never I see an Englishman in Ireland, running round and
feeling superior, I want to wring his damned neck ... and I should hate
to wring any one's neck."

Henry tried to interject a remark, but Marsh hurried on, disregarding
his attempt to speak.

"How would they like it if we went over to their country and made
remarks about them?" he exclaimed. "My brother went to London once and
he saw people making love in public ... fellows and girls hugging each
other in the street and sprawling about in the parks ... all over each
other ... and no one took any notice. It wasn't decent.... How would
they like it if we went over there and made remarks about _that?_ ..."

Henry insisted on speaking. "But why should you hate the English?" he
demanded, and added, "I don't hate them. I like them!"

"I didn't say I hated the English," Marsh replied. "I don't. I don't
hate any race. That would be ridiculous. But I hate the belief that the
English are fit to govern us, when they're not, and that we're not fit
to govern ourselves, when we are. I'd rather be governed by Germans than
be governed by the English!..." Henry moved away impatiently. "Yes, I
would," Marsh continued. "At all events, the Germans would govern us
well...."

"You'd hate to be governed by Germans!"

"I'd hate to be governed by any but Irishmen; but the Germans wouldn't
make the muddles and messes that the English make!..."

"You don't know that," Henry said.

But Marsh would not take up the point. He swung off on a generalisation.
"There won't be any peace or happiness in Ireland," he said, "until the
English are driven out of it. Even the Orangemen don't like them.
They're always making fun of them!..."

Henry repeated his assertion that he liked the English, conscious that
there was something feeble in merely repeating it. He wished that he
could say something as forceful as Marsh's statement of his dislike of
England, but he was unable to think of anything adequate to say. "I like
the English," he said again, and when he thought over that talk, there
seemed to be nothing else to say. How could he feel about the English as
John Marsh, who had never lived in England, felt? How could he dislike
them when he remembered Gilbert Farlow and Roger Carey and Ninian
Graham and Mrs. Graham and Old Widger and Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury ...
and Mary Graham. His father had always spoken contemptuously of
Englishmen, but he had never been moved by this violent antipathy t