at the battle of the Boyne, and was now lent by its owner, a
lineal descendant of the original standard-bearer, to be carried before
Carson to the signing of the Covenant; the second was the presentation
to the leader of a silver key, symbolic of Ulster as "the key of the
situation," and a silver pen wherewith to sign the Covenant on the
morrow, by Captain James Craig. "The two incidents," continued the
Correspondent of _The Times_, "were followed by the audience with
breathless excitement, and made a remarkably effective prelude to Sir
Edward Carson's speech. Premeditated, no doubt, that incident of the
banner--yet entirely graceful, entirely fitting to the spirit of the
occasion--a plan carried through with the sense of ceremony which
Ulstermen seem to have always at their command in moments of emotion."

And if ever there was a "moment of emotion" for the Loyalists of
Ulster--those descendants of the Plantation men who had been
deliberately sent to Ireland with a commission from the first sovereign
of a united Britain to uphold British interests, British honour, and the
Reformed Faith across the narrow sea--Loyalists who were conscious that
throughout the generations they had honestly striven to be faithful to
their mission--if ever in their long and stormy history they experienced
a "moment of emotion," it was assuredly on this evening before the
signing of their Covenant.

The speeches delivered by their leader and others were merely a vent for
that emotion. There was nothing that could be said about their cause
that they did not know already; but all felt that the heart of the
matter was touched--the whole situation, so far as they were concerned,
summed up in a single sentence of Carson's speech: "We will take
deliberately a step forward, not in defiance but in defence; and the
Covenant which we will most willingly sign to-morrow will be a great
step forward, in no spirit of aggression, in no spirit of ascendancy,
but with a full knowledge that, if necessary, you and I--you trusting
me, and I trusting you--will follow out everything that this Covenant
means to the very end, whatever the consequences." Every man and woman
who heard these words was filled with an exalted sense of the solemnity
of the occasion. The mental atmosphere was not that of a political
meeting, but of a religious service--and, in fact, the proceedings had
been opened by prayer, as had become the invariable custom on such
occasions in Ulste