If anyone had said to him that he did not love his mother as much as he
loved his Uncle Matthew and his Uncle William, he would have been very
angry. Not love his mother more than anyone else on earth!... Only a
blow could make a proper answer to such a charge. Nevertheless his
mother was associated in his mind with acts of repression, with
forbidding and restraint. She seemed always to be telling him not to do
things. When he wanted to go to the Lough with Willie Logan to play
Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday or to light a bonfire in Teeshie
McBratney's field with shavings from Galpin's mill in the pretence that
he was a Red Indian preparing for a war-dance, it was his mother who
said that he was not to do it. He might fall into the water and get
drowned, she said, or, he might fall into the fire and get roasted to
death. As if he were not capable of controlling a raft or a bonfire!...
He felt, too, that sometimes she punished him unjustly. When the Logans
and he had played Buffalo Bill and the Red Indians attacking the
defenceless pale-face woman, he had had a fierce argument with Willie
Logan about the part of Buffalo Bill. Willie, being older, had claimed
the part for himself, and, when denied the right to it, had declared
that neither Aggie nor he would play in the game. Then a compromise had
been arranged: Willie was allowed to play the part of Buffalo Bill and
to slay the Red Indian on condition that John, before being slain,
should be allowed to scalp the helpless pale-face woman. He scalped her
so severely, by tugging tightly at her long hair, that she began to
cry, and Willie, more conscious of the fact that he was Aggie's brother
than that he was Buffalo Bill, bore down upon John and gave him his
"cowardy-blow." They fought a fierce and bitter fight, and in the end,
Willie went home with a bleeding nose, and John went home with a black
eye.
Willie had not played the man over that affair. He went to his mother
and complained of John's selfish and brutal behaviour, alleging that he
had suffered terrible punishment in a chivalrous effort to protect his
sister from ruffianly assault; and his mother, a thin, acidulous woman,
whose voice was half snarl and half whine, carried her son's complaint
to Mrs. MacDermott.
Mrs. MacDermott had not stopped to enquire into the truth of the charge
against John beyond asking if it were true that he had pulled Aggie
Logan's hair and fought with Willie Logan. John had replied "Yes, ma!"
That was sufficient for Mrs. MacDermott, that and the testimony of
John's discoloured eye, and she had beaten him with the leather tawse
that was kept hanging from a nail at the side of the fireplace. "That
my son should do the like of that!" she said over and over again until
a cold fury of resentment against her had formed in his heart. It was
true that he had pulled Aggie's hair much harder than he ought to have
done, but he had not intended to hurt her. What he had done, had been
done, not out of malice, but in the excitement of the game; and it was
not fair to beat him so severely for so little a thing as that. He
would not cry ... he would not give his mother the satisfaction of
hearing him cry, although the lashing he was receiving was hurting his
bare pelt very sorely. She could keep on saying, "That my son should do
the like of that!" but he would not mind her....
Then, as if she understood his thoughts and perceived that he was
unmoved by her outraged feelings, she had changed her complaint against
him. Glancing up at the portrait of her husband which was hanging over
the fireplace, she said, "That your father's son should do the like of
that!" Compunction came to him then. He, too, looked up at the portrait
of his father, and suddenly he wanted to cry. The pale face, made more
pale in appearance by the thick, black beard, and having the faded look
which photographs of the dead seem always to have, appeared to him to
be alive and full of reproach, and the big burning eyes, aflame, they
looked, with the consuming thing that took his life, had anger in them,
anger against him!...
He had not any regret for hurting Aggie Logan ... he did not believe
that he had hurt her any more severely than was necessary for the
purposes of the game, and even if he had hurt her, she ought to have
borne it as part of the pretence ... he did not care whether he had
hurt her or not, for she was a "cry-ba" at all times, ready to "girn"
at anything ... but he had sorrow at the thought that he had done
something of which his father might have disapproved. Mrs. MacDermott,
with that penetration which is part of the nature of people who are
accustomed to yield to stronger personalities had discovered that she
could win John to her obedience by reminding him of his father; and she
used her power without pity. "What would your father think of you, if
he knew!" she would say.
She was not a hard or a cruel woman ... she was very kind and loved her
son with a long clutching love ... but her life with her husband had
contained so many disturbances of comfortable courses, thrilling enough
at the time, but terrifying when viewed in retrospect, that her nature,
inclined to quiet, fixed ways and to acceptance, with slight
resistance, of whatever came to her, made all the efforts that were
possible to it to keep her life and her son's life in peace. She hated
change of any sort, whether of circumstances or of friends, and she
loved old, familiar things. The tradition of the MacDermotts, their
life in one place for generations and the respect with which they were
greeted by their townsmen, gave immense pleasure to her, and her
dearest dream was that John should continue in the place where his
forefathers had lived, and that his son and his son's son should
continue there, too!
And so it was that she was always telling John not to do things. She
loathed Uncle Matthew's romances and his talk of adventures in foreign
parts, and she insisted that he was "away in the mind" when her son
spoke of him to her. She tried to make the boy walk inconspicuously, to
keep, always, in the background, to do only those things that were
generally approved of. His quick temper, his haste with his fists, his
habit of contradicting even those who were older than he was, his
unwillingness to admit that he was in the wrong ... all these disturbed
and frightened her. They would lead him into disputes and set him up in
opposition to other people. His delight in the story of his father's
encounter with Lord Castlederry troubled her, and she tried to convince
her son that Lord Castlederry was a well-meaning man, but, as she knew,
without success. She had delighted in her husband's great courage and
self-sufficiency, his sureness, his strong decision and his
unconquerable pride and independence ... but now, in contemplation,
these things frightened her ... she wondered sometimes why it was that
they had not frightened her in his lifetime ... and the thought that
she might have to live again in contention and opposition roused all
her strength to resist that fate. She had lived down much of the
dislike that her husband had aroused. It was not necessary now to
pretend that she did not see people, that she might escape from the
mortification of being stared at, without a sign of recognition; and
she would not lightly yield up her comfortable situation. If only she
could only persuade John to become a minister! There was nothing in
that to frighten her: there was everything to make her feel content and
proud.
When she took John to Belfast, she made the holiday, so eagerly
anticipated, a mortification to him. While they were in the train, she
would tell him not to climb on to the seat of the carriage to look out
of the window at the telegraph-poles flying past and the telegraph-wires
rising and falling like birds ... she would tell him not to stand
at the door in case it should fly open and he should fall out and be
killed ... she would tell him, when the train reached the terminus in
Belfast, to take tight hold of her hand and not to budge from her
side ... she would refuse to cross the Lagan in the steam ferry-boat and
insist on going round by tram-car across the Queen's Bridge ... she
would tell him not to wander about in Forster Green's when he edged
away from her to look at the coffee-mills in which the richly-smelling
berries were being roasted. When she took him to Linden's to tea ...
Linden's which made cakes for the Queen and had the Royal Arms over the
door of the shop! ... she spoiled the treat for him by refusing to let
him sit on one of the stools at the counter and eat his "cookies" like
a man: she made him sit by her side at a table ... an ordinary table
such as anyone could sit on anywhere ... at home, even!
His Uncle William had taken him up to Belfast one market-day, and that
Friday was made memorable to him forever because his Uncle had said to
him, "Well, boy, what would you like to do?" and had consented, without
demur, to cross the Lagan in the ferry-boat. Uncle William had not
clutched at him all the time in fear lest he should fall into the river
and be drowned, and had allowed him to stand at the end of the boat and
watch the swirl of the water against the ferry-steps when they reached
the Antrim side. He had said to him, too, "I've a wee bit of business
to attend to, boy, that'll not interest you much. Would you like to
stay here in the market for an hour by yourself while I go and do it?"
Would he like?...
And not one word about taking great care of himself or of not doing
this or doing that ... of keeping away from the horse-fair, and not
going too near the cattle. Uncle William trusted him, took it for
granted that he was capable of looking after himself....
"Very well, then," Uncle William said, "I'll meet you here in an hour's
time. No later, mind you, for I've a deal to do the day!"
And for a whole hour, John had wandered about the market, not holding
anyone's hand and free to go wherever he liked! He had walked through
the old market where the horses were bought and sold ... had even
stroked a mare's muzzle while some men bargained over it ... and then
had crossed the road to the new market where he smelt the odour of
flowers and fruit and listened to the country-women chaffering over
their butter and eggs. He spent a penny without direction!... He bought
a large, rosy American apple ... without being asked whether he would
like to have that or an orange, or being told that he could not have an
orange, but must have an apple because an apple in the morning was good
for him...
When he told his mother that night of the splendid time he had had by
himself, she said, "You might have lost yourself!..." That chilled him,
and he did not tell her of the gallant way in which he had rubbed his
hand on a horse's side. He knew very well that she would say, "It might
have kicked you!..."