CHAPTER III.
A MISERABLE HOME.
Upon arrival at their destination, Welsh seized his nephew and ward by the shoulders, and, looking fiercely in his face, informed him that his father was a mean and black-hearted scoundrel. Welsh declared that he had agreed to make Hugh his heir, with “the education of a gentleman,” in consideration of the sum of fifty pounds, but, as the “spalpeen” had only paid five pounds, Hugh would have to work for his bread and go without education; all emphasized by very strong words.
There was present at this family interview a tall, gaunt, half-naked savage called Gallagher, who expressed audible approval of Welsh’s remarks, and, at their close, called on the Blessed Virgin and all the saints to blast Hugh’s father and protect his uncle. This sanctimonious individual was the steward of Welsh’s house, and had formerly been his most valuable ally. Hugh’s father had once denounced Gallagher as a spy at a public gathering, whence he had been ignominiously ejected, and, in return, he had supplied the false evidence which led to the imprisonment and conviction of the three brothers. Gallagher had been of service to Welsh in many ways. He had aided Meg in the schemes which led to Mary Brontë becoming Welsh’s wife, and he had been a partner with Meg in the foundling business. Their ways of dealing with superfluous children had been effective. These were supposed to be carried to the Dublin Foundling Hospital, but, inasmuch as no questions were asked, and no receipts given, the guilty parents were satisfied that their offspring should go “where the wicked cease from troubling.” Gallagher was the original from which Emily Brontë drew her portrait of Joseph, in “Wuthering Heights,” just as Heathcliff is modelled on Welsh. It was to the companionship of this human monster that Welsh committed his little nephew and ward. His name became of common use in County Down as a synonym for objectionable persons, and is so still.
As soon as Welsh and Gallagher ceased speaking, Hugh looked around the mansion to which he had become presumptive heir. A happy pig with a large family lay on one side of the room, and a stack of peat was heaped up on the other side of the great open chimney. A broad, square bed stood in the end of the room, raised about a foot from the ground. The damp, uneven, earthen floor was unswept. On the backs of a few chairs, upholstered with straw ropes, a succession of hens perched, preliminary to flight to the cross-beams close up to the thatch. A lean, long-backed, rough-haired yellow dog stood by his side smelling him, without signs of welcome. Hugh listened to his uncle’s hard, rasping words, and in reply said:
“Are you going home soon?”
“You are at home now,” declared his uncle. “This is the only home you shall ever know, and you are beholden to me for it. Your father was 285 glad to be rid of you, and this is your gratitude to me! No airs here, my fine fellow. Get to bed out of my way, and I’ll find you something to do in the morning.”
But in the morning the child was unable to leave the bed where he had lain across his uncle and aunt’s feet, his slumbers incessantly disturbed by the grunting, squealing pigs. Welsh arose early to let out the animals, and then dragged little Hugh from his bed to resume the responsibility of heirship. The child tottered to the floor. His uncle’s fierce imprecations could not exorcise fever and delirium, and for many weeks little Hugh lingered between life and death. He remained weak and unable to go out during the winter, but he made many friends, of which the chief was the rough yellow dog. The child in return loved the great shaggy creature with all the strength of his poor crushed heart. But better than the devotion of the fowls, the pig and the dog, his Aunt Mary conceived a great affection for him, and grew to love him during his illness as her own child. When Welsh was absent, she would give him an egg, or a little fresh butter from the “meskin” prepared for market, or even a cup of peppermint tea; and over this, she told him secretly the tragic story of the Brontë family. In after years it was a satisfaction to Hugh to know that his cowardly uncle was no Brontë after all, and not even an Irishman.
The spring came early that year, and with it health and vigor. Hugh’s aunt had told him of the burning of the old Brontë house. The squalor and wretchedness of Welsh’s home, into which so many things crept at night, compared with the ruins of the house in which his father had been reared, made a lasting impression upon Hugh’s mind. But he was not left long to such reflections. As soon as he was able to go, he was sent to herd cattle, which were housed at night in the ruined rooms of the burnt edifice, with his dog, Keeper, for a faithful companion. Emily Brontë’s love for her dog, which was actually named Keeper, was a weak platonic affair compared with the tie that bound the desolate boy and friendless dog together.
In no land has attachment to home so firm a grip of the heart as in Ireland. Year followed year in slow procession, but Hugh grew up in solitariness, and his heart never ceased to yearn for the lost friends of his old home. His corduroy suit soon grew too small for him, and when his boots became unwearable, he was obliged to go bare-footed. His highest enjoyment was to be away with his dog somewhere, remote from the espionage of Gallagher, and the violent blasphemy of Welsh. But his idle days among the bees in the clover soon gave place to sterner duties. He had to gather potatoes in sleet and rain, collect stones from winter fields to drain bog-land, perform the drudgery of an ill-cultivated farm from sunrise to sunset, and then thresh and winnow grain in the barn until near midnight. His uncle hated him fiercely and bitterly, and once told him that he could never beat him when he did not deserve it, because, like a goat, he was always either going to mischief, or coming from it.
Hugh found Gallagher’s cunning malignity harder to endure than the harsh cruelty of his uncle. The boy’s clear instinct told him that Gallagher was a bad man, but sometimes his pent-up heart would overflow to the one human being near him in his working hours. When Gallagher had got all the secrets of the boy from him, he would denounce him to Welsh in such a way as to best stir up his cruelty; or he would mock at Hugh’s rags, and tell him that all of his evils had come upon him because of his father’s sins, assuring him that the Devil would carry him away from the barn some night, as he had often taken bad men’s sons before.
The cruelties practised upon the boy were Gallagher’s base revenge for the whippings formerly administered to him by Hugh’s father. Every means that cunning could devise was employed to render the boy’s life miserable. He would purloin eggs, break the farming-tools, and maim the cattle in order to 286 have him beaten by his uncle, a ceremony which he always managed to witness.