IX ~~ A GUN-RUNNING EPISODE
Sam McAlister walked into my office yesterday and laid down a handful of silver on my desk.
“There you are,” he said, “and I am very much obliged to you for the loan.”
For the moment I could not recollect having lent Sam any money; though I should be glad to do so at any time if I thought he wanted it. Sam is a boy I like. He is an undergraduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and has the makings of a man in him, though he is not good at passing examinations and has never figured in an honours list. Some day, when he takes his degree, he is to come into my office and be made into a lawyer. His father, the Dean, is an old friend of mine.
I looked at the money lying before me, and then doubtfully at Sam.
“If you’ve forgotten all about it,” he said, “it’s rather a pity I paid. But I always was honest. That’s one of my misfortunes. If I wasn’t—— That’s the fine you paid for me.”
Then I remembered. Sam got into trouble with the police a few weeks ago. He and a dozen or so of his fellow-students broke loose and ran riot through the streets of Dublin. All high-spirited boys do this sort of thing occasionally, whether they are junior army officers, lawyers’ clerks, or university undergraduates. Trinity College boys, being Irish and having a large city at their gates, riot more picturesquely than anyone else. Sam had captured the flag which the Lord Mayor flies outside his house, had pushed a horse upstairs into the office of a respectable stockbroker, and had driven a motor-car, borrowed from an unwilling owner, down a narrow and congested street at twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. He was captured in the end by eight policemen, and was very nearly sent to gaol with hard labour. I got him off by paying a fine of one pound, together with £2 4s. 6d. for the damage done by the horse to the stockbroker’s staircase and office furniture. The motorcar, fortunately, had neither injured itself nor anyone else.
“I hope,” I said, pocketing the money, “that this will be a lesson to you, Sam.”
“It won’t,” he said. “At least, not in the way you mean. It’ll encourage me to go into another rag the very first time I get the chance. As a matter of fact, being arrested was the luckiest thing ever happened to me, though I didn’t think so at the time.”
“Well,” I said, “if you like paying up these large sums it’s your own affair. I should have thought you could have got better value for your money by spending it on something you wanted.”
“Money isn’t everything in the world,” said Sam. “There is such a thing as having a good time, a rattling good time, even if you don’t make money out of it and run a chance of being arrested. I daresay you’d like to hear what I’ve been at.”
“If you’ve committed any kind of crime,” I said, “I’d rather you didn’t tell me. It might be awkward for me afterwards when you are tried.”
“I don’t think it’s exactly a crime,” said Sam, “anyhow, it isn’t anything wrong, though, of course, it may be slightly illegal. I’d rather like to have your opinion about that.”
“Is it a long story? I’m rather busy to-day.”
“Not very long,” said Sam, “but I daresay it would sound better after dinner. What would you say now to asking me to dine to-night at your club? We could go up to that library place afterwards. There’s never anybody there, and I could tell you the whole thing.”
Sam knows the ways of my club nearly as well as I do myself. There is never anyone in the library in the evening. I gave the required invitation.
We dined comfortably, and I got a good cigar for Sam afterwards. When the waiter had left the room he plunged into his story.
“You remember the day I was hauled up before that old ass of a magistrate. He jawed a lot and then fined me £3 4s. 6d., which you paid. Jolly decent of you. I hadn’t a shilling in the world, being absolutely stony broke at the time; so if you hadn’t paid—and lots of fellows wouldn’t—I should have had to go to gaol.”
“Never mind about that,” I said. “You’ve paid me back.”
“Still, I’m grateful, especially as I should have missed the spree of my life if I’d been locked up. As it was, thanks to you, I walked out of the court without a stain on my character.”
“Well, hardly that. You were found guilty of riotous behaviour, you know.”
“Anyhow, I walked out,” said Sam, “and that’s the main point.”
It was, of course, the point which mattered most; and, after all, the stain on Sam’s character was not indelible. Lots of young fellows behave riotously and turn out excellent men afterwards. I was an undergraduate myself once, and there is a story about Sam’s father, now a dean, which is still told occasionally. When he was an undergraduate a cow was found tied up in the big examination hall.
Sam’s father, who was very far from being a dean then, had borrowed the cow from a milkman.
“There were a lot of men waiting outside,” said Sam. “They wanted to stand me a lunch in honour of my escape.”
“Your fellow-rioters, I suppose?”
“Well, most of them had been in the rag, and, of course, they were sorry for me, being the only one actually caught. However, the lunch never came off. There was a queer old fellow standing on the steps of the court who got me by the arm as I came out. Said he wanted to speak to me on important business, and would I lunch with him. I didn’t know what he could possibly have to say to me, for I had never seen him before; but he looked—it’s rather hard to describe how he looked. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a gentleman, in the way of clothes, I mean; but he struck me as being a sportsman.”
“Horsey?”
“Not the least. More like one’s idea of some kind of modern pirate, though not exactly. He talked like an American. I went with him, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, “anyone with an adventurous spirit would prefer lunching with an unknown American buccaneer to sharing a commonplace feast with a mob of boys. Did you happen to hear his name?”
“He said it was Hazlewood, but——”
“But it may not have been?”
“One of the other fellows called him Cassidy later on.”
“Oh,” I said, “there were other fellows?”
“There were afterwards,” said Sam, “not at first. He and I lunched alone. He did me well. A bottle of champagne for the two of us and offered me a second bottle. I refused that.”
“He came to business after the champagne, I suppose?”
“He more or less talked business the whole time, though at first I didn’t know quite what he was at. He gassed a lot about my having knocked down those two policemen. You remember that I knocked down two, don’t you? I would have got a third only that they collared me from behind. Well, Hazlewood, or Cassidy, or whatever his name was, had seen the scrap, and seemed to think no end of a lot of me for the fight I put up.”
“The magistrate took a serious view of it, too,” I said.
“There wasn’t much in it,” said Sam modestly. “As I told Hazlewood, any fool can knock down a policeman. They’re so darned fat. He asked me if I liked fighting policemen. I said I did.”
“Of course.”
Sam caught some note of sarcasm in my voice. He felt it necessary to modify his statement.
“Well, not policemen in particular. I haven’t a special down on policemen. I like a scrap with anyone. Then he said—Hazlewood, that is—that he admired the way I drove that car down Grafton Street. He said he liked a man who wasn’t afraid to take risks; which was rot. There wasn’t any real risk.”
“The police swore that you went at thirty miles an hour,” I said. “And that street is simply crowded in the middle of the day.”
“I don’t believe I was doing anything like thirty miles an hour,” said Sam. “I should say twenty-seven at the outside. And there was no risk because everybody cleared out of my way. I had the street practically to myself. It was rather fun seeing all the other cars and carts and things piled up upon the footpaths at either side and the people bolting into the shops like rabbits. But there wasn’t any risk. However, old Hazlewood evidently thought there was, and seemed frightfully pleased about it. He said he had a car of his own, a sixty h.p. Daimler, and that he’d like to see me drive it. I said I’d take him for a spin any time he liked. I gave him a hint that we might start immediately after lunch and run up to Belfast in time for dinner. With a car like that I could have done it easy. However, he wasn’t on.”
“Do you think he really had the car?”
“Oh, he had her all right. I drove her afterwards. Great Scott, such a drive! The next thing he said was that he believed I was a pretty good man in a boat. I said I knew something about boats, though not much.”
Modesty is one of Sam’s virtues. He is, I believe, an excellent hand in a small yacht, and does a good deal of racing.
“I asked him what put it into his head that I could sail a boat, and he said O’Meara told him. O’Meara is a man I sail with occasionally, and I thought it nice of him to mention my name to this old boy. I can hoist a spinnaker all right and shift a jib, but I’m no good at navigation. Always did hate sums and always will. I told him that, and he said he could do the navigation himself. All he wanted was a good amateur crew for a thirty-ton yawl with a motor auxiliary. He had four men, and he asked me to make a fifth. I said I’d go like a shot. Strictly speaking, I ought to have been attending lectures; but what good are lectures?” “Very little,” I said. “In fact, hardly any.” “I wasn’t going to lose a cruise for the sake of any amount of lectures,” said Sam, “particularly with the chance of a tour on that sixty h.p. car thrown in.”
Sam paused at this point. It seemed to me that he wanted encouragement.
“You’d have been a fool if you had,” I said.
“Up to that time,” said Sam thoughtfully, “I hadn’t tumbled to what he was at. I give you my word of honour I hadn’t the dimmest idea that he was after anything in particular. I thought he was simply a good old sport with lots of money, which he knew how to spend in sensible ways.”
“The criminal part of the business was mentioned later on, I suppose?”
“I don’t know that there’s anything criminal about it,” said Sam. “I’m jolly well sure it wasn’t wrong, under the circumstances. But it may have been criminal. That’s just what I want you to tell me.
“I’ll give you my opinion,” I said, “when I hear what it was.”
“Gun-running,” said Sam.
Gun-running has for some time been a popular sport in Ireland, and I find it very difficult to say whether it is against the law or not. The Government goes in for trying to stop it, which looks as if a gun-runner might be prosecuted when caught. On the other hand, the Government never prosecutes gun-runners, even those who openly boast of their exploits, and that looks as if it were quite a legal amusement. I promised Sam that I would consider the point, and I asked him to tell me exactly what he did.
“Well,” he said, “when I heard it was gunrunning I simply jumped at the chance. Any fellow would. I said I’d start right away, if he liked. As a matter of fact, we didn’t start for nearly a fortnight. The boat turned out to be the Pegeen. You know the Pegeen, don’t you?”
I did not. I am not a sailor, and except that I cannot help seeing paragraphs about Shamrock IV. in the daily papers I do not think I know the name of a single yacht.
“Well,” said Sam, “she’s O’Meara’s boat I’ve sailed in her sometimes in cruiser races. She’s slow and never does any good, but she’s a fine sea boat. My idea was that Hazlewood had hired her, and I didn’t find out till after we had started that O’Meara was on board. That surprised me a bit, for O’Meara goes in for being rather an extreme kind of Nationalist—not the sort of fellow you’d expect to be running guns for Carson and the Ulster Volunteers. However, I was jolly glad to see him. He crawled out of the cabin when we were a couple of miles out of the harbour, and by that time I’d have been glad to see anyone who knew one end of the boat from the other. Old Hazlewood was all right; but the other three men were simply rotters, the sort of fellows who’d be just as likely as not to take a pull on a topsail halyard when told to slack away the lee runner. I was just making up my mind to work the boat single-handed when O’Meara turned up. There was a middling fresh breeze from the west, and we were going south on a reach. I didn’t get much chance of a talk with O’Meara because he was in one watch and I in the other—had to be, of course, on account of being the only two who knew anything about working the boat. I did notice, though, that when he spoke to Hazlewood he called him Cassidy. However, that was no business of mine. We sailed pretty nearly due south that day and the next, and the next after that. Then we hove to.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Ask me another,” said Sam. “I told you I couldn’t navigate. I hadn’t an idea within a hundred miles where we were. What’s more, I didn’t care. I was having a splendid time, and had succeeded in knocking some sort of sense into the other fellow in my watch. Hazlewood steered, and barring that he was sea-sick for eight hours, my man turned out to be a decent sort, and fairly intelligent. He said his name was Temple, but Hazlewood called him O’Reilly as often as not.”
“You seem to have gone in for a nice variety of names,” I said. “What did you call yourself?”
“I stuck to my own name, of course. I wasn’t doing anything to be ashamed of. If we’d been caught and the thing had turned out to be a crime—I don’t know whether it was or not, but if it was, I suppose———”
“I suppose I should have paid your fine,” I said.
“Thanks,” said Sam. “Thanks, awfully. I rather expected you would whenever I thought about that part of it, but I very seldom did.”
“What happened when you lay to?”
“Nothing at first. We bumped about a bit for five or six hours, and Temple got frightfully sick again. I never saw a man sicker. Hazlewood kept on muddling about with charts, and doing sums on sheets of paper, and consulting with O’Meara. I suppose they wanted to make sure that they’d got to the right place. At last, just about sunset, a small steamer turned up. She hung about all night, and next day we started early, about four o’clock, and got the guns out of her, or some of them. We couldn’t take the whole cargo, of course, in a 30-ton yacht I don’t know how many more guns she had. Perhaps she hadn’t any more. Only our little lot Anyhow, I was jolly glad when the job was over. There was a bit of a roll—nothing much, you know, but quite enough to make it pretty awkward. Temple got over his sea-sickness, which was a comfort. I suppose the excitement cured him. The way we worked was this—but I daresay you wouldn’t understand, even if I told you.”
“Is it very technical? I mean, must you use many sea words?”
“Must,” said Sam. “We were at sea, you know.”
“Well,” I said, “perhaps you’d better leave that part out. Tell me what you did with the guns when you’d got them.”
“Right. It was there the fun really came in. Not that I’m complaining about the other part. It was sport all right, but the funny part, the part you’ll like, came later. What about another cigar?”
I rang the bell, and got two more cigars for Sam.
“We had rather a tiresome passage home,” he said. “It kept on falling calm, and O’Meara’s motor isn’t very powerful. It took us a clear week to work our way up to the County Down coast. It was there we landed, in a poky little harbour. We went in at night, and had to wait for a full tide to get in at all. We got the sails of the boat outside, and just strolled in, so to speak, with the wretched little engine doing about half it could. Hazlewood told me that he expected four motor-cars to meet us, and that I was to take one of them, and drive like hell into County Armagh. There I was to call at a house belonging to O’Meara, and hand over my share of the guns. He said he hoped I knew my way about those parts, because it would be awkward for me trying to work with road maps when I ought to drive fast. I said I knew that country like the palm of my hand. The governor’s parish is up there, you know.”
Sam certainly ought to know County Down. He was brought up there, and must have walked, cycled, and driven over most of the roads.
“The only thing I didn’t know,” said Sam, “was O’Meara’s house. I’d never heard of his having a house in that part of the country. However, he said he’d only taken it lately, and that when I got over the border into Armagh there’d be a man waiting to show me where to go. He told me the road I was to take and I knew every turn of the way, so I felt pretty sure of getting there. It was about two in the morning when we got alongside the pier. The four motors were there all right, but there wasn’t a soul about except the men in charge of them. We got out the guns. They were done up in small bundles and the cartridges in handy little cases; but it took us till half-past four o’clock to get them ashore. By that time there were a few people knocking about; but they didn’t seem to want to interfere with us. In fact, some of them came and helped us to pack the stuff into the cars. They were perfectly friendly.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” I said “The people up there are nearly all Protestants. Most of them were probably Volunteers themselves. I daresay it wasn’t the first cargo they’d helped to land.”
“It was the first cargo they ever helped to land for the National Volunteers,” said Sam with a grin.
“The National Volunteers!”
I admit that Sam startled me. I do not suppose that he has any political convictions. At the age of twenty a man has a few prejudices but no convictions. If he is a young fellow who goes in for being intellectual they are prejudices against the party his father belonged to. If—and this is Sam’s case—he is a healthy-minded young man, who enjoys sport, he takes over his father’s opinions as they stand, and regards everybody who does not accept them as an irredeemable blackguard. The Dean is a very strong loyalist. He is the chaplain of an Orange Lodge, and has told me more than once that he hopes to march to battle at the head of his regiment of Volunteers.
“Smuggling arms for the Nationalists!” I said.
“That’s what I did,” said Sam, grinning broadly. “But I thought all the time that I was working for the other side. I didn’t know the Nationalists went in for guns; thought they only talked. In fact, to tell you the truth, I forgot all about them. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it At least I mightn’t. But I had a great time.”
“Of course,” I said, “I don’t mind. So far as I am concerned personally I’d rather neither side had any guns. But if your father finds out, Sam, there’ll be a frightful row. He’ll disown you.”
“The governor knows all about it,” said Sam, “and he doesn’t mind one bit. Just wait till you hear the end of the story. You’ll be as surprised as I was.”
“I certainly shall,” I said, “if the story ends in your father’s approving of your smuggling guns for rebels. He’d call them rebels, you know.”
“Oh,” said Sam, “as far as rebellion goes I don’t see that there’s much to choose between them. However, that doesn’t matter. What happened was this. I got off with my load about five o’clock, and I had a gorgeous spin. There wasn’t a cart or a thing on the roads, and I just let the car rip. I touched sixty miles an hour, and hardly ever dropped below forty. Best run I ever had. Almost the only thing I passed was a motor lorry, going the same way I was. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it turned out to be important afterwards. It was about seven o’clock when I got out of County Down into Armagh. I began looking out for the fellow who was to meet me. It wasn’t long before I spotted him, standing at a corner, trying to look as if he were a military sentry. You know the sort of thing I mean. Bandolier, belt, and frightfully stiff about the back. He held up his hand and I stopped. ‘A loyal man,’ he said. Well, I was, so far as I knew at that time, so I said ‘You bet.’ ‘That’s not right,’ said he. ‘Give the countersign.’ I hadn’t heard anything about a countersign, so I told him not to be a damned fool, and that I’d break his head if he said I wasn’t a loyal man. That seemed to puzzle him a bit. He got out a notebook and read a page or two, looking at me and the car every now and then as if he wasn’t quite satisfied. I felt pretty sure, of course, that he was the man I wanted. He couldn’t very well be anyone else. So by way of cutting the business short I told him I was loaded up with guns and cartridges, and that I wished he’d hop in and show me where to go. ‘That’s all very fine,’ he said, ‘but you oughtn’t to be in a car like that.’ I told him there was no use arguing about the car. I wasn’t going back to change it to please him. He asked me who I was, and I told him, mentioning that I was the governor’s son. I thought that might help him to make up his mind, and it did. The governor is middling well known up in those parts, and the mention of his name was enough. The fellow climbed in beside me. We hadn’t very far to go, as it turned out, and in the inside of twenty minutes I was driving up the avenue of a big house. The size of it rather surprised me, for I didn’t think O’Meara was well enough off to keep up a place of the kind. However, I was evidently expected, for I was shown into the dining-room by a footman. There were three men at breakfast, my old dad, Dopping—you know Dopping, don’t you?”
Dopping is a retired cavalry colonel. I do business for him and know him pretty well He is just the sort of man who would be in the thick of any gun-running that was going on.
“There was another man,” said Sam, “whom I didn’t know and wasn’t introduced to. The fact is there wasn’t much time for politeness. My dad looked as if he’d been shot when he saw me, and old Dopping bristled all over like an Irish terrier at the beginning of a fight, and asked me who the devil I was and what I was doing there. Of course, he jolly well knew who I was, and I thought he must know what brought me there, so I just winked by way of letting him understand that I was in the game. He got so red in the face that I thought he’d burst. Then the other man chipped in and asked me what I’d got in the car. The three of them whispered together for a bit, and I suggested that if they didn’t believe me they’d better go and see. The car was outside the door, and their own man was sitting on the guns. Dopping went, and I suppose he told the other two that the guns were there all right. Dad asked me where I got them, and I told them, mentioning Hazlewood’s name and the name of the yacht. I was a bit puzzled, but I still thought everything was all right, and that there’d be no harm in mentioning names. I very soon saw that there was some sort of mistake somewhere. The governor and old Dopping and the other man, who seemed to be the coolest of the three, went over to the window and looked at the car. Then they started whispering again, and I couldn’t hear a word they said. Didn’t want to. I was as hungry as a wolf, and there was a jolly good breakfast on the table. I sat down and gorged. I had just started my third egg when the door opened, and a rather nice-looking young fellow walked in. The footman came behind him, looking as white as a sheet, and began some sort of apology for letting the stranger in. Old Dopping, who was still in a pretty bad temper, told the footman to go and be damned. Then the new man introduced himself. He said he was Colonel O’Connell, of the first Armagh Regiment of National Volunteers. I expected to see old Dopping kill him at sight. Dopping is a tremendous loyalist, and the other fellow—well—phew!”
Sam whistled. Words failed him, I suppose, when it came to expressing the disloyalty of a colonel of National Volunteers.
“Instead of that,” said Sam, “Dopping stood up straight, and saluted O’Connell. O’Connell stiffened his back, and saluted Dopping. The third man, the one I didn’t know, stood up, too, and saluted. O’Connell saluted him. Then the governor bowed quite civilly, and O’Connell saluted him. I can tell you it was a pretty scene. ‘I beg to inform you, gentlemen,’ said O’Connell, ‘that a consignment of rifles and ammunition, apparently intended for your force, has arrived at our headquarters in a motor lorry.’ Nothing could have been civiller than the way he spoke. But Dopping was not to be beat. He’s a bristly old bear at times, but he always was a gentleman. ‘Owing to a mistake,’ he said, ‘some arms, evidently belonging to you, are now in a car at our door.’ The governor and the other man sat down and laughed till they were purple, but neither O’Connell nor old Dopping so much as smiled. It was then—and I give you my word not till then—that I tumbled to the idea that I’d been running guns for the other side. I expected that there’d be a furious row the minute the governor stopped laughing. But there wasn’t. In fact, no one took any notice of me. There was a long consultation, and in the end they settled that it might be risky to start moving the guns about again, and that each party had better stick to what it had got. Our fellows—I call them our fellows, though, of course, I was really acting for the others—our fellows got rather the better of the exchange in the way of ammunition. But O’Connell scooped in a lot of extra rifles. When they had that settled they all saluted again, and the governor said something about hoping to meet O’Connell at Philippi. I don’t know what he meant by that, but O’Connell seemed tremendously pleased. Where do you suppose Philippi is?”
“Philippi,” I said, “is where somebody—Julius Caesar, I think, but it doesn’t matter—— What your father meant was that he hoped to have a chance of fighting it out with O’Connell some day. Not a duel, you know, but a proper battle. The Ulster Volunteers against the other lot.”
“We shall have to wipe out the police first,” said Sam, “to prevent their interfering. I hope I shall be there then. I want to get my own back out of those fellows who collared me from behind the day of the last rag. But, I say, what about the soldiers—the regular soldiers, I mean? Which side will they be on?”
“That,” I said, “is the one uncertain factor in the problem. Nobody knows.”
“The best plan,” said Sam, “would be to take them away altogether, and leave us to settle the matter ourselves. We’d do it all right, judging by the way old Dopping and O’Connell behaved to each other.”
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. I should never have suspected Sam of profound political wisdom. But it is quite possible that his suggestion would meet the case better than any other.
X ~~ IRELAND FOR EVER
I
Lord Dunseverick picked his way delicately among the pools and tough cobble stones. He was a very well-dressed young man, and he seemed out of place amid the miry traffic of the Belfast quays. A casual observer would have put him down as a fashionable nincompoop, one of those young men whose very appearance is supposed to move the British worker to outbursts of socialistic fury. The casual observer would, in this case, have been mistaken. Lord Dunseverick, in spite of his well-fitting clothes, his delicately coloured tie, and his general air of sleek well-being, was at that moment—it was the month of May, 1914—something of a hero with the Belfast working man. And the Belfast working man, as everybody knows, is more bitterly contemptuous of the idle rich, especially of the idle rich with titles, than any other working man.
The Belfast working man had just then worked himself up to a degree of martial ardour, unprecedented even in Ulster, in his opposition to Home Rule. Lord Dunseverick was one of the generals of the Ulster Volunteer Force. He had made several speeches which moved Belfast to wild delight and sober-minded men elsewhere to dubious shaking of the head. Enthusiasm in a cause is a fine thing, especially in the young, but when Lord Dunseverick’s enthusiasm led him to say that he would welcome the German Emperor at the head of his legions as the deliverer of Ulster from the tyranny of a Parliament in Dublin, why then—then the rank and file of the volunteer army cheered, and other people wondered whether it were quite wise to say such things. Yet Lord Dunseverick, when not actually engaged in making a speech, was a pleasant and agreeable young man with a keen sense of humour. He even—and this is a rare quality in men—saw the humorous side of his own speeches. The trouble was that he never saw it till after he had made them.
A heavy motor-lorry came thundering along the quay. Lord Dunseverick dodged it, and escaped with his life. He was splashed from head to foot with mud. He looked at his neat boots and well-fashioned grey trousers. The black slime lay thick on them. He wiped a spot of mud off his cheek and rubbed some wet coal dust into his collar. Then he lit a cigarette, and smiled.
He stepped into the porch of a reeking public-house and found himself beside a grizzled man, who looked like a sailor. Lord Dunseverick turned to him.
“Can you tell me,” he said, “where Mr. McMunn’s office is?”
“Is it coal you’re wanting?” asked the sailor.
It is thus that questions are often met in Belfast with counter-questions. Belfast is a city of business men, and it is not the habit of business men to give away anything, even information, without getting something in return. The counter-question may draw some valuable matter by way of answer from the original questioner. In this case the counter-question was a reasonable one. McMunn, of McMunn Brothers, Limited, was a coal merchant. Lord Dunseverick, though a peer, belonged to the north of Ireland. He understood Belfast.
“What I want,” he said, “is to see Mr. Andrew McMunn.”
“I’ve business with Andrew McMunn myself,” said the sailor, “and I’m going that way.”
“Good. Then we’ll go together.”
“My name,” said the sailor, “is Ginty. If you’re intimate with Andrew McMunn you’ll likely have heard of me.”
“I haven’t. But that’s no reason why you shouldn’t show me the way.”
“It’s no that far,” said Ginty.
They walked together, sometimes side by side, sometimes driven apart by a string of carts.
“If it had been Jimmy McMunn you wanted to see,” said Ginty, “you might have had further to go. Some says Jimmy’s in the one place, and more is of opinion that he’s in the other. But I’ve no doubt in my own mind about where Andrew will go when his time comes.”
“You know him pretty well, then?”
“Ay, I do. It would be queer if I didn’t, seeing that I’ve sailed his ships this ten year. Andrew McMunn will go to heaven.”
“Ah,” said Lord Dunseverick, “he’s a good man, then?”
“I’ll no go so far as to say precisely that,” said Ginty, “but he’s a man who never touches a drop of whisky nor smokes a pipe of tobacco. It’ll be very hard on him if he doesna go to heaven after all he’s missed in this world. But you’ll find out what kind of man he is if you go in through the door forninst you. It’s his office, thon one with the brass plate on the door. My business will keep till you’re done with him.”
Lord Dunseverick pushed open one of a pair of swinging doors, and found himself in a narrow passage. On his right was a ground glass window bearing the word “Inquiries.” He tapped at it.
For a minute or two there was no response. Lord Dunseverick brushed some of the mud, now partially dry, off his trousers, and lit a fresh cigarette. The ground glass window was opened, and a redhaired clerk looked out.
“I want to see Mr. McMunn,” said Lord Dunseverick, “Mr. Andrew McMunn.”
The clerk put his head and shoulders out through the window, and surveyed Lord Dunseverick suspiciously. Very well dressed young men, with pale lavender ties and pearl tie-pins—Lord Dunseverick had both—are not often seen in Belfast quay-side offices.
“If you want to see Mr. McMunn,” said the clerk, “—and I’m no saying you will, mind that—you’d better take yon cigarette out of your mouth. There’s no smoking allowed here.”
Lord Dunseverick took his cigarette out of his mouth, but he did not throw it away. He held it between his fingers.
“Just tell Mr. McMunn,” he said, “that Lord Dunseverick is here.”
The clerk’s manner altered suddenly. He drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and saluted.
The discovery that a stranger is a man of high rank often produces this kind of effect on men of strong democratic principles, principles of the kind held by clerks in all business communities, quite as firmly in Belfast as elsewhere. But it would have been a mistake to suppose that Mr. McMunn’s junior clerk was a mere worshipper of title. His salute was not the tribute of a snob to the representative of an aristocratic class. It was the respect due by a soldier, drilled and disciplined, to his superior officer. It was also the expression of a young man’s sincere hero-worship. The redhaired clerk was a Volunteer, duly enrolled, one of the signatories of the famous Ulster Covenant. Lord Dunseverick had made speeches which moved his soul to actual rapture.
“Come inside, my lord,” he said. “I’ll inform Mr. McMunn at once.”
Lord Dunseverick passed through a door which was held open for him. He entered a large office, very grimy, which is the proper condition of a place where documents concerning coal are dealt with. Six other clerks were at work there. When Lord Dunseverick entered, all six of them stood up and saluted. They, too, so it appeared, were members of the Volunteer Force. The red-haired junior clerk crossed the room towards a door marked “Private.” Then he paused, and turned to Lord Dunseverick.
“Might I be so bold as to ask a question?” he said.
“A dozen if you like,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“What about the rifles? It’s only them we’re wanting now. We’re drilled and we’re ready, but where’s the rifles?”
“You shall have them,” said Lord Dunseverick.
The clerks in Mr. McMunn’s office were accustomed to behave with decorum. No more than a low murmur of approval greeted Lord Dunseverick’s words; but the men looked as if they wished to cheer vehemently. The red-haired boy tapped at the door which was marked “Private.” A minute later he invited Lord Dunseverick to pass through it.
Andrew McMunn is a hard-faced, grizzled little man, with keen blue eyes. He can, when he chooses, talk excellent English. He prefers, when dealing with strangers, to speak with a strong Belfast accent, and to use, if possible, north of Ireland words and phrases. This is his way of asserting independence of character. He admires independence.
His office is a singularly unattractive room. He writes at a large table, and has a fireproof safe at his elbow. There are three wooden chairs ranged against the wall opposite the writing-table. Four photographs of steamers, cheaply framed, hang above the chairs. They are The Andrew McMunn, The Eliza McMunn, and, a tribute to the deceased Jimmy, The McMunn Brothers. These form the fleet owned by the firm, and carry coal from one port to another, chiefly to Belfast. On the chimney-piece under a glass shade, is a model of The McMunn Brothers, the latest built and largest of the ships.
“Good-morning to you, my lord!” said McMunn, without rising from his seat.
He nodded towards one of the chairs which stood against the wall. This was his way of inviting his visitor to sit down. His eyes were fixed, with strong disapproval, on the cigarette, which still smoked feebly in Lord Dunseverick’s hand.
“Your clerk gave me a hint,” said Dunseverick, “that you object to tobacco.”
“It’s my opinion,” said McMunn, “that the man who pays taxes that he needn’t pay—I’m alluding to the duty on tobacco, you’ll understand—for the sake of poisoning himself with a nasty stink, is little better than a fool. That’s my opinion, and I’m of the same way of thinking about alcoholic drink.”
Lord Dunseverick deposited the offending cigarette on the hearth and crushed it with his foot.
“Teetotaller?” he said. “I dare say you’re right, though I take a whisky-and-soda myself when I get the chance.”
“You’ll no get it here,” said McMunn; “and what’s more, you’ll no’ get it on any ship owned by me.”
“Thank you. It’s as well to understand before-hand.”
“I’m a believer in speaking plain,” said McMunn. “There’s ay less chance of trouble afterwards if a man speaks plain at the start. But I’m thinking that it wasn’t to hear my opinion on the Christian religion that your lordship came here the day.”
McMunn, besides being a teetotaller, and opposed to the smoking of tobacco, was the president of a Young Men’s Anti-Gambling League. He was, therefore, in a position to throw valuable light on the Christian religion.
“I came to settle the details about this expedition to Hamburg,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“Well,” said McMunn, “there’s no that much left to settle. The Brothers is ready.”
“The Brothers?”
“The McMunn Brothers. Thon’s the model of her on the chimneypiece.”
Lord Dunseverick looked at the model attentively. It represented a very unattractive ship. Her bow was absurdly high, cocked up like the snout of a Yorkshire pig. Her long waist lay low, promising little freeboard in a sea. Her engines and single funnel were aft. On a short, high quarterdeck was her bridge and a squat deck-house. She was designed, like her owner, for purely business purposes.
“You’ll have the captain’s cabin,” said McMunn. “Him and me will sleep in the saloon.”
“Oh, you’re coming too?”
“I am. Have you any objection?”
“None whatever. I’m delighted. We’ll have a jolly time.”
“I’ll have you remember,” said McMunn, “that it’s not pleasuring we’re out for.”
“It’s serious business. Smuggling rifles in the teeth of a Royal Proclamation is——”
“When I understand,” said McMunn, “and you understand, where’s the use of saying what we’re going for? I’m taking risks enough anyway, without unnecessary talking. You never know who’s listening to you.”
“About paying for the—er—the—er—our cargo? Is that all arranged?”
“They’ll be paid in bills on a Hamburg bank,” said McMunn.
“Won’t they expect cash? I should have thought that in transactions of this kind——”
“You’re not a business man, my lord; but I’d have you know that a bill with the name of McMunn to it is the same as cash in any port in Europe.”
“Well, that’s your part of the affair. I am leaving that to you.”
“You may leave it. What I say I’ll do. But there’s one thing that I’m no quite easy in my mind about.”
“If you’re thinking about the landing of the guns——”
“I’m no asking what arrangements you’ve made about that. The fewer there is that knows what’s being done in a business of this kind, the better for all concerned. What’s bothering me is this. There’s a man called Edelstein.”
“Who’s he? I never heard of him before.”
“He’s the Baron von Edelstein, if that’s any help to you.”
“It isn’t. He’s not the man we’re buying the stuff from.”
“He is not. Nor he wasn’t mentioned from first to last till the letter I got the day.”
He turned to the safe beside him and drew out a bundle of papers held together by an elastic band.
“That’s the whole of the correspondence,” he said, “and there’s the last of it.”
He handed a letter to Lord Dunseverick, who read it through carefully.
“This baron,” he said, “whoever he is, intends to pay his respects to us before we leave Hamburg. Very civil of him.”
“It’s a civility we could do without. When I’m doing business I’d rather do it with business men, and a baron, you’ll understand, is no just——”
“I’m a baron myself,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“Ay, you are.”
McMunn said no more. He left it to be understood that his opinion of barons in general was not improved by his acquaintance with Lord Dunseverick.
“I don’t think we need bother about Von Eddstein, anyway,” said Lord Dunseverick. “What harm can he do us?”
“I’m no precisely bothering about him,” said McMunn; “but I’d be easier in my mind if I knew what he wanted with us.”
“We sail to-night, anyway,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“Ay, we do. I tell’t Ginty. He’s the captain of The McMunn Brothers, and a good man.”
“I’ve met him. In fact——”
“If you’ve met Ginty you’ve met a man who knows his business, though I wish he’d give over drinking whisky. However, he’s a strong Protestant and a sound man, and you can’t expect perfection.”
“Capital!” said Lord Dunseverick. “It’s a great comfort to be sure of one’s men.”
“I wish I was as sure of every one as I am of Ginty,” said McMunn. “I’m no saying that your lordship’s not sound. The speech you made last night at Ballymena was good enough, and I’m with you in every word of it; but——”
“Oh, speeches!” said Lord Dunseverick.
He was uneasily conscious that he had allowed himself to be carried away by the excitement of the occasion when speaking at Ballymena. It was right and proper to threaten armed resistance to Home Rule. It was another thing to offer a warm welcome to the German Emperor if he chose to land in Ulster. The cold emphasis with which McMunn expressed agreement with every word of the speech made Lord Dunseverick vaguely uneasy.
“Ay,” said McMunn; “your speeches are well enough, and I don’t say, mind you, that you’re not a sound man; but I’d be better pleased if you were more serious. You’re too fond of joking, in my opinion.”
“Good heavens!” said Lord Dunseverick. “I haven’t ventured on the ghost of a joke since I came into your office!” He looked round him as he spoke, and fixed his eyes at last on the fireproof safe. “Nobody could.”
“It’s no what you’ve said, it’s your lordship’s appearance. But it’s too late to alter that, I’m thinking.”
“Not at all,” said Lord Dunseverick. “I’ll join you this evening in a suit of yellow oilskins, the stickiest kind, and a blue fisherman’s jersey, and a pair of sea-boots. I’ll have——”
“You will,” said McMunn, “and you’ll look like a play actor. It’s just what I’m complaining of.”