I never suspected Malcolmson of the cheap kind of military ardour which
shows itself in the girding on of swords after the hour of danger is
past. He is the kind of man who likes taking risks, and I have not
the slightest doubt that if he had really known beforehand that the
Government was “plotting” to invade Ulster he would have been found
entrenched, with a loaded rifle beside him, on the north bank of the
Boyne. What I did think, when he left London suddenly to place himself
at the head of his men, was that he had been a little carried away by
the excitement of the times; that he was moved, as many people are, when
startling events happen, to do something, without any very distinct
idea of what is to be done. But even that suspicion wronged Malcolmson.
Either he or some one else had devised an effective counterplot;
effective considered as a second act in a comic opera. Perhaps I ought
not to say comic opera. There is a certain reasonableness in the schemes
of every comic opera. Our affairs in the early part of 1914 were moving
through an atmosphere like that of “Alice in Wonderland.” The Government
was a sort of Duchess, affecting to regard Ulster as the baby which was
beaten when it sneezed because it could if it chose thoroughly enjoy
the pepper of Home Rule. The Opposition, on the other hand, with its eye
also on Ulster, kept saying in tones of awestruck warning, “Beware the
Jabberwock, my son.” Malcolmson seemed to be a kind of White Knight,
lovable, simple-minded, chivalrous, but a little out of place in the
world.
However, Malcolmson and his friends, considered as characters in “Alice
in Wonderland,” were effective, far more effective than the poor
White Knight ever was. They bought a lot of guns somewhere, perhaps in
Hamburg. They hired a ship and loaded her with the guns. They sailed
her into Larne Harbour and said to the Government, “Now, come on if you
dare.”
The Government, having previously issued a solemn proclamation
forbidding the importation of arms into Ireland, took up the attitude of
Mr. Winkle and said it was just going to begin. It rolled up its
sleeves and clenched its fists and said for the second time and with
considerable emphasis that it was just going to begin, Malcolmson danced
about, coat off, battle light in eye, and kept shouting: “Come on!” The
Government, taking off its collar and tie, said: “Just you wait till I
get at you.”
Gorman took a sane, though I think incorrect, view of the situation.
“The English people,” he said, “are hopeless fools. It’s almost
impossible to deal with them. They are actually beginning to believe
that Ulster is in earnest.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s only fair. They’ve been believing that you’re in
earnest for quite a long time now. Ulster ought to have its turn.”
Gorman, though a politician, is essentially a just man. He admitted
the truth of what I had said. He went further. He admitted that
Malcolmson’s _coup_ was exceedingly well conceived.
“It’s just the sort of thing,” he said, “which appeals to Englishmen.
Reason is wasted on them.”
“Don’t be too hard on the English,” I said. “It’s the same everywhere in
the world. Government through the people, of the people, by, with, from,
to and for the people, is always unreasonable.”
“It’s the theatrical which pays,” said Gorman. “I didn’t think those
fellows in Belfast had brains enough to grasp that fact, but apparently
they have. I must say that this gun-running performance of theirs is
good. It has the quality which Americans describe as ‘punch.’ It has
stirred the popular imagination. It has got right across the footlights.
It has fetched the audience.”
“Awkward situation for you,” I said.
“We’ll have to do something,” said Gorman.
“Arrest the ringleaders? Imprison Malcolmson?”
“Lord, no. We may be fools, but we’re not such fools as that.”
“Still,” I said, “he’s broken the law. After all, a party like yours in
close alliance with the Government of the country must do something to
maintain the majesty of the law.”
“Law be damned,” said Gorman. “What the devil does law matter to us or
the Government either? What we’ve got to consider is popular opinion.”
“And that,” I said, “seems to be setting against you. According to
the theory of democracy as I understand it, you’re bound to go the way
popular opinion is blowing you. You can’t, without gross inconsistency,
start beating to windward against it.”
“Winds sometimes change,” said Gorman.
“They do. This one has. It was all in your favour a fortnight ago.
Now, what with your ‘plot’ and this really striking little episode in
Larne----”
“The art of government,” said Gorman, “consists in manipulating the
wind, making it blow the way it’s wanted to. What we’ve got to do is to
go one better than the Ulster men.”
“Ah,” I said, “they imported rifles. You might land a shipload of large
cannons. Is that the idea?”
“They needn’t necessarily be real cannons. I don’t think our funds would
run to real cannons. Besides, what good would they be when we had
them? But you’ve got the main idea all right. Our game is to pull off
something which will startle the blessed British public, impress it with
the fact that we’re just as desperate as the other fellows.”
“What about the police?” I said. “The police have always had a down on
your side. It’s a tradition in the force.”
“The police aren’t fools,” said Gorman. “They know jolly well that any
policemen who attempted to interfere with our _coup_, whatever it may be,
would simply be dismissed. After all, we’re not doing any harm. We’re
not going to shoot any one. We’re simply going to influence public
opinion. Everyone has a right to do that. By the way, did I mention
that my play is being revived? Talking of public opinion reminded me of
it. It had quite a success when it was first put on.”
Gorman is charming. He never sticks to one subject long enough to be
really tiresome.
“I’m delighted to hear it,” I said. “I hope it will do even better this
time.”
“It ought to,” said Gorman. “We’ve got a capital press agent, and, of
course, my name is far better known than it was. It isn’t every day the
public gets a play written by a Member of Parliament.”
“Where is it to be produced?”
“The Parthenon. Good big house.”
The Parthenon is one of the largest of the London Music Halls. Gorman’s
play was, I suppose, to take its place in the usual way between an
exhibition of pretty frocks with orchestral accompaniment and an
imitation of the Russian dancers.
“I shall be there,” I said, “on the first night. You can count on my
applause.”
It occurred to me after Gorman left me that the revival of his play
offered me an excellent opportunity of entertaining the Aschers. Ascher
had been exceedingly kind to me in giving me letters of introduction to
all the leading bankers in South America. Mrs. Ascher had been steadily
friendly to me. I owed them something and had some difficulty about the
best way of paying the debt. I did not care to ask them to dinner in
my rooms in Clarges Street. My landlord keeps a fairly good cook, and I
could, I daresay, have bought some wine which Ascher would have drunk.
But I could not have managed any kind of entertainment afterwards. I did
not like to give them dinner at a restaurant without taking them on to
the theatre; and the Aschers are rather superior to most plays. I had
no way of knowing which they would regard as real drama. The revival of
Gorman’s play solved my difficulty. I knew that Mrs. Ascher regarded him
as an artist and that Ascher had the highest respect for his brilliant
and paradoxical Irish mind. After luncheon I took a taxi and drove
out to Hampstead. I owed a call at the house in any case and, if Mrs.
Ascher happened to be at home, I could arrange the whole matter with her
in the way that would suit her best.
Mrs. Ascher was at home. She was in the studio, a large bare room at the
back of the house. Gorman was with her.
I saw at once that Mrs. Ascher was in a highly emotional condition. I
suspected that Gorman had been talking to her about the latest wrong
that had been done to Ireland, his Ireland, by the other part of Ireland
which neither he nor Mrs. Ascher considered as Ireland at all. On the
table in the middle of the room there was a little group on which Mrs.
Ascher had been at work earlier in the day. A female figure stood with
its right foot on the neck of a very disagreeable beast, something like
a pig, but prick-eared and hairy. It had one horn in the middle of its
forehead. The female figure was rather well conceived. It was appealing,
with a sort of triumphant confidence, to some power above, heaven
perhaps. The prick-eared pig looked sulky.
“Emblematic,” said Gorman, “symbolical.”
“The Irish party,” I said, “trampling on Belfast.”
“The spirit of poetry in Ireland,” said Mrs. Ascher, “defying
materialism.”
“That,” I said, “is a far nicer way of putting it.”
I took another look at the spirit of poetry. Mrs. Ascher was evidently
beginning to understand Ireland. Instead of being nude, or nearly nude,
as spirits generally are, this one was draped from head to foot. In
Ireland we are very particular about decency, and we like everything to
have on lots of clothes.
“But now,” said Mrs. Ascher, tragically, “the brief dream is over.
Materialism is triumphant, is armed, is mighty.”
I looked at Gorman for some sort of explanation.
“I’ve just been telling Mrs. Ascher,” he said, “about the gun-running at
Larne.”
“The mailed fist,” said Mrs. Ascher, “will beat into the dust the tender
shoots of poesy and all high imaginings; will crush the soul of Ireland,
and why? Oh, why?”
“Perhaps it won’t,” I said. “My own idea is that Malcolmson doesn’t mean
to use those guns aggressively. He’ll keep quite quiet unless the soul
of poetry in Ireland goes for him in some way.”
“We can make no such compromise,” said Mrs. Ascher. “Art must be all or
nothing, must be utterly triumphant or else perish with uncontaminated
soul.”
“The exclusion of Ulster from the scope of the Bill,” said Gorman, “is
the latest proposition; but we won’t agree to it.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s your affair, not mine. I mean to stay in London
and keep safe; but I warn you that if the spirit of poesy attempts to
triumph utterly over Malcolmson he’ll shoot at it. I know him and you
don’t. You think he’s a long-eared pig, but that ought to make you all
the more careful. Pigs are noted for their obstinacy.”
“What we’ve got to do,” said Gorman, “is devise some way of countering
this new move. Something picturesque, something that newspapers will
splash with big headlines.”
I do not think that Mrs. Ascher heard this. She was looking at the upper
part of the window with a sort of rapt, Joan of Arc expression of face.
I felt that she was meditating lofty things, probably trying to hit on
some appropriate form of self-sacrifice.
“I shall go among the people,” she said, “your people, my people, for
I am spiritually one of them. I shall go from cottage to cottage, from
village to village, walking barefooted along the mountain roads, dressed
in a peasant woman’s petticoat. They will take me for one of themselves
and I shall sing war songs to them, the great inspiring chants of the
heroes of old. I shall awake them to a sense of their high destiny.
I shall set the young men’s feet marching, thousands and thousands of
them. I shall fill the women’s hearts with pride.”
Then, for the first and only time since I have known him, Gorman’s
patience gave way. I do not blame him. The thought of Mrs. Ascher as an
Irish peasant, singing street ballads outside public houses, would have
upset the temper of Job.
“That’s all very well,” he said, “but the other people have the guns.”
“We must have guns, too,” said Mrs. Ascher, “and shining swords and long
spears tipped with light. Buy guns.”
With a really impressive gesture she dragged the rings from the fingers,
first of one hand, then of the other, and flung them on the ground at
Gorman’s feet. Even when working in her studio Mrs. Ascher wears a great
many rings.
“Buy, buy,” she said.
She unclasped the necklace which she wore and flung it down beside the
rings. It was a pearl necklace, but not by any means the handsomest
pearl necklace she owned.
“More,” she said, “you must have more.”
She pranced out of the room, stepping high, like an actress taking a
part in one of Shakespeare’s plays or a well-bred carriage horse.
“Gorman,” I said, “you’re not going to take her wedding ring, are you?
I don’t think you ought to. Ascher’s really fond of her and I’m sure he
wouldn’t like it.”
“I wish to goodness,” said Gorman, “that she wouldn’t behave in this
wild way. If she wants to subscribe to the party funds why doesn’t she
write a cheque instead of shying jewellery at me? I should certainly
be arrested on suspicion if I went to try and pawn those things. Nobody
would believe that she gave them to me.”
He picked up the rings as he spoke and laid them in a row on the table.
“If we don’t get her stopped,” he said, “she’ll have everybody laughing
at us.”
“Laughing at you, Gorman, not at me. I’ve nothing to do with the poetic
soul of Ireland. It’s your property.”
“The English have no real sense of humour,” said Gorman.
“They’ve got quite enough to see this joke,” I said. “An owl would
giggle if it saw Mrs. Ascher going barefoot about Ireland and you
following her round carrying a long spear tipped with light in your
hand.”
“We must stop her,” said Gorman. “Oh, damn! Here she is again.”
Mrs. Ascher came in carrying a large morocco leather covered box, her
jewel case, I suppose. She was a little calmer than when she left us but
still very determined.
“Take this,” she said. “Take all there is in it. I give it gladly--to
Ireland.”
Gorman looked at the jewel case and then pulled himself together with an
effort.
“Mrs. Ascher,” he said, “your gift is princely, but----”
“I give it freely,” said Mrs. Ascher.
“And I shall receive it,” said Gorman, “receive it as the gift of a
queen, given with queenly generosity. I shall receive it when the hour
comes, but the time is not yet.”
Gorman rising to an occasion is a sight which fills me with admiration.
That promise of a time to come was masterly. I should never have thought
of it; but of course it came more easily to Gorman than it would to
me. He is a politician and accustomed to draw cheques on rather distant
futures.
“Our people,” said Gorman, “are as yet unprepared, not ready to face the
crisis of their destiny. Keep these.” Gorman laid his hand on the jewel
box as if giving it a sort of benediction, consecrating its contents to
the service of Ireland. “Keep these as a sacred trust until the hour is
upon us.”
I very nearly applauded. Mrs. Ascher seemed a little disappointed.
“Why not now?” she said. “Why should we delay any longer?”
“We must trust our leaders,” said Gorman. “They will tell us when the
time for action comes.”
That would have been good enough for any ordinary constituency. It
did not satisfy Mrs. Ascher. I saw her looking a little doubtfully
at Gorman. She is a curious woman. She uses the very finest kind of
language herself; but she always gets suspicious when any one else talks
about sacred trusts and things of that kind. The fact is, I suppose,
that she means what she says, lives, as well as talks, finely. Gorman
and I do not--quite.
I felt that Gorman needed and deserved a little help. He had done well
enough so far, but he scarcely understood how near to the edge of Mrs.
Ascher’s credulity he had gone.
“What Mr. Gorman means,” I said, “is that you must have men, organised,
you know, and drilled, before you can give them guns. Just at present
there are very few volunteers in Mr. Gorman’s part of Ireland. He’s
going to enroll a lot more. When he has them he’ll ask you for a
subscription for the gun fund.”
I did not think that Mrs. Ascher was really satisfied. In the light of
subsequent events I found out that she certainly was not. But she said
no more at the moment and made no further effort to press her jewel case
on Gorman. I did not feel that the moment was a good one for giving her
the invitation I had planned. It is impossible, without something like
indecency, to invite a woman to dinner in a restaurant while she is
meditating a barefooted pilgrimage through the wild places of Holy
Ireland.
Gorman and I left the house together. I hired a taxi to take us home so
that we could talk comfortably.
“Extraordinary woman,” I said.
“Very, very. But don’t let’s talk about her. That was rather a good idea
of yours. May be something in it.
“I didn’t know I had an idea,” I said. “Are you sure you’re not mixing
me up with Mrs. Ascher? She has lots.”
“Not at all,” said Gorman. “It was you who suggested organising the
National Volunteers.”
There was at that time in Ireland a small number of extreme patriots
who rather admired Malcolmson because they thought he was going to fight
against England, and despised Gorman because they knew he was not. These
men had enrolled themselves in a semi-military organisation and called
themselves the National Volunteers. Gorman and his friends did their
best to suppress them and kept all mention of their existence out of the
English papers as far as possible. It surprised me to hear him speak in
a casual way of organising these declared enemies of his.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “Those fellows hate you like poison, worse
than Malcolmson does. They’re--well, I should call them rebels. They
certainly won’t do what you tell them.”
“Oh, yes, they will, if treated properly. My idea is to flood the
organisation with reliable men, fellows we can trust. When we’ve got a
majority of our own people enrolled we’ll tell them to elect their own
leaders, democratic idea. Army choosing its own officers. Sure to catch
on.”
“Sure to, and then?”
“Oh, then they’ll elect us. See? Every member of Parliament will be a
colonel. We needn’t drill or anything; but there’s nothing to prevent
our saying that we have 200,000 trained men. The Ulster fellows have
gone no trumps on their 100,000----”
“I should be inclined to say gone No Home Rule.”
Gorman grinned.
“Gone no something,” he said, “and we double them. I expect that will
set English opinion swinging round again.”
“It ought to,” I said, “but why bother about all these preliminaries?
Why put everybody in Ireland to the trouble of enrolling themselves in
a new organisation and electing officers and all that? It’s just as
easy to say you have 200,000 trained men before being made a colonel as
afterwards.”
“You don’t understand politics,” said Gorman. “In politics there must
be a foundation of some sort for every fact. It needn’t be much of a
foundation, but there must be some.”
“Hard on the Irish people,” I said, “being put to all that trouble and
bother just to make a foundation.”
“Not at all,” said Gorman. “They’ll like it. But I hope to goodness that
fanatic woman won’t insist on our buying guns. It would be the devil
and all if the fellows I’m thinking about got guns in their hands. You
simply couldn’t tell what they’d do. You’ll have to try and keep Mrs.
Ascher quiet.”
“I’m going to ask her to dine with me and go to see your play,” I said.
“That may distract her mind from guns for a while.”
“You use your influence with her,” said Gorman. “I’ve the greatest
belief in influence.”
He has.