A watery mid-November sun was peering through a leafless birch tree that rose near my sleeping-place when I awoke to find a young healthy slip of a woman looking at me with a pair of large laughing eyes.
"The top o' the morn to ye, me boy," she said. "Ye're a young cub to be a beggar already."
"I'm not a beggar," I answered, getting up to my feet.
"Ye might be worse now," she replied, making a sort of excuse for her former remark. "And anyway, it's not a dacent man's bed ye've been lyin' on all be yerself, me boy." I knew that she was making fun of me, but for all that I liked the look of her face.
"Now, where would ye be a-goin' at this time o' the morn?" she asked.
"That's more than I know myself, good woman," I said. "I have been working with a man named Sorley, but I left him last night."
"Matt Sorley, the boycotted man?"
"The same."
"Ye'll be a Donegal cub?"
"That I am," I replied.
"Ye're a comely lookin' fellow," said the woman. "An' what age may ye be?"
"I'll be thirteen come Christmas," I said proudly.
"Poor child!" said the woman. "Ye should be in yer own home yet. Was old Mary Sorley good to ye?"
"She's dead."
"Under God the day and the night, and d'ye tell me so!" cried the woman, and she said a short prayer to herself for the soul of Mary Sorley.
"She was a bad woman, indeed, but it's wrong to speak an ill word of the dead," my new friend went on when she had finished her prayer. "Now where would ye be makin' for next?"
"That's it," I answered.
For a moment the woman was deep in thought. "I suppose ye'll be lookin' for a new place?" she asked suddenly.
"I am that," I said.
"I have a half-brother on the leadin' road to Strabane, and he wants a cub for the winter term," said the woman. "I live in the same house meself and if ye care ye can come and see him, and I meself will put in a word in yer favour. His name in James MaCrossan, and he's a good man to his servants."
That very minute we set out together. We came to the house of James MaCrossan, and found the man working in the farmyard. He had a good, strong, kindly face that was pleasant to look upon. His shirt was open at the front, and a great hairy chest was visible. His arms, bare almost to the shoulders, were as hairy as the limbs of a beast, and much dirtier. His shoes were covered with cow-dung, and he stood stroking a horse as tenderly as if it had been a young child in the centre of the yard. His half-sister spoke to him about me, while I stood aside with my little bundle dangling from my arm. When the woman had finished her story MaCrossan looked at me with good humour in his eyes.
"And how much wages would ye be wantin'?" he asked.
"Six pounds from now till May-day," I said.
The man was no stickler over a few shillings. He took me as a servant there and then at the wages I asked.
His farm was a good easy one to work on, he and his sister were very kind to me, and treated me more like one of themselves than a servant. I lay abed every morning until seven, and on rising I got porridge and milk, followed by tea, bread and butter, for breakfast. There was no lack of food, and I grew fatter and happier. I finished my day's work at eight o'clock in the evening, and could then turn into bed when I liked. The cows, sheep, and pigs were under my care, MaCrossan worked with the horses, while Bridgid, his half-sister, did the house-work and milked the cows. I did not learn to milk, for that is a woman's job. At least, I thought so in those days. Pulling the soft udder of a cow was not the proper job for a man like me.
One day my master came into the byre and asked me if I could milk.
"No," I answered. "And what is more I don't want to learn. It is not a manly job."
MaCrossan merely laughed, and by way of giving me a lesson in manliness, he lifted me over his head with one wrench of his arm, holding me there for at least a minute. When he replaced me on the ground I felt very much ashamed, but the man on seeing this laughed louder than ever. That night he told the story to his half-sister.
"Calls milkin' a job for a woman, indeed!" she exclaimed. "The little rogue of a cub! if I get hold of him."
With these words she ran laughing after me, and I ran out of the house into the darkness. Although I knew she was not in earnest I felt a bit afraid of her. Three times she followed me round the farmyard, but I managed to keep out of her reach each time. In the end she returned to the house.
"Dermod, come back," she called. "No one will harm ye."
I would not be caught in such an easy manner, and above all I did not want the woman to grip me. For an hour I stood in the darkness, then I slipped through the open window of my bedroom, which was on the ground floor, and turned into my bed. A few moments afterwards Bridgid came into the room carrying a lighted candle, and found me under the blankets. I watched her through the fringe of my eyelashes while pretending that I was fast asleep.
"Ha, ye rogue!" she cried. "I have ye now."
She ran towards me, but still I pretended to be in a deep slumber. I closed my eyes tightly, but I felt awfully afraid. She drew closer, and at last I could feel her breath warm on my cheek. But she did not grip me. Instead, she kissed me on the lips three times, and I was so surprised that I opened my eyes.
"Ye little shamer! d'ye think that that is a woman's job too?" she asked, and with these words she ran out of the room.
I stayed on the farm for nineteen months, and then, though MaCrossan was a very good master, I set my mind on leaving him. Day and night the outside world was calling to me, and something lay awaiting for me in other lands. Maybe I could make more money in foreign parts, and earn a big pile for myself and my people. Some day, when I had enough and to spare, I would do great things. There was a waste piece of land lying near my father's house in Glenmornan, and my people had set their eyes on it. I would buy that piece of land when I was rolling in money. Oh! what would I not do when I got rich?
About once a month I had a letter from mother. She was not much of a hand at the pen, and her letters were always short. Most of the time she wanted money, and I always sent home every penny that I could spare.
Sometimes I longed to go back again. In a boy's longing way I wanted to see Norah Ryan, for I liked her well. Her, too, I would remember when I got rich, and I would make her a great lady. These were some of my dreams, and they made me hate the look of MaCrossan's farm. Daily I grew to hate it more, its dirty lanes, the filthy byre, the low-thatched house, the pigs, cows, horses, and everything about the place. Everything was always the same, and I was sick of looking at the same things day after day for all the days of the year.
My mind was set on leaving MaCrossan, though his half-sister and himself liked me better than ever a servant was liked before in mid Tyrone. The thought of leaving them made me uncomfortable, but the voice that called me was stronger than that which urged me to stay. I had a longing for a new place, and the longing grew within me day after day. Over the hills, over the sea, and miles along some dusty road which I had never seen, some great adventure was awaiting me. Nothing would keep me back, and I wrote home to my own mother, asking if Micky's Jim wanted any new men to accompany him to Scotland. Jim was the boss of a potato-digging squad, and each year a number of Donegal men and women worked with him across the water.
Then one fine morning, a week later, and towards the end of June, this letter came from Micky's Jim himself:
"Dear Dermid,
"i am riting you these few lines to say that i am very well at present, hoping this leter finds you in the same state of health. Well, dear Dermid i am gathering up a squad of men and women to come and work with me beyont the water to dig potatoes in Scotland. there is a great lot of the Glenmornan people coming, Tom of the hill, Neds hugh, Red mick and Norah ryan, Biddy flannery and five or six more. Well this is to say that if you woud care to come i will keep a job open for you. Norah ryan, her father was drounded fishing in Trienna Bay so she is not going to be a nun after all. If you will come with me rite back and say so. your wages is going to be sixteen shillings a week accordingley. Steel away from your master and come to derry peer and meet me there, its on the twenty ninth of the month that we leave Glenmornan.
"Yours respectfuly,
"Jim Scanlon."
On the morning of the twenty-ninth of June, 1905, I left Jim MaCrossan's, and went out to hoe turnips in a field that lay nearly half a mile away from the farmhouse. I had taken a hoe from a peg on the wall of the barn, and had thrown it across my shoulder, when MaCrossan came up to me.
"See an' don't be late comin' in for yer dinner, Dermod," he said. "Ye'll know the time be the sun."
That was his last speech to me, and I was sorry at leaving him, but for the life of me I could not tell him of my intended departure. There is no happiness in leaving those with whom we are happy. I liked MaCrossan more because of his strength than his kindness. Once he carried an anvil on his back from Lisnacreight smithy to his own farmhouse, a distance of four miles. When he brought it home I could not lift it off the ground. He was a wonderful man, powerful as a giant, good and kindly-spoken. I liked him so much that I determined to steal away from him. I was more afraid of his regret than I would be of another man's anger.
I slung the hoe over my shoulder and whistled a wee tune that came into my head as I plodded down the cart-road that led to the field where the turnips were. The young bullocks gazed at me over the hedge by the wayside, and snorted in make-believe anger when I tried to touch their cold nostrils with my finger-tips. The crows on the sycamore branches seemed to be very friendly and merry. I could almost have sworn that they cried, "Good morning, Dermod Flynn," as I passed by.
The lane was alive with rabbits at every turn. I could see them peering out from their holes under the blossomed hedgerows with wide anxious eyes. Sometimes they ran across in front of me, their ears acock and their white tufts of tails stuck up in the air. I never thought once of flinging a stone at them that morning; I was out on a bigger adventure than rabbit-chasing.
A little way down I met MaCrossan's half-sister, Bridgid. She had just taken out the cows and was returning to the house after having fastened the slip rails on the gap of the pasture field.
"The top o' the mornin' to ye, Dermod," she cried.
"The same to you," I answered.
She walked on, but after she had gone a little way, she called back to me.
"Will ye be goin' to the dance in McKirdy's barn on Monday come a week?"
"I will, surely," I replied across my shoulder. I did not look around, but I could hear the soles of her shoes rustling across the dry clabber as she continued on her journey.
The moment I entered the field I flung the hoe into the ditch, and crossed to the other side of the turnip drills. I put my hand into the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, and took out a little bundle of clothes which was concealed there. I had hidden the clothes when I received Jim Scanlon's letter. I hung the bundle over my arm, and made for the high-road leading to Strabane. It was nearly three hours' walk to the town, and the morning was grand. I cut a hazel rod to keep me company, and swung it round in my hand after the manner of cattle-drovers. I went on my way with long swinging strides, thinking all the time, not of Micky's Jim and the Land Beyond the Water, but of Norah Ryan whom I would see on 'Derry Pier with the rest of the potato squad.
I could have shouted with pure joy to the people who passed me on the road. Most of them bade me the time of day with the good-natured courtesy of the Irish people. The red-faced farmer's boy, who sat on the jolting cart, stopped his sleepy horse for a minute to ask me where I was bound for.
"Just to Strabane to buy a new rake," I told him, for grown-up men never tell their private affairs to other people.
"Troth, it's for an early harvest that same rake will be," he said, and flicked his horse on the withers with his whip. Then, having satisfied his curiosity, he passed beyond the call of my voice for ever.
A girl who stood with her back to the roses of a roadside cottage gave me a bowl of milk when I asked for a drink of water. She was a taking slip of a girl, with soft dreamy eyes and red cherry lips.
"Where would ye be goin' now?" she asked.
"I'm goin' to Strabane."
"And what would ye be doin' there?"
"My people live there," I said.
"It's ye that has the Donegal tongue, and be the same token ye're a great liar," said the girl, and I hurried off.
A man gave me a lift on the milk-cart for a mile of the way. "Where are ye goin'?" he asked me.
"To Strabane to buy a new spade," I told him.
"It's a long distance to go for a spade," he said with a laugh. "D'ye know what I think ye are?"
"What?" I asked.
"Ye're a cub that has run away from his master," said the man. "If the pleece get ye ye'll go to jail for brekin' a contract."
I slid out of the cart, pulling my bundle after me, and took to my heels along the dry road. "Wan cannot see yer back for dust," the man shouted after me, and he kept roaring aloud for a long while. Soon, however, I got out of the sound of his voice, and I slowed down and recovered my wind. About fifteen minutes later I overtook an old withered woman, lean as a rake, who was talking to herself. I walked with her for a long distance, but she was so taken up with her own troubles that she had not a word for me.
"Is it on a day like this," the old body was saying aloud to herself, "that the birds sing loud on the trees, and the sun shines for all he is worth in the hollow of the sky, a day when the cruel hand of God strikes heavy on me heart, and starves the blood in me veins? Who at all would think that me little Bridgid would go so soon from her own door, and the fire on her own hearthstone, into the land where the cold of death is and the darkness? Mother of God! be good to a poor old woman, but it's bitter that I am, bekase she was tuk away from me, lavin' me alone in me old age with no wan sib to meself, to sleep under me own roof. Well do I mind the day when little Bridgid came. That day, my good man Fergus himself was tuk away from me, but I wasn't as sorry as an old woman might be for her man, for she was there with the black eyes of her lookin' into me own and never speakin' a word at all, at all. Then she grew big, with the gold on her hair, and the redness on her mouth, and the whiteness of the snow on her teeth. 'Tis often meself would watch her across the half-door, when she was a-chasin' the geese in the yard, or pullin' the feathers from the wings of the ducks in the puddle. And I would say to meself: 'What man will take her away from her old mother some fine mornin' and lave me lonely be the fire in the evenin'?' And no man came at all, at all, to take her, and now she's gone. The singin' birds are in the bushes, and the sun is laughin', the latch of me door is left loose, but she'll not come back, no matter what I do. So I do be trampin' about the roads with the sweat on me, and the shivers of cold on me at the same time, gettin' a handful of meal here, and a goupin of pratees there, and never at all able to forget that I am lonely without her."
I left the woman and her talk behind me on the road, and I thought it a strange thing that anyone could be sorry when I was so happy. In a little while I forgot all about her, for my eyes caught the chimneys of Strabane sending up their black smoke into the air, and I heard some church clock striking out the hour of noon.
It was well on in the day when I got the 'Derry train, but on the moment I set my foot on the pier by the waterside I found Micky's Jim sitting on a capstan waiting for me. He was chewing a plug of tobacco, and spitting into the water.
"Work hasn't done ye much harm, Dermod Flynn, for ye've grown to be a big, soncy man," was Jim's greeting, and I felt very proud of myself when he said these words.
"Bad cess to the boats! for it's few they take back of the many they take away."—A Glenmornan Saying.
Jim and I had a long talk together, and I asked him about the people at home, my father and mother, the neighbours, their doings, their talk, and all the rest of the little things that went to make up the world of the Glenmornan folk. In return for his information I told Jim about my life in Tyrone, the hardships of Bennet's place, the poor feeding, the hard work, the loneliness, and, above all, the fight in the bedroom where I gave Joe Bennet one in the stomach that made him sick for two hours afterwards.
"That's the only thing that a Glenmornan man could do," said Micky's Jim, when I told him of the fight.
Afterwards we sauntered along the wharf together, waiting for the other members of the party, who had gone to the Catholic chapel in 'Derry to say their prayers before leaving their own country. Everything I saw was a source of wonder to me. I lived many miles from the sea at home, and only once did I even see a fishing-boat. That was years before, when I passed Doon Ferry on my way to the Holy Well of Iniskeel. There did I see the fishing-boats of Trienna lying by the beach while the fishermen mended their nets on the foreshore. Out by the rim of the deep-sea water the bar was roaring, and a line of restless creamy froth stretched across the throat of the bay, like the bare white arms of a girl who bathes in a darksome pool. I asked one of the fishers if he would let me go with him across the bar. He only laughed at me and said that it would suit me far better to say my prayers.
For the whole of the evening I could not take my eyes off the boats that lay by 'Derry Pier. Micky's Jim took no notice of them, because he had seen them often enough before.
"Ye'll not wonder much at ships when ye've seen them as much as I've seen them," he said.
We sought out our own boat, and Jim said that she was a rotten tub when he had examined her critically with his eyes for a moment.
"It'll make ye as sick as a dog goin' roun' the Moils o' Kentire," he said. "Ye'll know what it is to be sea-sick this night, Dermod."
We went on board, and waited for the rest of the party to come along. While waiting Jim prowled into the cook's galley and procured two cups of strong black tea, which we drank together on deck.
It was, "Under God, the day an' the night, ye've grown to be a big man, Dermod," and "Ye're a soncy rung o' a fellow this minute, Dermod Flynn," when the people from my own arm of the Glen came up the deck and saw me there along with Micky's Jim. Many of the squad were old stagers who had been in the country across the water before. They planted their patch of potatoes and corn in their little croft at home, then went to Scotland for five or six months in the middle of the year to earn money for the rent of their holding. The land of Donegal is bare and hungry, and nobody can make a decent livelihood there except landlords.
The one for whom I longed most was the last to come, and when I saw her my heart almost stopped beating. She was the same as ever with her soft tender eyes and sweet face, that put me in mind of the angels pictured over the altar of the little chapel at home. Her hair fell over her shawl like a cascade of brown waters, her forehead was white and pure as marble, her cheeks seemed made of rose-leaf, of a pale carnation hue, and her fair light body, slender as a young poplar, seemed too holy for the contact of the cold world. She stepped up the gang-plank, slowly and timidly, for she was afraid of the noise and shouting of the place.
The boat's derricks creaked angrily on their pivots, the gangways clattered loudly as they were shifted here and there by noisy and dirty men, and the droves of bullocks, fresh from the country fairs, bellowed unceasingly as they were hammered into the darkness of the hold. On these things I looked with wonder, Norah looked with fright.
All evening I had been thinking about her, and the words of welcome which I would say to her when we met. When she came on deck I put out my hand, but couldn't for the life of me say a word of greeting. She was the first to speak.
"Dermod Flynn, I hardly knew ye at all," she said with a half-smile on her lips. "Ye got very big these last two years."
"So did you, Norah," I answered, feeling very glad because she had kept count of the time I was gone. "You are almost as tall as I am."
"Why wouldn't I be as tall as ye are," she answered with a full smile. "Sure am I not a year and two months older?"
Some of the other women began to talk to Norah, and I turned to look at the scene around me. The sun was setting, and showed like a red bladder in the pink haze that lay over the western horizon. The Foyle was a sheet of wavy molten gold which the boat cut through as she sped out from the pier. The upper deck was crowded with people who were going to Scotland to work for the summer and autumn. They were all very ragged, both women and men; most of the men were drunk, and they discussed, quarrelled, argued, and swore until the din was deafening. Little heed was taken by them of the beauty of the evening, and all alone I watched the vessel turn up a furrow of gold at the bow until my brain was reeling with the motion of the water that sobbed past the sides of the steamer, and swept far astern where the line of white churned foam fell into rank with the sombre expanse of sea that we were leaving behind.
Many of the passengers were singing songs of harvestmen, lovers, cattle-drovers, and sailors. One man, a hairy, villainous-looking fellow, stood swaying unsteadily on the deck with a bottle of whisky in one hand, and roaring out "Judy Brannigan."
Others joined in mixing up half a dozen songs in one musical outpouring, and the result was laughable in the extreme.
I could not understand what "right fol the dol," etc., meant, but I joined in the chorus when I found Micky's Jim roaring out for all he was worth along with the rest.
There were many on board who were full of drink and fight, men who were ready for quarrels and all sorts of mischief. One of these, a man called O'Donnel, paraded up and down the deck with an open clasp-knife in his hand, speaking of himself in the third person, and inviting everybody on board to fistic encounter.
"This is young O'Donnel from the County Donegal," he shouted, alluding to himself, and lifting his knife which shone red with the blood hues of the sinking sun. "And young O'Donnel doesn't care a damn for a man on this bloody boat. I can fight like a two-year-old bullock. A blow of me fist is like a kick from a young colt, and I don't care a damn for a man on this boat. Not for a man on this boat! I'm a Rosses man, and I don't care a damn for a man on this boat!"
He looked terrible as he shouted out his threats. One eyebrow was cut open and the flesh hung down even as far as his cheekbone. I could not take my eyes away from him, and he suddenly noticed me watching his antics. Then he slouched forward and hit me on the face, knocking me down. The next instant Micky's Jim was on top of him, and I saw as if in a dream the knife flying over the side of the vessel into the sea. Then I heard my mate shouting, "Take that, you damned brat—and that—and that!" He hammered O'Donnel into insensibility, and by the time I regained my feet they were carrying the insensible man below. I felt weak and dizzy. Jim took me to a seat, and Norah Ryan bathed my cheek, which was swollen and bleeding.
"It was a shame to hit ye, Dermod," she said more than once as she rubbed her soft fingers on the wound. Somehow I was glad of the wound, because it won such attention from Norah.
The row between O'Donnel and Jim was only the beginning of a wild night's fighting. All over the deck and down in the steerage the harvestmen and labourers fought one with another for hours on end. Over the bodies of the women who were asleep in every corner, over coils of ropes, trunks and boxes of clothes, the drunken men struggled like demons. God knows what they had to quarrel about! When I could not see them I could hear them falling heavily as cattle fall amid a jumble of twisted hurdles, until the drink and exertion overpowered them at last. One by one they fell asleep, just where they had dropped or on the spot where they were knocked down.
Towards midnight, when, save for the thresh of the propellers and the pulsing of the engines, all was silent, I walked towards the stem of the boat. There I found Norah Ryan asleep, her shawl drawn over her brown hair, and the rising moon shining softly on her gentle face. For a moment I kept looking at her; then she opened her eyes and saw me.
"Sit beside me, Dermod," she said. "It will be warmer for two."
I sat down, and the girl nestled close to me in the darkness. The sickle moon drifted up the sky, furrowing the pearl-powdered floor with its silver front. Far away on the Irish coast I could see the lights in the houses along-shore. When seated a while I found Norah's hand resting in mine, and then, lulled with the throb of the engine and the weeping song of the sea, I fell into a deep sleep, forgetting the horror of the night and the red wound on my face where O'Donnel had struck me with his fist.
Dawn was breaking when I awoke. Norah still slept, her head close against my arm, and her face, beautiful in repose, turned towards mine. Her cherry-red lips lay apart, and I could see the two rows of pearly white teeth between. The pink tips of her ears peeped from amid the coils of her hair, and I placed my hand on her head and stroked her brown tresses ever so softly. She woke so quietly that the change from sleeping to waking was hardly noticeable. The traces of dim dreams were yet in her eyes, and as I watched her my mind was full of unspoken thoughts.
"Have ye seen Scotland yet, Dermod?" she asked.
"That's it, I think," I said, as I pointed at the shoreline visible many miles away.
"Isn't it like Ireland." Norah nestled closer to me as she spoke. "I would like to be goin' back again," she said after a long silence.
"I'm going to make a great fortune in Scotland, Norah," I said. "And I'm going to make you a great lady."
"Why are ye goin' to do that?" she asked.
"I don't know," I confessed, and the two of us laughed together.
"'Tell the truth and shame the devil,' they say. Well, to tell you the truth, there are some truths which would indeed shame the devil!"—Moleskin Joe.
The potato merchant met us on Greenock quay next morning, and here Micky's Jim marshalled his squad, which consisted in all of twenty-one persons. Seventeen of these came from Ireland, and the remainder were picked up from the back streets of Greenock and Glasgow. With the exception of two, all the Irish women were very young, none of them being over nineteen years of age, but the two extra women needed for the squad were withered and wrinkled harridans picked from the city slums. These women met us on the quay.
"D'ye see them?" Micky's Jim whispered to me. "They cannot make a livin' on the streets, so they have to come and work with us. What d'ye think of them?"
"I don't like the look of them," I said.
The potato merchant hurried us off to Buteshire the moment we arrived, and we started work on a farm at mid-day. The way we had to work was this. Nine of the older men dug the potatoes from the ground with short three-pronged graips. The women followed behind, crawling on their knees and dragging two baskets a-piece along with them. Into these baskets they lifted the potatoes thrown out by the men. When the baskets were filled I emptied the contents into barrels set in the field for that purpose. These barrels were in turn sent off to the markets and big towns which we had never seen.
The first day was very wet, and the rain fell in torrents, but as the demand for potatoes was urgent we had to work through it all. The job, bad enough for men, was killing for women. All day long, on their hands and knees, they dragged through the slush and rubble of the field. The baskets which they hauled after them were cased in clay to the depth of several inches, and sometimes when emptied of potatoes a basket weighed over two stone. The strain on the women's arms must have been terrible. But they never complained. Pools of water gathered in the hollows of the dress that covered the calves of their legs. Sometimes they rose and shook the water from their clothes, then went down on their knees again. The Glasgow women sang an obscene song, "just by way o' passing the time," one of them explained, and Micky's Jim joined in the chorus. Two little ruts, not at all unlike the furrows left by a coulter of a skidding plough, lay behind the women in the black earth. These were made by their knees.
We left off work at six o'clock in the evening, and turned in to look up our quarters for the night. We had not seen them yet, for we started work in the fields immediately on arriving. A byre was being prepared for our use, and a farm servant was busily engaged in cleaning it out when we came in from the fields. He was shoving the cow-dung through a trap-door into a vault below. The smell of the place was awful. There were ten cattle stalls in the building, five on each side of the raised concrete walk that ran down the middle between two sinks. These stalls were our sleeping quarters.
The byre was built on the shoulder of a hillock and the midden was situated in a grotto hollowed underneath; its floor was on a level with the cart-road outside, and in the corner of this vault we had to build a fire for cooking our food. A large dung-hill blocked the entrance, and we had to cross this to get to the fire which sparkled brightly behind. Around the blaze we dried our sodden clothes, and the steam of the drying garments rose like a mist around us.
One of the strange women was named Gourock Ellen, which goes to show that she had a certain fame in the town of that name. The day's drag had hacked and gashed her knees so that they looked like minced flesh in a butcher's shop window. She showed her bare knees, and was not in the least ashamed. I turned my head away hurriedly, not that the sight of the wounds frightened me, but I felt that I was doing something wrong in gazing at the bare leg of a woman. I looked at Norah Ryan, and the both of us blushed as if we had been guilty of some shameful action. Gourock Ellen saw us, and began to sing a little song aloud:
When she finished her verse she winked knowingly at Micky's Jim, and, strange to say, Jim winked back.
We boiled a pot of potatoes, and poured the contents into a wicker basket which was placed on the floor of the vault. Then all of us sat down together and ate our supper like one large family, and because we were very hungry did not mind the reeking midden behind us.
During our meal an old bent and wrinkled man came hobbling across the dung-heap towards the fire. His clothing was streaming wet and only held together by strings, patches, and threads. He looked greedily towards the fire, and Gourock Ellen handed him three hot potatoes.
"God bless ye," said the man in a thin piping voice. "It's yerself that has the kindly heart, good woman."
He ate hurriedly like a dog, as if afraid somebody would snatch the bread from between his jaws. He must have been very hungry, and I felt sorry for the man. I handed him the can of milk which I had procured at the farmhouse, and he drank the whole lot at one gulp.
"It's yerself that is the dacent youngster, God bless ye!" he said, and there were tears in his eyes. "And isn't this a fine warm place ye are inside of this wet night."
The smell of the midden was heavy in my nostrils, and the smoke of the fire was paining my eyes.
"It's a rotten place," I said.
"Sure and it's not at all," said the man in a pleading voice. "It's better than lyin' out under a wet hedge with the rain spat-spatterin' on yer face."
"Why do you lie under a hedge?" I asked.
"Sure, no one wants me at all, at all, because of the pain in me back that won't let me stoop over me work," said the man. "In the farms they say to me, 'Go away, we don't want ye'; in the village they say, 'Go away, we're sick of lookin' at ye,' and what am I to do? Away in me own country, that is Mayo, it's always the welcome hand and a bit and sup when a man is hungry, but here it's the scowling face and the ill word that is always afore an old man like me."
One by one the women went away from the fire, for they were tired from their day's work and wanted to turn into bed as early as possible. The old man sat by the fire looking into the flames without taking any heed of those around him. Jim and I were the last two to leave the fire, and my friend shook the old man by the shoulder before he went out.
"What are ye goin' to do now?" asked Jim.
"Maybe ye'd let me sleep beside the fire till the morra mornin'," said the man.
"Ye must go out of here," said Jim.
"Let him stay," I said, for I felt sorry for the poor old chap.
Jim thought for a minute. "Well, I'll let him stay, cute old cadger though he is," he said, and the both of us went into the byre leaving the old man staring dreamily into the flames.
One blanket apiece was supplied to us by the potato merchant, and by sleeping two in a bed the extra blanket was made to serve the purpose of a sheet. We managed to make ourselves comfortable by sewing bags together in the form of a coverlet and placing the make-shift quilts over our bodies.
"Where is Norah Ryan?" asked Micky's Jim, as he finished using his pack-needle on the quilts which he was preparing for our use. Jim and I were to sleep in the one stall.
Norah Ryan was not to be seen, and I went out to the fire to find if she was there. From across the black midden I looked into the vault which was still dimly lighted up by the dying flames, and there I saw Norah speaking to the old man. She was on the point of leaving the place, and I saw some money pass from her hand to that of the stranger.
"God be good to ye, decent girl," I heard the man say, as Norah took her way out. I hid in the darkness and allowed her to pass without seeing me. Afterwards I went in and gave a coin to the old man. He still held the one given by Norah between his fingers, and it was a two-shilling piece. Probably she had not another in her possession. What surprised me most was the furtive way in which she did a kindness. For myself, when doing a good action, I like everybody to notice it.
In the byre there was no screen between the women and the men. The modesty of the young girls, when the hour for retiring came around, was unable to bear this. The strange women did not care in the least.
The Irish girls sat by their bedsides and made no sign of undressing. I slid into bed quietly with my trousers still on; most of the men stripped with evident unconcern, nakedly and shamelessly.
"The darkness is a good curtain if the women want to take off their clothes," said Micky's Jim, as he extinguished the only candle in the place. He re-lit a match the next moment, and there was a hurried scampering under the blankets in the stalls on the other side of the passage.
"That's a mortal sin, Micky's Jim, that ye're doin'," said Norah Ryan, and the two strange women laughed loudly as if very much amused at persons who were more modest than themselves.
"Who are ye lyin' with, Norah Ryan? Is it Gourock Ellen?" asked my bedmate.
"It is," came the answer.
"D'ye hear that, Dermod—a nun and a harridan in one bed?" said Jim under his breath to me.
Outside the raindrops were sounding on the roof like whip-lashes. Jim spoke again in a drowsy voice.
"We're keepin' some poor cows from their warm beds to-night," he said.
I kept awake for a long while, turning thoughts over in my mind. The scenes on the 'Derry boat, and my recent experience in the soggy fields, had taken the edge off the joy that winged me along the leading road to Strabane. I was now far out into the heart of the world, and life loomed darkly before me. The wet day went to crush my dreams and the ardour of my spirits. Hitherto I had great belief in women, their purity, virtue, and gentleness. But now my grand dreams of pure womanhood had collapsed. The foul words, the loose jokes and obscene songs of the two women who were strangers, the hard, black, bleeding and scabby knees that Gourock Ellen showed to us at the fire had turned my young visions into nightmares. The sight of the girls ploughing through the mucky clay, and the wolfish stare of the old man who envied those who fed beside a dungheap were repellent to me. I looked on life in all its primordial brutishness and found it loathsome to my soul.
Only that morning coming up the Clyde, when Norah and I looked across the water to a country new to both of us, my mind was full of dreams of the future. But the rosy-tinted boyish dreams of morning were shattered before the fall of night. Maybe the old man who lay by the dung-heap came to Scotland full of dreams like mine. Now the spirit was crushed out of him; he was broken on the wheel of life, and he had neither courage to rob, sin, nor die. He could only beg his bit and apologise for begging. The first day in Scotland disgusted me, made me sick of life, and if it were not that Norah Ryan was in the squad I would go back to Jim MaCrossan's farm again.
That night, as for many nights before, I turned into bed without saying my prayers, and I determined to pray no more. I had been brought up a Catholic, and to believe in a just God, and the eternal fire of torments, but daily newer and stranger thoughts were coming into my mind. Even when working with MaCrossan in the meadowlands my mind reverted to the little book in which I read the story of the heavens. God behind His million worlds had no time to pay any particular attention to me. This thought I tried to drive away, for the Church had still a strong hold on me, and anything out of keeping with my childish creed entered my mind like a nail driven into the flesh. The new thoughts, however, persisted, they took form and became part of my being. The change was gradual, for I tried desperately to reject the new idea of the universe and God. But the sight of the women in the fields, the story of the old man with the pain in his back who slept under a wet hedge was to me conclusive proof that God took no interest in the personal welfare of men. And when I gripped the new idea as incontestable truth it did not destroy my belief in God. Only the God of my early days, the God who took a personal interest in my welfare, was gone.
Sometimes the rest of the Catholic members of the squad went to chapel, when the farm on which we wrought was near a suitable place of worship, but I never went. Their visits were few and far between, for we were distant from the big towns most of the time.
We seldom stopped longer than one fortnight at a time on any farm. We shifted about here and there, digging twenty acres for one farmer, ten for another, living in byres, pig-stys and barns, and taking life as we found it. Daily we laboured together, the men bent almost double over their graips, throwing out the potatoes to the girls who followed after, dragging their bodies through the mire and muck like wounded animals, and I lifted the baskets of potatoes and filled the barrels for market. Still, for all the disadvantages, life was happy enough to me, because Norah Ryan was near me working in the fields.
But the life was brutal, and almost unfit for animals. One night when we were asleep in a barn the rain came through the roof and flooded the earthen floor to a depth of several inches. Our beds being wet through, we had to rise and stand for the remainder of the night knee-deep in the cold water.
When morning came we went out to work in the wet fields.
Once when living in a pig-sty we were bothered by rats. When we were at work they entered our habitation, ransacked the packets of food, gnawed our clothes, and upset everything in the place. They could only get in by one entrance, a hole in the wall above my bed, and by that same way they had to go out. After a little while the rats became bolder and came in by night when we were asleep. One night I awoke to find them jumping down from the aperture, landing on my body in their descent. Then they scampered away and commenced prowling around for food. I counted twenty thuds on my breast, then stuck my trousers in the throat of the opening above my bed and wakened Jim, who snored like a hog through it all. We got up and lit a candle. When the rats saw the light they hurried back to their hole, but we were ready and waiting for them, Micky's Jim with a shovel shaft, and I with a graip shank. We killed them as they came, all except one, which ran under the bed-clothes of Norah Ryan's bed. There was great noise of screaming for a while, but somehow or another Gourock Ellen got hold of the animal and squeezed it to death under the blankets. I left my trousers in the aperture all night, and they were nibbled almost to pieces in the morning. They were the only ones in my possession, and I had to borrow a pair from Jim for the next day.
The farmer gave us a halfpenny for every rat's tail handed in, as he wanted to get rid of the pests, and from that time forward Jim and I killed several, and during the remainder of the season we earned three pounds between us by hunting and killing rats. Gourock Ellen sometimes joined in the hunt, by way of amusement, but her principal relaxation was getting drunk on every pay-day.
The other woman, whose name was Annie, usually accompanied her on Saturday to the nearest village, and the two of them got full together. They also shared their food in common, but often quarrelled among themselves over one thing and another. They fought like cats and swore awfully, using the most vile language, but the next moment they were the best of friends again. One Saturday night they returned from a neighbouring village with two tramp men. Micky's Jim chased the two men away from the byre in which we were living at the time.
"I'll have no whorin' about this place," he said.
"You're a damned religious beast to be livin' in a cowshed," said one of the tramps.
One day Gourock Ellen asked me who did my washing, though I believe that she knew I washed my own clothes with my own hands.
"Myself," I said in reply to Ellen's inquiry.
"Will yer own country girls not do it for you?"
"I can do it myself," I replied.
When I looked for my soiled under-garments a week later I could not find them. I made inquiries and found that Gourock Ellen had washed them for me.
"It's a woman's work," she said, when I talked to her, and she washed my clothes to the end of the season and would not accept payment for the work.
Nearly everyone in the squad looked upon the two women with contempt and disgust, and I must confess that I shared in the general feeling. In my sight they were loathsome and unclean. They were repulsive in appearance, loose in language, and seemingly devoid of any moral restraint or female decency. It was hard to believe that they were young children once, and that there was still unlimited goodness in their natures. Why had Gourock Ellen handed the potatoes to the old Mayo man who was hungry, and why had she undertaken to do my washing without asking for payment? I could not explain these impulses of the woman, and sometimes, indeed, I cannot explain my own. I cannot explain why I then disliked Gourock Ellen, despite what she had done for me, and to-day I regret that ignorance of youth which caused me to despise a human being who was (as after events proved) infinitely better than myself.
"He would gamble on his father's tombstone and play banker with the corpse."—A Kinlochleven Proverb.
The middle of September was at hand, and a slight tinge of brown was already showing on the leaves. We were now working on a farm where the River Clyde broadens out to the waters of the deep ocean. One evening, when supper was over, I went out alone to the fields and sat down on the green sod and looked outwards to the grey horizon of the sea. Beside me ran a long avenue of hazel bushes, and a thrush was singing on a near bough, his amber and speckled bosom quivering with the passion of his song. The sun had already disappeared, trailing its robe of carmine from off the surface of the far water, and an early star was already keeping its watch overhead. All at once the bushes of the hazel copse parted and Norah Ryan stood before me.
"Is it here that ye are, Dermod, lookin' at the sea?"
"I was looking at the star above me," I replied.
Norah had discarded her working clothes, and now wore a soft grey tweed dress that suited her well. Together we looked up at the star, and then my eyes fell on the sweet face of my companion. In the shadow of her hair I could see the white of her brow and the delicate and graceful curve of her neck. Her brown tresses hung down her back even as far as her waist, and the wind ruffled them ever so slightly. Somehow my thoughts went back to the June seaweed rising and falling on the long heaving waves of Trienna Bay. She noticed me looking at her, and she sat down on the sod beside me.
"Why d'ye keep watchin' me?" she asked.
"I don't know," I answered in a lame sort of way, for I am not good at making excuses. I was afraid to tell her that I liked the whiteness of her brow, the softness of her hair, and the wonderful glance of her eyes. No doubt she would have laughed at me if I did.
"Do you mind the night on the 'Derry boat?" I asked. "All that night when you were asleep, I had your hand in mine."
"I mind it very well."
As she spoke she closed her fingers over mine and looked at me in the eyes. The glance was one of a moment; our gaze met and the next instant Norah's long lashes dropped slowly and modestly over the grey depths of her eyes. There was something strange in that look of hers; it was the glance of a soul which did not yet know itself, full of radiant awakening and wonderful promise. In it was all the innocence of the present and passion of the future; it was the glance both of a virgin and a woman. We both trembled and looked up at the stars that came out one by one into the broad expanse of heaven. The thrush had gone away, and a little wind played amongst the branches of the trees. In the distance we could hear the water breaking on the foreshore with a murmurous plaint that was full of longing. We kept silence, for the spell of the night was too holy to be broken by words. How long we remained there I do not know, but when we returned to the byre all the rest of the party were in bed. Next night I waited for her in the same place and she came again, and for many nights afterwards we watched the stars coming out while listening to the heart song of the sea.
One wet evening, early in October, when Norah and I were sitting by the fire in the cart-shed that belonged to a farmer near Greenock, talking to Micky's Jim about Glenmornan and the people at home, a strange man came to the farmyard. Although a stranger to me, Micky's Jim knew the fellow very well, for he belonged to a neighbouring village, was a noted gambler, and visited the squad every year. He sat down and warmed his hands at the fire while he looked critically at the members of the squad who had come in to see him.
"Have ye the devil's prayer book with ye?" asked Jim.
"That I have," answered the man, drawing a pack of cards from his pocket. "Will we have a bit o' the Gospel o' Chance?"
The body of a disused cart was turned upside down, and six or seven men belonging to the squad sat around it and commenced to gamble for money with the stranger. For a long while I watched the play, and at last put a penny on a card and won. I put on another penny and another and won again and again, for my luck was good. It was very interesting. We gambled until five o'clock in the morning and at the finish of the game I had profited to the extent of twenty-five shillings. During the game I had eyes for nothing else; the women had gone to bed, but I never noticed their departure, for my whole mind was given up to the play. All day following I looked forward to the evening and the return of the man with the devil's prayer book, and when he came I was one of the first to give a hand to turn the disused cart upside down. The farmer's son, Alec Morrison, a strong, well-knit youth, barely out of his teens, came in to see the play and entered into conversation with Norah Ryan. He worked as a bank clerk in Paisley, but spent every week-end at his father's farm. He was a well-dressed youth; wore boots which were always clean, and a gold ring with a blue stone in the centre of it shone on one of his fingers. I took little heed of him, for my whole being was centred on the game and my luck was good.
"Come Hallow E'en I'll have plenty of money to take home to Glenmornan," I said to myself, more than once, for on the second night I won over thirty shillings.
The third night was against me—the third time, the gambler's own!—and afterwards I lost money every night. But I could not resist the call of the cards, the school fascinated me, and the sight of a winner's upturned "flush" or "run" set my veins on fire. So I played night after night and discussed the chances of the game day after day, until every penny in my possession was in the hands of the man with the devil's prayer book. Before I put my first penny on a card I had seven pounds in gold, which I intended to take home to my people in Glenmornan. Now it was all gone. Gourock Ellen offered me ten shillings to start afresh, but I would not accept her money. Norah Ryan took no interest in the game, her whole attention was now given up to the farmer's son, and it was only when I had spent my last penny that I became aware of the fact. He came in to see her every evening and passed hour after hour in her company. I did not like this; I felt angry with her and with myself, and I hated the farmer's son. I had many dreams of a future in which Norah would play a prominent part, but now all my dreams were dashed to pieces. Although outwardly I showed no trace of my feelings I felt very miserable. Norah took no delight in my company any more, all her spare time was given up to Alec Morrison. The cards did not interest me any longer. I hated them, and considered that they were the cause of my present misfortune. If I had left them alone and paid more attention to Norah she would not have taken so much pleasure in the other man's company.
I nursed my mood for a fortnight, then I turned to the cards again and lost all the money in my possession. On the first week of November, when the squad broke up, I had the sum of twopence in my pocket. On the evening prior to the day of the squad's departure, I came suddenly round the corner of the hayshed by the farmhouse and saw a very curious thing. Norah was standing there with the farmer's son and he was kissing her. I came on the two of them suddenly, and when Norah saw me she ran away from the man.
I had never thought of kissing Norah when she was alone with me. It was a very curious thing to do, and it never entered into my mind. Perhaps if I had kissed her when we were together she would like me the more for it. Why I should kiss her was beyond my reasoning. All I knew was that I longed for Norah with a great longing. I was now discouraged and despondent. I felt that I had nothing to live for in the world. To-morrow the rest of the party would go away to their homes with their earnings and I would be left alone. I could not think for a moment of going home penniless. I would stay in Scotland until I earned plenty of money, and go home a rich man. I had not given up thoughts of becoming rich. A hundred pounds to me was a fortune, fifty pounds was a large amount, and twenty pounds was a sum which I might yet possess. If I lived long enough I might earn a whole twenty, or maybe fifty pounds. I had heard of workers who had earned as much. For the whole season I had only sent two pounds home to my own people, while I spent seven on the cards. I played cards because I wanted to make a bigger pile. Now I had but twopence left in my possession!
The squad broke up next day, and Norah Ryan had hardly a word to say to me when bidding good-bye, but she had two hours to spare for leave-taking with Morrison, who, although it was now the middle of the week, a time when he should be at business in the bank, had come to spend a day on the farm. No doubt he had come to bid Norah good-bye. Micky's Jim was going home to Ireland, and Gourock Ellen and Annie said that they were going to Glasgow to get drunk on their last week's pay.
It was afternoon when the party broke up and set out for the railway station, and a heavy snow was lying on the ground. I got turned out of the byre by the farmer when the rest went off, and I found myself in a strange country, houseless, friendless, and alone.
The road lay behind me and before me, and where was I to turn? This was the question that confronted me as I went out, ragged and shivering, into the cold snow with nothing, save twopence, between me and the cold chance charity of the world. A man can't get much for twopence. While working there was byre or pig-sty for shelter; when idle I was not worth the shelter of the meanest roof in the whole country. I walked along, my mind confused with various thoughts, and certain only of one thing. I must look for work. But God alone knew how long it would be until I got a job! I was only a boy who thought that he was a man, and it was now well into early winter. There was very little work to be done at that season of the year on farms or, indeed, anywhere. A man might get a job; a boy had very little chance of finding employment. My clothes were threadbare, my boots were leaking, and the snow was on the ground. I felt cold and lonely and a little bit tired of life.
Suddenly I met Gourock Ellen, and it came to me that I was travelling towards the station. I thought that the woman was returning for something which she had forgotten, but I was mistaken.
"I came back tae see you, Dermod," she said.
"Why?" I asked in surprise.
"I thought up tae the very last minute that you were goin' hame till Ireland, but Jim Scanlon has tellt me at the station that you are goin' tae stop here. He says that you have ower a pound in siller. Is that so?"
"That's so," I lied, for I disliked to be questioned in such a manner. I told Jim that I had a pound in my possession. Otherwise he would have prevailed upon me to accept money from himself. But I am too proud to accept a favour of that kind.
"I've been watchin' you at the cards, Dermod, and I know the kin' o' luck you had," said Gourock Ellen. "Ye'll hardly have yin penny left at this very minute. Six shillin's, half of my last week's pay, would d'you no harm, if you'd care to take it."
"I don't want it," I said.
"Then you don't know what it is to fast for hours on end, to get turned away from every door with kicks and curses, and to have the dogs of the country put after your heels."
"I don't want your money," I said, for I could not accept money from such a woman.
"I liked you from the first time I saw you, gin that I am a bad woman itself," she said, as if divining my thoughts. "And I dinna like to see you goin' out on the cauld roads with not a copper in your pockets. I'm auld enough to be your——"
Her cheeks gave the faintest suspicion of a blush, and she stopped speaking for just a second, leaving the last word, which no doubt she intended to speak, unuttered on her tongue.
"You can have half of my money if you want it, and if you like you can come with me tae Glesga, and I'll find you a bed and bite until you get a job."
"I'm not going to Glasgow," I said, for it was not in my heart to go into the one house with that woman. I could not explain my dislike for her company, but I preferred the cold night and the snow to the bed and bite which she promised me.
"Well, you can take the couple o' shillin's anyway," she persisted; "they'll do you no ill."
"I don't want your money," I said for the third time.
"'Twas earned decently, anyway," she said. "I canna see why you'll no take it. Will you bid me good-bye, Dermod?"
She put out her hand to me as she spoke, and I pressed it warmly, for in truth I was glad to get rid of her. Suddenly she reached forward and kissed me on the cheek; then hurried away, leaving me alone on the roadway. The woman's kiss disconcerted me, and I suddenly felt ashamed of my coldness towards her. She was kind-hearted and considerate, and I was a brute. I looked after her. When she would turn round I would call to her to stop, and I would go with her to Glasgow. The thought of spending the night homeless on the bleak road frightened me. She reached the corner of the road and went out of my sight without ever turning round. I looked at the two coppers which I possessed, and wondered why I hadn't taken the money which Gourock Ellen offered me. I also wondered why she had kissed me.