Hyacinth. George A. Birmingham
New Testament?’
Hyacinth repeated a few lines from Homer.
‘That book of the “Odyssey” is not in the college course,’ said Dr. Henry. ‘How did you come to read it?’
Hyacinth had no explanation to give. He had read the book, it seemed, without being forced, and without hope of getting a prize. He recited it as if he liked it. The remainder of the examination disclosed the fact that he was lamentably deficient in the rudiments of Greek grammar, and had the very vaguest ideas of the history of the Church.
Afterwards Professor Henry discussed the new class with his assistants as they crossed the square together.
‘The usual lot,’ said Dr. Spenser—‘half a dozen scholars, perhaps one man among them with real brains. The rest are either idlers or, what is worse, duffers.’
‘I hit on one man with brains,’ said Dr. Henry.
‘Oh! Thompson, I suppose. I saw that you took him. He did well in his degree exam.’
‘No,’ said Dr. Henry; ‘the man I mean has more brains than Thompson. He’s a man I never heard of before. His name is Conneally. He looks as if he came up from the wilds somewhere. He has hands like an agricultural labourer, and a brogue that I fancy comes from Galway. But he’s a man to keep an eye on. He may do something by-and-by if he doesn’t go off the lines. We must try and lick him into shape a bit.’
Hyacinth Conneally knew extremely little about the politics, foreign or domestic, of the English nation. His father neither read newspapers nor cared to discuss such rumours of the doings of Governments as happened to reach Carrowkeel. On the other hand, he knew a good deal about the history of Ireland, and the English were still for him the ‘new foreigners’ whom Keating describes. His intercourse with the fishermen and peasants of the Galway seaboard had intensified his vague dislike of the series of oscillations between bullying and bribery which make up the story of England’s latest attempts to govern Ireland. Without in the least understanding the reasons for the war in South Africa, he felt a strong sympathy with the Boers. To him they seemed a small people doomed, if they failed to defend themselves, to something like the treatment which Ireland had received.
It was therefore with surprise, almost with horror, that he listened for the first time to the superlative Imperialism of the Protestant Unionist party when he attended the prayer-meeting to which he had been invited. The room was well filled with students, who joined heartily in the singing of ‘Onward, Christian soldiers,’ a hymn selected as appropriate for the occasion. An address by the chairman, a Dublin clergyman, followed. According to this gentleman the Boers were a psalm-singing but hypocritical nation addicted to slave-driving. England, on the other hand, was the pioneer of civilization, and the nursing-mother of missionary enterprise. It was therefore clear that all good Christians ought to pray for the success of the British arms. The speech bewildered rather than irritated Hyacinth. The mind gasps for a time when immersed suddenly in an entirely new view of things, and requires time to adjust itself for pleasure or revolt, just as the body does when plunged into cold water. It had never previously occurred to him that an Irishman could regard England as anything but a pirate. Anger rapidly succeeded his surprise while he listened to the prayers which followed. It was apparently open to any student present to give utterance, as occasion offered, to his desires, and a large number of young men availed themselves of the opportunity. Some spoke briefly and haltingly, some laboriously attempted to adapt the phraseology of the Prayer-Book to the sentiment of the moment, a few had the gift of rapid and even eloquent supplication. These last were the hardest to endure. They prefaced their requests with fantastic eulogies of England’s righteousness, designed apparently for the edification of the audience present in the flesh, for they invariably began by assuring the Almighty that He was well aware of the facts, and generally apologized to Him for recapitulating them. Hyacinth’s anger increased as he heard the fervent groans which expressed the unanimous conviction of the justice of the petitions. No one seemed to think it possible that the right could be on the other side.
When the meeting was over, the secretary, whose name, it appeared, was Mackenzie, greeted Hyacinth warmly.
‘Glad to have you with us,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll always come. I shall be delighted to propose you as a member of the union. Subscription one shilling, to defray necessary expenses. In any case, whether you subscribe or not, we shall be glad to have you with us.’
‘I shall never come again,’ said Hyacinth.
Mackenzie drew back, astonished.
‘Why not? Didn’t you like the meeting? I thought it was capital—so informal and hearty. Didn’t you think it was hearty? But perhaps you are High Church. Are you?’
Hyacinth remembered that this identical question had been put to him the day before by the pimply-faced boy who distributed leaflets. He wondered vaguely at the importance which attached to the nickname.
‘I am not sure,’ he said, ‘that I quite know what you mean. You see, I have only just entered the divinity school, and I hardly know anything about theology. What is a High Churchman?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t require any theology to know that. It’s the simplest thing in the world. A High Churchman is—well, of course, a High Churchman sings Gregorian chants, you know, and puts flowers on the altar. There’s more than that, of course. In fact, a High Churchman———’ He paused and then added with an air of victorious conviction: ‘But anyhow if you were High Church you would be sure to know it.’
‘Ah, well,’ said Hyacinth, turning to leave the room, ‘I don’t know anything about it, so I suppose I’m not High Church.’
Mackenzie, however, was not going to allow him to escape so easily.
‘Hold on a minute. If you’re not High Church why won’t you come to our meetings?’
‘Because I can’t join in your prayers when I am not at all sure that England ought to win.’
‘Good Lord!’ said Mackenzie. It is possible to startle even the secretary of a prayer union into mild profanity. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you are a Pro-Boer, and you a divinity student?’
It had not hitherto struck Hyacinth that it was impossible to combine a sufficient orthodoxy with a doubt about the invariable righteousness of England’s quarrels. Afterwards he came to understand the matter better.
CHAPTER III
Mackenzie was not at heart an ill-natured man, and he would have repudiated with indignation the charge of being a mischief-maker. He felt after his conversation with Hyacinth much as most men would if they discovered an unsuspected case of small-pox among their acquaintances. His first duty was to warn the society in which he moved of the existence of a dangerous man, a violent and wicked rebel. He repeated a slightly exaggerated version of what Hyacinth had said to everyone he met. The pleasurable sense of personal importance which comes with having a story to tell grew upon him, and he spent the greater part of the day in seeking out fresh confidants to swell the chorus of his commination.
In England at the time public opinion was roused to a fever heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and the Irish Protestant Unionists were eager to outdo even the music-halls in Imperialist sentiment, the students of Trinity College being then, as ever, the ‘death or glory’ boys of Irish loyalty. It is easy to imagine how Hyacinth’s name was whispered shudderingly in the reading-room of the library, how his sentiments were anathematized in the dining-hall at commons, how plots were hatched for the chastisement of his iniquity over the fire in the evenings, when pipes were lit and tea was brewed.
At the end of the week Hyacinth was in an exceedingly uncomfortable position. Outside the lecture-rooms nobody would speak to him. Inside he found himself the solitary occupant of the bench he sat on—a position