o
them which moved Marsh ... and most of his talk against England was only
talk, intended to sting the English out of their complacency ... and he
was eager to preserve the Union between the two countries. But Marsh
wished to be totally separate from England. He was vague, very vague,
about points of defence, and he boggled badly when Henry, trying to
think like a statesman, talked of an Army and a Navy ... his mind
wandered into the mists of Tolstoyianism and then he ended by suggesting
that England would attend to these matters in self-defence. He could not
satisfy Henry's superficial enquiries about the possibilities of trade
conducted in Gaelic ... but he was positive about the need for
separation, complete and irremediable separation, from England.

"We're separated from them physically," he said, "and I want us to be
separated from them politically and spiritually. They're a debased
people!..." Henry muttered angrily at that, for his mind was still full
of Mary Graham. "They're a debased people ... that's why I want to get
free of them ... and all the debasing things in Ireland are part of the
English taint. We've nothing in common with them. They're a race of
factory-hands and manufacturers; we're a race of farmers and poets; and
you can never reconcile us. All you can do is to make us like them ...
or worse!"

Henry remembered how his father had fulminated against the smooth
Englishman who had proposed to turn Glendalough into a place like the
Potteries or Wigan.

"But isn't there some middle course?" he said weakly. "Isn't there some
way of getting at the minerals of Wicklow without making Glendalough a
place like Wigan?"

"Not if the English have anything to do with it," Marsh answered. "I
don't know what Wigan is like.... I suppose it's horrible ... but it's
natural to Englishmen. They trail that sort of place behind them
wherever they go. Slums and sickness and fat, rich men! If they had
anything to do with developing Wicklow they'd make it stink!..."

"Well, I don't know," Henry said wearily, for he soon grew tired of
arguments in which he was an unequal participator. "I like the English
and I can't see any good in just hating them!"

"They found a decent, generous race in Ireland," Marsh exclaimed, "and
they've turned it into a race of cadgers. Your father admits that. Ask
him what he thinks of Arthur Balfour and his Congested Districts
Board!..."

They went back to the house, and as they went, th