THE SLAVE MARKET
"My mother's love for me is warm,
Her house is cold and bare,
A man who wants to see the world
Has little comfort there;
And there 'tis hard to pay the rent,
For all you dig and delve,
But there's hope beyond the Mountains
For a little Man of Twelve."
--From _The Man of Twelve_.
When the following May came round, I had been working at the
turnip-thinning with a neighbouring man, and one evening I came back to
my own home in the greyness of the soft dusk. It had been a long day's
work, from seven in the morning to nine of the clock at night. A boy can
never have too much time to himself and too little to do, but I was kept
hard at work always, and never had a moment to run about the lanes or
play by the burns with other children. Indeed, I did not care very much
for the company of boys of my own age. Because I was strong for my years
I despised them, and in turn I was despised by the youths who were older
than myself. "Too-long-for-your-trousers" they called me, and I believe
that I merited the nickname, for I wished ever so much to grow up
quickly and be able to carry a creel of peat like Jim Scanlon, or drive
a horse and cart with Ned O'Donnel, who lived next door but one to my
father's house.
Sometimes I would go out for a walk with these two men on a Sunday
afternoon, that is, if they allowed me to accompany them. I listened
eagerly to every word spoken by them and used to repeat their remarks
aloud to myself afterwards. Sometimes I would speak like them in my own
home.
"Isn't it a shame the way Connel Diver of the hill treats his wife," I
said to my father and mother one day. "He goes out in the evening and
courts Widow Breslin when he should stay at home with his own woman."
"Dermod, asthor! What puts them ideas into yer head?" asked my mother.
"What d'ye know abot Connel Diver and the Widow Breslin?"
"It's them two vagabonds, Micky's Jim and Dinchy's Ned, that's tellin'
him these things," said my father; "but let me never catch him goin' out
of the door with any of the pair of them again."
Whatever was the reason of it, I liked the company of the two youths a
great deal more afterwards.
On this May evening, as I was saying, I came back from the day's work
and found my mother tying all my spare clothes into a large brown
handkerchief.
"Ye're goin' away beyont the mountains in the mornin', Dermod," she
said. "Ye have to go out and push yer fortune. We must get some money to
pay the rent come Hallow E'en, and as ye'll get a bigger penny workin'
with the farmers away there, me and yer da have thought of sendin' ye to
the hirin'-fair of Strabane on the morra."
I had been dreaming of this journey for months before, and I never felt
happier in all my life than I did when my mother spoke these words. I
clapped my hands with pure joy, danced in front of the door, and threw
my cap into the air.
"Are ye not sorry at leavin' home?" my mother asked, and from her manner
of speaking I knew that she was not pleased to see me so happy.
"What would I be sorry for?" I asked, and ran off to tell Micky's Jim
about the journey which lay before me the next morning. Didn't I feel
proud, too, when Micky's Jim, who had spent many seasons at the potato
digging in Scotland, shook hands with me just the same as if I had been
a full-grown man. Indeed, I felt that I was a man when I returned to my
own doorstep and saw the preparations that were being made for my
departure. Everyone was hard at work, my sisters sewing buttons on my
clothes, my mother putting a new string in the _Medal of the Sacred
Heart_ which I had to wear around my neck when far away from her
keeping, and my father hammering nails into my boots so that they would
last me through the whole summer and autumn.
That night when we were on our knees at the Rosary, I mumbled through my
prayers, made a mistake in the number of _Hail Marys_, and forgot
several times to respond to the prayers of the others. No one said a
word of reproof, and I felt that I had become a very important person. I
thought that my mother wept during the prayers, but of this I was not
quite certain.
"Rise up, Dermod," said my mother, touching me on the shoulder next
morning. "The white arm of the dawn is stealin' over the door, and it is
time ye were out on yer journey."
I took my breakfast, but did not feel very hungry. At the last moment my
mother looked through my bundle to see if I had everything which I
needed, then, with my father's blessings and my mother's prayers, I went
out from my people in the grey of the morning.
A pale mist was rising off the braes as I crossed the wooden bridge that
lay between my home and the leading road to Greenanore. There was hardly
a move in the wind, and the green grass by the roadside was heavy with
drops of dew. Under the bridge a salmon jumped, all at once, breaking
the pool into a million strips of glancing water. As I leant over the
rails I could see, far down, a large trout waving his tail in slow easy
sweeps and opening and closing his mouth rapidly as if he was out of
breath. He was almost the colour of the sand on which he was lying.
I stopped for a moment at the bend of the road, and looked back at my
home. My father was standing at the door waving his hand, and I saw my
mother rub her eyes with the corner of her apron. I thought that she was
crying, but I did not trouble myself very much about that, for I knew
women are very fond of weeping. I waved my hand over my head, then I
turned round the corner and went out of their sight, feeling neither
sorry nor afraid.
I met Norah Ryan on the road. She had been my schoolmate, and when we
were in the class together I had liked to look at her soft creamy skin
and grey eyes. She always put me in mind of pictures of angels that were
hung on the walls of the little chapel in the village. Her mother was
going to send her into a convent when she left school--so the neighbours
said.
"Where are ye for this morning, Dermod Flynn?" she asked.
"Beyond the mountains," I told her.
"Ye'll not come back for a long while, will ye?"
I said that I would never come back, just to see how she took it, and I
was very vexed when she just laughed and walked on. I felt sorrier
leaving her than leaving anyone else whom I knew, and I stood and looked
back after her many, many times, but she never turned even to bid me
good-bye.
On the road several boys and girls, all bound for the hiring market of
Strabane, joined me. When we were all together there was none amongst us
over fourteen years of age. The girls carried their boots in their
hands. They were so used to running barefooted on the moors that they
found themselves more comfortable walking along the gritty road in that
manner. While journeying to the station they sang out bravely, all
except one girl, who was crying, but no one paid very much heed to her.
A boy of fourteen who was one of the party had been away before. His
shoulders were very broad, his legs were twisted and his body was all
awry. Some said that he was born in a frost and that he got slewed in a
thaw. He smoked a short clay pipe which he drew from his mouth when the
girls started singing.
"Sing away now, ye will!" he cried. "Ye'll not sing much afore ye're
long away." For all that he was singing louder than any three of the
party himself before we arrived at the railway station.
The platform was crowded. I saw youngsters who had come a distance of
twelve miles and who had been travelling all night. They looked worn out
and sleepy. With some of the children fathers and mothers came.
"We are goin' to drive a hard bargain with the masters," some of the
parents said.
"Some of them won't bring in a good penny because they're played out on
the long tramp to the station," said others.
They meant no disrespect for their children, but their words put me in
mind of the manner of speaking of drovers who sell bullocks at the
harvest-fair of Greenanore.
There was a rush for seats when the train came in and nearly every
carriage became crowded in an instant. There were over twenty in my
compartment, some standing, a few sitting, but most of us trying to look
out of the windows. Next to us was a first-class carriage, and I noticed
that it contained only one single person. I had never been in a railway
train before and I knew very little about things.
"Why is there only one man in there, while twenty of us are crammed in
here?" I asked the boy with the clay pipe, for he happened to be beside
me.
My friend looked at me with the pride of one who knows.
"Shure, ye know nothin'," he answered. "That man's a gintleman."
"I would like to be a gintleman," I said in all simplicity.
"Ye a gintleman!" roared the boy. "Ye haven't a white shillin' between
ye an' the world an' ye talk as if ye were a king. A gintleman, indeed!
What put that funny thought into yer head, Dermod Flynn?"
After a while the boy spoke again.
"D'ye know who that gintleman is?" he asked.
"I don't know at all," I answered.
"That's the landlord who owns yer father's land and many a broad acre
forbye."
Then I knew what a gentleman really was. He was the monster who grabbed
the money from the people, who drove them out to the roadside, who took
six ears of every seven ears of corn produced by the peasantry; the man
who was hated by all men, yet saluted on the highways by most of the
people when they met him. He had taken the money which might have saved
my brother's life, and it was on account of him that I had now to set
out to the Calvary of mid-Tyrone. I went out on the platform again and
stole a glance at the man. He was small, thin-lipped, and ugly-looking.
I did not think much of him, and I wondered why the Glenmornan people
feared him so much.
We stood huddled together like sheep for sale in the market-place of
Strabane. Over our heads the town clock rang out every passing quarter
of an hour. I had never in my life before seen a clock so big. I felt
tired and placed my bundle on the kerbstone and sat down upon it. A
girl, one of my own country-people, looked at me.
"Sure, ye'll never get a man to hire ye if ye're seen sitting there,"
she said.
I got up quickly, feeling very much ashamed to know that a girl was able
to teach me things. It wouldn't have mattered so much if a boy had told
me.
There was great talk going on about the Omagh train. The boys who had
been sold at the fair before said that the best masters came from near
the town of Omagh, and so everyone waited eagerly until eleven o'clock,
the hour at which the train was due.
It was easy to know when the Omagh men came, for they overcrowded an
already big market. Most of them were fat, angry-looking fellows, who
kept moving up and down examining us after the manner of men who seek
out the good and bad points of horses which they intend to buy.
Sometimes they would speak to each other, saying that they never saw
such a lousy and ragged crowd of servants in the market-place in all
their life before, and they did not seem to care even if we overheard
them say these things. On the whole I had no great liking for the Omagh
men.
A big man with a heavy stomach came up to me.
"How much do ye want for the six months?" he asked.
"Six pounds," I told him.
"Shoulders too narrow for the money," he said, more to himself than to
me, and walked on.
Standing beside me was an old father, who had a son and daughter for
sale. The girl looked pale and sickly. She had a cough that would split
a rock.
"Arrah, an' will ye whisth that coughin'!" said her brother, time and
again. "Sure, ye know that no wan will give ye wages if ye go on in that
way."
The father never spoke. I suppose he felt that there was nothing to be
said. During one of these fits of coughing an evil-faced farmer who was
looking for a female servant came around and asked the old man what
wages did he want for his daughter.
"Five pounds," said the old man, and there was a tremble in his voice
when he spoke.
"And maybe the cost of buryin' her," said the farmer with a white laugh
as he passed on his way.
High noon had just passed when a youngish man, curiously old in
appearance, stood in front of me. His shoulders were very broad, and one
of them was far higher than the other. His waist was slender like a
girl's, but his buttocks were heavy out of all proportion to his thin
waist and slim slivers of shanks.
"Six pounds!" he repeated when I told him what wages I desired. "It's a
big penny to give a wee man. I'll give ye a five-pound note for the six
months and not one white sixpence more."
He struck me on the back while he spoke as if to test the strength of my
spine, then ran his fingers over my shoulder and squeezed the thick of
my arm so tightly that I almost roared in his face with the pain of it.
After a long wrangle I wrung an offer of five pounds ten shillings for
my wages and I was his for six months to come.
"Now gi' me your bundle and come along," he said.
I handed him my parcel of clothes and followed him through the streets,
leaving the crowd of wrangling masters and obdurate boys fighting over
final sixpences behind me. My master kept talking most of the time, and
this was how he kept going on.
"What is yer name? Dermod Flynn? A Papist?--all Donegals are Papists.
That doesn't matter to me, for if ye're a good willin' worker me and ye
'ill get on grand. I suppose ye'll have a big belly. It'll be hard to
fill. Are ye hungry now? I suppose yer teeth will be growin' long with
starvation, so I'll see if I can get ye anything to ate."
We turned up a little side street, passed under a low archway and went
into an inn kitchen, where a young woman with a very red face was
bending over a frying-pan on which she was turning many thick slices of
bacon. The odour caused my stomach to feel empty.
"This is a new cub that I got, Mary," said the man to the servant. "He's
a Donegal like yerself and he's hungry. Give him some tay and bread."
"And some butter," added Mary, looking at me.
"How much is the butter extra?" asked my master.
"Tuppence," said Mary.
"I don't think that this cub cares for butter. D'ye?" he asked, turning
to me.
"I like butter," I said.
"Who'd have thought of that, now?" he said, and he did not look at all
pleased. "Ye can wait here," he continued, "and I'll come back for ye in
a wee while and the two of us can go along to my farm together."
He went out and left me alone with the servant. As he passed the window,
on his way to the street, Mary put her thumb to her nose and spread her
fingers out towards him.
"I hate Orangemen," she said to me; "and that pig of a Bennet is wan of
the worst of the breedin'. Ah, the old slobber-chops! See and keep up
yer own end of the house with him, anyhow, and never let the vermint
tramp over you."
She made ready a pot of tea, gave me some bread and butter and two
rashers of bacon.
"Ate yer hearty fill now, Dermod," said the good-natured girl; "for
ye'll not get a dacent male for the next six months."
And I didn't.