I have often tried to understand how it was that Bob Power came to take the active part he did in the fighting which followed, and how he came to be in command of a body of volunteers. He had not, so far as I know, any actual hatred of the idea of Home Rule. He was too light-hearted to be in full sympathy with fanatical Puritans like Crossan and McNeice. He certainly had no hatred of the British Empire or the English army. He was, up to the last moment, on friendly terms with those of the army officers whom he happened to know. He chatted with them and with detached inspectors of police in the same friendly way as he did with Henderson at the railway station.
I can only suppose that he regarded the whole business—to begin with at all events—as a large adventure of a novel and delightful kind. He went into it very much as many volunteers went into the Boer War, without any very strong convictions about the righteousness of the cause in which he fought, certainly without any realization of the horror of actual bloodshed.
There are men of this temperament, fortunately a good many of them. If they did not exist in large numbers the world’s fighting would be very badly done. The mere mercenary—uninspired by the passion for adventure—will at the best do as little fighting as possible, and do it with the smallest amount of ardour. Fanatics cannot be had to order. Some kind of idea—in most cases a religious idea—is necessary to turn the ordinary church-going business man or farmer into an efficient fighting unit. The kind of patriotism which is prepared to make sacrifices, to endure bodily pain and risk death, is very rare. It is on the men who enjoy risk, who love struggle, who face death with a laugh, the men of Bob Power’s reckless temperament, that the world must rely when it wants fighting done. Hitherto men of this kind have been plentiful. Whether our advancing civilization is going to destroy the breed is a question which, I am pleased to say, need not be answered by my generation. There are enough Bob Powers alive to last my time.
CHAPTER XVIII
I fully intended to go to church on Sunday morning. I was, in fact, waiting for Marion at the door of the hotel, when Sir Samuel Clithering came to see me.
“I shall be so much obliged,” he said, “if you will spare me a few minutes.”
I did not want to spare any minutes to Sir Samuel Clithering. In the first place I had promised to take Marion to the cathedral. “A Parade Service”—I quote the official title of the function—was to be held for the benefit of the volunteers and Marion naturally wanted to see Bob Power at the head of his men. I wanted to hear the men singing that hymn again, and I wanted to hear what sort of sermon the Dean—our Dean, not the Dean of the cathedral—would preach on such an occasion. He was advertised to preach, as “Chaplain General of the Loyalists.” These were three good reasons for not giving Sir Samuel Clithering the few minutes he demanded. I had, also, a fourth. I had held, as I have related, previous communications with Clithering. I suspected him of having more peerages in his pocket for distribution, and I did not want to undertake any further negotiations like that with Conroy. He might even—and I particularly disliked the idea—be empowered to offer our Dean an English bishopric.