Free i 75f9a7096d34cea0 by Unknown

reached the couch she exclaimed loudly, Àh well, you've come round then; you're not going to die yet. My stars! I've never seen such a fight as that since I left God's country. You've got the strength of the devil in you, boy. D'you know you nearly throttled him? Of course he must have been half stunned with fallin' as he did on his back, else you wouldn't have got that far. But my! my! you nearly made a clean job of it.`
    `Be quiet! Maggie Ann, and get on with this job, or give the cloth to me.`
    `You sit back there, woman, and let me clean up his face, and then the mess on this good couch cover.
    My! I doubt if we'll get that out in the poss-tub.Àfter sponging his face and the hair above his ear she pointed to the slit in the lobe, saying now to Moira,
    `D'you think it'll need a stitch?`
    `Well, whether it does or it doesn't, you can't do it. No, I think if you just put a tight bandage round his head it might knit together overnight.`
    `Yes, perhaps it might. But look at that!` She pointed to his cheek and eye, `He's goin' to have a shiner there the morrow. And it's God's blessin' and the devil's luck that ring didn't meet up with his eye or else it would be out.`
    Ì'll say this much for you, Maggie Ann, you always look on the bright side. Now go and get something that'll act as a bandage.Àfter Maggie Ann had again left the room Moira, taking Daniel's hand, said,
    `Promise me, now promise me, 93 boy, you won't think about leaving. Oh, I know you could join the army, or the navy tomorrow, or you could go and live with Pattie and her man, and they would welcome you, I know that, but no one needs you as I do. I can't explain why, except to say that you lighten my days.`
    He turned his head away from her for he had become overwhelmed by the most unmanly feeling; he wanted to cry ...
    It was the following morning at six o'clock that he knew he couldn't leave the house, because Moira, after five hours of agony, gave birth to a dead child.
    3
    In one way, Hector was as good as his word: Daniel didn't return to school. The pleas put forth by Moira on his behalf received the answer, `He can go back tomorrow if you will provide the money to support him.`
    To this she had no answer; but for the first time in her life she wished that her Auntie Mattie were dead.
    The men in the yard showed no surprise when they were presented with another assistant. Their master had addressed them when they were all together, saying, `My son is not returning to school; he's going to learn the business. I am asking each one of you to show him the ropes of your particular trade.`
    That was all.
    Hector did not give Daniel the order when to begin work; it came through Moira. On the day Pattie was to be married, when he looked in on Moira, who was still in bed getting over the trauma of her loss, she said to him, `For my sake, Daniel, please don't go to Pattie's wedding; he has arranged that you go down to the farm this morning. The men are to show you what to do.Ànd it appeared that the men had arranged it among themselves how they were going to deal with the young master. First he came under the care of Barney Dunlop who, leading him into the cowshed, said,
    `This isn't my job, Master Daniel, but since Arthur Beaney left I've had to do me best, but`-- he grinned--Ì've been milking cows since the time I could toddle, so I know a little about them. Well now, we'll go and get them in and then
    we'll start.` 95
    So, during that first week, Daniel learned from one or the other: first, how to milk a cow; but he didn't have to learn how to dress a horse or attend a horse, because he had often done this during his holidays; he had as yet never ploughed a field or knocked staves into the ground to take the wire for fencing or turned the manure heap at the end of the yard. That job he found most distasteful, but he did it. They broke him in gently for that, by giving him the job of mucking out the stables.
    During that first week he went to bed weary, yet