Hyacinth began to understand how it was that Mr. Quinn was being hopelessly beaten. This was no struggle between two trade rivals, to be won by the side with the longer purse. Nor was it simply a fight between an independent manufacturer and a firm fed with Government bounties. Mr. Quinn’s rival could count on an unlimited supply of labour at starvation wages, while he had to hire men and women at the market value of their services. He had been sorry for the two girls when they got into the train. Now he felt almost glad that they were leaving Ireland. It appeared that they had certainly chosen the wiser part.
He arrived at home dejected, and sat down beside the fire in his room to give himself up to complete despair. He found no hope anywhere. Irish patriotism, so he saw it, was a matter of words and fine phrases. No one really believed in it or would venture anything for it. Politics was a game at which sharpers cheated each other and the people. The leaders were bold only in sordid personal quarrels. The mass of the people were utterly untouched by the idea of nationality, in earnest about nothing but huckstering and petty gains. Over all was the grip of a foreign bureaucracy and a selfish Church tightening slowly, squeezing out the nation’s life, grasping and holding fast its wealth. No man any longer made any demand except to be allowed to earn what would buy whisky enough to fuddle him into temporary forgetfulness of the present misery and the imminent tyranny.
The slatternly maid-servant who brought him his meals and made his bed tapped at the door.
‘Please, sir, Jimmy Loughlin’s after coming with a letter from Mr. Quinn, and he’s waiting to know if you’ll go.’
Hyacinth read the note, which asked him to call on his employer that afternoon.
‘Tell him I’ll be there.’
‘Will you have your dinner before you go? The chops is in the pan below. Or will I keep them till you come back?’
‘Oh, I’ve time enough. Bring them as soon as they’re cooked, and for goodness’ sake see that the potatoes are properly boiled.’
He took up a great English weekly paper, with copies of which Canon Beecher supplied him at irregular intervals, and propped it against the dish-cover while he ate. The article which caught his attention was headed ‘Angels in Connaught.’ It contained an idealized account of the work of the Robeen nuns, from whose shoulders it seemed to the writer likely that wings would soon sprout. There was a description of the once miserable cabins now transformed into homesteads so comfortable that English labourers would not disdain them. The people shared in the elevation of their surroundings. Men and women, lately half-naked savages, starved and ignorant, had risen in the scale of civilization and intelligence to a level which almost equalled that of a Hampshire villager. The double stream of emigration to the United States and migration to the English harvest-fields was stopped. An earthly paradise had been created in a howling wilderness by the self-denying labours of the holy ladies, aided by the statesmanlike liberality of the Congested Districts Board. There was another page of the article, but Hyacinth could stand no more.
He stood up and glanced at his watch. It was already nearly five o’clock. He pushed his way down the street, where the country-people, having completed their week’s marketing, were loading donkeys on the footpath or carts pushed backwards against the kerbstone. Women dragged their heavily-intoxicated husbands from the public-houses, and girls, damp and bedraggled, stood in groups waiting for their parents. He turned into the gloomy archway of the mill, unlocked the iron gate, and crossed the yard into the Quinns’ garden. The lamp burned brightly in the dining-room, and he could see Mrs Quinn in her chair by the fireside sewing. Her children sat on the rug at her feet. He saw their faces turned up to hers, gravely intent. No doubt she was telling them some story. He stood for a minute and watched them, while the peaceful joy of the scene entered into his heart. This, no doubt, a home full of such love and peace, was the best thing life had got to give. It was God’s most precious benediction. ‘Lo, thus shall a man be blessed who feareth the Lord.’ He turned and passed on to the door. The servant showed him in, not, as he expected, to the sitting-room he had just gazed at, but to Mr. Quinn’s study.