oughly good training when the Home Rule Bill became law.
The subject evidently interested him very much. He has a long white
beard of the kind described as patriarchal. When he reaches exciting
passages in his public speeches, and even when he is saying something
emphatic in private life, his beard wags up and down. On this occasion
it rose and fell like a foamy wave. That was what convinced me that
he was really interested in the activity of the Unionist clubs. Lady
Moyne smiled at him in her bewilderingly bewitching way, and then
turned round and smiled at me.

"But," I said, "do you actually mean to go out and do battle?"

"It won't be necessary," said Babberly. "Once the English people
understand that we mean to die rather than see our lives and
liberties--"

"Nowadays," said Lady Moyne, "when the industrial proletariate is
breaking free from all control, it is a splendid thing for us to have
a cause in which we take the lead, which will bind our working classes
to us, and make them loyal to those who are after all their best
friends and their natural leaders."

I quite saw Lady Moyne's point. Crossan would not be at all likely to
follow her or regard her as his best friend in ordinary matters. He
might even resent her interference with his affairs. But on the
subject of Home Rule Crossan would certainly follow any one who took
his side of the great controversy. If Lady Moyne wore an orange sash
over her pretty dresses Crossan would cheer her. While Home Rule
remained a real danger he would refrain from asking why Lord Moyne
should spend as much on a bottle of champagne for dinner, as would
feed the children of a labourer for a week. It did not surprise me to
find that Lady Moyne was clever enough to understand Crossan. I wanted
to know whether Babberly understood.

"But," I said to him, "suppose that the men you are enrolling take
what you say seriously--"

"I assure you, Lord Kilmore," said Babberly, "we are quite serious."

I could hear Malcolmson at the other end of the table explaining to
Moyne a scheme for establishing a number of artillery forts on the
side of the Cave Hill above Belfast Lough. His idea apparently, was to
sink any British warship which was ill-advised enough to anchor there
with a view to imposing Home Rule on us. Malcolmson, at all events,
was quite serious.

"It will never come to fighting," said Babberly again. "After all, the
great heart of the English people is sound. They will