An Encounter
[...]
The man smiled as
before and said that when he was our age he had lots of sweethearts.
-Every boy, he said,
has a little sweetheart.
His attitude on this
point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of his age. In my heart
I thought that what he said about boys and sweethearts was reasonable.
But I disliked the words in his mouth, and I wondered why he shivered
once or twice as if he feared something or felt a sudden chill. As he
proceeded I noticed that his accent was good. He began to speak to us
about girls, saying what nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands
were and how all girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only
knew. There was nothing he liked, he said, so much as looking at a nice
young girl, at her nice white hands and her beautiful soft hair. He gave
me the impression that he was repeating something which he had learned
by heart or that, magnetized by some words of his own speech, his mind
was slowly circling round and round in the same orbit. At times he spoke
as if he were simply alluding to some fact that everybody knew, and at
times he lowered his voice and spoke mysteriously, as if he were telling
us something secret which he did not wish others to overhear. He repeated
his phrases over and over again, varying them and surrounding them with
his monotonous voice. I continued to gaze towards the foot of the slope,
listening to him.
After a long while
his monologue paused. He stood up slowly, saying that he had to leave
us for a minute or so, a few minutes, and, without changing the direction
of my gaze, I saw him walking slowly away from us towards the near end
of the field. We remained silent when he had gone. After a silence of
a few minutes I heard Mahony exclaim:
-I say! Look what
hes doing!
As I neither answered
nor raised my eyes, Mahony exclaimed again:
-I say
. Hes
a queer old josser!
-In case he asks
us for our names, I said, let you be Murphy and Ill be Smith.
[...]
After an interval the man spoke to me.
He said that my friend was a very rough boy, and asked did he get whipped
often at school. I was going to reply indignantly that we were not National
School boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent.
He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetized
again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre.
He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well
whipped. When a boy was rough and unruly there was nothing would do him
any good but a good sound whipping. A slap on the hand or a box on the
ear was no good: what he wanted was to get a nice warm whipping. I was
surprised at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced at his face. As
I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from
under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again.
The man continued
his monologue. He seemed to have forgotten his recent liberalism. He said
that if ever he found a boy talking to girls or having a girl for a sweetheart
he would whip him and whip him; and that would teach him not to be talking
to girls. And if a boy had a girl for a sweetheart and told lies about
it, then he would give him such a whipping as no boy ever got in this
world. He said that there was nothing in this world he would like so well
as that. He described to me how he would whip such a boy, as if he were
unfolding some elaborate mystery. He would love that, he said, better
than anything in this world; and his voice, as he led me monotonously
through the mystery, grew almost affectionate and seemed to plead with
me that I should understand him.
I waited till his
monologue paused again Then I stood up abruptly. Lest I should betray
my agitation I delayed a few moments, pretending to fix my shoe properly,
and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I bade him good-day. I went
up the slope calmly but my heart was beating quickly with fear that he
would seize me by the ankles. When I reached the top of the slope I turned
round and, without looking at him, called loudly across the field:
-Murphy!
My voice had an accent
of forced bravery in it, and I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had
to call the name again before Mahony saw me and hallooed in answer. How
my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! He ran as if
to bring me aid. And I was penitent; for in my heart I had always despised
him a little.
|