MOLESKIN JOE AS MY FATHER
"The opinions of a man who argues with his fist are always
respected."--MOLESKIN JOE.
About midday we met a red-faced farmer driving a spring-cart along the
road.
"Where are you bound for?" he called to me as he reined up his pony.
"What the hell is it to you?" asked Moleskin, assuming a pugilistic pose
all of a sudden. Love of fighting was my mate's great trait, and I found
it out in later years. He would fight his own shadow for the very fun of
the thing. "The man who argues with his fist is always respected," he
often told me.
"I'm lookin' for a young lad who can milk and take care of beasts in a
byre," replied the man nervously, for Joe's remark seemed to have
frightened him. "Can the youngster milk?"
"I can," I answered gleefully. I had never caught hold of a cow's teat
in my life, but I wanted work at all costs, and did not mind telling a
lie. A moment before I was in a despondent mood, seeing nothing in front
of me but the life of the road for years to come, but now, with the
prospect of work and wages before me, I felt happy. Already I was
forming dreams of the future, and my mind was once more turning to the
homecoming to Glenmornan when I became a rich man. A lot of my dreams
had been dashed to pieces already, but I was easily captured and made
the slave of new ones. Also, there was a great deal of my old pride
slipping away. There was a time when I would not touch a cow's teat, but
the Glenmornan pride that looked down upon such work was already gone.
"Milk!" cried Moleskin in answer to the last remark of the farmer. "You
should see my son under a cow! He's the boy for a job like that, you'll
find. What wages are you goin' to offer him?"
"Ten pounds from now till May-day, if he suits," replied the farmer.
"He'll suit you all right," said Joe. "But he'll not go with you for one
penny less than eleven pounds."
"I'll take ten pounds, Moleskin," I cried. I did not want to sleep
another night on the cold ground.
"Hold your blessed jaw," growled my mate. Then he turned to the farmer
again and went on:
"Eleven pounds and not one penny less. Forbye, you must give me
something for lettin' him go with you, as I do not like to lose the
child."
After a great deal of haggling, during which no notice was taken of me,
a bargain was struck, the outcome of which was that I should receive the
sum of ten guineas at the end of six months spent in the employ of the
farmer. My "father" received five shillings, paid on the nail, because
he allowed me to go to work.
"There's a good time comin', though we may never live to see it," said
Joe, as he shoved the silver into his pocket and cast a farewell glance
at me as I climbed into the cart. I caught my mate's square look for a
minute. In the left eye a faint glimmer appeared and the eyelid slowly
descended. Then he bit a piece off the end of his plug, started
whistling a tune and went on his way.
The farmer set the young cob at a gallop, and in about a quarter of an
hour we arrived at his place, which was called Braxey Farm. When
evening came round my master found that I could not milk.
"You'll learn," he said, not at all unkindly, and proceeded to teach me
the correct way in which to coax a cow's udder. In a fortnight's time I
was one of the best milkers in the byre.
Just off the stable I had a room to sleep in, an evil-smelling and dirty
little place crammed with horses' harness and agricultural implements.
But after the nights spent on the snow I thought the little room and the
bed the most cosy room and bed in the world. I slept there all alone,
and by night I could hear the horses pawing the floor of the stable, and
sometimes I was wakened by the noise they made and thought that somebody
had gotten into my room.
I started work at five o'clock in the morning and finished at seven in
the evening, and when Sunday came round I had to feed the ploughman's
horses in addition to my ordinary work.
I liked the place in a negative sort of way; it was dull and depressing,
but it was better than the life of the road. Now and again I got a
letter from home, and my people were very angry because I had sent so
little money to them during the summer months. For all that, I liked to
get a letter from home, and I loved to hear what the people whom I had
known since childhood were doing. On the farm there was no one to speak
to me or call me friend. The two red-cheeked servant girls who helped me
at the milking hardly ever took any notice of me, a kid lifted from the
toll-road. They were decent ploughmen's daughters, and they let me know
as much whenever I tried to become familiar. After all, I think they
liked me to speak to them, for they could thus get an excuse to dwell on
their own superior merits.
"Workin' wi' a lad picked off the roads, indeed! Whoever heard of such
a thing for respectable lassies!" they exclaimed.
Even the ploughman who worked on the farm ignored me when he was out of
temper. When in a good humour he insulted me by way of pastime.
"You're an Eerish pig!" he roared at me one evening.
I am impulsive, and my temper, never the best, was becoming worse daily.
When angry I am blind to everything but my own grievance, and the
ploughman's taunt made me angrier than ever I had been in my life
before. He had just come into the byre where the girls and I were
milking. He was a married man, but he loved to pass loose jokes with the
two young respectable lassies, and his filthy utterances amused them.
Although the ploughman was a big hardy fellow, his taunt angered me, and
made me blind to his physical advantages. I rushed at him head down and
butted him in the stomach. He flattened out in the sink amidst the
cow-dung, and once I got him down I jumped on him and rained a shower of
blows on his face and body. The girls screamed, the cows jumped wildly
in the stalls, and we were in imminent danger of getting kicked to
death. So I heard later, but at that moment I saw nothing but the face
which was bleeding under my blows. The ploughman was much stronger than
I, and gripping me round the waist he turned me over, thus placing me
under himself. I struggled gamely, but the man suddenly hit my head
against the flagged walk and I went off in a swoon. When I came to
myself, the farmer, the two girls, and the ploughman were standing over
me.
I struggled to my feet, rushed at the man again, and taking him by
surprise I was able to shove him against one of the cows in the stall
nearest him. The animal kicked him in the leg, and, mad with rage, he
reached forward and gripped me by the throat with the intention of
strangling me. But I was not afraid; the outside world was non-existent
to me at that moment, and I wanted to fight until I fell again.
The farmer interposed. We were separated and the ploughman left the
byre. That night I did not sleep; my anger burned like a fire until
dawn. The next day I felt dizzy and unwell, but that was the only evil
result of the fight. The ploughman never spoke to me again, civilly or
otherwise, and I was left in peace.
From start to finish the work on Braxey Farm was very wearisome, and the
surroundings were soul-killing and spiritless. By nature I am sensitive
and refined. A woman of untidy appearance disgusts me, a man who talks
filthily without reason is utterly repellent to me. The ploughman with
his loose jokes I loathed, the girls I despised even more than they
despised me. Their dislike was more affected than real; my dislike was
real though less ostentatious. It gave me no pleasure to tell a dirty
slut that she was dirty, but a dirty woman annoyed me in those days. I
could not imagine a man falling in love with one of those women, with
their short, inelegant petticoats and hobnailed shoes caked with the
dried muck of the farmyard. I could not imagine love in the midst of
such filth, such squalid poverty. But I did not then understand the
meaning of love; to me it was something which would exist when Norah
Ryan became a lady, and when I had a grand house wherein to pay her
homage. I am afraid that my knowledge of life was very small.
The talk of the two girls gave me the first real insight into love and
all that it cloaks with the false covering of poetical illusion. Every
poetical ideal, every charm and beauty which I had associated with love
was dispelled by the talk of those two women. For a while I did not
believe the things of which they spoke. My mind revolted. The ploughman
and the two girls continued their disgusting anecdotes. I did my best
not to listen. Knowing that I hated their talk the servants would
persist in talking, and every particle of information collected by them
was in course of time given to me.
My outlook on life became cynical and sour. I was a sort of outcast
among men, liking few and liked by none. When the end of the season came
I was pleased to get clear of Braxey Farm; the more familiar I became
with the people the more I disliked them. The farmer paid me nine
pounds, and explained that he retained the other thirty shillings
because he had to learn me how to milk.
"Your feyther was a great liar," he added.
Out of my wages I sent seven pounds home to Glenmornan and kept the
remainder for my own use, as I did not know when I could get a next job.
My mother sent me a letter that another brother was born to me--the
second since I left home--and asking me for some more money to help them
along with the rent. But my disposition was changing; my outlook on life
was becoming bitter, and I hated to be slave to farmers, landlords,
parents, and brothers and sisters. Every new arrival into the family was
reported to me as something for which I should be grateful. "Send home
some more money, you have another brother," ran the letters, and a sense
of unfairness crept over me. The younger members of the family were
taking the very life-blood out of my veins, and on account of them I had
to suffer kicks, snubs, cold and hunger. New brothers and sisters were
no pleasure to me. I rebelled against the imposition and did not answer
the letter.