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

sent accordingly.

      "The priest should know what is best," my father said.

      The master was a little man with a very large stomach. He was short of breath, and it was very funny to hear him puffing on a very warm day, when the sweat ran down his face and wetted his collar. The people about thought that he was very wise, and said that he could talk a lot of wisdom if he were not so short of breath. Whenever he sat by the school fire he fell asleep. Everyone said that though very wise the man was very lazy. When he got to his feet after a sleep he went about the schoolroom grunting like a sick cow. For the first six months at school I felt frightened of him, after that I disliked him. He beat me about three times a day. He cut hazel rods on his way to school, and used them every five minutes when not asleep. Nearly all the scholars cried whenever they were beaten, but I never did. I think this was one of his strongest reasons for hating me more than any of the rest. I learned very slowly, and never could do my sums correctly, but I liked to read the poems in the more advanced books and could recite Childe Harold's Farewell when only in the second standard.

      When I was ten years of age I left school, being then only in the third book. This was the way of it. One day, when pointing out places on the map of the world, the master came round, and the weather being hot the man was in a bad temper.

      "Point out Corsica, Dermod Flynn," he said.

      I had not the least idea as to what part of the world Corsica occupied, and I stood looking awkwardly at the master and the map in turn. I think that he enjoyed my discomfited expression, for he gazed at me in silence for a long while.

      "Dermod Flynn, point out Corsica," he repeated.

      "I don't know where it is," I answered sullenly.

      "I'll teach you!" he roared, getting hold of my ear and pulling it sharply. The pain annoyed me; I got angry and hardly was aware of what I was doing. I just saw his eyes glowering into mine. I raised the pointer over my head and struck him right across the face. Then a red streak ran down the side of his nose and it frightened me to see it.

      "Dermod Flynn has killed the master!" cried a little girl whose name was Norah Ryan and who belonged to the same class as myself.

      I was almost certain that I had murdered him, for he dropped down on the form by the wall without speaking a word and placed both his hands over his face. For a wee bit I stood looking at him; then I caught up my cap and rushed out of the school.

      Next day, had it not been for the red mark on his face, the master was as well as ever. But I never went back to school again. My father did not believe much in book learning, so he sent me out to work for the neighbours who required help at the seed-time or harvest. Sixpence a day was my wages, and the work in the fields was more to my liking than the work at the school.

      Whenever I passed the scholars on the road afterwards they said to one another: "Just think of it! Dermod Flynn struck the master across the face when he was at the school."

      Always I felt very proud of my action when I heard them say that. It was a great thing for a boy of my age to stand up on his feet and strike a man who was four times his age. Even the young men spoke of my action and, what was more, they praised my courage. They had been at school themselves and they did not like the experience.

      Nowadays, whenever I look at Corsica on the map, I think of old Master Diver and the days I spent under him in the little Glenmornan schoolhouse.

CHAPTER IV THE GREAT SILENCE

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      "Where the people toil like beasts in the field till their bones are strained and sore,

      There the landlord waits, like the plumbless grave, calling out for more

      Money to flounce his daughters' gowns or clothe his spouse's hide,

      Money so that his sons can learn to gamble, shoot, and ride;

      And for every debt of honour paid and for every dress and frill,

      The blood of the peasant's wife and child goes out to meet the bill."

       —From The Song of the Glen People.

      I was nearly twelve years old when Dan, my youngest brother, died. It was in the middle of winter, and he was building a snow-man in front of the half-door when he suddenly complained of a pain in his throat. Mother put him to bed and gave him a drink of hot milk. She did not send for the doctor because there was no money in the house to pay the bill. Dan lay in bed all the evening and many of the neighbours came in to see him. Towards midnight I was sent to bed, but before going I heard my father ask mother if she thought that Dan would live till morning. I could not sleep, but kept turning over in the bed and praying to the Blessed Virgin to save my little brother. The new moon, sharp as a scythe, was peeping through the window of my room when my mother came to my bed and told me to rise and kiss Dan for the last time. She turned her face away as she spoke, and I knew that she was weeping. My brother was lying on the bed, gazing up at the ceiling with wide-staring eyes. A crimson flush was on his face and his breath pained him. I bent down and pressed his cheek. I was afraid, and the kiss made my lips burn like fire. The three of us then stood together and my father shook the holy water all over the room. All at once Dan sat up in the bed and gripped a tight hold of the blankets. I wanted to run out of the room but my mother would not let me.

      "Are ye wantin' anything?" asked my father, bending over the bed, but there was no answer. My brother fell back on the bed and his face got very white.

      "Poor Dan is no more," said my father, the tears coming out of his eyes. 'Twas the first time I ever saw him weeping, and I thought it very strange. My mother went to the window and opened it in order to let the soul of my brother go away to heaven.

      "It is all in the hands of God," she said. "He is only taking back what He sent us."

      There was silence in the room for a long while. My father and mother wept, and I was afraid of something which was beyond my understanding.

      "Will Dan ever come back again?" I asked.

      "Hush, dearie!" said my mother.

      "It will take a lot of money to bury the poor boy," said my father. "It costs a good penny to rear one, but it's a bad job when one is taken away."

      I had once seen an old woman buried—"Old Nan," the beggarwoman. For many years she had passed up and down Glenmornan Road, collecting bottles and rags, which she paid for in blessings and afterwards sold for pence. Being wrinkled, heavy-boned, and bearded like a man, everyone said that she was a witch. One summer Old Nan died, and two days later she was carried to the little graveyard. I played truant from school and followed the sweating men who were carrying the coffin on their shoulders. They seemed to be well-pleased when they came in sight of the churchyard and the cold silent tombstones.

      "The old witch was as heavy as lead," I heard the bearers say.

      They set down their burden and dug a hole in the soft earth, throwing up black clay and white bones to the surface with their shovels. The bones looked like those of sheep which die on the hills and are left to rot. The air was heavy with the humming of bees, and a little brook sang a soft song of its own as it hurried past the graveyard wall. The upturned earth had a sickly smell like mildewed corn. Some of the diggers knew whose bone this was and whose that was, but they had a hard argument about a thigh-bone before Old Nan was put into the earth. Some said that the thigh-bone belonged to old Farley Kelly, who had died many years before, and others said that it belonged to Farley's wife. I thought it a curious thing that people could not know the difference between a man and a woman when dead. While the men were discussing the thigh-bone it was left lying on the black clay which fringed the mouth of the grave, and a long earth-worm crawled across it. A man struck at the worm with his spade and broke the bone into three pieces. The worm was cut in two, and it fell back into the grave while one of the diggers threw the splinters of bone on top of it. Then they buried Old Nan, and everyone seemed