IV

John did not wish to imitate his Uncle Matthew ... he did not wish to

imitate anyone ... for, although he could not discover that "quareness"

in him which other people professed to discover, yet when he saw how

inactive Uncle Matthew was, how dependent he was on Uncle William and,

to a less extent, on Mrs. MacDermott, and how he seemed to shrink from

things in life, which, when he read about them in books, enthralled

him, John felt that if he were to model his behaviour on that of anyone

else, it must not be on the behaviour of Uncle Matthew. Uncle William

had a quick, decided manner ... he knew exactly what he wanted and

often contrived to get what he wanted. John remembered that his Uncle

William had said to him once, "John, boy, if I want a thing and I can't

get it, I give up wanting it!"

"But you can't help wanting things, Uncle William," John had protested.

"No, boy, you can't" Uncle William had retorted, "but the Almighty

God's given you the sense to understand the difference between wanting

things you can get and wanting things you can't get, and He leaves it

to you to use your sense. Do you never suppose that I want something

strange and wonderful to happen to me the same as your Uncle Matthew

there, that sits dreaming half the day over books? What would become of

you all, your ma and your Uncle Matthew and you, if I was to do the

like of that I? Where would your Uncle Matthew get the money to buy

books to dream over if it wasn't for me giving up my dreams?..."

John's heart had suddenly filled with pity for his Uncle William whom

he saw as a thwarted man, an angel expelled from heaven, reduced from a

proud position in a splendid society to the dull work of one who

maintains others by small, but prolonged, efforts. He felt ashamed of

himself and of Uncle Matthew ... even, for a few moments, of his

mother. Here was Uncle William, working from dawn until dark, denying

himself this pleasure and that, refusing to go to the "shore" with them

in the summer on the assertion that he was a strong man and did not

need holidays ... doing all this in order that he might maintain three

people in comfort and ... yes, idleness! Mrs. MacDermott might be

excluded from the latter charge, for she attended to the house and the

cooking, but how could Uncle Matthew and himself expect to escape from

it? Uncle Matthew had more hope than he had, for Uncle Matthew

sometimes balanced the books for Uncle William, and did odds and ends

about the shop. He would write out the accounts in a very neat hand and

would deliver them, too. But John made no efforts at all. He was the

complete idler, living on his Uncle's bounty, and making no return for

it.

He was now in his second year of monitorship at the school where his

Uncle Matthew had been a teacher, and was in receipt of a few pounds

per annum to indicate that he was more than a pupil; but the few pounds

were insufficient to maintain him ... he knew that ... and even if they

had been sufficient, he was well aware of the fact that his Uncle

William had insisted that the whole of his salary should be placed in

the Post Office Savings Bank for use when he had reached manhood.... He

made a swift resolve, when this consciousness came upon him: he would

quit the school and enter the business, so that he could be of help to

his Uncle William.

"Will you let me leave the school, Uncle?" he said. "I'm tired of the

teaching, and I'd like well to go into the shop with you!"

Uncle William did not answer for a little while. He was adding up a

column of figures in the day-book, and John could hear him counting

quietly to himself. "And six makes fifty-four... six and carry four!"

he said entering the figures in pencil at the foot of the column.

"What's that you say, John, boy?"

"I want to leave school and come into the shop and help you," John

answered.

"God love you, son, what put that notion into your head?"

"I don't want to be a burden to you, Uncle William!"

"A burden to me!" Uncle William swung round on the high office stool

and regarded his nephew intently. "Man, dear, you're no burden to me!

Look at the strength of me! Feel them muscles, will you?" He held out

his tightened arm as he spoke. "Do you think a wee fellow like you

could be a burden to a man with muscles like them, as hard as iron?"

But John was not to be put off by talk of that sort. "You know rightly

what I mean," he said. "You never get no rest at all, and here's me

still at the school!..."

"Ah, wheesht with you, boy!" Uncle William interrupted. "What sort of

talk is this? You will not leave the school, young man! The learning

you're getting will do you a world of benefit, even if you never go on

with the teachering. You're a lucky wee lad, so you are, to be getting

paid to go to school. There was no free learning when I was a child, I

can tell you. Your grandda had to pay heavy for your da and your Uncle

Matthew and me. Every Monday morning, we had to carry our fees to the

master. Aye, and bring money for coal in the winter or else carry a few

sods of turf with us if we hadn't the money for it. That was what

children had to do when I was your age, John. I tell you there's a

queer differs these times between schooling from what there was when I

was a scholar, and you'd be the great gumph if you didn't take

advantage of your good fortune!"

"But I'd like to _help_ you, Uncle William. Do you not understand

me? I want to be doing something for you!" John insisted.

"I understand you well enough, son. You've been moidhering your mind

about me, but sure there's no call for you to do that. No call at all!

Now, not another word out of your head! I've said my say on that

subject, and I'll say no more. Go on with your learning, and when

you've had your fill of it, we'll see what's to be done with you. How

much is twelve and nine?"

"Twenty-one, Uncle William!"

"Twenty-one!" said Uncle William, at his day-book again. "Nine and

carry one!..."

In this way Uncle William settled John's offer to serve in the shop,

and restored learning and literature to his affection and esteem. John

had not given in so easily as the reader may imagine. He had insisted

that his Uncle William worked much too hard, had even hinted that Uncle

Matthew spent more time over books than he spent over "_the_

books," the day-book and the ledger; but his Uncle William had firmly

over-ruled him.

"Books are of more account to your Uncle Matthew than an oul' ledger

any day," he said, "and it'll never be said that I prevented him from

reading them. We all get our happiness in different ways, John, and it

would be a poor thing to prevent a man from getting his happiness in

his way just because it didn't happen to be your way. Books are your

Uncle Matthew's heart's-idol, and I wouldn't stop him from them for the

wide world!"

"But he does nothing, Uncle William," John said, intent on justice,

even when it reflected on his beloved Uncle.

"I know, but sure the heart was taken out of him that time when he was

arrested for breaking the man's window. It was a terrible shock to him,

that, and he never overed it. You must just let things go on as they're

going. I don't believe you'll foe content to be a teacher. Not for one

minute do I believe that. But whatever you turn out to be, it'll be no

harm to have had the extra schooling you're getting, so you'll stay on

a monitor for a while longer. And now quit talking, do, or you'll have

me deafened with your clatter!"

Uncle William always put down attempts to combat his will by

assertions of that sort.

"Are you angry with me, Uncle William?" John anxiously asked.

"Angry with you, son?" He swung round again on the high stool. "Come

here 'til I show you whether I am or not!"

And then Uncle William gathered him up in his arms and crushed the

boy's face into his beard. "God love you, John," he said, "how could I

be angry with you, and you your da's son!"

"I love you queer and well, Uncle," John murmured shyly.

"Do you, son? I'm glad to hear that."

"Aye. And I love my Uncle Matthew, too!..."

"That's right. Always love your Uncle Matthew whatever you do or

whatever happens. He's a man that has more need of love nor most of us.

Your da loved him well, John!"

"Did he?"

"Aye, he did, indeed!" Uncle William put his pen down on the desk, and

leaning against the ledger, rested his head in the cup of his hand.

"Your da was a strange man, John," he said, "a queer, strange man, with

a powerful amount of knowledge in his head. That man could write Latin

and Greek and French and German, and he was the first man in Ballyards

to write the Irish language ... and them was the days when people said

Irish was a Papist language, and would have nothing to do with it. Your

da never paid no heed to anyone... he just did what he wanted to do, no

matter what anyone said or who was against him. Many's the time I've

heard him give the minister his answer, and the high-up people, too.

When Lord Castlederry came bouncing into the town, ordering people to

do this or to do that, just because the Queen's grandson was coming to

the place, your da stood up fornenst him and said, as bold as brass,

'The people of this town are not Englishmen, my lord, to be ordered

about like dogs! They're Ballyards men, and a Ballyards man never bent

the knee to no one!' That was what your da said to him, and Lord

Castlederry never forgot it and never forgave it neither, but he could

do no harm to us, for the MacDermotts owned land and houses in

Ballyards before ever a Castlederry put his foot in the place. He was a

proud man your da, with a terrible quick temper, but as kindly-natured

a man as ever drew breath. Your ma thinks long for him many's a time,

though I think there were whiles he frightened her. Your Uncle Matthew

and me is poor company for her after living with a man like that."

"Am I like my da, Uncle William! My ma says sometimes I am ... when

she's angry with me!"

"Sometimes you're like him and sometimes you're like her. You'll be a

great fellow, John, if you turn out to be like your da. I tell you,

boy, he was a man, and there's few men these times ... only a lot of

oul' Jinny-joes, stroking their beards and looking terrible wise over

ha'penny bargains!"

"And then he died, Uncle William!"

"Aye, son, he died. You were just two years old when he died, a little,

wee child just able to walk and talk. I mind it well. He called me into

the bedroom where he was lying, and he bid the others leave me alone

with him. Your ma didn't want to go, but he wouldn't let her stay, and

so she went, too. 'William,' he said, when the door was shut behind

them, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' Them was his very

words, John, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' I couldn't

answer him, so I just nodded my head. He didn't say anything more for a

wee while, but lay back in the bed and breathed hard, for he was in

pain, and couldn't breathe easy. Then, after a wee while, he looked

round at me, and he said, 'I'm only thirty-one, William, and I'm dying.

And oul' Peter Clancy up the street, that's been away in the head since

he was a child, is over sixty years of age!... I thought he was going

to spring out of the bed when he said that, the temper come over him so

quick and sudden, but I held him down and begged him to control

himself, and he quietened himself. I heard him saying, half under his

breath, 'And God thinks He knows how to rule the world!' He died that

night, rebellious to the end!... He said he depended on me to look

after you all, and I've tried hard, John, as hard as I could!"

His voice quavered, and he turned away from his nephew. "Your da was my

hero," he said. "I'd have shed my heart's blood for him. It was hard

that him that was the best of us should be the first to go!"

John stood by his uncle's side, very moved by his distress, but not

knowing what to do to comfort him.

"My da would be queer and proud of you, Uncle William," he said at

last, "queer and proud if he could see you!"

But Uncle William did not answer nor did he look round.

V

It was understood, after that conversation between John and his Uncle

William, that the boy should remain at school for a year or two longer,

working as a monitor, not in order that he might become a schoolmaster,

but so that he might equip his mind with knowledge. Mrs. MacDermott

wished her son to become a minister. It would be the proudest day of

her life, she said, if she could see John standing in a pulpit,

preaching a sermon. Who knew but that he might be one day be the

minister of the Ballyards First Presbyterian Church itself, the very

church in which his family had worshipped their God for generations.

John, however, had no wish to be a minister.

"You have to be queer and good to be one," he said, "and I'm not as

good as all that!"

"Well, mebbe, you'll get better as you get older," Mrs. MacDermott

insisted.

"I might get worse," he replied. "It would be a fearful thing to be a

minister, and then find out you wanted to commit a sin!"

"Ministers is like ourselves, John," Mrs. MacDermott said, "and I

daresay Mr. McCaughan sometimes wants to do wicked things, for all he's

such a good man, and has to pray to God many's a while for the strength

to resist temptation. That doesn't prove he's not fit to be a minister.

It only shows he understands our nature all the more because he has

temptations himself!"

But John would not be convinced by her arguments. "I don't know, ma!"

he said. "If I wanted to be wicked, I'm afraid I'd be it, so don't ask

me to be a minister for I'd mebbe disgrace you with my carryings-on!"

Mrs. MacDermott had been deeply hurt by his refusal to consider the

ministry.

"Anybody'd think to hear you," she said, "that you'd made up your mind

to lead a sinful life. As if a MacDermott couldn't conquer his sins

better nor anybody else!"

His mother, he often observed, spoke more boastfully of the MacDermotts

than either his Uncle William or his Uncle Matthew.

John's final, overwhelming retort to her was this: "Would my da have

liked me to be a minister?"

"I never knew what your da liked," she retorted; "I only knew what he

did!..."

"Do you think he would have liked me to be a minister?" John persisted.

"Mebbe he wouldn't, but he's not here now!..."

"You wouldn't do behind his back what you'd be afraid to do fornenst

his face, would you?"

"You've no right to talk to me that way. I'm your mother!..."

"You knew rightly he wouldn't have liked it," John continued,

inexorably.

And then Mrs. MacDermott yielded.

"You're your da over again," she complained. "He always had his way in

the end, whatever was against him. What _do_ you want to be, then,

when you grow up?"

"I don't know yet, ma. I only know the things I don't want to be, and

teaching is one of them. And a minister's another! Mebbe I'll know in a

wee while!"

He did not like to tell her that in his heart he wished to go in search

of adventures. His Uncle Matthew's imaginings had filled his mind with

romantic desires, and he longed to leave Ballyards and go somewhere ...

anywhere, so long as it was a difficult and distant place ... where he

would have to contend with dangers. There were times when he felt that

he must instantly pack a bundle of clothes into a red handkerchief ...

he could buy one at Conn's, the draper's ... and run away from home and

stow himself in the hold of a big ship bound for America or Australia

or some place like that ... and was only prevented from doing so by his

fear that his mother and uncles would be deeply grieved by his flight.

"It would look as if they hadn't been kind to me," he said in

remonstrance to himself, "and that wouldn't be fair to them!" But

although he did not run away from home, he still kept the strong desire

in his heart to go out into a dangerous and bewildering world and seek

fortune and adventures. "I want to fight things," he said to himself.

"I want to fight things and, ... and win!"

Mixed up with his desire for adventure was a vision of a beautiful girl

to whom he should offer his love and service. He could not picture her

clearly to himself ... none of the girls in Ballyards bore the

slightest resemblance to her. Sometimes, indeed, he thought that this

beautiful girl was like Lady Castlederry ... only Lady Castlederry,

somehow, although she was so very lovely, had a cold stupid look in her

eyes, and he was very certain that this beautiful girl had bright,

alert eyes.

There had been a passage of love-making between Aggie Logan and him,

conducted entirely by Aggie Logan. She had taken him aside one day, in

the middle of a game of "I spy," and had said to him "Will you court

me, Johnnie?"

"No," he had replied.

"Do you not love me then?" she enquired.

"No," he said again.

"But I want you to court me," she persisted.

"I don't care what you want," he retorted. "I won't court you because I

don't want to court you. I don't like you. You're too much of a girner

for me!"

"I'm not a girner," she protested.

"You are. You start crying the minute anything happens to you or if

people won't do what you want them to do. I wouldn't marry a girner for

the wide world!"

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

"I daresay," he replied skeptically.

She considered for a moment or two. "Well, if you won't court me," she

said, "I'll let Andy Cairnduff court me!"

"He can have you," said John, undismayed by the prospect of the

schoolmaster's son as a rival.

She stood before him for a little while, without speaking. Then she

turned and walked a little distance from him. She stopped, with her

back turned towards him, and he knew by the way her head was bent, that

she was thinking out a way of retaliating on him. The end of her

pinafore was in her mouth!... She turned to him sharply, letting the

pinafore fall from her lips, and pointing at him with her finger, she

began to laugh shrilly.

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

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

"Yes," she answered. "I gunked you nicely. You thought I wanted you to

court me, but I was only having you on. Ha, ha, ha!"

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

to it!"

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

He had not told his mother of that passage of love with Aggie Logan. It

did not occur to him to tell anything to his mother. His instinct,

indeed, was not to tell things to her, to conceal them from her.