Hyacinth Part 18

'Are we,' he asked, 'to submit tamely to having the worst evils of the old ascendancy revived in our midst?'

He was followed by the dispensary doctor, who also began by declaring his freedom from bigotry. He confused the issue slightly by complaining that the new station-master was entirely ignorant of the Irish language.

It was perfectly well known that in private life the doctor was in the habit of expressing the greatest contempt for the Gaelic League, and that he could not, if his life depended on it, have translated even Mr.

O'Reilly's advertis.e.m.e.nts; but his speech was greeted with tumultuous cheers. He proceeded to harrow the feelings of his audience by describing what he had heard at the railway-station one evening while waiting for the train. As he paced the platform his attention was attracted by the sound of a piano in the station-master's house. He listened, and, to his amazement and disgust, heard the tune of a popular song, 'a song'--he brought down his fist on the table as he uttered the awful indictment--'imported from England.'

'I ask,' he went on--'I ask our venerated and beloved parish priest; I ask you, fathers of innocent families; I ask every right-thinking patriot in this room, are our ears to be insulted, our morals corrupted, our intellects depraved, by sounds like these?'

He closed his speech by proposing a resolution requiring the railway company to withdraw the obnoxious official from their midst.

The oratory of the grazier, who seconded the resolution, was not inferior. It filled his heart with a sense of shame, so he said, to think of his cattle, poor, innocent beasts of the field, being handled by a Protestant. They had been bred, these bullocks of his, by Catholics, fed by Catholics, were owned by a Catholic, bought with Catholic money at the fairs, and yet they were told that in all Ireland no Catholic could be discovered fit to put them into a train.

Neither the resolution itself nor the heart-rending appeal of the grazier produced the slightest effect on the railway company. John Crawford continued to sell tickets, even to Father Fahey himself, and appeared entirely unconcerned by the fuss.

About a fortnight after the meeting Hyacinth spent a night in Clogher.

Mr. Holywell, the cigarette man, happened to be in the hotel, and, as usual, got through a good deal of desultory conversation while he drank his whisky-and-water. Quite unexpectedly, and apropos of nothing that had been said, he plumped out the question:

'What religion are you, Conneally?'

The inquiry was such an unusual one, and came so strangely from Mr.

Holywell, who had always seemed a Gallio in matters spiritual, that Hyacinth hesitated.

'I'm a Baptist myself,' he went on, apparently with a view to palliating his inquisitiveness by a show of candour. 'I find it a very convenient sort of religion in Connaught. There isn't a single place of wors.h.i.+p belonging to my denomination in the whole province, so I'm always able to get my Sundays to myself. I don't want to convert you to anything or to argue with you, but I have a fancy that you are a Church of Ireland Protestant.'

Hyacinth admitted the correctness of the guess, and wondered what was coming next.

'Ever spend a Sunday here?'

'Never,' said Hyacinth; 'I always get back home for the end of the week if I can.'

'Ah! Well, do you know, if I were you, I should spend next Sunday here, and go to Ma.s.s.'

'I shall not do anything of the sort.'

'Well, it's your own affair, of course; only I just think I should do it if I were you. Good-night.'

'Wait a minute,' said Hyacinth. 'I want to know what you mean.'

Mr. Holywell sat down again heavily.

'Been round your customers here lately?'

'No. I only arrived this evening, and have done nothing yet. I mean to go round them to-morrow.'

'You may just as well go home by the early train for all the good you'll do.'

Hyacinth restrained himself with an effort. He reflected that he was more likely to get at the meaning of these mysterious warnings if he refrained from direct questioning. After a minute of two of silence Mr.

Hollywell went on:

'They had a meeting here a little while ago about the appointment of a Protestant station-master. They didn't take much by it so far as the railway company is concerned, but I happen to know that word has gone round that every shopkeeper in the town is to order his goods as far as possible from Catholics. Now, everybody knows your boss is a Protestant, but the people are a little uncertain about you. They've never seen you at Ma.s.s, which is suspicious, but, on the other hand, the way you gas on about Irish manufactures makes them think you can't be a Protestant.

The proper thing for you to do is to lie low till you've put in an appearance at Ma.s.s, and then go round and try for orders.'

'That's the kind of thing,' said Hyacinth, 'that I couldn't do if I had no religion at all; but it happens that I have convictions of a sort, and I don't mean to go against them.'

'Oh, well, as I said before, it's your own affair; only better Protestants than you have done as much. Why, I do it myself constantly, and everyone knows that a Baptist is the strongest kind of Protestant there is.'

This reasoning, curiously enough, proved unconvincing.

'I can't believe,' said Hyacinth, 'that a religious boycott of the kind is possible. People won't be such fools as to act clean against their own interests. Considering that nine-tenths of the drapery goods in the country come from England and are sold by Protestant travellers, I don't see how the shopkeepers could act as you say.'

'Oh, of course they won't act against their own interests. I've never come across a religion yet that made men do that. They won't attempt to boycott the English firms, because, as you say, they couldn't; but they can boycott you. Everything your boss makes is turned out just as well and just as cheap, or cheaper, by the nuns at Robeen. Perhaps you didn't know that these holy ladies have hired a traveller. Well, they have, and he's a middling smart man, too--quite smart enough to play the trumps that are put into his hand; and he's got a fine flush of them now. What with the way that wretched rag of a paper, which started all the fuss, goes on rampaging, and the amount of feeling that's got up over the station-master, the peaceablest people in the place would be afraid to deal with a Protestant at the present moment. The Robeen man has the game in his own hands, and I'm bound to say he'd be a fool if he didn't play it for all it's worth. I'd do it myself if I was in his shoes.'

Hyacinth discovered next day that Mr. Holywell had summed up the situation very accurately. No point-blank questions were asked about his religion, but he could by no means persuade his customers to give him even a small order. Every shop-window was filled with goods placarded ostentatiously as 'made in Robeen.' Every counter had tweeds, blankets, and flannels from the same factory. No one was in the least uncivil to him, and no one a.s.signed any plausible reason for refusing to deal with him. He was simply bowed out as quickly as possible from every shop he entered.

He returned home disgusted and irritated, and told his tale to his employer. Mr. Quinn recognised the danger that threatened him. For the first time, he admitted that his business was being seriously injured by the compet.i.tion of Robeen. He took Hyacinth into his confidence more fully than he had ever done before, and explained what seemed to be a hopeful plan.

'I may tell you, Conneally, that I have very little capital to fall back upon in my business. Years ago when things were better than they are now, I had a few thousands put by, but most of it went on buying my brother Albert's share of the mill. Lately I have not been able to save, and at the present moment I can lay hands on very little money. Still, I have something, and what I mean to do is this: I shall give up all idea of making a profit for the present. I shall even sell my goods at a slight loss, and try to beat the nunnery out of the market. I think this religious animosity will weaken after a while, and if we offer the cheapest goods we must in the end get back our customers.'

Hyacinth was not so sanguine.

'You forget,' he said, 'that these people have Government money at their backs, and are likely to get more of it. If you sell at a loss they will do so, too, and ask for a new grant from the Congested Districts Board to make good their deficiency.'

Mr. Quinn sighed.

'That is quite possible,' he said. 'But what can I do? I must make a fight for my business.'

Hyacinth hesitated.

'Perhaps I have no right to make the suggestion, but it seems to me that you are bound to be beaten. Would it not be better to give in at once?

Don't risk the money you have safe. Keep it, and try to sell the mill and the business.'

'I shall hold on,' said Mr. Quinn.

'Ought you not to think of your wife? Remember what it will mean to her if you are beaten in the end, when your savings are gone and your business unsaleable.'

For a moment there were signs of wavering in Mr. Quinn's face. The fingers of his hands twisted in and out of each other, and a pitiable look of great distress came into his eyes. Then he unclasped his hands and placed them flat on the table before him.

'I shall hold on,' he said. 'I shall not close my mill while I have a s.h.i.+lling left to pay my workers with.'

'Well,' said Hyacinth, 'it is for you to decide. At least, you can count on my doing my best, my very best.'

CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. Quinn carried on his struggle for nearly a year, although from the very first he might have recognised its hopelessness. Time after time Hyacinth made his tour, and visited the shopkeepers who had once been his customers. Occasionally he succeeded in obtaining orders, and a faint gleam of hope encouraged him, but he had no steady success. Mr.

Quinn's original estimate of the situation was so far justified that after a while the religious animosity died out. Shopkeepers even explained apologetically that they gave their orders to the Robeen convent for purely commercial reasons.

'Their goods are cheaper than yours, and that's the truth, Mr.