Читать книгу The Rat-Pit - Patrick MacGill - Страница 19

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THE husband looked at his wife, and an expression of dread appeared on his face. “What does he say, Mary?”

“He is offering up no prayers for your soul.”

“Mother of God, be good to me!”

“You must pay him that pound at once, he says.”

“But barring what we are saving up for the landlord’s rent, bad scran to him! we have not one white shilling in the house.”

“That does not matter to the priest, the damned old pig!” exclaimed Fergus, who had been looking gloomily at the roof since he had spoken to Norah.

“Fergus!” the three occupants of the house exclaimed in one breath.

“What’s coming over the boy at all?” the mother went on. “It must be the books that Micky’s Jim takes over from Scotland that are bringing ruin to the gasair.”

“It is common sense that I am talking,” Fergus hotly replied. “What with the landlord, Farley McKeown, and the priest, you are all in a nice pickle!”

“The priest, Fergus!”

“Robbing you because he is a servant of the Lord; that is the priest’s trick,” the youth exclaimed. “We are feeding here with the cows and the pigs and we are not one bit better than the animals ourselves. I hate the place; I hate it and everything about it.”

“Sure you don’t hate your own people?” asked Norah, rising from her seat and going timidly up to her brother. “Sure you don’t hate me, Fergus?”

“Hate you?” laughed the young man stroking her hair with an awkward hand. “No one could hate you, because you are a little angel.... Now run away and sit down at the fire and warm yourself.... They are going to make you a nun, they say.”

There was a note of scorn in his voice, and he looked defiantly at his mother as he spoke.

“What better than a nun could she be?” asked the mother.

“I would rather see her a beggar on the rainy roads.”

“What is coming over you atall, Fergus?” asked the old man. “Last night, too, you were strange in your talk on the top of the sea.”

“How much money have you in the house?” Fergus asked, taking no heed of his father’s remark. “Ten shillings will be enough to take me out of the country altogether.”

“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?”

“Sure you are not going to leave us?” Norah exclaimed, gazing with large troubled eyes at her brother.

“I am,” snapped Fergus. “I am going away this evening. I’ll tramp the road to Derry and take the big boat from there to Scotland or some other place beyond the water. What are you crying for? Don’t be a baby, Norah! I’ll come back again and make you a lady. I’ll earn big piles of money and send it home at the end of every month.”

James Ryan looked at his wife, and a similar thought struck both of them at the same instant. The son had some book learning, and he might get on well abroad and amass considerable wealth, which he would share with his own people. The old man drew nearer to the fire and held out his bare feet, which were blue with cold, to the flames.

“If Fergus sends home money I’ll get a good strong and warm pair of boots,” he said to himself; then asked: “How much money is there in the teapot, Mary?”

“Twelve white shillings and sevenpence,” answered the wife. “No, it is only twelve shillings and sixpence. Norah took a penny with her to the town yesterday.”

“I have a ha’penny back with me,” said the child, drawing a coin from her weasel-skin purse. “I only spent half of the money on bread yesterday because I was not very hungry.”

“God be merciful to us! but the child is starving herself,” said the old woman, clutching eagerly at the coin which her daughter held towards her. “You can have half a gold guinea, Fergus, if you are going out to push your fortune.”