Chapter 3

"You are. You start crying the minute anything happens to you or if people won't do what you want them to do. I wouldn't marry a girner for the wide world!"

"I won't girn any more if you'll court me," she promised.

"I daresay," he replied skeptically.

She considered for a moment or two. "Well, if you won't court me," she said, "I'll let Andy Cairnduff court me!"

"He can have you," said John, undismayed by the prospect of the schoolmaster's son as a rival.

She stood before him for a little while, without speaking. Then she turned and walked a little distance from him. She stopped, with her back turned towards him, and he knew by the way her head was bent, that she was thinking out a way of retaliating on him. The end of her pinafore was in her mouth!... She turned to him sharply, letting the pinafore fall from her lips, and pointing at him with her finger, she began to laugh shrilly.

"Ha, ha, ha!" she said. "I have you quarely gunked!"

"Gunked!" he exclaimed, unable to see how he had been hoaxed.

"Yes," she answered. "I gunked you nicely. You thought I wanted you to court me, but I was only having you on. Ha, ha, ha!"

He burst out laughing. "I that consoles you," he said; "you're welcome to it!"

Then she ran away and would not play "I spy" or "Tig" any more.

He had not told his mother of that passage of love with Aggie Logan. It did not occur to him to tell anything to his mother. His instinct, indeed, was not to tell things to her, to conceal them from her.

VI

If anyone had said to him that he did not love his mother as much as he loved his Uncle Matthew and his Uncle William, he would have been very angry. Not love his mother more than anyone else on earth!... Only a blow could make a proper answer to such a charge. Nevertheless his mother was associated in his mind with acts of repression, with forbidding and restraint. She seemed always to be telling him not to do things. When he wanted to go to the Lough with Willie Logan to play Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday or to light a bonfire in Teeshie McBratney's field with shavings from Galpin's mill in the pretence that he was a Red Indian preparing for a war-dance, it was his mother who said that he was not to do it. He might fall into the water and get drowned, she said, or, he might fall into the fire and get roasted to death. As if he were not capable of controlling a raft or a bonfire!...

He felt, too, that sometimes she punished him unjustly. When the Logans and he had played Buffalo Bill and the Red Indians attacking the defenceless pale-face woman, he had had a fierce argument with Willie Logan about the part of Buffalo Bill. Willie, being older, had claimed the part for himself, and, when denied the right to it, had declared that neither Aggie nor he would play in the game. Then a compromise had been arranged: Willie was allowed to play the part of Buffalo Bill and to slay the Red Indian on condition that John, before being slain, should be allowed to scalp the helpless pale-face woman. He scalped her so severely, by tugging tightly at her long hair, that she began to cry, and Willie, more conscious of the fact that he was Aggie's brother than that he was Buffalo Bill, bore down upon John and gave him his "cowardy-blow." They fought a fierce and bitter fight, and in the end, Willie went home with a bleeding nose, and John went home with a black eye.

Willie had not played the man over that affair. He went to his mother and complained of John's selfish and brutal behaviour, alleging that he had suffered terrible punishment in a chivalrous effort to protect his sister from ruffianly assault; and his mother, a thin, acidulous woman, whose voice was half snarl and half whine, carried her son's complaint to Mrs. MacDermott.

Mrs. MacDermott had not stopped to enquire into the truth of the charge against John beyond asking if it were true that he had pulled Aggie Logan's hair and fought with Willie Logan. John had replied "Yes, ma!" That was sufficient for Mrs. MacDermott, that and the testimony of John's discoloured eye, and she had beaten him with the leather tawse that was kept hanging from a nail at the side of the fireplace. "That my son should do the like of that!" she said over and over again until a cold fury of resentment against her had formed in his heart. It was true that he had pulled Aggie's hair much harder than he ought to have done, but he had not intended to hurt her. What he had done, had been done, not out of malice, but in the excitement of the game; and it was not fair to beat him so severely for so little a thing as that. He would not cry ... he would not give his mother the satisfaction of hearing him cry, although the lashing he was receiving was hurting his bare pelt very sorely. She could keep on saying, "That my son should do the like of that!" but he would not mind her....

Then, as if she understood his thoughts and perceived that he was unmoved by her outraged feelings, she had changed her complaint against him. Glancing up at the portrait of her husband which was hanging over the fireplace, she said, "That your father's son should do the like of that!" Compunction came to him then. He, too, looked up at the portrait of his father, and suddenly he wanted to cry. The pale face, made more pale in appearance by the thick, black beard, and having the faded look which photographs of the dead seem always to have, appeared to him to be alive and full of reproach, and the big burning eyes, aflame, they looked, with the consuming thing that took his life, had anger in them, anger against him!...

He had not any regret for hurting Aggie Logan ... he did not believe that he had hurt her any more severely than was necessary for the purposes of the game, and even if he had hurt her, she ought to have borne it as part of the pretence ... he did not care whether he had hurt her or not, for she was a "cry-ba" at all times, ready to "girn" at anything ... but he had sorrow at the thought that he had done something of which his father might have disapproved. Mrs. MacDermott, with that penetration which is part of the nature of people who are accustomed to yield to stronger personalities had discovered that she could win John to her obedience by reminding him of his father; and she used her power without pity. "What would your father think of you, if he knew!" she would say.

She was not a hard or a cruel woman ... she was very kind and loved her son with a long clutching love ... but her life with her husband had contained so many disturbances of comfortable courses, thrilling enough at the time, but terrifying when viewed in retrospect, that her nature, inclined to quiet, fixed ways and to acceptance, with slight resistance, of whatever came to her, made all the efforts that were possible to it to keep her life and her son's life in peace. She hated change of any sort, whether of circumstances or of friends, and she loved old, familiar things. The tradition of the MacDermotts, their life in one place for generations and the respect with which they were greeted by their townsmen, gave immense pleasure to her, and her dearest dream was that John should continue in the place where his forefathers had lived, and that his son and his son's son should continue there, too!

And so it was that she was always telling John not to do things. She loathed Uncle Matthew's romances and his talk of adventures in foreign parts, and she insisted that he was "away in the mind" when her son spoke of him to her. She tried to make the boy walk inconspicuously, to keep, always, in the background, to do only those things that were generally approved of. His quick temper, his haste with his fists, his habit of contradicting even those who were older than he was, his unwillingness to admit that he was in the wrong ... all these disturbed and frightened her. They would lead him into disputes and set him up in opposition to other people. His delight in the story of his father's encounter with Lord Castlederry troubled her, and she tried to convince her son that Lord Castlederry was a well-meaning man, but, as she knew, without success. She had delighted in her husband's great courage and self-sufficiency, his sureness, his strong decision and his unconquerable pride and independence ... but now, in contemplation, these things frightened her ... she wondered sometimes why it was that they had not frightened her in his lifetime ... and the thought that she might have to live again in contention and opposition roused all her strength to resist that fate. She had lived down much of the dislike that her husband had aroused. It was not necessary now to pretend that she did not see people, that she might escape from the mortification of being stared at, without a sign of recognition; and she would not lightly yield up her comfortable situation. If only she could only persuade John to become a minister! There was nothing in that to frighten her: there was everything to make her feel content and proud.

When she took John to Belfast, she made the holiday, so eagerly anticipated, a mortification to him. While they were in the train, she would tell him not to climb on to the seat of the carriage to look out of the window at the telegraph-poles flying past and the telegraph-wires rising and falling like birds ... she would tell him not to stand at the door in case it should fly open and he should fall out and be killed ... she would tell him, when the train reached the terminus in Belfast, to take tight hold of her hand and not to budge from her side ... she would refuse to cross the Lagan in the steam ferry-boat and insist on going round by tram-car across the Queen's Bridge ... she would tell him not to wander about in Forster Green's when he edged away from her to look at the coffee-mills in which the richly-smelling berries were being roasted. When she took him to Linden's to tea ... Linden's which made cakes for the Queen and had the Royal Arms over the door of the shop! ... she spoiled the treat for him by refusing to let him sit on one of the stools at the counter and eat his "cookies" like a man: she made him sit by her side at a table ... an ordinary table such as anyone could sit on anywhere ... at home, even!

His Uncle William had taken him up to Belfast one market-day, and that Friday was made memorable to him forever because his Uncle had said to him, "Well, boy, what would you like to do?" and had consented, without demur, to cross the Lagan in the ferry-boat. Uncle William had not clutched at him all the time in fear lest he should fall into the river and be drowned, and had allowed him to stand at the end of the boat and watch the swirl of the water against the ferry-steps when they reached the Antrim side. He had said to him, too, "I've a wee bit of business to attend to, boy, that'll not interest you much. Would you like to stay here in the market for an hour by yourself while I go and do it?"

Would he like?...

And not one word about taking great care of himself or of not doing this or doing that ... of keeping away from the horse-fair, and not going too near the cattle. Uncle William trusted him, took it for granted that he was capable of looking after himself....

"Very well, then," Uncle William said, "I'll meet you here in an hour's time. No later, mind you, for I've a deal to do the day!"

And for a whole hour, John had wandered about the market, not holding anyone's hand and free to go wherever he liked! He had walked through the old market where the horses were bought and sold ... had even stroked a mare's muzzle while some men bargained over it ... and then had crossed the road to the new market where he smelt the odour of flowers and fruit and listened to the country-women chaffering over their butter and eggs. He spent a penny without direction!... He bought a large, rosy American apple ... without being asked whether he would like to have that or an orange, or being told that he could not have an orange, but must have an apple because an apple in the morning was good for him...

When he told his mother that night of the splendid time he had had by himself, she said, "You might have lost yourself!..." That chilled him, and he did not tell her of the gallant way in which he had rubbed his hand on a horse's side. He knew very well that she would say, "It might have kicked you!..."

VII

It was she who was most particular about the dyeing of his Easter eggs and the ritual of hanging up his stocking on Christmas Eve. She had wanted to go on dyeing eggs for him at Easter and hanging up his stocking on Christmas Eve, even when he was twelve years of age and could not be expected to tolerate such things any longer. He liked the Easter ceremonial better, perhaps, than that of Christmas. His mother would bid Uncle Matthew take him out of the town to the fields to gather whin-blossoms so that she could dye the eggs to a pretty brown colour. Tea-leaves could be used to dye the eggs to a deeper brown than that of the whin-blossoms, but there was not so much pleasure in taking tea-leaves from the caddy as there was in plucking whin-blossoms from the furze-bushes. The Logans bought their Easter eggs, already dyed, from old Mrs. Dobbs, the dulce-woman, but John disliked the look of her eggs, apart from the fact that his mother would not permit him to buy them. Mrs. Dobbs used some artificial dyes which stained the eggshells a horrible purple or a less horrible red, and John had a feeling of sickness when he looked at them. Mrs. MacDermott said that if the eggs were to crack during the process of boiling, the dye would penetrate the meat and might poison anyone who ate it; and even if the shells remained uncracked, the dye would soil the fingers and perhaps soil the clothes. She wondered at Mrs. Logan!...

And on Easter Monday, she and Uncle Matthew and Uncle William would go to Bryson's field where there was a low mound covered with short grass, and from the top of this mound, he would trundle his Easter egg down the slope to the level ground until the shell was broken. Then he would sit beside his mother and uncles, and eat the hard-boiled meat of the egg while Uncle Matthew explained to him that he was celebrating an ancient Druidical rite.

VIII

But he loved his mother very dearly when she came to him at night to put him to bed and listen to his prayers. He would kneel down in front of her, in the warmth of the kitchen so that he might not catch cold in the unheated bedroom, and would shut his eyes very tightly because God did not like to see little boys peeping through their distended fingers at Him, and would say his verse:

I lay my body down to sleep.... I pray the Lord my soul to keep, And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

and having said that, he would add a general prayer for his family. "God bless my Mother" ... he always said _"Mother"_ in his prayers, although he said _"Ma"_ in ordinary talk ... "and my Uncle William and my Uncle Matthew and all my friends and relations, and make me a good boy for Jesus' sake, Amen. Our Father which art...." Then he would scamper up the stairs to bed, and his mother would hap the clothes about him and tell him to go to sleep soon. She would bend over him and kiss him very tightly, and he would put his arms about her, too. "Son, dear!" she would say.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

I

When John MacDermott was seventeen years of age and entering into his fourth year of monitorship, his Uncle William said to him, "John, boy, you're getting on to be a man now, and it's high time you began to think of what you're going to do with yourself when you are one!"

"You're mebbe right," said John.

"The next year'll be your last one at the monitoring, won't it?" Uncle William continued.

John nodded his head.

"Well, if I were you I'd make a plan of some sort during the next year or two, for it would never do for you to come to the years of discretion, and have to take to the teachering because you couldn't think of anything else to do. I can see well your heart's not in that trade."

"It is not, indeed!" John said vigorously. "It's a terrible tiring job, teaching children, and some of them are that stupid you feel provoked enough to slap the hands off them! I'm nearly afraid of myself sometimes with the stupid ones, for fear I'd lose my temper with them and hurt them hard. Mr. Cairnduff says no one should be a teacher that has a bad temper, and dear knows, Uncle William, I've a fearful temper! He's a quare wise man, Mr. Cairnduff: he doesn't let any of his monitors use the cane, for he says it's an awful temptation to be cruel, especially if you're young and impatient the way I am!"

"Is that so now?" said Uncle William.

"Oh, it is, right enough. I know well there's times when a child's provoked me, that I want to be cruel to it ... and I'd hate to be cruel to any child. There's a wee girl in my class now.... Lizzie Turley's her name!..."

"John Turley's child?"

"Yes. God knows she's the stupidest child in the world!"

"Her da's a match, for her, then, for he's the stupidest man I've ever known. That fellow ought not to have been let have children!..."

"It's not her fault, I know," John continued, "but you forget that when you're provoked. I've tried hard to teach that child ... vowed to myself I'd teach her ... to add up, but I'm afraid she's beaten me. She can subtract well enough ... that's the queer part about her ... but she cannot add up. You'll mebbe not believe me. Uncle William, but that child can't put two and one together and be sure of getting the right answer. At first she couldn't add two and one together at all. She'd put down twelve for the answer as likely as not. But I worked hard with her, and I got her to add up to two and six make eight ... and there she stuck. I couldn't get her past that: she couldn't add two and seven together and get nine for the answer. But if you asked her to subtract two from nine, she'd say "seven" all right! That's a queer thing, now! Isn't it?"

"Aye, it's queer enough!"

"There's been times when I've wanted to hit that wee girl ... hit her with my shut fists ... and I don't like to feel that way about a child that's not all there ... or any child! I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a teacher, Uncle William. You have to be very good and patient... and it's no use pretending you haven't. Mr. Cairnduff says it's more important for a teacher to be good than it is for a minister, and he's right, too. He says a child should never be slapped by the teacher that's offended with it, but by another teacher that knows nothing about the bother. He doesn't use the cane much himself, but there's some teachers likes using it. Miss Gebbie does... she carries a big bamboo about with her, and gives you a good hard welt across the hand with it, if you annoy her. I wouldn't like to be in that woman's grip, I can tell you. Some women are fearful hard, Uncle William!"

"Worse nor men, some of them," Uncle William agreed.

"Mr. Cairnduff told me one time of a teacher he knew that got to like the cane so much that he used to try and trip the children into making mistakes so's he could slap them for it. Isn't it fearful, that?"

"Terrible, John!"

"I'd be ashamed to death if I got that way. Oh, I couldn't go on with the teaching, Uncle William. I wouldn't be near fit for it."

"Well, never mind, John. There's one thing, the extra schooling you've had has done you no harm, and I daresay it's done you a lot of good. But you'll have to think of something to do!..."

"Yes, I will!"

"Do you never think of anything? Is there any particular thing you'd like to do?"

"There's a whole lot of things I've fancied I'd like to be, but after a wee while I always change my mind. The first time I went to Belfast, I thought it would be lovely to be a tram-driver 'til I saw a navvy tearing up the street ... and then I thought a navvy had the best job in the world. You know, Uncle William, it takes me a long while to find out what it is I want, but when I do find it out, I take to it queer and quick. I'll mebbe go footering about the world like a lost thing, and then all of a sudden I'll know what I want to do ... and I'll just do it!"

"Hmmm!" said Uncle William.

"It sounds queer and foolish, doesn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know, John. Many's a thing sounds silly, but isn't."

"It's true, anyway. I've noticed things like that about myself. It's ... it's like a man getting converted. One minute he's a guilty, hell-deserving sinner, the way John Hutton says he was, footering about the world, drinking and guzzling and leading a rotten life ... and then all of a sudden, he's hauled up and made to give his testimony and do God's will for the rest of his life! I daresay I'll drift from one thing to another ... and then I'll know, just like a flash of lightning ... and I'll go and do it!"

"That's a dangerous kind of a doctrine," said Uncle William. "It's easier to get into the way of drifting nor it is to get out of it again. And you're a young lad to be thinking strange thoughts like that!"

"I'm seventeen," John replied. "That's not young!"

"It's not oul' anyway. Anybody'd think to hear you, you had the years of Methuselah. I suppose, now, you never thought of coming into the shop?"

"I did think of it one time, but you wouldn't let me!..."

"That was when you wanted to help me. But did you never think of it for your own sake? You see, John, you're the last of us, and this shop has been in our family for a long while ... it's a good trade, too, and you'll have no fear of hardship as long as you look after it, although the big firms in Belfast are opening branches here. The MacDermotts can hold their heads up against any big firm in the world, I'm thinking ... in this place, anyway. Did you never feel you'd like to come into the shop?"

John glanced about the shop, at the assistants who were serving customers with tea and groceries....

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I don't think I'd like it!"

Uncle William considered for a few moments. Then he said, "No, I thought you wouldn't care for it. Your da felt that way too. The shop wasn't big enough for him. All the same, there has to be shops, and there has to be people to look after that!"

"Oh, I know that right enough, Uncle William. I'm not saying anything against them. They're all right for them that likes them!..."

He paused for a while, and his Uncle waited for him to proceed. "Sometimes," he said at last, "I'm near in the mind to go and be a soldier!..."

"For dear sake!" said Uncle William impatiently.

"Or a sailor. I went down to the Post Office once and got a bill about the Navy!..."

"Well, I would think you were demented mad to go and do the like of that," said Uncle William. "You might as well be a peeler!"

II