Chapter 8

THE WIND BLOWETH WHERE IT LISTETH

I sat on a fence in a potato field, whittling an alder stick into a pea-blower one afternoon in the early autumn when I noticed at the other end of the field the well-known figure of "the master." He was dressed as usual in light gray and as usual rode a fine horse. I dropped off the fence as if I had been shot. He urged the horse to a gallop. I pushed the clumps of red hair under my cap and pressed it down tightly on my head. Then I adjusted the string that served as a suspender. On came the galloping horse. A few more lightning touches to what covered my nakedness and he reined up in front of me! I straightened up like a piece of whalebone!

"What are you doing?" he asked in that far-off imperious voice of his.

"Kapin' th' crows off th' pirtas, yer honor!"

"You need a new shirt!" he said. The blood rushed to my face. I tried to answer, but the attempt seemed to choke me.

"You need a new shirt!" he almost yelled at me. I saw a smile playing about the corners of his fine large eyes. It gave me courage.

"Aye, yer honor, 'deed that's thrue."

"Why don't you get one?" The answer left my mind and traveled like a flash to the glottis, but that part of the machinery was out of order and the answer hung fire. I paused, drew a long breath that strained the string. Then matching his thin smile with a thick grin I replied:

"Did yer honor iver work fur four shillin's a week and share it wid nine others?"

"No!" he said and the imprisoned smile was released.

"Well, if ye iver do, shure ye'll be lucky to haave skin, let alone shirt!"

"You consider yourself lucky, then?"

"Aye, middlin'."

He galloped away and I lay down flat on my back, wiped the sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my jacket, turned the hair loose and eased up the string.

That night at the first sound of the farm-yard bell I took to my heels through the fields, through the yard and down the Belfast road to Withero's stone-pile. Willie was just quitting for the day. I was almost breathless, but I blurted out what then seemed to me the most important happening in my life.

Willie took his eye-protectors off and looked at me.

"So ye had a crack wi' the masther, did ye?"

"Aye, quite a crack."

"He mistuk ye fur a horse!" he said. This damper on my enthusiasm drew an instant reply.

"'Deed no, nor an ass naither."

Willie bundled up his hammers and prepared to go home. He took out his flint and steel. Over the flint he laid a piece of brown paper, chemically treated, then he struck the flint a sharp blow with the steel, a spark was produced, the spark ignited the paper, it began to burn in a smoldering, blazeless way, he stuffed the paper into the bowl of his pipe, and began the smoke that was to carry him over the journey home. I shouldered some of his hammers and we trudged along the road toward Antrim.

"Throth, I know yer no ass, me bhoy, though Jamie's a good dale ov a mule, but yer Ma's got wit enough fur the family. That answer ye gave Misther Chaine was frum yer Ma. It was gey cute an'll git ye a job, I'll bate."

I had something else to tell him, but I dreaded his critical mind. When we got to the railway bridge he laid his hammers on the wall while he relit his pipe. I saw my last opportunity and seized it.

"Say, Willie, did ye iver haave a feelin' that made ye feel fine all over and--and--made ye pray?"

"I niver pray," he said. "These wathery-mouthed gossoons who pray air jist like oul Hughie Thornton wi' his pockets bulgin' wi' scroof (crusts). They're naggin at God from Aysther t' Christmas t' fill their pockets! A good day's stone breakin's my prayer. At night I jist say, 'Thank ye, Father!' In th' mornin' I say 'Morra, Father, how's all up aroun' th' throne this mornin'?'"

"An' does He spake t' ye back?"

"Ov coorse, d'ye think He's got worse manners nor me? He says, 'Hello, Willie,' says He. 'How's it wi' ye this fine mornin'?' 'Purty fine, Father, purty fine,' says I. But tell me, bhoy, was there a girl aroun' whin that feelin' struck ye?"

"Divil a girl, at all!"

"Them feelin's sometimes comes frum a girl, ye know. I had wan wanst, but that's a long story, heigh ho; aye, that's a long story!"

"Did she die, Willie?"

"Never mind her. That feelin' may haave been from God. Yer Ma hes a quare notion that wan chile o' her'n will be inclined that way. She's dhrawn eleven blanks, maybe she's dhrawn a prize, afther all; who knows."

Old McCabe, the road mender, overtook us and for the rest of the journey I was seen but not heard.

That night I sat by her side in the chimney-corner and recited the events of the day. It had been full of magic, mystery and meaning to me. The meaning was a little clearer to me after the recital.

"Withero sometimes talks like a ha'penny book wi' no laves in it," she said. "But most of the time he's nearer the facts than most of us. It isn't all blether, dear."

We sat up late, long after the others had gone to sleep. She read softly a chapter of "Pilgrim's Progress," the chapter in which he is relieved of his burden. I see now that woodcut of a gate and over the gate the words: "Knock and it shall be opened unto you." She had read it before. I was familiar with it, but in the light of that day's experience it had a new meaning. She warned me, however, that my name was neither Pilgrim nor Withero, and in elucidating her meaning she explained the phrase, "The wind bloweth where it listeth." I learned to listen for the sound thereof and I wondered from whence it came, not only the wind of the heavens, but the spirit that moved men in so many directions.

The last act of that memorable night was the making of a picture. It took many years to find out its meaning, but every stroke of the brush is as plain to me now as they were then.

"Ye'll do somethin' for me?"

"Aye, aanything in th' world."

"Ye won't glunch nor ask questions?"

"Not a question."

"Shut yer eyes an' stan' close t' th' table." I obeyed. She put into each hand a smooth stick with which Jamie had smoothed the soles of shoes.

"Jist for th' now these are the handles of a plow. Keep yer eyes shut tight. Ye've seen a maan plowin' a field?"

"Aye."

"Think that ye see a long, long field. Ye're plowin' it. The other end is so far away ye can't see it. Ye see a wee bit of the furrow, jist a wee bit. Squeeze th' plow handles." I squeezed.

"D'ye see th' trees yonder?"

"Aye."

"An' th' birds pickin' in th' furrow?"

"Ay-e."

She took the sticks away and gently pushed me on a stool and told me I might open my eyes.

"That's quare," I said.

"Listen, dear, ye've put yer han' t' th' plow; ye must niver, niver take it away. All through life ye'll haave thim plow handles in yer han's an' ye'll be goin' down th' furrow. Ye'll crack a stone here and there, th' plow'll stick often an' things'll be out of gear, but yer in th' furrow all the time. Ye'll change horses, ye'll change clothes, ye'll change yerself, but ye'll always be in the furrow, plowin', plowin', plowin'! I'll go a bit of th' way, Jamie'll go a bit, yer brothers an' sisters a bit, but we'll dhrap out wan b' wan. Ye're God's plowmaan."

As I stood to say good-night she put her hand on my head and muttered something that was not intended for me to hear. Then she kissed me good night and I climbed to my pallet under the thatch.

I was afraid to sleep, lest the "feelin'" should take wings. When I was convinced that some of it, at least, would remain, I tried to sleep and couldn't. The mingled ecstasy and excitement was too intense. I heard the town clock strike the hours far into the morning.

Before she awoke next morning I had exhausted every agency in the house that would coördinate flesh and spirit. When I was ready I tiptoed to her bedside and touched her on the cheek. Instantly she awoke and sat upright. I put my hands on my hips and danced before her. It was a noiseless dance with bare feet on the mud floor.

Her long thin arms shot out toward me and I buried myself in them. "So it stayed," she whispered in my ear.

"Aye, an' there's more of it."

She arose and dressed quickly. A live coal was scraped out of the ashes and a turf fire built around it. My feet were winged as I flew to the town well for water. When I returned she had several slices of toast ready. Toast was a luxury. Of course there was always--or nearly always--bread, and often there was butter, but toast to the very poor in those days wasn't merely a matter of bread and butter, fire and time! It was more often inclination that turned the balance for or against it, and inclination always came on the back of some emotion, chance or circumstance. Here all the elements met and the result was toast.

I took a mouthful of her tea out of her cup; she reciprocated. We were like children. Maybe we were. Love tipped our tongues, winged our feet, opened our hearts and hands and permeated every thought and act. She stood at the mouth of the entry until I disappeared at the town head. While I was yet within sight I looked back half a dozen times and we waved our hands.

It was nearly a year before a dark line entered this spiritual spectrum. It was inevitable that such a mental condition--ever in search of a larger expression--should gravitate toward the Church. It has seemed also that it was just as inevitable that the best thought of which the Church has been the custodian should be crystallized into a creed. I was promoted to the "big house." There, of course, I was overhauled and put in touch with the fittings and furniture. As a flunkey I had my first dose of boiled linen and I liked it.

I was enabled now to attend church and Sunday School. Indeed, I would have gone there, religion or no religion, for where else could I have sported a white shirt and collar? With my boiled linen and my brain stuffed with texts I gradually drew away from the chimney-corner and never again did I help Willie Withero to carry his hammers. Ah, if one could only go back over life and correct the mistakes.

Gradually I lost the warm human feeling and substituted for it a theology. I began to look upon my mother as one about whose salvation there was some doubt. I urged her to attend church. Forms and ceremonies became the all-important things and the life and the spirit were proportionately unimportant. I became mildewed with the blight of respectability. I became the possessor of a hard hat that I might ape the respectables. I walked home every night from Ballycraigie with Jamie Wallace, and Jamie was the best-dressed working man in the town. I was treading a well-worn pathway. I was "getting on." A good slice of my new religion consisted in excellency of service to my employers--my "betters." Preacher, priest and peasant thought alike on these topics. Anna was pleased to see me in a new garb, but she noticed and I noticed that I had grown away from the corner. In the light of my new adjustment I saw _duties_ plainer, but duty may become a hammer by which affection may be beaten to death.

I imagined the plow was going nicely in the furrow, for I wasn't conscious of striking any snags or stones, but Anna said:

"A plowman who skims th' surface of th' sod strikes no stones, dear, but it's because he isn't plowin' _deep_!"

I have plowed deep enough since, but too late to go back and compare notes.

She was pained, but tried to hide it. If she was on the point of tears she would tell a funny story.

"Acushla," she said to me one night after a theological discussion, "sure ye remind me of a ducklin' hatched by a hen."

"Why?"

"We're at home in conthrary elements. Ye use texts t' fight with an' I use thim to get pace of heart!"

"Are you wiser nor Mr. Holmes, an' William Brennan an' Miss McGee?" I asked. "Them's th' ones that think as I do--I mane I think as they do!"

"No, 'deed I'm not as wise as aany of thim, but standin' outside a wee bit I can see things that can't be seen inside. Forby they haave no special pathway t' God that's shut t' me, nor yer oul father nor Willie Withero!"

Sometimes Jamie took a hand. Once when he thought Anna was going to cry, in an argument, he wheeled around in his seat and delivered himself.

"I'll tell ye, Anna, that whelp needs a good argyment wi' th' tongs! Jist take thim an' hit 'im a skite on the jaw wi' thim an' I'll say, 'Amen.'"

"That's no clinch to an argyment," I said, "an thruth is thruth!"

"Aye, an' tongs is tongs! An' some o' ye young upstarts whin ye get a dickey on an' a choke-me-tight collar think yer jist ready t' sit down t' tay wi' God!"

Anna explained and gave me more credit than was due me. So Jamie ended the colloquy by the usual cap to his every climax.

"Well, what th' ---- do I know about thim things, aanyway. Let's haave a good cup o' tay an' say no more about it!"

The more texts I knew the more fanatical I became. And the more of a fanatic I was the wider grew the chasm that divided me from my mother. I talked as if I knew "every saint in heaven and every divil in hell."

She was more than patient with me, though my spiritual conceit must have given her many a pang. Antrim was just beginning to get accustomed to my new habiliments of boots, boiled linen and hat when I left to "push my fortune" in other parts. My enthusiasm had its good qualities too, and she was quick to recognize them, quicker than to notice its blemishes. My last hours in the town--on the eve of my first departure--I spent with her. "I feel about you, dear," she said, laughing, "as Micky Free did about the soul of his father in Purgatory. He had been payin' for masses for what seemed to him an uncommonly long time. 'How's th' oul bhoy gettin' on?' Micky asked the priest. 'Purty well, Micky, his head is out.' 'Begorra, thin, I know th' rist ov 'im will be out soon--I'll pay for no more masses!' Your head is up and out from the bottom of th' world, and I haave faith that ye'll purty soon be all out, an' some day ye'll get the larger view, for ye'll be in a larger place an' ye'll haave seen more of people an' more of the world."

I have two letters of that period. One I wrote her from Jerusalem in the year 1884. As I read the yellow, childish epistle I am stung with remorse that it is full of the narrow sectarianism that still held me in its grip. The other is dated Antrim, July, 1884, and is her answer to my sectarian appeal.

"Dear boy," she says, "Antrim has had many soldier sons in far-off lands, but you are the first, I think, to have the privilege of visiting the Holy Land. Jamie and I are proud of you. All the old friends have read your letter. They can hardly believe it. Don't worry about our souls. When we come one by one in the twilight of life, each of us, Jamie and I, will have our sheaves. They will be little ones, but we are little people. I want no glory here or hereafter that Jamie cannot share. I gave God a plowman, but your father says I must chalk half of that to his account. Hold tight the handles and plow deep. We watch the candle and every wee spark thrills our hearts, for we know it's a letter from you.

"Your loving mother."