
satisfied inquirers published the result of their investigations. ‘The
Em Pees ‘(it was thus that they now referred to the honourable members
of Parliament) ‘are supporting the infamies of England.’ It was at
this point that the eye of a Castle official was caught by one of the
placards as he made his way to the Kildare Street Club for luncheon.
He discussed the matter with a colleague, and it occurred to them that
since they were paid for governing Ireland, they ought to give the
public some value for their money, and seize the opportunity of doing
something. They sent a series of telegrams to Mr. Chesney’s London
house, which were forwarded by his private secretary to the Riviera.
The replies which followed kept the Castle officials in a state of
pleasurable excitement until quite late in the evening. At about eight
o’clock large numbers of Metropolitan police sallied out of their
barracks and tore down the last batch of placards. Next morning fresh
ones were posted up, each of which bore the single word, ‘Why?’ The
bill-stickers were highly pleased, and many of them were arrested for
drunkenness. Mr. O’Rourke was much less pleased, for he began to guess
what the answer was likely to be, and how it would affect his chances of
securing a satisfactory collection. The officials were perplexed. They
suspected the ‘Why?’ of containing within its three letters some hideous
sedition, but it was not possible to deal vigorously with what might,
after all, be only the cunning novelty of some advertising manufacturer.
More telegrams harried Mr. Chesney, but before any definite course of
action had been decided on the morning of the Rotunda meeting arrived,
and with it an answer to the multifarious ‘Whys’: Because O’Rourke wants
all the money to spend in the London restaurants.’ There was a great
deal of laughter, and many people, quite uninterested in politics,
determined to go to the meeting in hopes of more amusement.
When Mr. O’Rourke took the chair the hall was crowded to its utmost
capacity. Under ordinary circumstances this would have augured well for
the success of his appeal, for it showed that the public were at all
events not apathetic. On this particular occasion, however, Mr. O’Rourke
would have been better pleased with a smaller audience. The placards
had shown him that something unpleasant was likely to occur, though they
afforded no hint of the form which the unpleasantness would take. When
he rose to his feet he was greeted with the usual volley of cheers, and
although some rude remarks about the Boers were made in the corners of
the hall, they did not amount to anything like an organized attempt at
interruption. He began his speech cautiously, feeling the pulse of
his audience, and plying them with the well-worn platitudes of the
Nationalist platform. When these evoked the usual enthusiasm he waxed
bolder, and shot out some almost original epigrams directed against the
Government, working up to a really new gibe about officials who sat
like spiders spinning murderous webs in Dublin Castle. The audience
were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone
shouted: ‘You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard
on Wednesday.’ Mr. O’Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to
sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as ‘ill-omened
tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to
disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.’ Mr. O’Rourke was not a
man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles
as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been sucking
blood were to repent and disgorge it. ‘Where,’ he went on to ask, ‘do
they spend their immense revenues? Is it in Ireland?’ Here he made one
of those dramatic pauses for which his oratory was famous. The audience
waited breathlessly for the denunciation which was to follow. They were
treated, unexpectedly, to a well-conceived anticlimax. A voice spoke
softly, but quite clearly, from the back of the hall:
‘Bedad, and I shouldn’t wonder if it was in the London restaurants.’
A roar of laughter followed. The orator might no doubt have made an
effective reply, but every time he opened his mouth minor wits, rending
like wolves the carcase of the original joke, yelled ‘turtle-soup’
at him, or ‘champagne and oysters.’ He got angry, and consequently
flurried. He tried to quell the tumult by thundering out the
denunciation which he had prepared. But the delight which the audience
took in shrieking the items of their imaginary bill of fare was too much
for him. He forgot what he had meant to say, floundered, attempted to
pull himself together, and brought out the stale jest about providing
each landlord with a single ticket to Holyhead.
‘And that same,’ said his original tormentor, ‘would be cheaper than
giving you a return ticket to London.’
The audience was immensely tickled. So far the entertainment, if not
precisely novel, was better than anything they had hoped for, and
everyone had an agreeable conviction that there was still something
in the way of a sensation in store. Perhaps it was eagerness for the
expected climax which induced them to keep tolerably quiet during the
remainder of Mr. O’Rourke’s speech. He set forth at some length the
glorious achievements of his party in the past, and explained the
opportunities of future usefulness which lay to be grasped if only the
necessary funds were provided. He sat down to make way, as he assured
the audience, for certain tried and trusty soldiers of the cause who
were waiting to propose important resolutions. So far as these
warriors were concerned, he might as well have remained standing. Their
resolutions are to this day unproposed and uncommended--a secret joy,
no doubt, to those who framed them, but not endorsed by any popular
approval.
Hyacinth Conneally was not admitted to the secret councils of Augusta
Goold and her friends. He knew no more than the general public what kind
of a coup was meditated, but he gathered from Miss O’Dwyer’s nervous
excitement and Tim Halloran’s air of immense and mysterious importance
that something quite out of the common was likely to occur. By arriving
an hour and a half before the opening of the meeting he secured a seat
near the platform. He enjoyed the discomfiture of O’Rourke, whom he had
learnt from the pages of the _Croppy_ to despise as a mere windbag, and
to hate as the betrayer of O’Neill. A sudden thrill of excitement went
through him when O’Rourke sat down. The whole audience turned their
faces from the platform towards the door at the far end of the hall, and
Hyacinth, without knowing exactly what he expected, turned too.
There was a swaying visible among the crowd near the door, and almost
immediately it became clear that someone was trying to force a way
through the densely-packed people. Curses were to be heard, and even
cries from those who were being trodden on. At last a way was made.
Augusta Goold, followed by Grealy, Halloran, and Mary O’Dwyer, came
slowly up the hall towards the platform. Those of the audience whose
limbs had not been crushed or their feet mangled in preparation for her
progress cheered her wildly. Indeed, she made a regal appeal to them.
Even amidst a crowd of men her height made her conspicuous, and she had
arrayed herself for the occasion in a magnificent violet robe. It flowed
from her shoulders in spacious folds, and swept behind her, splendidly
contemptuous of the part it played as scavenger amid the accumulated
filth of the floor. Her bare arms shone out of the wide sleeves which
hung around them. Her neck rose strong and stately over the silver clasp
of a cloak which she had thrown back from her shoulders. She wore a hat
which seemed to hold her hair captive from falling loose around her. One
great tress alone escaped from it, and by some cunning manipulation was
made to stand straight out, as if blown by the wind from its fastenings.
In comparison her suite looked commonplace and mean. Poor Miss O’Dwyer
was arrayed--‘gowned,’ she would have said herself in reporting the
scene--in vesture not wanting in splendour, but which beside Miss
Goold’s could not catch the eye. Thomas Grealy, awkward and stooped,
peered through his glasses at the crowd. Tim Halloran walked jauntily,
but his eyes glanced nervously from side to side. He was certainly ill
at ease, possibly frightened, at the position in which he found himself.
A hurried consultation took place among the gentlemen on the platform,
which ended in Mr. O’Rourke stepping forward with a smile and an
outstretched hand to welcome Augusta Goold as she ascended the steps.
The expression of his face belied the smile which he had impressed upon
his lips. His eyes had the same look of furtive malice as a dog’s
which wants to bite but fears the stick. Augusta Goold waved aside the
proffered hand, and stepped unaided on to the platform. Mr. O’Rourke
placed a chair for her, but she ignored it and stood, with her followers
behind her, facing the audience. O’Rourke and two of his tried and
trusty members of Parliament approached her. They stood between her
and the audience, and talked to her for some time, apparently very
earnestly. Augusta Goold looked past them, over them, sometimes it
seemed through them, while they spoke, but made them no answer whatever.
At last Mr. O’Rourke shrugged his shoulders, and withdrew to his chair
with a sulky scowl.
‘I wish,’ said Augusta Goold, ‘to ask a simple question of your
chairman.’
Mr. O’Rourke rose.
‘This meeting,’ he said, ‘is convened for the purpose of raising funds
for the carrying on of the national business in the House of Commons. If
Miss Goold’s question relates to the business in hand, I shall be most
happy to answer it. If not, I am afraid I cannot allow it to be asked
here. At another time and in another place I shall be prepared to listen
to what Miss Goold has to say, and in the meantime if she will take her
seat on the platform she will be heartily welcome.’
‘My question,’ said Augusta Goold, ‘is intimately connected with the
business of the meeting. It is simply this: Are you, Mr. O’Rourke,
prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish
people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?’
It was manifestly absurd to ask such a question at all. Mr. O’Rourke
had no intention of collecting money for the Boers, who seemed to have
plenty of their own, and he could not without breach of trust have
applied funds subscribed to feed and clothe members of Parliament to
arming volunteers. Nevertheless, it was an awkward question to answer
in the presence of an audience excited by Augusta Goold’s beauty and
splendid audacity. A really strong man, like, for instance, O’Rourke’s
predecessor, John O’Neill, might have faced the situation, and won, if
not the immediate cheers, at least the respect of the Irish people. But
Mr. O’Rourke was not a strong man, and besides he was out of temper and
had lost his nerve. He took perhaps the worst course open to him: he
made a speech. He appealed to his past record as a Nationalist, and to
his publicly reiterated expressions of sympathy with the Boer cause.
He asked the audience to trust him to do what was right, but he neither
said Yes nor No to the question he was asked.
Augusta Goold stood calm and impassive while he spoke. A sneer gathered
on her lips and indrawn nostrils as he made his appeal for the people’s
confidence. When he had finished she said, very slowly, and with that
extreme distinctness of articulation which women speakers seem to learn
so much more easily than men:
‘Are you prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by
the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?’
Mr. O’Rourke was goaded into attempting another speech, but the audience
was in no mood to listen to him. He was interrupted again and again with
shouts of ‘Yes or no!’ ‘Answer the question!’ The bantering tone with
which they had plied him earlier in the evening with suggestions for a
menu had changed now into angry insistence. He passed his hand over his
forehead with a gesture of despair, and sat down. At once the tumult
ceased, and the people waited breathless for Augusta Goold to speak
again.
‘Are you prepared’--she seemed to have learnt her question off by
heart--‘to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish
people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?’
Mr. Shea, a red-headed member of Parliament from Co. Limerick, being
himself one of those most deeply interested in the contents of the
party’s purse, sprang to his feet. It was clear that he was in a
condition of almost dangerous excitement, for he stammered, as he
shouted to the chairman:
‘Sir, is this--this--this woman to be allowed to interrupt the meeting?
I demand her immediate removal.’
Augusta Goold smiled at him. It was really a very gracious, almost a
tender, smile. One might imagine the divine Theodora in her earlier days
smiling with just such an expression on a plebeian lover whose passion
she regarded as creditable to him but hopeless.
‘I assure you, Mr. Shea, that I shall not interrupt the business for
more than a minute. Mr. O’Rourke has only got to say one word--either
Yes or No. Are you prepared to give any portion of the funds entrusted
to you by the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for
freedom?’
Mr. Shea was not at all mollified either by the smile or the politeness
of her tone.
‘We shall not permit the meeting to be interrupted any more,’ he
shouted. ‘Either you will withdraw at once, or we shall have you removed
by force.’
She smiled at him again--a pitying smile, as if she regretted the
petulance of his manner, and turned to the chairman.
‘Are you prepared to give----’
Then Mr. Shea’s feelings became too strong for his self-control. He
sprang forward, apparently with the intention of laying violent hands
upon Augusta Groold. Hyacinth Conneally started up to protect her, and
the same impulse moved a large part of the audience. There was a rush
for the platform, and a fierce, threatening yell. Mr. Shea hung back,
frightened. Augusta Goold held up her hand, and immediately the rush
stopped and the people were silent. She went on with her question,
taking it up at the exact word which Mr. Shea had interrupted, in the
same level and exquisitely irritating tone.
‘--Any of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to assist the
Boers in their struggle for freedom?’
Mr. O’Rourke had sat scowling silently since the failure of his last
attempt to explain himself. This final disjointed repetition of the
galling question roused him to the necessity of doing something. He
was a pitiful sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There
were blotches of purple red and spaces of pallor on his face; his hands
twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his
collar limp. His words were a stammering mixture of bluster and appeal.
‘You mustn’t--mustn’t--mustn’t interrupt the meeting,’ So far he tried
to assert himself, then, with a glance at the contemptuous face of the
woman before him, he relapsed into the tone of a schoolboy who begs off
the last strokes of a caning. ‘Is this nice conduct? Is it ladylike to
come here and attack us like this? Miss Goold, I’m ashamed of you.’
‘I am glad to hear,’ said Augusta Goold, departing for the first time
from her question, ‘that there is anything left in the world that Mr.
O’Rourke is ashamed of. I didn’t think there was.’
It was Mr. Shea and not his leader who resented this last insult. His
lips drew apart, leaving his teeth bare in a ghastly grin. He clenched
his fists, and stood for a moment trembling from head to foot. Then he
leaped forward towards Augusta Goold. The man who stood next Hyacinth
lurched suddenly forward, wrenched his right hand free of the crowd
round him, and flung it back behind his head. Hyacinth saw that he held
a large stone in it.
‘You are a cowardly blackguard, Shea,’ he yelled--‘a damned, cowardly
blackguard! Would you strike a woman?’
Shea turned on the instant, saw the hand stretched back to fling the
stone. He seized the chair behind him--the very chair which, while an
appearance of politeness was still possible, Mr. O’Rourke had offered
to Augusta Goold--and flung it with all his force at the man with the
stone. One of the legs grazed Hyacinth’s cheek, scraping the skin
off. The corner of the seat struck the man beside him full across the
forehead just above his eyes. The blood poured out, blinding, and then,
as he gasped, choking him. He reeled and huddled together helplessly.
He could not fall, for the pressure of the crowd round him held him up.
Hyacinth felt his hands groping wildly as if for support, and reached
out his own to grasp him. But the man wanted no help for himself. As
soon as he felt another hand touch his he pressed the stone into it.
‘I can’t see,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Take it, you, and kill him, kill
him, kill him! smash his skull!’
Hyacinth took the stone. The feel of the man’s blood warm on it and the
fierce yelling and stamping of the crowd filled him with a mad lust of
hate against Shea, who stood as if suddenly paralyzed within a few feet
of him. He wrenched his hand free, and with a mighty effort flung the
stone. He saw it strike Shea fair on the forehead. In spite of the
tumult around him, he fancied he heard the dull thud of its impact.
He saw Shea fling up his hands and pitch forward. He saw Augusta Goold
gather her skirts in her hand, and sweep them swiftly aside lest the man
should fall on them. Then the crowd pressing towards the platform swept
him off his feet, and he was tossed helplessly forward. A giddy
sickness seized him. The pressure slackened for an instant, and he fell.
Someone’s boot struck him on the head. He felt without any keen regret
that he was likely to be trampled to death. Then he lost consciousness.