Changing Winds / A Novel

by St. John G. Ervine

"He was a little smooth chap," he said, "with smooth hair an' smooth clothes and a smooth voice. You could hardly tell it was hair, it was that smooth. You'd nearly think somebody had painted it on his skull. He couldn't make me out when I said I'd rather starve than let a halfpenny of my money be used to make a mess of Glendalough, an' he talked about the necessity of havin' a broad outlook on the world. I suppose he went away an' told everybody that I was a reactionary an' a bad landlord. Oh, I can hear him spoutin' away about me ... he got into parliament soon after that, an' used to denounce landlords an' blether away about progress. An' I daresay everybody that listens to him thinks I'm a stupid fellow, standin' in the way of everything. I'm a landlord, an' so, of course, I'm obsolete and tyrannical an' thick-headed, an' all that, but I wouldn't treat one of my labourers the way your grandfather treated his for the wide world. Mind you, he was a religious man ... I don't mean that he pretended to be religious ... he really was religious, after a fashion ... wouldn't have missed goin' to church or sayin' his prayers night an' mornin' for a mint of money ... an' yet there didn't seem to him to be anything wrong in lettin' men an' women make money for him in that ... that disgustin' way. I can't understand that. I'm damned if I can!"

Something stirred uneasily in Henry's mind. He became acutely conscious of the principal source of his father's income, and he remembered things that had been said to him by Gilbert Farlow at Rumpell's. Gilbert Farlow was his chief friend at Rumpell's, the English school to which he had been sent after his experience at Armagh, and Gilbert called himself an hereditary socialist because his father had been a socialist before him. ("He was one of the first members of the Fabian Society," Gilbert used to say proudly.) Gilbert had strong, almost violent, views on Personal Responsibility for General Wrongs. He always referred to rich people as "oligarchs," or "the rotters who live on rent and interest" and declared that it was impossible for them to escape from the responsibility for the social chaos by asserting that they, individually, had kind hearts and had never been known to underpay or overwork any one. Remembering Gilbert's views, Henry could not help thinking that it was all very well for his father to denounce the mill in that fashion, but after all he was living on the money that was made in it....

"But, father," he said, hesitatingly, "haven't we got grandfather's money now ... and the mill!..."

"No, not the mill, Henry. Your grandfather turned that into a limited company, an' your mother sold her shares in it. I told her to sell them!"

Henry's conscience still pricked him. It seemed to him that selling the shares was very like running away from the responsibility.

"But all the same," he said, "we've got money that was made out of the mill by grandfather...."

"So we have, Henry," Mr. Quinn replied good-temperedly, "an' we're makin' a better use of it than he did. Some one's got to use it, an' I'm doin' the best I can with it. You've only got to look at my land to see how well I've used the money. It's better land than it was when I got it, isn't it?" Henry nodded his head. Even he knew that much. "I've enriched it an' drained it an' improved it in ways that'll benefit them that come after me ... not me, but you an' your children, Henry ... an' that's a good use to make of it. I've planted trees that I'll never reap a ha'penny from, an' I've spent money on experiments that did me no good but helped to increase knowledge about land. Look at the labourers' cottages I've built, an' the plots of land I've given them. Aren't they good! Didn't I put up the best part of the money to build the new school because the old one was lettin' in the wind an' rain?"

Henry's knowledge of sociology was not sufficient to enable him to cope with these arguments ... there was no Gilbert Farlow at his elbow to prompt him ... and so he collapsed.

"I suppose you're right, father," he said.

"Suppose I'm right," Mr. Quinn replied. "Of course I'm right!"