Although the ploughman was a big hardy fellow, his taunt angered me, and made me blind to his physical advantages. I rushed at him head down and butted him in the stomach. He flattened out in the sink amidst the cow-dung, and once I got him down I jumped on him and rained a shower of blows on his face and body. The girls screamed, the cows jumped wildly in the stalls, and we were in imminent danger of getting kicked to death. So I heard later, but at that moment I saw nothing but the face which was bleeding under my blows. The ploughman was much stronger than I, and gripping me round the waist he turned me over, thus placing me under himself. I struggled gamely, but the man suddenly hit my head against the flagged walk and I went off in a swoon. When I came to myself, the farmer, the two girls, and the ploughman were standing over me.
I struggled to my feet, rushed at the man again, and taking him by surprise I was able to shove him against one of the cows in the stall nearest him. The animal kicked him in the leg, and, mad with rage, he reached forward and gripped me by the throat with the intention of strangling me. But I was not afraid; the outside world was non-existent to me at that moment, and I wanted to fight until I fell again.
The farmer interposed. We were separated and the ploughman left the byre. That night I did not sleep; my anger burned like a fire until dawn. The next day I felt dizzy and unwell, but that was the only evil result of the fight. The ploughman never spoke to me again, civilly or otherwise, and I was left in peace.
From start to finish the work on Braxey Farm was very wearisome, and the surroundings were soul-killing and spiritless. By nature I am sensitive and refined. A woman of untidy appearance disgusts me, a man who talks filthily without reason is utterly repellent to me. The ploughman with his loose jokes I loathed, the girls I despised even more than they despised me. Their dislike was more affected than real; my dislike was real though less ostentatious. It gave me no pleasure to tell a dirty slut that she was dirty, but a dirty woman annoyed me in those days. I could not imagine a man falling in love with one of those women, with their short, inelegant petticoats and hobnailed shoes caked with the dried muck of the farmyard. I could not imagine love in the midst of such filth, such squalid poverty. But I did not then understand the meaning of love; to me it was something which would exist when Norah Ryan became a lady, and when I had a grand house wherein to pay her homage. I am afraid that my knowledge of life was very small.
The talk of the two girls gave me the first real insight into love and all that it cloaks with the false covering of poetical illusion. Every poetical ideal, every charm and beauty which I had associated with love was dispelled by the talk of those two women. For a while I did not believe the things of which they spoke. My mind revolted. The ploughman and the two girls continued their disgusting anecdotes. I did my best not to listen. Knowing that I hated their talk the servants would persist in talking, and every particle of information collected by them was in course of time given to me.
My outlook on life became cynical and sour. I was a sort of outcast among men, liking few and liked by none. When the end of the season came I was pleased to get clear of Braxey Farm; the more familiar I became with the people the more I disliked them. The farmer paid me nine pounds, and explained that he retained the other thirty shillings because he had to learn me how to milk.
"Your feyther was a great liar," he added.
Out of my wages I sent seven pounds home to Glenmornan and kept the remainder for my own use, as I did not know when I could get a next job. My mother sent me a letter that another brother was born to me—the second since I left home—and asking me for some more money to help them along with the rent. But my disposition was changing; my outlook on life was becoming bitter, and I hated to be slave to farmers, landlords, parents, and brothers and sisters. Every new arrival into the family was reported to me as something for which I should be grateful. "Send home some more money, you have another brother," ran the letters, and a sense of unfairness crept over me. The younger members of the family were taking the very life-blood out of my veins, and on account of them I had to suffer kicks, snubs, cold and hunger. New brothers and sisters were no pleasure to me. I rebelled against the imposition and did not answer the letter.