‘What is it?’
‘Let as many candidates go to the poll as like. Let them be ranged as Liberal or Conservative—for we have in reality no Tories now—let the votes all together be cast up, and let the man who has the highest number of votes on the winning side be the elected candidate. One advantage of such a system would be that it would create more interest in an election. The difficulty is at present to get people to take an intelligent interest in politics at all.’
‘Very good; but that is a question for the future.’
‘In the meanwhile,’ said Wentworth, ‘arbitration is a farce.’
Just before the visitor could ransack his brain for a fitting reply, the waiter (he was an Irishman and a comic genius in his way), in a tone of awe and eagerness, interrupted the tête-à-tête by announcing the arrival of Father O’Bourke.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE IRISH PRASTE.
There are three distinct classes of Roman Catholic priests—the ascetic and spiritual, the jolly and intellectual, the brutal and Bœotian. Of the first Cardinal Manning is the type. The second was presented to us in the person of Cardinal Wiseman, who made the Romanist priest as famous in his day as Cardinal Manning in ours. Of the third class you may see specimens every day in every Belgian town, and in many parts of England and Ireland. Father O’Bourke was a combination of the two latter types—a man of humour, a plausible speaker, a tremendous orator, and a man whose great art was to be conciliatory to all. He could be very rollicking over a glass of whisky-and-water, but his power was more physical than spiritual. He had something of a domineering tone, the result chiefly of his mixing with the low Irish who emigrate to England, where, like the Gibeonites of old, they become chiefly hewers of stone and drawers of water.
Mr. Wentworth received the priest with all due politeness, as he explained that he had come for a friendly chat.
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ said Wentworth. ‘I have been much in Ireland.’
‘And you learnt there, sir,’ said the priest, ‘that England is a very cruel country.’