Changing Winds Part 10

"That lad'll do rightly," said Mr. Quinn, and he arranged to meet Marsh in the queer, untidy room in Merrion Square where Harper edited his weekly paper. "He has the walls of the place covered with pictures of big women with b.r.e.a.s.t.s like balloons," Mr. Quinn said afterwards when he tried to describe Ernest Harper's office, "an' he talks to you about fairies 'til you'd near believe a leprechaun 'ud hop out of the coalscuttle if you lifted the lid!"

Soon afterwards, they met, and Mr. Quinn explained his purpose to Marsh.

"I'm not a Nationalist, thank G.o.d, nor a Catholic, thank G.o.d again, but I'm Irish an' I want my son to know about Ireland an' to feel as Irish as I do myself!"

Marsh talked about Nationalism and Freedom and English Misrule, but Mr.

Quinn waved his hands before his face and made a wry expression at him.

"All your talk about the freedom of Ireland is twaddle, John Marsh ...

if you don't mind, I'll begin callin' you John Marsh this minute ... an'

I may as well tell you I don't believe in the tyranny of England. The English aren't cruel--they're stupid. That's what they are--Thick! As thick as they can be, an' that's as thick as G.o.d thinks it's decent to let any man be! But they're not cruel. They do cruel things sometimes because they don't know any better, an' they think they're doin' the right things when they're only doin' the stupid thing. That's where we come in! Our job is to teach the English how to do the right thing."

They smiled at him. "An' I'm not coddin,'" he went on. "I mean every word I say. It's not Home Rule for Ireland that's needed--it's Irish Rule for England; an' I'll maintain that 'til my dyin' day.... But that's neither here nor there. I think you're a fool, John Marsh, to go about dreamin' of an Irish Republic ... you don't mind me callin' you a fool, do you? ... but you love Ireland, and I'd forgive a man a great deal for that, so if you'll come an' be tutor to my son, I'll be obliged to you!"

And John Marsh, smiling at Mr. Quinn, had consented.

"That's right," Mr. Quinn said, gripping the young man's hand and wringing it heartily. "I like him," he added, turning to Ernest Harper, "an' he'll be good for Henry, an' I daresay I'll be good for him. You've an awful lot of slummage in your skull," he continued, addressing Marsh again, "but beG.o.d I'll clear that out!"

"Slummage?" Marsh asked questioningly.

"Aye. Do you not know what slummage is?"

He described it as a heap of steamy, flabby grain that is rejected by distillers after the spirit has been extracted from it. "An' it's only fit to feed pigs with," he said, ending his description. "An' the kind of stuff you're lettin' out of you now is only fit for pub-patriots.

How soon can you come to Ballymartin. The sooner the better!"

He tried to drop the discussion of politics, but was so fond of it himself that before he had settled the date of Marsh's appearance at Ballymartin, he was in the middle of another discussion. His head was full of theories about Ireland and about the world, and he loved to let his theories out of his head for an airing. He very earnestly desired to keep Ireland different from England. "Ireland's the 'country' of this kingdom, an' England's the 'town,'" he sometimes said, or when his mood was bitter, he would say that he wished to preserve Ireland as a place in which gentlemen could live in comfort, leaving England to be the natural home of manufacturers and mill-owners.

"But it's no good talkin' of separatin' the two countries," he said to Marsh, "an' it's no good talkin' of drivin' the English out of Ireland because you can't tell these times who is English an' who is Irish.

We've mingled our blood too closely for any one to be able to tell who's what. If you started clearin' out the English, you'd mebbe clear me out, for my family was planted here by William of Orange ... an' the d.a.m.nedest set of scoundrels they were, too, by all accounts!... an'

mebbe, Marsh, you yourself 'ud be cleared out!... Aye, an' you, too, Ernest Harper, for all you're waggin' your oul' red beard at me. You're Scotch, man, Scotch, to the backbone!..."

Harper rose at him, wagging his red beard, and filling the air with terrible prophecies!...

"Ah, quit, man!" said Mr. Quinn, and he turned and winked at Marsh. "Do you know what religion he is?" he said, pointing his finger at Harper.

"He's a Nonconformin' Theosophist!" And he roared at his own joke.

"You can no more separate the destinies of England an' Ireland in the world," he went on, "nor you can separate the waters of the Liffey an'

the Mersey in the Irish Sea. Bedam, if you can!"

Mr. Quinn liked to throw out these aphorisms, and he spent a great deal of time in inventing them. Once he flung a company of Dublin gossips into a rage because he declared that Dublin was called "the whispering gallery" and "the city of dreadful whispers" because it was populated by the descendants of informers and spies. That, he declared, was why Dublin people were so fond of t.i.ttle-tattle and tale-bearing and scandal-mongering. "The English hanged or transported every decent-minded man in the town, an' left only the spies an' informers, an' the whole of you are descended from that breed. That's why you can't keep anything to yourselves, but have to run abut the town tellin'

everybody all the secrets you know!" And he charged them with constantly giving each other away. He repeated this generalisation about the Dublin people to John Marsh. "An' I tell you what'll happen to you, young fellow, one of these days. You'll be hanged or shot or transported or somethin', an' half the people of this place'll be runnin' like lightnin' to swear an information against you, as sure as Fate. If ever you think of startin' a rebellion, John Marsh, go up to Belfast an'

start it. People'll be loyal to you there, but in this place they'd sell you for a pint of Guinness!"

He was half serious in his warning to Marsh, but ... "I should be glad to die for Ireland," Marsh replied, and it was said so simply that there was no priggishness in it. "I can think of no finer fate for an Irishman."

Mr. Quinn made a gesture of impatience. "It 'ud be a d.a.m.n sight better to live for Ireland," he exclaimed angrily.

2

Henry was in the garden when John Marsh arrived, accompanied by Mr.

Quinn. Two letters had come to him that morning from England--one from Gilbert Farlow and the other from Mary Graham, and he was reading them again for the seventh or eighth time when the dogcart drove up to the house.

_My dear old a.s.s,_ Gilbert wrote, _why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped.

I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the b.l.o.o.d.y Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low.

Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ...

it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We go about saying, "My G.o.d, I'm a superman!" and try to look like Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert._

_P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?_

Mary's letter was shorter than Gilbert's.

_I think it's awfully horrid of your father not to let you go to Cambridge with Ninian and the others. I was so looking forward to going up in May Week and so was Mother. Of course, we shall go anyhow, but it would have been much nicer if you had been there.

You would love Boveyhayne if you were here now. The hedges are full of wild roses and hazelnuts and there is a lovely lot of valaria on our wall. Old Widger says there will be a lovely lot of blackberries in September if everything goes well. I went out in a boat yesterday with Tom Yeo and I caught six dozen mackerel. You would have blubbed if you'd seen them flopping about in the bottom of the boat and looking so nice, and they were nice to eat. I love mackerel, don't you? Mother sends her love. Do write soon. I love getting letters and you write such nice ones. Your affectionate friend, Mary Graham. P.S. Love._

Mary always signed herself his affectionate friend. He had tried to make her sign herself his loving sweetheart, but she said she did not like to do that.

3

He hurriedly put the letters away, and rose to greet John Marsh who came across the lawn to him, talking to Mr. Quinn.

"This is John Marsh, Henry," Mr. Quinn said when he came up to him, and Henry and Marsh shook hands and murmured greetings to each other. "I'll leave you both here to get acquainted with each other," Mr. Quinn continued. "I've a few things to do about the house!" He went off at once, leaving them together, but before he had gone far he turned and shouted to Henry, "You can show him through the grounds! He'll want to stretch his legs after bein' so long in the train!"

"Very well, father!" Henry answered, and turned to Marsh.

His first impression of his tutor was one of insignificance. Marsh's clothes were cheap and ready-made, and they seemed to be a size too large for him. That, indeed, was characteristic of him, that he should always seem to be wearing things which were too big for him. His tie, too, was rising over the top of his collar.... But the sense of insignificance disappeared from Henry's mind almost immediately after Marsh had offered his hand to him and had smiled; and following the sense of insignificance came a feeling of personal shame that was incomprehensible to him until he discovered that his shame was caused because he had thought slightingly of Marsh, even though he had done so only for a few moments, and had allowed his mind to be concerned about the trivialities of clothes when it should have been concerned with the nature of the man who wore them. Henry's mind was oddly perverse; he had been as fierce in his denunciation of convention as ever Gilbert Farlow had been, but nevertheless he clung to conventional things with something like desperation. It was characteristic of him that he should palliate his submission to the conventional thing by inventing a sensible excuse for it. He would say that such things were too trivial to be worth the trouble of a fight or a revolt, and declare that one should save one's energies for bigger battles; but the truth was that he had not the moral courage to flout a convention, and he had a queer, instinctive dislike of people who had the courage to do so.... He knew that this habit of his was likely to distort his judgments and make him shrink from ordeals of faith, and very often in his mind he tried to subdue his cowardly fear of conventional disapproval ... without success. But John Marsh had the power to conquer people. The gentleness of him, the kindly smile and the look of high intent, made men of meaner motive feel unaccountably ashamed.

He was a man of middle height and slender build. His high, broad brow was covered by heavy, rough, tufty hair that was brushed cleanly from his forehead and cut tidily about the neck so that he did not look unkempt. His long, straight nose was as large as the nose of a successful business man, but it was not bulbous nor were the nostrils wide and distended. It was a delicately-shaped and pointed nose, with narrow nostrils that were as sensitive as the nostrils of a racehorse: an adventurous, pointing nose that would lead its owner to valiant lengths, but would never lead him into low enterprises. He had grey eyes that were quick to perceive, so that he understood things speedily, and the kindly, forbearing look in them promised that his understanding would not be stiffened by harshness, that it would be accompanied by sympathy so keen that, were it not for the hint of humour which they also held, he might almost have been mawkish, a sentimentalist too easily dissolved in tears. His thick eyebrows clung closely to his eyes, and gave him a look of introspection that mitigated the shrewdness of his pointing nose. There was some weakness, but not much, in the full, projecting lower lip and the slightly receding chin that caused his short, tightened upper lip to look indrawn and strained; and the big, ungainly, jutting ears consorted oddly with the serious look of high purpose that marked his face in repose. It was as though Puck had turned poet and then had turned preacher. One looked at the fleshy lower lip and the jutting ears, and thought of a careless, impish creature; one looked at the shapely, pointing nose and the kindly, unflinching eyes, and thought of a man reckless of himself in the pursuit of some fine purpose. One saw immediately that he was a man who could be moved easily when his sympathies were touched ... but that he could hardly be dissuaded from the fulfilment of his good intent. His Nationalism was like a cleansing fire; it consumed every impure thing that might penetrate his life. It was so potent that he did ridiculous things in a.s.serting it.... It was typical of him that he should gaelicise his name, and equally typical of him that he should be undecided about the correct spelling of "John" in the ancient Irish tongue. He had called himself "Sean" Marsh, and then had called himself "Shane" and "Shaun"

and "Shawn." Once, for a while, he transformed "John" into "Eoin" and then, tiring of it, had reverted to "Sean." But this restlessness over his name was not a sign of general instability of purpose. He might vary in the expression of his belief, but the belief itself was as immovable as the mountains.

4

It was said of him that on one occasion he had taken a cheque to a bank in Dublin to be cashed. An English editor had printed one of his poems and had paid for it ... and he was not accustomed to receiving money for his poems, which were printed mostly in little Irish propaganda journals! He had endorsed the cheque in Gaelic, and the puzzled bank manager had demanded that it should be endorsed in English.... Marsh had given him a lecture on Irish history that lasted for the better part of half-an-hour ... and then, because the manager looked so frightened, he had consented to sign his name in English.

5

They left the garden and walked slowly to the top of an ascending field where an old farm-horse, quit now of work, grazed in peace. It raised its head as they walked towards it, and gazed at them with blurred eyes, and then ambled to them. They stood beside it for a few moments while Marsh patted its neck with one hand and allowed it to nuzzle in the palm of the other. "I love beasts," he said, "Dogs and cats and birds and horses and cows ... I think I love cows best because they've got such big, soft eyes and look so stupid and reproachful ... except that dogs are very nice and companionable and faithful ... but so are cats...."

"Faithful? Cats?" Henry asked.

"Oh, yes ... quite faithful if they like you. Why should they be faithful if they don't? Poor, old chap! Poor, old chap!" he murmured, thrusting his fingers through the horse's worn mane. "Of course, horses are very nice, too," he went on. "And birds! ... I suppose one loves all animals. One has to be very brutal to hurt an animal; hasn't one?"

Henry laughed. "The Irish are cruel to animals," he said, "but the English aren't!"

Marsh flushed. "I've never been in England," he replied, looking away.

"Never?" Henry exclaimed.