CONTENTS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Novels.
Mrs. Martin's Man.
Alice and a Family.
Short Stories.
Eight O'Clock and Other Studies.
Plays.
Four Irish Plays
Mixed Marriage.
The Magnanimous Lover.
The Critics.
The Orangeman.
Jane Clegg.
John Ferguson.
Political Study.
Sir Edward Carson and the Ulster Movement.
TO
THE MEMORY OF RUPERT BROOKE
The translations from the Gaelic on pages 77 and 78 were made by the late P. H. Pearse, who was executed in Dublin for his part in the Easter Rebellion. The translations appeared in New Ireland, and I am indebted to the Editor of that review for permission to reprint them here.
THE FIRST BOOK
OF
CHANGING WINDS
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter,
And lit by the rich skies, all day.
And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the winds that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white,
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
Rupert Brooke.
CHANGING WINDS
THE FIRST CHAPTER
1
It would be absurd to say of Mr. Quinn that he was an ill-tempered man, but it would also be absurd to say that he was of a mild disposition. William Henry Matier, a talker by profession and a gardener in his leisure moments, summarised Mr. Quinn's character thus: "He'd ate the head off you, thon lad would, an' beg your pardon the minute after!" That, on the whole, was a just and adequate description of Mr. Quinn, and certainly no one had better qualifications for forming an estimate of his employer's character than William Henry Matier; for he had spent many years of his life in Mr. Quinn's service and had, on an average, been discharged from it about ten times per annum.
Mr. Quinn, the younger son of a poor landowner in the north of Ireland, had practised at the Bar without success. His failure to maintain himself at the law was not due to ignorance of the statutes of the land or to any inability on his part to distort their meaning: it was due solely to the fact that he was a Unionist and a gentleman. His Unionism, in a land where politics take the place of religion, prevented him from receiving briefs from Nationalists, and his gentlemanliness made it impossible for him to accept briefs from the Unionists; for if an Irish lawyer be a Unionist, he must play the lickspittle and tomtoady to the lords and ladies of the Ascendency and be ready at all times and on all occasions to deride Ireland and befoul his countrymen in the presence of the English people.
"I'd rather eat dirt," Mr. Quinn used to say, "than earn my livin' that way!"
He contrived, however, to win prosperity by his marriage to Miss Catherine Clotworthy, the only daughter of a Belfast mill-owner: a lady of watery spirit who irked her husband terribly because she affected an English manner and an English accent. He was very proud of his Irish blood and he took great pride in using Ulster turns of speech. Mrs. Quinn, whose education had been "finished" at Brighton, frequently urged him to abandon his "broad" way of talking, but the principal effect she had on him was to intensify the broadness of his accent.
"I do wish you wouldn't say Aye," she would plead, "when you mean Yes!"
And then he would roar at her. "What! Bleat like a damned Englishman! Where's your wit, woman?"
Soon after the birth of her son, she died, and her concern, therefore, with this story is slight. It is sufficient to say of her that she inherited a substantial fortune from her father and that she passed it on, almost unimpaired, to her husband, thus enabling him to live in comfortable disregard of the law as a means of livelihood. He had a small estate in County Antrim, which included part of the village of Ballymartin, and there he passed his days in agricultural pursuits.