The Red Hand of Ulster

gagements. 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

f Parliament, and hoped to persuade them to find him a constituency. When they discovered that he was the private secretary of a famous milliona

siness bored and worried him. The idea that Conroy actually contemplated organizing a rebellion in Ireland never crossed his mind. He hoped that the political enthusia

to this busin

cs?" sa

d! What I'm out fo

e start that those fellows won't fight. They h

the other fello

r fellows?

t," sai

whis

aordinary nature of the idea made h

w, and I believe they mean it. I don't care a cent whether they call themselves Loy

hey really mean

yo

esitation, "I do. You see I happen

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

know?" said Conroy.

b. "Babberly is-well,

roy. "But if it isn't

aid Bob, "Gi

ing in some unive

fore 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

Fellow of Trinity College

far as he knew it at that time. It was a remarkable story,

nestness. 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 f

. 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

n 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 wa

by no means a fool, described McNeic

an and talk to him. Suppose you go over

b. "He's-well, domineering is

said Conroy, "I a

, 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 certai

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

night the two men remained together, discussing, planning, devising. Others, among them James Crossan, manager of

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 Magni

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 s

ere 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