angry cries of "Shame, shame" had subsided, saying
with a smile: "This sort of thing is only the manure that fertilises my
reputation with you who know me."

And that was true. If Home Rulers, whether in Ireland or in Great
Britain, ever seriously thought of conciliating Ulster, as Mr. Redmond
professed to desire, they never made a greater mistake than in saying
and writing insulting things about Carson. It only endeared him more and
more to his followers, and it intensified the bitterness of their
feeling against the Nationalists and all their works. An almost equally
short-sighted error on the part of hostile critics was the idea that the
attitude of Ulster as exhibited at Craigavon and Balmoral should be
represented as mere bluster and bluff, to which the only proper reply
was contempt. There never was anything further removed from the truth,
as anyone ought to have known who had the smallest acquaintance with
Irish history or with the character of the race that had supplied the
backbone of Washington's army; but, if there had been at any time an
element of bluff in their attitude, their contemptuous critics took the
surest means of converting it into grim earnestness of purpose. Mr.
Redmond himself was ill-advised enough to set an example in this
respect. In an article published by _Reynold's Newspaper_ in January he
had scoffed at the "stupid, hollow, and unpatriotic bellowings" of the
Loyalists in Belfast. Some few opponents had enough sense to take a
different line in their comments on Balmoral. One article in particular
which appeared in _The Star_ on the day of the demonstration attracted
much attention for this reason.

"We have never yielded," it said, "to the temptation to deride or
to belittle the resistance of Ulster to Home Rule.... The
subjugation of Protestant Ulster by force is one of those things
that do not happen in our politics.... It is, we know, a popular
delusion that Ulster is a braggart whose words are empty bluff. We
are convinced that Ulster means what she says, and that she will
make good every one of her warnings."

_The Star_ went on to implore Liberals not to be driven "into an
attitude of bitter hostility to the Ulster Protestants," with whom it
declared they had much in common.

After Balmoral there was certainly more disposition than before on the
part of Liberal Home Rulers to acknowledge the sincerity of Ulster and
the gravity of the position