Baruch's lips moved, but he was silent. He was not strong in
argument. He was thinking about Marshall's triumphant inquiry
whether God is not responsible for slavery. He would have liked to
say something on that subject, but he had nothing ready.
'Practical people,' said Dennis, who had not quite recovered from the
rebuke as to the warmth of the room, 'are often most unpractical and
injudicious. Nothing can be more unwise than to mix up politics and
religion. If you DO,' Dennis waved his hand, 'you will have all the
religious people against you. My friend Marshall, Miss Hopgood, is
under the illusion that the Church in this country is tottering to
its fall. Now, although I myself belong to no sect, I do not share
his illusion; nay, more, I am not sure'--Mr Dennis spoke slowly,
rubbed his chin and looked up at the ceiling--'I am not sure that
there is not something to be said in favour of State endowment--at
least, in a country like Ireland.'
'Come along, Dennis, we shall be late,' said Marshall, and the two
forthwith took their departure in order to attend another meeting.
'Much either of 'em knows about it,' said Mrs Caffyn when they had
gone. 'There's Marshall getting two pounds a week reg'lar, and goes
on talking about people at Leicester, and he has never been in
Leicester in his life; and, as for that Dennis, he knows less than
Marshall, for he does nothing but write for newspapers and draw for
picture-books, never nothing what you may call work, and he does
worrit me so whenever he begins about poor people that I can't sit
still. I do know what the poor is, having lived at Great Oakhurst
all these years.' 'You are not a Chartist, then?' said Baruch.
'Me--me a Chartist? No, I ain't, and yet, maybe, I'm something
worse. What would be the use of giving them poor creatures votes?
Why, there isn't one of them as wouldn't hold up his hand for anybody
as would give him a shilling. Quite right of 'em, too, for the one
thing they have to think about from morning to night is how to get a
bit of something to fill their bellies, and they won't fill them by
voting.' 'But what would you do for them?'
'Ah! that beats me! Hang somebody, but I don't know who it ought to
be. There's a family by the name of Longwood, they live just on the
slope of the hill nigh the Dower Farm, and there's nine of them, and
the youngest when I left was a baby six months old, and their living-
room faces the road so that the north wind blows in right under the
door, and I've seen the snow lie in heaps inside. As reg'lar as
winter comes Longwood is knocked off--no work. I've knowed them not
have a bit of meat for weeks together, and him a-loungin' about at
the corner of the street. Wasn't that enough to make him feel as if
somebody ought to be killed? And Marshall and Dennis say as the
proper thing to do is to give him a vote, and prove to him there was
never no Abraham nor Isaac, and that Jonah never was in a whale's
belly, and that nobody had no business to have more children than he
could feed. And what goes on, and what must go on, inside such a
place as Longwood's, with him and his wife, and with them boys and
gals all huddled together--But I'd better hold my tongue. We'll let
the smoke out of this room, I think, and air it a little.'