The great world voice is calling and with throbbing heart I listen,
And I cannot but obey; I cannot but obey."
—From Songs of the Dead End.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth of June, 1905, I left Jim MaCrossan's, and went out to hoe turnips in a field that lay nearly half a mile away from the farmhouse. I had taken a hoe from a peg on the wall of the barn, and had thrown it across my shoulder, when MaCrossan came up to me.
"See an' don't be late comin' in for yer dinner, Dermod," he said. "Ye'll know the time be the sun."
That was his last speech to me, and I was sorry at leaving him, but for the life of me I could not tell him of my intended departure. There is no happiness in leaving those with whom we are happy. I liked MaCrossan more because of his strength than his kindness. Once he carried an anvil on his back from Lisnacreight smithy to his own farmhouse, a distance of four miles. When he brought it home I could not lift it off the ground. He was a wonderful man, powerful as a giant, good and kindly-spoken. I liked him so much that I determined to steal away from him. I was more afraid of his regret than I would be of another man's anger.
I slung the hoe over my shoulder and whistled a wee tune that came into my head as I plodded down the cart-road that led to the field where the turnips were. The young bullocks gazed at me over the hedge by the wayside, and snorted in make-believe anger when I tried to touch their cold nostrils with my finger-tips. The crows on the sycamore branches seemed to be very friendly and merry. I could almost have sworn that they cried, "Good morning, Dermod Flynn," as I passed by.
The lane was alive with rabbits at every turn. I could see them peering out from their holes under the blossomed hedgerows with wide anxious eyes. Sometimes they ran across in front of me, their ears acock and their white tufts of tails stuck up in the air. I never thought once of flinging a stone at them that morning; I was out on a bigger adventure than rabbit-chasing.
A little way down I met MaCrossan's half-sister, Bridgid. She had just taken out the cows and was returning to the house after having fastened the slip rails on the gap of the pasture field.
"The top o' the mornin' to ye, Dermod," she cried.