Ofttime when working by the stream in the bottomlands, I would lay down my hay-rake or shearing hook and spend an hour or two looking at the brown trout as they darted over the white sand at the bottom of the quiet pools. Sometimes I would turn a pin, put a berry on it and throw it into the water. I have caught trout in that fashion many a time. Bennet came across me fishing one day and he gave me a blow on the cheek. I did not hit him back; I felt afraid of him. Although twelve years of age, I don't think that I was much of a man after all. If anybody struck Micky's Jim in such a manner he would strike back as quickly as he could raise his fist. But I could not find courage to tighten my knuckles and go for my man. When he turned away from me, my eyes followed his ungainly figure till it was well out of sight. Then I raised my fist and shook it in his direction.
"I'll give you one yet, my fine fellow, that will do for you!" I cried.
Although I idled when alone in the fields I always kept up my own end of the stick when working with others. I was a Glenmornan man, and I couldn't have it said that any man left me behind in the work of the fields. When I fell under a burden no person felt the pain as much as myself. A man from my town should never let anything beat him. When he cannot carry his burden like other men, and better than other men, it cuts him to the heart, and on almost every occasion when I stumbled and fell I almost wished that I could die on the bare ground whereon I stumbled. But every day I felt that I was growing stronger, and when Lammastide went by I thought that I was almost as strong even as my master. When alone I would examine the muscles of my arms, press them, rub them, contract them and wonder if I was really as strong of arm as Joe Bennet himself. When I worked along with him in the meadowlands and corn-fields he tried to go ahead of me at the toil; but for all he tried he could not leave me behind. I was a Glenmornan man, proud of my own townland, and for its sake and for the sake of my own people and for the sake of my own name I was unwilling to be left behind by any human being. "A Glenmornan man can always handspike his own burden," was a word with the men at home, and as a Glenmornan man I was jealous of my own town's honour.
'Twas good to be a Glenmornan man. The pride of it pulled me through my toil when my bleeding hands, my aching back and sore feet well nigh refused to do their labour, and that same pride put the strength of twenty-one into the spine of the twelve-year-old man. But God knows that the labour was hard! The journey upstairs to bed after the day's work was a monstrous futility, and often I had hard work to restrain from weeping as I crawled weakly into bed with maybe boots and trousers still on. Although I had not energy enough remaining to take off my clothes I always went on my knees and prayed before entering the bed, and once or twice I read books in my room even. Let me tell you of the book which interested me. It was a red-covered volume which I picked up from some rubbish that lay in the corner of the room, and was called the History of the Heavens. I liked the story of the stars, the earth, the sun and planets, and I sat by the window for three nights reading the book by the light of the moon, for I never was allowed the use of a candle. In those nights I often said to myself: "Dermod Flynn, the heavens are sending you light to read their story."
CHAPTER VII A MAN OF TWELVE
"'Why d'ye slouch beside yer work when I am out o' sight?'
'I'm hungry, an' an empty sack can never stand upright.'"
* * * * *