Children of the Dead End: The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy. Patrick MacGill

do you cut the tails off the cattle?" I asked Sorley, as he proceeded to wash the wound on the brindled cow.

      "Just to keep them short," he said, stealing a furtive glance at me as he spoke. I did not ask any further questions, but I could see that he was telling an untruth. At once I guessed that the farm was boycotted, and that the peasantry were showing their disapproval of some action of Sorley's by cutting the tails off his cattle. I wished that moment that I had gotten another master who was on a more friendly footing with his neighbours.

      When we returned to the house the old woman was sitting still by the fire mumbling away to herself at the one thing over and over again.

      "Old Mary Sorley won't be hounded out of her house and home if all the cattle in me byre was without tails," she said in rambling tones, which now and again rose to a shriek almost. "What would an old woman like me be carin' for the band of them? Am I not as good as the tenant that was here before me, him with his talk of rack-rint and Home Rule? Old Mary Sorley is goin' to stay here till she leaves the house in a coffin."

      The man and I sat down at a pot of porridge and ate our suppers.

      "Don't take any heed of me mother," he said to me. "It's only dramin' and dotin' that she is."

      Early next morning I was sent out to the further end of the moor, there to gather up some sheep and take them back to the farmyard. I met three men on the way, three rough-looking, angry sort of men. One of them caught hold of me by the neck and threw me into a bog-hole. I was nearly drowned in the slush. When I tried to drag myself out, the other two threw sods on top of me. The moment I pulled myself clear I ran off as hard as I could.

      "This will teach ye not to work for a boycotted bastard," one of them called after me, but none of them made any attempt to follow. I ran as hard as I could until I got to the house. When I arrived there I informed Sorley of all that had taken place, and said that I was going to stop no longer in his service.

      "I had work enough lookin' for a cub," he said; "and I'm no goin' to let ye run away now."

      "I'm going anyway," I said.

      "Now and will ye?" answered the man, and he took my spare clothes and hid them somewhere in the house. My bits of clothes were all that I had between me and the world, and they meant a lot to me. Without them I would not go away, and Sorley knew that. I had to wait for three days more, then I got my clothes and left.

      That happened when old Mary Sorley died.

      It was late in the evening. She was left sitting on the hearthstone, turning the fire over, while Sorley and I went to wash the tails of the wounded cattle in the byre. My master had forgotten the soap, and he sent me back to the kitchen for it. I asked the old woman to give it to me. She did not answer when I spoke, and I went up close to her and repeated my question. But she never moved. I turned out again and took my way to the byre.

      "Have ye got it?" asked my master.

      "Your mother has fainted," I answered.

      He ran into the house, and I followed. Between us we lifted the woman into the bed which was placed in one corner of the kitchen. Her body felt very stiff, and it was very light. The man crossed her hands over her breast.

      "Me poor mother's dead," he told me.

      "Is she?" I asked, and went down on my knees by the bedside to say a prayer for her soul. When on my knees I noticed where my spare clothes were hidden. They were under the straw of the bed on which the corpse was lying. I hurried over my prayers, as I did not take much pleasure in praying for the soul of a boycotted person.

      "I must go to Omagh and get me married sister to come here and help me for a couple of days," said Sorley when I got to my feet again. "Ye can sit here and keep watch until I come back."

      He went out, saddled the pony, and in a couple of minutes I heard the clatter of hoofs echoing on the road across the moor. In a little while the sounds died away, and there I was, all alone with the corpse of old Mary Sorley.

      I edged my chair into the corner where the two walls met, and kept my eye on the woman in the bed. I was afraid to turn round, thinking that she might get up when I was not looking at her. Out on the moor a restless dog commenced to voice some ancient wrong, and its mournful howl caused a chill to run down my backbone. Once or twice I thought that someone was tapping at the window-pane behind me, and feared to look round lest a horrible face might be peering in. But all the time I kept looking at the white features of the dead woman, and I would not turn round for the world. The cat slept beside the fire and never moved.

      The hour of midnight struck on the creaky old wag-of-the-wall, and I made up my mind to leave the place for good. I wanted my clothes which I had seen under the straw of the kitchen bed. It was an eerie job to turn over a corpse at the hour of midnight. The fire was almost out, for I had placed no peat on it since Sorley left for Omagh. A little wind came under the door and whirled the pale-grey ashes over the hearthstone.

      I went to the bed and turned the woman over on her side, keeping one hand against the body to prevent it falling back on me. With the other hand I drew out my clothes, counting each garment until I had them all. As soon as I let the corpse go it nearly rolled out on the ground. I could hardly remove my gaze from the cold quiet thing. The eyes were wide open all the time, and they looked like icy pools seen on a dark night. I wrapped my garments up in a handkerchief which was hanging from a nail in the bedstock. The handkerchief was not mine. It belonged to the dead woman, but she would not need it any more. I took it because I wanted it, and it was the only wages which I should get for my three days' work on the farm. While I was busy tying my clothes together the cat rose from the fireplace and jumped into the bed. I suppose it felt cold by the dying fire. I thought at the time that it would not be much warmer beside a dead body. From the back of the corpse the animal watched me for a few minutes, then it fell asleep.

      I took my bundle in my hand, opened the door, and went out into the darkness, leaving the sleeping cat and the dead woman alone in the boycotted house. The night was fine and frosty and a smother of cold stars lay on the face of the heavens. A cow moaned in the byre as I passed, while the stray dog kept howling miserably away on the middle of the moor. I took the path that twisted and turned across the bogland, and I ran. I was almost certain that the corpse was following me, but I would not turn and look behind for the world. If you turn and look at the ghost that follows you, it is certain to get in front, and not let you proceed any further. So they said in Glenmornan.

      After a while I walked slowly. I had already left a good stretch of ground between me and the house. I could hear the brown grass sighing on the verge of the black ponds of water. The wind was running along the ground and it made strange sounds. Far away the pale cold flames of the will-of-the-wisp flitted backwards and forwards, but never came near the fringe of the road on which I travelled.

      I heard the rattle of horse's hoofs coming towards me, and I hid in a clump of bracken until the rider passed by. I knew that it was Sorley on his way back from Omagh. There was a woman sitting behind him on the saddle, and when both went out of sight I ran until I came out on the high-road. Maybe I walked three miles after that, and maybe I walked more, but at last I came to a haystack by the roadside. I crept over the dyke, lay down in the hay and fell asleep, my head resting on my little bundle of clothes.

CHAPTER IX A GOOD TIME

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