Changing Winds: A Novel
9781465650917
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It would be absurd to say of Mr. Quinn that he was an ill-tempered man, but it would also be absurd to say that he was of a mild disposition. William Henry Matier, a talker by profession and a gardener in his leisure moments, summarised Mr. Quinn's character thus: "He'd ate the head off you, thon lad would, an' beg your pardon the minute after!" That, on the whole, was a just and adequate description of Mr. Quinn, and certainly no one had better qualifications for forming an estimate of his employer's character than William Henry Matier; for he had spent many years of his life in Mr. Quinn's service and had, on an average, been discharged from it about ten times per annum. Mr. Quinn, the younger son of a poor landowner in the north of Ireland, had practised at the Bar without success. His failure to maintain himself at the law was not due to ignorance of the statutes of the land or to any inability on his part to distort their meaning: it was due solely to the fact that he was a Unionist and a gentleman. His Unionism, in a land where politics take the place of religion, prevented him from receiving briefs from Nationalists, and his gentlemanliness made it impossible for him to accept briefs from the Unionists; for if an Irish lawyer be a Unionist, he must play the lickspittle and tomtoady to the lords and ladies of the Ascendency and be ready at all times and on all occasions to deride Ireland and befoul his countrymen in the presence of the English people. "I'd rather eat dirt," Mr. Quinn used to say, "than earn my livin' that way!" He contrived, however, to win prosperity by his marriage to Miss Catherine Clotworthy, the only daughter of a Belfast mill-owner: a lady of watery spirit who irked her husband terribly because she affected an English manner and an English accent. He was very proud of his Irish blood and he took great pride in using Ulster turns of speech. Mrs. Quinn, whose education had been "finished" at Brighton, frequently urged him to abandon his "broad" way of talking, but the principal effect she had on him was to intensify the broadness of his accent.
