Mackenzie was not at heart an ill-natured man, and he would have repudiated with indignation the charge of being a mischief-maker.

He felt after his conversation with Hyacinth much as most men would if they discovered an unsuspected case of small-pox among their acquaintances.
His first duty was to warn the society in which he moved of the existence of a dangerous man, a violent and wicked rebel.

He repeated a slightly exaggerated version of what Hyacinth had said to everyone he met.

The pleasurable sense of personal importance which comes with having a story to tell grew upon him, and he spent the greater part of the day in seeking out fresh confidants to swell the chorus of his commination.
In England at the time public opinion was roused to a fever heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and the Irish Protestant Unionists were eager to outdo even the music-halls in Imperialist sentiment, the students of Trinity College being then, as ever, the 'death or glory' boys of Irish loyalty.

It is easy to imagine how Hyacinth's name was whispered shudderingly in the reading-room of the library, how his sentiments were anathematized in the dining-hall at commons, how plots were hatched for the chastisement of his iniquity over the fire in the evenings, when pipes were lit and tea was brewed.
At the end of the week Hyacinth was in an exceedingly uncomfortable position.