A MAN OF TWELVE
"'Why d'ye slouch beside yer work when I am out o' sight?'
'I'm hungry, an' an empty sack can never stand upright.'"
* * * * *
"'Stoop to yer work, ye idle cub; ye slack for hours on end.'
'I've eaten far too much the day. A full sack cannot bend.'"
--From _Farmyard Folly_.
About a week after, on the stroke of eleven at night, I was washing
potatoes for breakfast in a pond near the farmhouse. They were now
washed always on the evening before, so that the pigs might get their
meals a little earlier in the morning. Those same pigs were getting
fattened for the Omagh pork market, and they were never refused food.
When they grunted in the sty I was sent out to feed them, when they
slept too long I was sent out to waken them for another meal. Although I
am almost ashamed to say it, I envied those pigs.
Potato-washing being the last job of the day, I always thought it the
hardest. I sat down beside the basket of potatoes which I had just
washed, and felt very much out of sorts. I was in a far house and a
strange man was my master. I felt a bit homesick and I had a great
longing for my own people. The bodily pain was even worse. My feet were
all blistered; one of my boots pinched my toes and gave me great hurt
when I moved. Both my hands were hacked, and when I placed them in the
water sharp stitches ran up my arms as far as my shoulders.
I looked up at the stars above me, and I thought of the wonderful things
which I had read about them in the book picked up by me in my bedroom.
There they were shining, thousands upon thousands of them, above my
head, each looking colder and more distant than the other. And nearly
all of them were larger than our world, larger even than our sun. It was
so very hard to believe it. Then my thoughts turned to the God who
fashioned them, and I wondered in the way that a man of twelve wonders
what was the purpose behind it all. Ever since I could remember I had
prayed to God nightly, and now I suddenly thought that all my prayers
were very weak and feeble. Behind His million worlds what thought would
He have for a ragged dirty plodder like me? Were there men and women on
those worlds, and little boys also who were very unhappy? Had the Son of
God come down and died for men on every world of all His worlds? These
thoughts left me strangely disturbed as I sat there on the brink of the
pond beside my basket. Things were coming into my mind, new thoughts
that almost frightened me, and which I could not thrust away.
As I sat the voice of Bennet came to me.
"Hi! man, are ye goin' to sit there all night?" he shouted. "Ye're like
the rest of the Donegal cubs, ye were born lazy."
I carried the potatoes in, placed them beside the hearth, then dragged
myself slowly upstairs to bed.
"Ye go upstairs like a dog paralysed in the hindquarters," shouted my
boss from the kitchen.
"Can ye not let the cub a-be?" his mother reproved him, in the aimless
way that mothers reprove grown-up children.
At the head of the stairs I sat down to take off my boots, for a nail
had passed through the leather and was entering the sole of my right
foot. I was so very tired that I fell asleep when untying the laces. A
kick on the ankle delivered by my master as he came up to bed wakened
me.
"Hook it," he roared, and I slunk into my room, too weary to resent the
insult. I slid into bed, and when falling asleep I suddenly remembered
that I had not said my prayers. I sat up in my bed, but stopped short
when on the point of getting out. Every night since I could remember I
had knelt by my bedside and prayed, but as I sat there in the bed I
thought that I had very little to pray for. I looked at the stars that
shone through the window, and felt defiant and unafraid and very, very
tired.
"No one cares for me," I said, "not even the God who made me." I bent
down and touched my ankle. It was raw and bleeding where Bennet's nailed
boot had ripped the flesh. I was too tired to be even angry, and I lay
back on the pillows and fell asleep.
Morning came so suddenly! I thought that I had barely fallen into the
first sleep when I again heard Bennet calling to me to get up and start
work. I did not answer, and he was silent for a moment. I must have
fallen asleep again, for the next thing that I was aware of was my
master's presence in the room. He pulled me out of bed and threw me on
the floor, and kicked me again with his heavy boots. I rose to my feet,
and, mad with anger, for passion seizes me quickly, I hit him on the
belly with my knee. I put all my strength into the blow, and he got very
white and left the room, holding his two hands to his stomach. He never
struck me afterwards, for I believe that he knew I was always waiting
and ready for him. If he hit me again I would stand up to him until he
knocked me stupid; my little victory in the bedroom had given me so much
more courage and belief in my own powers. In a fight I never know when
I am beaten; even as a child I did not know the meaning of defeat, and I
have had many a hard fight since I left Glenmornan, every one of which
went to prove what I have said. Anyhow, why should a Glenmornan man, and
a man of twelve to boot, know when he is beaten?
The bat I gave Bennet did not lessen my heavy toil in the fields. On the
contrary, the man kept closer watch over me and saw that I never had an
idle moment. Even my supply of potatoes was placed under restriction.
Bennet caused me to feed the pigs before I took my own breakfast, and if
a pig grunted while I was eating he would look at me with the eternal
eyes of reproach.
"Go out and give that pig something more to eat," he would say. "Don't
eat all yerself. I never saw such a greedy-gut as ye are."
One day I had a good feed; I never enjoyed anything so much in all my
life, I think. A sort of Orange gathering took place in Omagh, and all
the Bennets went. Even the old grizzled man left his seat by the
chimney-corner, and took his place on the spring-cart drawn by the
spavined mare. They told me to work in the fields until they came back,
but no sooner were their backs turned than I made for the house,
intending to have at least one good feed in the six months. I made
myself a cup of tea, opened the pantry door, and discovered a delightful
chunk of currant cake. I took a second cup of tea along with the cake. I
opened the pantry door by inserting a crooked nail in the lock, but I
found that I could not close the door again. This did not deter me from
drinking more tea, and I believe that I took upwards of a dozen cups of
the liquid.
I divided part of the cake with the dog. I could not resist the soft
look in the eyes which the animal fixed on me while I was eating. Before
I became a man, and when I lived in Glenmornan, I wept often over the
trouble of the poor soft-eyed dogs. They have troubles of their own, and
I can understand their little worries. Bennet's dog gave me great help
in disposing of the cake, and when he had finished the meal he nuzzled
up against my leg, which was as much as to say that he was very thankful
for my kindness to him. I got into trouble when the people of the house
returned. They were angry, but what could they do? Bread eaten is like
fallen rain; it can never be put back in its former place.
Never for a moment did I dream seriously of going home again for a long,
long while. Now and again I wished that I was back for just one moment,
but being a man, independent and unafraid, such a foolish thought never
held me long. I was working on my own without anyone to cheer me, and
this caused me to feel proud of myself and of the work I was doing.
Once every month I got a letter from home, telling me about the doings
in my own place, and I was always glad to hear the Glenmornan news. Such
and such a person had died, one neighbour had bought two young steers at
the harvest-fair of Greenanore, another had been fined a couple of
pounds before the bench for fishing with a float on Lough Meenarna, and
hundreds of other little items were all told in faithful detail.
My thoughts went often back, and daily, when dragging through the turnip
drills or wet hay streaks, I built up great hopes of the manner in which
I would go home to my own people in the years to come. I would be very
rich. That was one essential point in the dreams of my return. I would
be big and very strong, afraid of no man and liked by all men. I would
pay a surprise visit to Glenmornan in the night-time when all the lamps
were lit on both sides of the valley. At the end of the boreen I would
stand for a moment and look through the window of my home, and see my
father plaiting baskets by the light of the hanging lamp. My mother
would be seated on the hearthstone, telling stories to my little
sisters. (Not for a moment could I dream of them other than what they
were when I saw them last.) Maybe she would speak of Dermod, who was
pushing his fortune away in foreign parts.
And while they were talking the latch of the door would rise, and I
would stand in the middle of the floor.
"It's Dermod himself that's in it!" they would all cry in one voice.
"Dermod that's just come back, and we were talking about him this very
minute."
Dreams like these made up a great part of my life in those days.
Sometimes I would find myself with a job finished, failing to remember
how it was completed. During the whole time I was buried deep in some
dream while I worked mechanically, and at the end of the job I was
usually surprised to find such a large amount of work done.
I was glad when the end of the term drew near. I hated Bennet and he
hated me, and I would not stop in his service another six months for all
the stock on his farm. I would look for a new master in Strabane
hiring-mart, and maybe my luck would be better next time. I left the
farmhouse with a dislike for all forms of mastery, and that dislike is
firmly engrained in my heart even to this day. The covert sneers, the
insulting jibes, the kicks and curses were good, because they moulded my
character in the way that is best. To-day I assert that no man is good
enough to be another man's master. I hate all forms of tyranny; and the
kicks of Joe Bennet and the weary hours spent in earning the first rent
which I ever paid for my people's croft, were responsible for instilling
that hatred into my being.
I sent four pounds fifteen shillings home to my parents, and this was
given to the landlord and priest, the man I had met six months before
on Greenanore platform and the pot-bellied man with the shiny false
teeth, who smoked ninepenny cigars and paid three hundred pounds for his
lavatory. Years later, when tramping through Scotland, I saw the
landlord motoring along the road, accompanied by his two daughters, who
were about my age. When I saw those two girls I wondered how far the
four pounds fifteen which I earned in blood and sweat in mid-Tyrone went
to decorate their bodies and flounce their hides. I wondered, too, how
many dinners they procured from the money that might have saved the life
of my little brother.
And as far as I can ascertain the priest lives yet; always imposing new
taxes; shortening the torments of souls in Purgatory at so much a soul;
forgiving sins which have never caused him any inconvenience, and at
word of his mouth sending the peasantry to heaven or to hell.