Chapter IV

John did not wish to imitate his Uncle Matthew ... he did not wish to imitate anyone ... for, although he could not discover that "quareness" in him which other people professed to discover, yet when he saw how inactive Uncle Matthew was, how dependent he was on Uncle William and, to a less extent, on Mrs. MacDermott, and how he seemed to shrink from things in life, which, when he read about them in books, enthralled him, John felt that if he were to model his behaviour on that of anyone else, it must not be on the behaviour of Uncle Matthew. Uncle William had a quick, decided manner ... he knew exactly what he wanted and often contrived to get what he wanted. John remembered that his Uncle William had said to him once, "John, boy, if I want a thing and I can't get it, I give up wanting it!"

"But you can't help wanting things, Uncle William," John had protested.

"No, boy, you can't" Uncle William had retorted, "but the Almighty God's given you the sense to understand the difference between wanting things you can get and wanting things you can't get, and He leaves it to you to use your sense. Do you never suppose that I want something strange and wonderful to happen to me the same as your Uncle Matthew there, that sits dreaming half the day over books? What would become of you all, your ma and your Uncle Matthew and you, if I was to do the like of that I? Where would your Uncle Matthew get the money to buy books to dream over if it wasn't for me giving up my dreams?..."

John's heart had suddenly filled with pity for his Uncle William whom he saw as a thwarted man, an angel expelled from heaven, reduced from a proud position in a splendid society to the dull work of one who maintains others by small, but prolonged, efforts. He felt ashamed of himself and of Uncle Matthew ... even, for a few moments, of his mother. Here was Uncle William, working from dawn until dark, denying himself this pleasure and that, refusing to go to the "shore" with them in the summer on the assertion that he was a strong man and did not need holidays ... doing all this in order that he might maintain three people in comfort and ... yes, idleness! Mrs. MacDermott might be excluded from the latter charge, for she attended to the house and the cooking, but how could Uncle Matthew and himself expect to escape from it? Uncle Matthew had more hope than he had, for Uncle Matthew sometimes balanced the books for Uncle William, and did odds and ends about the shop. He would write out the accounts in a very neat hand and would deliver them, too. But John made no efforts at all. He was the complete idler, living on his Uncle's bounty, and making no return for it.

He was now in his second year of monitorship at the school where his Uncle Matthew had been a teacher, and was in receipt of a few pounds per annum to indicate that he was more than a pupil; but the few pounds were insufficient to maintain him ... he knew that ... and even if they had been sufficient, he was well aware of the fact that his Uncle William had insisted that the whole of his salary should be placed in the Post Office Savings Bank for use when he had reached manhood.... He made a swift resolve, when this consciousness came upon him: he would quit the school and enter the business, so that he could be of help to his Uncle William.

"Will you let me leave the school, Uncle?" he said. "I'm tired of the teaching, and I'd like well to go into the shop with you!"

Uncle William did not answer for a little while. He was adding up a column of figures in the day-book, and John could hear him counting quietly to himself. "And six makes fifty-four... six and carry four!" he said entering the figures in pencil at the foot of the column.

"What's that you say, John, boy?"

"I want to leave school and come into the shop and help you," John answered.

"God love you, son, what put that notion into your head?"

"I don't want to be a burden to you, Uncle William!"

"A burden to me!" Uncle William swung round on the high office stool and regarded his nephew intently. "Man, dear, you're no burden to me! Look at the strength of me! Feel them muscles, will you?" He held out his tightened arm as he spoke. "Do you think a wee fellow like you could be a burden to a man with muscles like them, as hard as iron?"

But John was not to be put off by talk of that sort. "You know rightly what I mean," he said. "You never get no rest at all, and here's me still at the school!..."

"Ah, wheesht with you, boy!" Uncle William interrupted. "What sort of talk is this? You will not leave the school, young man! The learning you're getting will do you a world of benefit, even if you never go on with the teachering. You're a lucky wee lad, so you are, to be getting paid to go to school. There was no free learning when I was a child, I can tell you. Your grandda had to pay heavy for your da and your Uncle Matthew and me. Every Monday morning, we had to carry our fees to the master. Aye, and bring money for coal in the winter or else carry a few sods of turf with us if we hadn't the money for it. That was what children had to do when I was your age, John. I tell you there's a queer differs these times between schooling from what there was when I was a scholar, and you'd be the great gumph if you didn't take advantage of your good fortune!"

"But I'd like to _help_ you, Uncle William. Do you not understand me? I want to be doing something for you!" John insisted.

"I understand you well enough, son. You've been moidhering your mind about me, but sure there's no call for you to do that. No call at all! Now, not another word out of your head! I've said my say on that subject, and I'll say no more. Go on with your learning, and when you've had your fill of it, we'll see what's to be done with you. How much is twelve and nine?"

"Twenty-one, Uncle William!"

"Twenty-one!" said Uncle William, at his day-book again. "Nine and carry one!..."

In this way Uncle William settled John's offer to serve in the shop, and restored learning and literature to his affection and esteem. John had not given in so easily as the reader may imagine. He had insisted that his Uncle William worked much too hard, had even hinted that Uncle Matthew spent more time over books than he spent over "_the_ books," the day-book and the ledger; but his Uncle William had firmly over-ruled him.

"Books are of more account to your Uncle Matthew than an oul' ledger any day," he said, "and it'll never be said that I prevented him from reading them. We all get our happiness in different ways, John, and it would be a poor thing to prevent a man from getting his happiness in his way just because it didn't happen to be your way. Books are your Uncle Matthew's heart's-idol, and I wouldn't stop him from them for the wide world!"

"But he does nothing, Uncle William," John said, intent on justice, even when it reflected on his beloved Uncle.

"I know, but sure the heart was taken out of him that time when he was arrested for breaking the man's window. It was a terrible shock to him, that, and he never overed it. You must just let things go on as they're going. I don't believe you'll foe content to be a teacher. Not for one minute do I believe that. But whatever you turn out to be, it'll be no harm to have had the extra schooling you're getting, so you'll stay on a monitor for a while longer. And now quit talking, do, or you'll have me deafened with your clatter!"

Uncle William always put down attempts to combat his will by assertions of that sort.

"Are you angry with me, Uncle William?" John anxiously asked.

"Angry with you, son?" He swung round again on the high stool. "Come here 'til I show you whether I am or not!"

And then Uncle William gathered him up in his arms and crushed the boy's face into his beard. "God love you, John," he said, "how could I be angry with you, and you your da's son!"

"I love you queer and well, Uncle," John murmured shyly.

"Do you, son? I'm glad to hear that."

"Aye. And I love my Uncle Matthew, too!..."

"That's right. Always love your Uncle Matthew whatever you do or whatever happens. He's a man that has more need of love nor most of us. Your da loved him well, John!"

"Did he?"

"Aye, he did, indeed!" Uncle William put his pen down on the desk, and leaning against the ledger, rested his head in the cup of his hand. "Your da was a strange man, John," he said, "a queer, strange man, with a powerful amount of knowledge in his head. That man could write Latin and Greek and French and German, and he was the first man in Ballyards to write the Irish language ... and them was the days when people said Irish was a Papist language, and would have nothing to do with it. Your da never paid no heed to anyone... he just did what he wanted to do, no matter what anyone said or who was against him. Many's the time I've heard him give the minister his answer, and the high-up people, too. When Lord Castlederry came bouncing into the town, ordering people to do this or to do that, just because the Queen's grandson was coming to the place, your da stood up fornenst him and said, as bold as brass, 'The people of this town are not Englishmen, my lord, to be ordered about like dogs! They're Ballyards men, and a Ballyards man never bent the knee to no one!' That was what your da said to him, and Lord Castlederry never forgot it and never forgave it neither, but he could do no harm to us, for the MacDermotts owned land and houses in Ballyards before ever a Castlederry put his foot in the place. He was a proud man your da, with a terrible quick temper, but as kindly-natured a man as ever drew breath. Your ma thinks long for him many's a time, though I think there were whiles he frightened her. Your Uncle Matthew and me is poor company for her after living with a man like that."

"Am I like my da, Uncle William! My ma says sometimes I am ... when she's angry with me!"

"Sometimes you're like him and sometimes you're like her. You'll be a great fellow, John, if you turn out to be like your da. I tell you, boy, he was a man, and there's few men these times ... only a lot of oul' Jinny-joes, stroking their beards and looking terrible wise over ha'penny bargains!"

"And then he died, Uncle William!"

"Aye, son, he died. You were just two years old when he died, a little, wee child just able to walk and talk. I mind it well. He called me into the bedroom where he was lying, and he bid the others leave me alone with him. Your ma didn't want to go, but he wouldn't let her stay, and so she went, too. 'William,' he said, when the door was shut behind them, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' Them was his very words, John, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' I couldn't answer him, so I just nodded my head. He didn't say anything more for a wee while, but lay back in the bed and breathed hard, for he was in pain, and couldn't breathe easy. Then, after a wee while, he looked round at me, and he said, 'I'm only thirty-one, William, and I'm dying. And oul' Peter Clancy up the street, that's been away in the head since he was a child, is over sixty years of age!... I thought he was going to spring out of the bed when he said that, the temper come over him so quick and sudden, but I held him down and begged him to control himself, and he quietened himself. I heard him saying, half under his breath, 'And God thinks He knows how to rule the world!' He died that night, rebellious to the end!... He said he depended on me to look after you all, and I've tried hard, John, as hard as I could!"

His voice quavered, and he turned away from his nephew. "Your da was my hero," he said. "I'd have shed my heart's blood for him. It was hard that him that was the best of us should be the first to go!"

John stood by his uncle's side, very moved by his distress, but not knowing what to do to comfort him.

"My da would be queer and proud of you, Uncle William," he said at last, "queer and proud if he could see you!"

But Uncle William did not answer nor did he look round.