bladder of
Ulster opposition to Home Rule. We venture to say that the little
group of selfish wire-pullers at whose bidding the meeting has been
summoned, will sneak away before the batons of half a dozen policemen,
and their followers will be found to be non-existent."

The Government, apparently, believed the Nationalist orators, or half
believed them. Sir Samuel Clithering was sent over to Belfast, to
report, confidentially, on the temper of the people. He must have sent
off his despatch before the Dean's army marched in, before any of the
armies then converging on the city arrived, before the Belfast people
had got out their rifles. The Government in the most solemn and
impressive manner, proclaimed the meeting. That was the news with
which we were greeted when our train drew up at the platform in
Belfast.

The proclamation of meeting is one of the regular resources of
governments when Irish affairs get into a particularly annoying
tangle. There have been during my time hundreds of meetings proclaimed
in different parts of the country. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief
Secretary never get any thanks for their action. The people who want
to hold the meeting always accuse the Government of violating the
right of free speech and substituting a military tyranny for the Magna
Charta. The other people who do not want the meeting to be held always
say that the Government ought to have proclaimed it much sooner than
it did, and ought to have imprisoned, perhaps beheaded, the men who
intended to speak at the meeting.

Bob Power met us on the platform, which was horribly crowded, and
immediately conducted Marion to a motor car which he had in waiting
outside the station. Then he came back to me and we went together in
search of Marion's luggage. It was while we were pushing our way
through the crowd that he told me the great news. I said that the
failure of the demonstration would be a disappointment to the Dean and
his riflemen who would have to walk all the way home again without
hearing Babberly's speech.

"I'm not so sure about that," said Bob. "We may have the meeting in
spite of their teeth."

"You can't possibly," I said, "hold a meeting when--dear me! Who are
those?"

There was a crowd round the luggage van where we were trying to
discover Marion's trunk. An unmannerly porter shoved me back, and I
bumped into a man who had something hard and knobby in his hand. I
looked round. He was a soldier in the regular