About once a month I had a letter from mother. She was not much of a hand at the pen, and her letters were always short. Most of the time she wanted money, and I always sent home every penny that I could spare.
Sometimes I longed to go back again. In a boy's longing way I wanted to see Norah Ryan, for I liked her well. Her, too, I would remember when I got rich, and I would make her a great lady. These were some of my dreams, and they made me hate the look of MaCrossan's farm. Daily I grew to hate it more, its dirty lanes, the filthy byre, the low-thatched house, the pigs, cows, horses, and everything about the place. Everything was always the same, and I was sick of looking at the same things day after day for all the days of the year.
My mind was set on leaving MaCrossan, though his half-sister and himself liked me better than ever a servant was liked before in mid Tyrone. The thought of leaving them made me uncomfortable, but the voice that called me was stronger than that which urged me to stay. I had a longing for a new place, and the longing grew within me day after day. Over the hills, over the sea, and miles along some dusty road which I had never seen, some great adventure was awaiting me. Nothing would keep me back, and I wrote home to my own mother, asking if Micky's Jim wanted any new men to accompany him to Scotland. Jim was the boss of a potato-digging squad, and each year a number of Donegal men and women worked with him across the water.
Then one fine morning, a week later, and towards the end of June, this letter came from Micky's Jim himself:
"Dear Dermid,
"i am riting you these few lines to say that i am very well at present, hoping this leter finds you in the same state of health. Well, dear Dermid i am gathering up a squad of men and women to come and work with me beyont the water to dig potatoes in Scotland. there is a great lot of the Glenmornan people coming, Tom of the hill, Neds hugh, Red mick and Norah ryan, Biddy flannery and five or six more. Well this is to say that if you woud care to come i will keep a job open for you. Norah ryan, her father was drounded fishing in Trienna Bay so she is not going to be a nun after all. If you will come with me rite back and say so. your wages is going to be sixteen shillings a week accordingley. Steel away from your master and come to derry peer and meet me there, its on the twenty ninth of the month that we leave Glenmornan.
"Yours respectfuly,
"Jim Scanlon."
CHAPTER X THE LEADING ROAD TO STRABANE
"No more the valley charms me and no more the torrents glisten,
My love is plain and homely and my thoughts are far away;