Volume Ii Part 14 (2/2)

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 _tete-a-tete_ by announcing the arrival of Father O'Bourke.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE IRISH PRASTE.

There are three distinct cla.s.ses of Roman Catholic priests-the ascetic and spiritual, the jolly and intellectual, the brutal and Botian. 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 cla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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.'

'I don't see that, exactly,' said Mr. Wentworth; 'for fifty years we English have been trying to do all the good we can for Ireland.'

'Ah, so you think, but I a.s.sure you, sir, that it is quite otherwise; yet all that we ask from England is justice. England is rich and powerful, and uses her riches and her power to oppress poor Ireland.'

'How so?'

'Sir, allow me to refer you to the history of my unfortunate country.

There was a time when Ireland had a flouris.h.i.+ng linen trade, but England, in her jealousy of Ireland, destroyed it.'

'Well,' said Wentworth, 'I have been in Belfast, and was struck with the prosperity of the place, the respectability of its shops, the size of its warehouses, the extent of its harbours. I saw a large population all seemingly well employed, well dressed, and well fed, with no end of public inst.i.tutions and newspapers, and all in consequence of that linen trade which you tell me the English have destroyed.'

'Oh, sir,' said the priest, 'one swallow does not make a summer. If one town is fairly well off, that is no reply to the charge of poverty produced by the English. You've seen our harbour in Galway?'

'I have been there, and, undoubtedly, it is a fine harbour.'

'Indeed, sir, it is,' replied the priest; 'and, as you are probably aware, at one time it was intended to be the seat for a great Transatlantic trade.'

'Yes, we all know that. We have, unfortunately, all heard of the collapse of the Galway Line. It is a sad sight to see the great warehouse standing there empty. I believe a good deal of money was lost by too confiding shareholders?'

'Indeed, sir, you're right; but what was the reason?'

'Well, I really don't recollect at this particular moment.'

'Sir, the reason was the jealousy of the Liverpool s.h.i.+powners. What do you think they did?'

'I really can't say.'

'Well, as soon as the Liverpool s.h.i.+powners saw the line was going to be a success, they came over to Galway and bribed the pilot to run the s.h.i.+p on the only rock there was in the harbour, and there was the end of the Galway Transatlantic Line.'

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