“H’m. He’s something in some university, isn’t he?”
Conroy spoke contemptuously. He had a low opinion of the men who win honours in universities. They seemed to him to be unpractical creatures. He had, indeed, himself founded a university before he left America and handsomely endowed several professorial chairs. But he did so in the spirit which led Dean Swift to found a lunatic asylum. He wanted to provide a kind of hospital for a class of men who ought, for the sake of society, to be secluded, lest their theories should come inconveniently athwart the plans of those who are engaged in the real business of life.
“McNeice,” said Bob, “is a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. He was my tutor.”
Then he told Conroy the story of Gideon McNeice’s life as far as he knew it at that time. It was a remarkable story, but not yet, as it became afterwards, strikingly singular.
Gideon was the son of Ebenezer McNeice, a riveter in one of the great shipbuilding yards in Belfast. This Ebenezer was an Orangeman and, on the 12th of July, was accustomed to march long distances over dusty roads beating a big drum with untiring vigour. His Protestantism was a religion of the most definite kind. He rarely went to church, but he hated Popery with a profound earnestness. Gideon was taught, as soon as he could speak, to say, “No Pope, no Priest, no Surrender, Hurrah!” That was the first stage in his education. The second was taken at a National school where he learned the multiplication table and the decimal system with unusual ease. The master of a second-rate intermediate school heard of the boy’s ability. Being anxious to earn the fees which a generous government gives to the masters of clever boys, this man offered to continue Gideon’s education without asking payment from Ebenezer. The speculation turned out well. Gideon did more than was expected of him. He won all the exhibitions, medals and prizes possible under the Irish Intermediate system. At last he won a mathematical sizarship in Trinity College.
Belfast—perhaps because of the religious atmosphere of the city, perhaps because of the interest taken by its inhabitants in money-making—has not given to the world many eminent poets, philosophers or scholars. Nor, curiously enough, has it ever produced an eminent theologian, or even a heretic of any reputation. But it has given birth to several mathematicians of quite respectable standing. Gideon McNeice was one of them. After the sizarship he won a scholarship, and then, at an unusually early age, a fellowship. It is generally believed that the examination for fellowship in Trinity College in Dublin is so severe that no one who is successful in it is ever good for anything afterwards. Having once passed that examination men are said to settle down into a condition of exhausted mediocrity. Gideon McNeice proved to be an exception to the rule. Having won his fellowship and thereby demonstrated to the world that he knew all that there is to know about the science of mathematics, he at once turned to theology. Theology, since he lived in Ireland, led him straight to politics. He became one of the fighting men of the Irish Unionist party. He also, chiefly because of his very bad manners, became very unpopular among the fellows and professors of the College.
It must not be supposed that he had the smallest sympathy with the unfortunate Irish aristocracy, who, having like the Bourbons failed either to learn or to forget, still repeat the watch-words of long-past centuries and are greatly surprised that no one can be found to listen to them. Gideon McNeice’s Unionism was of a much more vigorous and militant kind. He respected England and had no objection to singing “God save the King” very much out of tune, so long as England and her King were obviously and blatantly on the side of Protestantism. He was quite prepared to substitute some other form of government for our present Imperial system if either the King, his representative the Lord Lieutenant, or the Parliament of Westminster, showed the smallest inclination to consider the feelings of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
It was thus that Bob Power, who was by no means a fool, described McNeice’s character. Conroy was interested.
“I should like,” he said, “to see that man and talk to him. Suppose you go over to Dublin to-morrow and bring him here.”
“You won’t like him,” said Bob. “He’s—well, domineering is the only word I can think of.”