And if "Ulster" does fight after all? In that event we must only
remember how sorry George Stephenson was for the cow. The military
traditions of the Protestant North are not very alarming. The
contribution of the Enniskilleners to the Battle of the Boyne appears to
have consisted in running away with great energy and discretion. Nor did
they, or their associates, in later years shed any great lustre even on
Imperial arms. I have never heard that the Connaught Rangers had many
recruits from the Shankhill Road, or the Dublin Fusiliers from
Portadown; consequently the present situation disgusts rather than
terrifies us. If rifle-levers ever click in rebellion against a Home
Rule government, duly established by statute under the authority of the
Crown, it will be astonishing to find that every bullet in Ireland is a
member of an Orange Lodge. If "Ulster" repudiates the arbitrament of
reason, and the verdict of a free ballot, she simply puts herself
outside the law. And she may be quite assured that the law, driven back
on its ultimate sanction of force, will very sharply and very amply
vindicate itself.
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