“Fergus, what are you saying?” asked his mother.
“I am going away from here and I am going to push my fortune.” He looked out of the window and his eyes followed the twist of the road that ran like a ribbon away past the door of the house.
“But, Fergus dear—!”
“It does not matter, maghair (mother), what you say,” remarked the youth, interrupting his mother. “I am going away this very day. I have had it in my head for a long while. I’ll make you rich in the years to come. I’ll earn plenty of money.”
“That’s what they all say, child,” the mother interposed, and tears came into her eyes. “It’s more often a grave than a fortune they find in the black foreign country.”
“Could any place under the roof-tree of heaven be as black as this,” asked the youth excitedly. “There is nothing here but rags, poverty, and dirt; pigs under the bed, cows in the house, the rain coming through the thatch instead of seeping from the eaves, and the winds of night raving and roaring through wall and window. Then if by chance you make one gold guinea, half of it goes to Farley McKeown and the priest, and the other half of it goes to the landlord.”
“But Farley McKeown doesn’t get any money from us at all,” said the mother in a tone of reproof. “It is him that gives us money for the knitting.”
“Knitting!” exclaimed Fergus, rising to his feet and striding up and down the cabin. “God look sideways on the knitting! How much are you paid for your work? One shilling and threepence for a dozen pairs of stockings that takes the two of you more than a whole week to make. You might as well be slaves; you are slaves, slaves to the very middle of your bones! How much does Farley McKeown get for the stockings in the big towns away out of here? Four shillings a pair, I am after hearing. You get a penny farthing a pair; a penny farthing! If you read some of the books that comes home with the harvestmen you would not suffer Farley McKeown for long.”
“That is it,” said the mother, winding the thread round her knitting-irons. “That is it! It is the books that the harvestmen take home that puts the boy astray. It is no wonder that the priest condemns the books.”
“The priest!” said the youth in a tone of contempt. “But what is the good of talking to the likes of you? How much money have you in the house?”