more than the general drift at first, but that was clear enough from the often-repeated 'United Irishmen' and 'Defenders' - prisoners who had been transported in large numbers, particularly after the 1798 rising in Ireland. He noticed that the Scottish officers of the Seventy-Third did not take part, but they were in the minority and the general feeling was well summed up by the clergyman, who said 'The Irish do not deserve the appellation of men. And if I needed an authority for the statement I should bring forward Governor Collins of Van Diemen's Land. Those are his very words: in the second volume of his book, I believe. But no authority is needed for what is evident to the meanest understanding. And now to crown all, priests are allowed them. A cunning priest can make them do anything; and there is nothing but anarchy to be foreseen.'
'Who is that gentleman?' asked Stephen in a low voice, Hamlyn having finished with horse-racing for the moment.
'His name is Marsden,' said Hamlyn. 'A wealthy sheep-farmer and a magistrate at Parramatta: and once he is on to the poor old Pope and popery he never leaves off.'
How true. Stephen saw Tom Pullings' bored face, fixed in a dutiful smile, near the head of the table, on Colonel MacPherson's right; and at the same time Tom looked at him - a very anxious look.
'I beg your pardon,' said the penal secretary.. 'I am shamefully remiss: allow me to help you to a little of this dish. It is kangaroo, our local venison.'
'You are very good, sir,' said Stephen, looking at it with some interest. 'Can you tell me...
But Firkins was already away on a hobbyhorse of his own, the poverty of Ireland and its inevitability. His words were mostly addressed to the other side of the table, though when he had finished his account he turned to Stephen and said 'They are not unlike our Aborigines, sir, the most feckless people in the world. If you give them sheep they will not wait for them to breed and grow into a flock: they eat them at once. Poverty, dirt and ignorance must necessarily attend them.'
'Did you ever read in Bede, sir?' asked Stephen.
'Bede? I do not think I know the name. Was he a legal writer?'
'I believe he is chiefly known for his ecclesiastical history of the English nation.'
'Ah, then Mr Marsden will know him. Mr Marsden,' -raising his voice - 'do you know of a Mr Bede, that wrote an ecclesiastical history?'
'Bede? Bede?' said Marsden, breaking off his conversation with his neighbour. 'Never heard of him.' Then resuming it, 'He was a mere boy, so we only gave him a hundred lashes on the back, and the rest on his bottom and legs.'
'Bede lived in the County Durham,' said Stephen in a momentary pause. 'Little do I or other naturalists know of the northern parts of England; but it is to be hoped that some future faunist, a person of a thinking turn of mind, a man of fortune, will undertake the tour, accompanied by a botanist and a draughtsman, and will give us an account of his journey. The manners of the wild Aborigines, their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful reflections. And his draughtsman will portray the ruins of the great monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, the home of the most learned man in England a thousand years ago, famous throughout the Christian world and now forgotten. Such a work would be well received.'
Perhaps: the remark, however, was received in disapproving silence, with puzzled, suspicious looks; and eventually the big man opposite Stephen said, 'There ain't any Aborigines in Durham.' While the learned explained to him what might be meant by the word, Stephen said inwardly 'Let me not be a fool. God preserve me from choler,' and a flow of talk from the upper end of the table swept the incident into the past.
'I am so sorry,' he said, suddenly aware that Hamlyn was speaking to him. 'I was wool-gathering again. I was contemplating on sheep.'
'And I was talking to you about sheep, how droll,' said Hamlyn. 'I was telling you that your vis-?is, Captain Lowe, has imported some of the Saxony merinos to make a new cross.'
'Has he a great many sheep?'
'Probably more than anyone else. It is said he is the richest man in the colony.'
The Flogging Parson, his face redder still, had begun savaging the Pope again, and to shut him out Stephen replied in a louder voice 'Curiously enough it was merinos that I was thinking of, the King's merinos; they are of the Spanish breed, however.'
'Are you talking about merinos?' asked Captain Lowe.
'Yes,' said Hamlyn. 'Dr Maturin here has seen the King's flock.'
'Sir Joseph Banks was good enough to show them to me,' said Stephen.
Lowe looked at him with contempt, and after some thought replied, 'I don't give a... a button for Sir Joseph Banks.'
'I am sure he would be grieved to hear it.'
'Why did he try to prevent Captain Macarthur getting any of the King's sheep? Because Macarthur was from the colony, I suppose.'
'Surely not. Sir Joseph has always had the interests of the colony very much at heart. It was largely his influence that brought it into being, you will recall.'
'Then why did he refuse to receive Macarthur?'
'I cannot suppose that he thought a man with Captain Macarthur's antecedents a desirable acquaintance,' said Stephen in a silence broken only by Colonel MacPherson's long-continuing, even-toned account of the Nawab of Oudh. 'Furthermore, Sir Joseph strongly objects to duels, on moral grounds; and Captain Macarthur was in London to be courtmartialled for engaging in one.'
Lowe did not seem to hear the later words. At the first he flushed a dull red and he said no more until the end of the meal, only muttering 'Undesirable acquaintance' from time to time, much as Stephen muttered within himself 'God give me patience. Dear Mother of God give me patience', for the railing about Irish prisoners had begun again, as tedious as the railing of European women about domestic servants but infinitely more malignant.
