Part 43 (2/2)
Next to him, a frightful cripple, who could stand erect only by leaning heavily upon two canes, was telling the crowd how exceedingly difficult it was for a rich man to get into heaven. Next to him, a lot of women were holding some sort of missionary meeting; and just around the last corner, a roughly-dressed man, with coa.r.s.e, red-bearded face, whose canvas placard described him as a ”Medical Herbalist,” was selling medicines of his own concoction.
He had no panacea, but a separate remedy for every ill; and I listened to his patter for a long time, though obviously he didn't welcome my presence. He proved that slippery-elm was harmless by eating some of it, and argued that plantain, ”which ignorant people regarded as a weed, made the best medicine a man could put into his inside,” and he proved this proposition by saying that it must be so because plantain had no other known use, and it was inconceivable that the Lord would have taken the trouble to create it without some purpose. He also proved that he was a capable doctor because he was not a doctor at all, but a working-man, and it was the working-man who made the world go round.
Inconceivable as it may seem, this ignorant and maudlin talk was listened to seriously and even respectfully, and he sold a lot of his medicines. Medicine seems to be one of the dissipations of the Belfast folk.
The largest crowd of all was gathered before a man who held the centre of the fourth side of the esplanade, and who was talking, or rather shouting, against Home Rule. He was garbed as a clergyman, and he wore an Orange badge, and he was listened to with religious attention as he painted the iniquity of the Catholic church and the horrible dangers of Catholic domination. His references to King Billy and the Boyne and the walls of Derry were many and frequent, and he had all sorts of newspaper clippings in his pockets, from which he read freely, and though he was very hoa.r.s.e and bathed in perspiration, he showed no sign of stopping.
He intimated that, once Home Rule was established, the revival of the inquisition would be but a matter of a short time, that no Protestant would be allowed to own property, that no Protestant labourer could expect employment anywhere until he had abjured his religion, that their children would be taken away from them and reared in Catholic schools, and he called upon them to arm and stand firm, to offer their lives upon the altar of their country, and not retreat a step before the aggressions of the Scarlet Woman. I don't know how much of this farrago his audience believed, but their faces were intent and serious, and I fear they believed much more than was good for them. I happened upon a song of Chesterton's the other day which brought those strained and intent faces vividly before me:
The folks that live in black Belfast, their heart is in their mouth; They see us making murders in the meadows of the South; They think a plow's a rack, they do, and cattle-calls are creeds, And they think we're burnin' witches, when we're only burnin' weeds.
Those lines are scarcely an exaggeration; and after I had stood there listening for half an hour, I began to feel uneasily that perhaps, after all, there is in Ulster a dour fanaticism which may lead to an ugly conflict. Those political adventurers who have preached armed resistance so savagely, without really meaning a word of it, may have raised a Frankenstein which they will find themselves unable to control.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CITY HALL, BELFAST]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HIGH STREET, BELFAST]
As I turned away, at last, sick at heart that such things should be, I pa.s.sed close by a little group of men who were standing on the sidewalk opposite, listening to the denunciations of Rome with flushed faces and clenched hands.
”Let's have a go at him!” said one of them hoa.r.s.ely; and then he caught my eye, as I lingered to see what would happen. ”What do you think of that, anyway, sir?” he asked.
”I think it's outrageous,” I said. ”But I wouldn't raise a row, if I were you boys; you'll just be playing into his hands if you do.”
Their leader considered this for a moment.
”I guess you're right, sir,” he agreed, at last. ”Come on, boys,” and they slouched away around the corner.
But perhaps, afterwards, when they had got a few more drinks, they came back again. It is a peculiarity of Belfast that the public houses are allowed to open at two o'clock Sunday afternoon, and they are crammed from that time forward with a thirsty crowd.
There is nothing of antiquarian interest at Belfast, and its public buildings, though many and various, are in no way noteworthy. The sycophancy of the town is evidenced by a tall memorial to Prince Albert, not quite so ugly however, as the one at London; while in front of the city hall stands a heroic figure of Victoria. There is a statue to the Marquis of Dufferin, and one to Harland the s.h.i.+p-builder, and one to Sir James Haslett; and many militant divines, in flowing robes, are immortalised in marble. But search the streets as you may, you will find no statue to any Irish patriot or Irish poet.
Nor will you find a street named after one--yes, there is Patrick Street, but it is a very short and unimportant street, and may easily escape notice. The shadow of the Victorian Age lies deeply over the place. The greatest quay is Albert Quay, and the s.h.i.+p channel is Victoria Channel, and the square at the custom house is Albert Square, and a little farther along is Victoria Square, and just around the corner is Arthur Square, and the princ.i.p.al avenue is Royal Avenue, and the broad street which leads into it is York Street, and the street next to it is Queen Street, and leading off of that is Kent Street, and a little distance away is Albert Street leading up to Great Victoria Street, and I am sure that somewhere in the town there is a Prince Consort Street, though I didn't happen upon it!
The churches are all modern and uninteresting, though, strangely enough, the Catholic ones are as large and ornate as any. You wouldn't think it from the way Ulster talks, but about a fourth of the population of Belfast is Catholic. There are two small museums, neither of which is worth visiting; in a word, the whole interest of Belfast is in its shops, its factories and its commerce.
The shops are wonderfully attractive, especially, of course, in objects made of linen. For Belfast is the world-centre of the linen trade, whose foundations were laid by the Huguenots who found a refuge here after Louis XIV banished them from France. It was the one Irish industry which England did not interfere with, because England produced no linen; and consequently it prospered enormously, until to-day there are single factories at Belfast where four thousand people bend over a thousand looms or watch ten thousand spindles, and the annual value of the trade is more than sixty million dollars. There are great tobacco factories, too, covering acres of ground; and the biggest rope-walk in the world; and a distillery which covers nineteen acres and--but the list is interminable.
The most interesting and spectacular of all these mighty industries will be found along the river banks, where the great s.h.i.+p-building yards are ranged, where such monsters as the _Olympic_ and the fated _t.i.tanic_ were built and launched, and where the rattle and clangour of steel upon steel tells of the labour of twenty thousand men. And surely the clang and clatter of honest toil which rises from Belfast on week days must be more pleasing to the Almighty than the clang and clatter which rises from it on Sunday! I should think He would be especially disgusted with the noises which emanate from about the Custom House!
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE GRAVE OF ST. PATRICK
THE shops of Belfast, with their embroidered linens (duty, forty-five per cent!), proved a magnet too great for Betty to resist, but I hied me away, next day, into County Down, on a pilgrimage to the grave which is said to hold the three great apostles of Erin--Saint Brigid and Saint Patrick and Saint Columba. It is in the churchyard of the village of Downpatrick that the grave lies, and the thirty mile run thither from Belfast is through a green and fertile country covered with broad fields of flax. There are raths and tumuli here and there, and a few ruins topping the neighbouring slopes, but it is not until one reaches Downpatrick that one comes upon a really impressive memorial of the old days.
The cathedral is visible long before the train reaches the town, standing on the edge of a high bluff overlooking the valley of the Quoile, and it was to it I made my way from the station, up a very steep street, for Downpatrick, following the fas.h.i.+on of Irish towns, is built on the side of a hill--and also follows the fas.h.i.+on in having an Irish Street and an English Street and even a Scotch Street, the surviving names, I suppose, of the quarters where the people of those various nations once lived close together for mutual protection.
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