Chapter 4

"So I shall. I say, Mary!..."

"Yes, Quinny?"

He could hear the rattle of the train on the railway lines, and, turning towards the other end of the platform, he saw that Ninian, having settled about the luggage and finished listening to the story of the fox hunt, was approaching them. "Come on," he said, catching hold of Mary's arm and drawing her to the other end of the platform.

"But that's the wrong end," she protested.

"I say, Mary!..."

"Yes, Quinny?"

"Oh, I say, Mary!..."

"Yes?..."

"I'd like to marry you awf'lly, if you don't mind!"

It was out ... oh, Lord, it was out!...

"Oh, I should love it, Quinny," said Mary, looking up at him and smiling.

"Would you really!"

"Yes. Of course, I would. Let's tell Ninian and Widger!..."

Her suggestion alarmed him. Ninian would be sure to chaff him about it.... "Oh, not yet!..." he began, but he was too late. Ninian had come up to them, grumbling, "I thought you two'd started to leg it to Rumpell's...."

Mary seized his arm and pressed it tightly. "Quinny and me are going to get married," she said.

"Silly asses," said Ninian. "Come on, here's the train in!"

4

They climbed into their carriage a few seconds before the train steamed out of the station again, and jammed themselves in the window to look out. Ninian was full of instructions to Widger about his terrier and his ferrets and a blind mouse that was supposed to recognise him with miraculous ease. There was also some point about the fox-hunt which required explanation....

"Good-bye, Mary!" Henry said, taking hold of her hand and pressing it. "I suppose," he whispered, "I ought to give you a ring or something. Chaps always do that!..."

Mary shook her head. "I don't think mother would like that," she replied.

"Well, anyhow, we're engaged, aren't we?"

"Oh, of course, Quinny!"

"It's most awf'lly nice of you to have me, Mary!"

"But I like you!"

"Do you really?"

The guard blew his whistle and waved his flag and the train began to move out of the station. He stood at the window looking back at Mary standing on the platform, waving her hands to him, until he could see her no longer.

"What are you looking at?" Ninian asked, taking down the basket of fish which Jim Rattenbury had given him and preparing to open it.

"I'm looking at Mary," he answered.

"Sloppy ass!" said Ninian, and then he added excitedly, "Oh, I say, plaice and dabs and a lobster ... a whopping big lobster! It's berried, too!" He pointed to the red seeds in the lobster's body. "My Heavenly Father, Quinny!" he exclaimed, "what a tuck-in we'll have to-night!"

"Eh?" Henry replied vaguely.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

1

Gilbert summoned Roger and Henry and Ninian to a solemn council. "Look here," he said, "I've made up my mind about myself!"

"Oh!" they exclaimed.

"Yes. I'm going to be a dramatist and write plays!"

"Why?" Ninian asked.

"I dunno! I went to see a play in the hols, and I thought I'd like to write one, too. It seems easy enough. You just make up a lot of talk, and then you get some actors to say it...."

"I see," said Ninian.

"And when I was a kid," Gilbert continued, "I used to make up plays for parties. Jolly good, they were ... at least I thought so!"

Gilbert, having settled what his own career was to be, was eager that his friends should settle what their careers were to be. "Roger, of course," he said, "has made up his mind to be a barrister, so that's him, but what about you, Ninian, and what about Quinny?"

Ninian said that he did not know what he should do. Mrs. Graham was anxious that he should become a member of parliament and lead the life of a country gentleman who takes an intelligent interest in his estate and his country. His Uncle George, the Dean of Exebury, oscillated between two opinions: one that Ninian should become a parson....

Gilbert suddenly proposed a resolution, sternly forbidding their young friend, Ninian Graham, to become a parson on any conditions whatever. The resolution was seconded by Henry Quinn, and passed unanimously.

... and the other that he should enter the Diplomatic Service. The Dean had talked largely to Ninian on the subject of his career. On the whole he had inclined towards the Diplomatic Service. He had stood in front of the fire, his hands thrust through the belt of his apron and talked magnificently of the glories of diplomacy. "How splendid it would be, Ninian," he said in that rich, flowing voice which caused ladies to admire his sermons so much, "if you were to become an ambassador!" Ninian, feeling that he ought to say something, had murmured that he supposed it would be rather jolly. "An ambassador!" the Dean continued. "His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Imperial Court of ... of Vienna!" He liked the sound of the title so much that he repeated it: "His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador!..."

But Ninian had interrupted him. "I don't think I'd like that job very much, Uncle George!" he said. "You're supposed to have an awful lot of tact if you're an ambassador, and I'm rather an ass at tact!"

"Well, then, the Church!" the Dean suggested. "After all, the Church is still the profession of a gentleman!..."

But Ninian had as little desire to be a priest as he had to be an ambassador. He wished to be an engineer!

"A what?" the Dean had exclaimed in horror.

"An engineer, uncle!"

The Dean could not rid himself of the notion that Ninian was a small boy, and so he imagined that when Ninian said an "engineer" he meant a man who drives a railway engine.... The Dean was not insensible to the value of engineers to the community ... in fact, whenever he travelled by train, he invariably handed any newspapers he might have with him to the engine-driver at the end of the journey, "because," he said, "I wish to show my appreciation of the fact that without his care and skill I might--er--have been--well involved in a collision or something of the sort!" But, while the occupation of an engine-driver was a very admirable one ... very admirable one, indeed ... for a member of the working-class, it could hardly be described as a suitable occupation for a gentleman. "I think," he said, "that engine-drivers get thirty-eight shillings per week, or some such amount!" He adjusted his glasses and beamed pleasantly at Ninian. "My dear boy," he said, "thirty-eight shillings per week is hardly ... hardly an adequate income for a Graham!"

Ninian did not like to ask his uncle George to "chuck it," nor did he care to tell him that he was making a frightful ass of himself, and so he did not answer, and the beaming old gentleman felt that he had impressed the lad.... It was Mrs. Graham who reminded him of the larger functions of an engineer.

"I think," she said, "that Ninian wishes to build bridges and railways and ... and things like that!"

"Oh!" said the Dean, and his countenance altered swiftly. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! I was forgetting about bridges. Dear me, yes! I remember meeting Sir John Aird once. Remarkable man! Very remarkable man! He built the Assouan Dam, of course. Well, that would be a very nice occupation, Ninian. Rather different, of course, from the Diplomatic Service ... or the Church ... but still, very nice, _very_ nice! And profitable, I'm told!..."

2

"Anyhow," said Ninian, when he had related the story of his uncle's views, "I'm going to be an engineer, no matter what Uncle George says, and I'm not going to be a parson and I'm not going to be a blooming ambassador, and I'm not going into parliament to make an ass of myself!..."

Ninian's chief horror was of "making an ass" of himself. It seemed that there was less likelihood of him doing this at engineering than at anything else.

"And a very good engineer you'll be," Gilbert said encouragingly. "You're always messing about with the insides of things, and I can't see what good that habit would be to an ambassador, or a parson, and anyhow you can't speak French for toffee, and that's the principal thing an ambassador has to do! Well, Quinny," he continued, turning to Henry, "what about you?"

"I used to think I'd like to be a clergyman," Henry answered.

"Oh, did you?..."

"And then," he went on rapidly, "I thought I'd like to be an actor!..."

They rose at him simultaneously. "A what?" they shouted.

"An actor," he repeated.

They gaped at him for a few moments without speaking. Then Ninian expressed their views. "You're balmy!" he said.

"Clean off your chump!" Gilbert added.

"It seems an odd choice," Roger said, quietly.

Henry blushed. "Of course," he hurried to say, "I've given up the idea. It was just a notion that came into my head!"

He went on to say that as Gilbert had resolved to be a writer, he did not see any reason why he should not become one too. "I've read an awful lot of books," he said, "so I daresay I could write one. I used to write things when I was a youngster, just like you, Gilbert!"

They gazed dubiously at Henry. A fellow who could make such choices of profession ... a parson or an actor ... was a rum bird, in their opinion, and they told him so. Gilbert said that the conjunction of _actor_ with _parson_ showed that all Henry cared about was the chance to show off. "All you want is to get yourself up," he said. "If you were a parson, you could get yourself up in a surplice!..."

"He'd turn High Churchman," Roger interrupted, "and trot about in chasubles and copes!..."

"And if he were an actor, he could get himself up in terrific style!..." Gilbert continued.

Henry got up and walked away from them. "It isn't fair," he said, as he went, "to chip me like that. I'm not going to be a parson and I'm not going to be an actor!..."

Gilbert followed him and brought him back to the council.

"All right, Quinny," he said, "we won't chip you any more. Only, don't talk like a soppy ass again, will you? Sit down and listen to me!..."

He forced Henry to sit beside him and then he proceeded to plan their lives for them.

"We'll all go to Cambridge," he said. "That's settled. I arranged that before, didn't I? Well, we all go to the same college, and we all promise to swot hard. We've got to Do Well, d'ye hear?" He said "do well" as if each word had a capital letter. "We've got to be the Pride of our College, d'ye hear, and work so that the dons will shed tears of joy when they hear our names mentioned. I draw the particular attention of Ninian Graham to what I am saying, and I warn him that if he goes on whittling a stick while I'm talking, I shall clout his fat head for him. I also trust that our young friend, Quinny, will make up his mind to work hard. He's Irish, of course, and we must make allowances for him!..."

There was almost a row when Gilbert said that, and it was not completely averted until Gilbert had admitted that the English had their faults.

"I need not say anything on the subject of hard work to our young friend, Roger," Gilbert continued, when the peace was restored, "beyond warning him of the danger of getting brain-fever. That's all I have to say about that. We're friends, we four, and we've got to do each other credit. Now, when we come down from Cambridge, my proposal is that we all live together in London. We can take a house and get some old girl to look after us. I know one who'll do. She lives in Cornwall, and she can cook ... like anything. Is that agreed?"

"Carried unanimous," said Ninian.

"Good egg!" Gilbert said.

3

But the plan was not carried out as Gilbert had made it. He and Ninian and Roger Carey went to Cambridge, but Henry did not go with them. It was Mr. Quinn who upset the plan. He suddenly gave notice to Rumpell's that Henry would not return to the school.

_You're getting to be too English in your ways, Henry,_ he wrote to his son, _and I want you at home for a while. There's a young fellow called Marsh who can tutor you until you go to the University. I met him in Dublin a while since, and I like him. He's a bit cranky, but he's clever and he'll teach you a lot about Ireland. He's up to his neck in Irish things, and speaks Gaelic and wears an Irish kilt. At least he used to wear one, but he's left it off now, partly because he gets cold in his knees and partly because he's not sure now that the ancient Irish ever wore kilts. I think you'll like him!..._

"My God," said Gilbert when Henry read this letter to him, "fancy being tutored by a chap who wears petticoats!"

"You ought to talk pretty plainly to your guv'nor, Quinny!" Ninian said. "I don't think you ought to let him do that sort of thing. Here we've settled that we're all going to Cambridge together, and your guv'nor simply lumps in and upsets everything!"

Henry declared that he would talk to his father and compel him to be sensible, but his attempt at compulsion was ineffective. Mr. Quinn had made up his mind that Henry was to spend several months at home, under the tutelage of John Marsh, and then proceed to Trinity College, Dublin.

"Trinity College, Dublin!" Henry exclaimed. "But I want to go to Cambridge!..."

"Well, you can't go then. You'll go to T.C.D. or you'll go nowhere. I'm a T.C.D. man, an' your gran'da was a T.C.D. man, an' so was his da before him, an' a damned good college it is, too!" Mr. Quinn had always called his father his "da" when Mrs. Quinn was alive because she disliked the word and tried to insist on "papa"; and now he used the word as a matter of habit. "What do you want to go to an English college for?" he demanded. "You might as well want to go to that Presbyterian hole in Belfast!"

"I want to go to Cambridge," Henry replied a little angrily and therefore a little precisely, "because all my friends are going there. They're going up next year, and I want to go with them. They're my best friends!..."

"Make friends in Ireland, then!" Mr. Quinn interrupted. "You don't make friends with Englishmen ... you make money out of them. That's all they're fit for!"

He began to laugh when he said that, but Henry still scowled. "I hate to hear you talking like that, father!" he said. "I know you don't mean it...."

"Don't I, begod?..."

"No, you don't, but even in fun, I hate to hear you saying it. I like English people. I'm very fond of Gilbert Farlow!..."

"A nice fellow!" Mr. Quinn murmured, remembering how he had liked Gilbert when he had visited Rumpell's once to see Henry.

"And Ninian Graham and Roger Carey, I like them, too, and so do you. You liked them, didn't you?"

"Very nice fellows, both of them, very nice ... for all they're English!"

Henry wanted to go on ... to talk of Mrs. Graham and of Mary ... but shyness held his tongue for him.

"It's a habit I've got into," Mr. Quinn said, talking of his denunciation of the English, "but don't mind me, Henry. Sure, I'm like all the Ulstermen: my tongue's more bitter nor my behaviour. All the same, my son, you're goin' to T.C.D., an' that's an end of it. T.C.D.'ll make a man of you, but Oxford 'ud only make a snivellin' High Church curate of you ... crawlin' on your belly to an imitation altar an' lettin' on to be a Catholic!..."

"But I don't want to go to Oxford, father. I want to go to Cambridge!"

"It's all the same, Henry. Oxford'll make a snivellin' parson out of you, an' Cambridge'll turn you into a snivellin' atheist. I know them places well, Henry. I'm acquainted with people from both of them. All the Belfast mill-owners send their sons there, so's they can be made into imitation Englishmen. An' I tell you there's no differs between Cambridge an' Oxford. You crawl on your belly to the reredos at Oxford, an' you crawl on your belly to Darwin an' John Stuart Mill at Cambridge. They can't do without a priest of some sort at them places, an' I'm a Protestant, Henry, an' I want no priest at all. Now, at Trinity you'll crawl on your belly to no one but your God, an' you'll do damn little of that if you're any sort of man at all!"

Henry had reminded his father of the history and tradition of T.C.D., an ungracious institution which had taught men to despise Ireland.

"Well, you needn't pay any heed to the Provost, need you," Mr. Quinn retorted. "Is a man to run away from his country because a fool of a schoolmaster hasn't the guts to be proud of it? Talk sense, son! We want education in Ireland, don't we, far more nor any other people want it, an' how are we goin' to get it if all the young lads go off to Englan' an' let the schoolmasters starve in Ireland!"

Henry still maintained his position. "But, father," he said, "you yourself have often told me that Dr. Daniell is an imitation Englishman...." Dr. Daniell was the Provost of Trinity.

"He is, and so is his whole family. I know them well ... lick-spittles, the lot of them, an' the lad that's comin' after him, oul' Beattie, is no better ... a half-baked snob ... I'll tell you a story about him in a minute ... but all the same, it's not them that matter ... it's the place and the tradition an' the feel of it all ... do you make me out?"

"Yes, father, I know what you mean!"

"You'd be like a foreigner at Cambridge ... like one of them fellows that come from India or Germany or places like that ... but at Trinity you'd be at home, in your own country, Henry, where people with brains are badly needed!"

He went on like that until he wore down Henry's desire to go to Cambridge. "I'd rather you didn't go to a university at all," he said, "than not have you go to T.C.D."

"Very well, father!" said Henry, consenting.

"That's right, my son," the old man said, patting his son on the back. "An' now I'll tell you that yarn about Beattie. It'll make you split your sides!"

It appeared that Mr. Quinn had dined at a house in Dublin where Dr. Beattie was also a guest, and the don was telling tales as was his custom, of his acquaintances in high places. The poor old clergyman had a weakness for the company of kings and queens, and liked to tell people of what he had said to an emperor or of what a prince had said to him.

"I was talking to my friend, the Queen of Spain, a short time ago," Dr. Beattie had said, "and I made a joke which pleased her majesty. It was about my friend, the Kaiser, who was present at the time. The Kaiser heard us laughing, her majesty and me, and he came over to ask us why we were laughing so heartily, the Queen and me. The Queen was very embarrassed because, of course, I had been making fun of the Kaiser, but I did not lose my self-possession. I turned to the Emperor and said, 'Sir, the Queen and I have known each other for a few moments only, but already we have a secret between us!'" The Kaiser was very tickled by my retort ... very tickled ... and the Queen told me afterwards that it was very adroit of me to get out of it like that. She said it was my Irish wit!...

It was at this point that Mr. Quinn had interrupted. "An' what did your friend God say?" he had demanded innocently.

Mr. Quinn sat back in his chair, when he had finished telling the story, and roared loudly with laughter. "You ought to have seen the oul' snob turnin' red, white an' blue with rage," he shouted at Henry. "Such a take-down! My God, what a take-down! There he was, the oul' wind-bag, bletherin' about his friend, the Queen of Spain, an' his friend, the Emperor of Germany, an' there was me, just waitin' for him, just waitin', Henry, an' the minute he shut his gob, I jumped in, an' says I to him, 'An' what did your friend God say?' By the Holy O, that was a good one! I never enjoyed myself so much as I did that night, an' everybody else that was there was nearin' burstin' with tryin' not to laugh. Do you mind Lady Galduff?"

"Yes, father!"

"You mind her rightly, don't you? Well, when you go up to Dublin, you're to call on her, do you hear? Never mind about her manners. Ask her to tell you about me an' Dr. Beattie ... the way I asked him about his friend God. Oh, Holy O!..."

He could proceed no further, for his sides were shaking with laughter and the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his cheeks were the colour of beetroot.

"You'll hurt yourself, father," said Henry, "if you laugh like that!"

4

"Of course," said Mr. Quinn, after a while, "the man's a great scholar, an' I mebbe did wrong to take him down like that. But I couldn't help it, Henry. You see, he's always makin' little of Irish things, an' I have no use for a man like that. Not but what some people think too much of Ireland an' too little of other places. Many's a time I get ragin' mad when I hear some of the Nationalists bleatin' about Ireland as if a bit of bog in the Atlantic were worth the rest of the world put together. Do you know what, I'm goin' to say somethin' that'll surprise you. I don't believe Irishmen'll think properly about Ireland 'til they stop thinkin' about it altogether. We're too self-conscious. We haven't enough pride an' we've too much conceit. That's the truth. You daren't say a word of criticism about Ireland for fear you'd have the people jumpin' down your throat--an' that's a sign of weakness, Henry. Do you know why the English are as strong as they are? It's because they'll let you criticise them as much as you like, an' never lose their temper with you. The only time I ever knew them to be flabby and spineless was when the Boer War was on ... an' they'd scream in your face if you didn't say they were actin' like angels. They were only like that _then_, but we're like it _all_ the time. The fools don't know that the best patriot is the man that has the courage to own up when his country's in the wrong!..."

Mr. Quinn suddenly sat up stiffly in his seat and gaped at his son for a few moments.

"Begod, Henry," he said, "I'm preachin' to you!"

"Yes, father, you are," Henry replied. "But I don't mind. It's rather interesting!"

But the force had gone out of Mr. Quinn. The thought that he had been preaching a sermon, delivering a speech, filled him with self-reproach.

"I never meant to start off like that," he said. "I only meant to tell you what was in my mind. You see, Henry, I love Ireland an' I want to see her as fine as ever she was ... but she'll never be fine again 'til she gets back her pride an' her self-respect. The English people have stolen that from us ... yes, they have, Henry! I knew Arthur Balfour when he was a young man ... I liked him too ... but I'll never forget that it was him that turned us into a nation of cadgers. I'm not much of a thinker, Henry, but the bit of brain I have'll be used for Ireland, whatever happens. You've got more brains than I have, an' I'd like you to use them for Ireland, too."

5

"This is the way I look at things," Mr. Quinn said later on. "The British people are the best people in the world, an' the Irish people are the best people in the British Empire, an' the Ulster people are the best people in Ireland!" He glanced about him for a few moments as if he were cogitating, and then he gave a chuckle and winked at his son. "An' begod," he said, "I sometimes think I'm the best man in Ulster!" He burst out laughing when he had finished. "Ah," he said, half to himself, as he stroked his fine beard, "I'm the quare oul' cod, so I am!"

"All the same," he went on, speaking soberly, "I'm not coddin' entirely. The Irish have plenty of brains, but they haven't any discipline, an' brains are no good unless you can control them. We need knowledge and experience, Henry, more nor anything else, an' the more knowledge we bring into the country, the better it'll be for us all. Too much imagination an' not enough knowledge ... that's what's the matter with us. The English have knowledge, but they've small imagination!... I declare to my goodness, the best thing that could happen to the two of us, the English and the Irish, would be for some one to pass a law compellin' every Irishwoman to marry an Englishman, an' every Englishwoman to marry an Irishman. We'd get some stability into Ireland then ... an' mebbe we'd get some intelligence into England."

6