for his patched and torn trousers, the boy had no other clothes. He picked himself up and stood cowering before the ganger. Two dirty pieces of tape crossed his bare shoulders and supported his trousers. His emaciated body was revealed in all its pathetic nakedness.
The spectacle was too much for Jean Gibson. She found herself hammering at the ganger with her bunched fists. So furious and unexpected was her attack that before he had time to ward her off she had knocked him off his balance and flung him to the ground.
She cried at that, in rage and in fear, for she had done a terrible thing. She feared the consequences would be terrible. But she experienced a fierce joy at having knocked the ganger down.
Jacob Scanlon picked himself up. He too was trembling with fear and rage. Never before had his authority been so violently challenged. But, worst of all, his morality had been outraged. He, a ganger and a man of such years as to command the utmost respect, had been cast to the ground in the execution of his duty by a rebellious child. His voice trembled as he spoke.
‘Go home! Leave this field! At once, do ye hear! I will not deal with you as ye deserve, ye infernal limb of Satan! I’ll speak to your father about you. The rest of you – get back to your work before I lay hands on you …’
Jean watched him as he spoke, his clenched fist raised above his head. His hat had been knocked off in his fall. She was intrigued, for all her fear, at the sight of his bald head: it was the first time she had ever seen his head uncovered.
Jacob Scanlon was a sight to arrest the eye. He wore an ancient mourning coat above his corduroy trousers. The lapels and top button were hidden under his straggling grey beard. Long wisps of dirty grey hair hung down from above his ears. The bald skin on the top of his head was a dirty grey colour and it had the appearance of wrinkling.
To Jean there was something about him in his bareheaded, arm-raised wrath, that suggested God. She turned and ran from the field.
Her mother listened to her and shook her head. The enormity of her offence could hardly be lessened. It would probably make things worse to intercede, on Jean’s behalf, with her husband. What basis could she find for an appeal? She had attacked Old Jacob: She had knocked him down and that not for what he had done to her but in defence of another. There was no case for appeal: no mitigating circumstances.
Yet Agnes Gibson was proud of her child. Jacob Scanlon deserved no pity. John MacMime was a fatherless boy and Jacob Scanlon should not have lifted his hand against him.
Tom Gibson came in for his dinner and it was plain that Jacob Scanlon had spoken to him. He had a look about him that bespoke a concentration upon serious things. His wife served the broth, however, as if there was nothing of an untoward nature portending.
Tom Gibson sat down at the head of the table and lifted his spoon. He knew that his soup was still on the warm side and that he could afford to let it cool. He raised his hand and beckoned to Jean, whose eyes, though now dry, bore clear evidence of recent tears.
Her father had the calm and judicial air of one presiding at a high court. He always prided himself on his justice – never condemning until he was satisfied of the exact nature of the offence.
‘Old Jacob tells me he had occasion to send ye home from the turnip field this morning – is that right?’
‘Yes, father.’
‘And what for, may I ask?’
‘I struck him.’
‘So ye admit ye struck him, do ye?’
Jean nodded.
‘Ah well, my lass, ye’d better begin at the beginning and give a full account of yourself.’
It was remarkable how clear and circumstantial an account she gave of that morning’s events. But she faltered when she came to the point when the ganger had shaken John MacMime from his coat.
‘Come on, now – the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Ye say old Jacob shook John MacMime out o’ his coat – it was an old one o ‘mine – but that’s beside the point.’
Tears came to Jean’s eyes.
‘He’d nae shirt on – oh, faither–’
‘Stop that, will ye! Stop that! I’m no’ finished with ye. So – John MacMime was naked, was he?’
‘Aye.’
‘And what then?’
‘I don’t know— I – I just ran at him— I didn’t mean to knock him down – he must have tripped – I’ll never do it again, faither—’
The wooden spoon was almost crushed in Tom Gibson’s hand. He saw the boy standing there in his bare feet, naked from the waist up, thin and pathetic in the bitter cold of the morning. He knew the boy well, knew his antecedents and his circmstances. The thought of Jacob Scanlon, the converted prayer mumbler, lifting his hand against the defenceless orphan enraged him as few things could have enraged him. He was glad that a child of his had gone to the defence of the defenceless. He would deal with Jacob Scanlon – by God! He would deal with Jacob Scanlon in such a manner that he would never raise his hand against a defenceless bastard in the parish for the rest of his days.
But for all that his daughter’s offence – the open rebellion against authority – could not be condoned.
‘Ye did wrong to lay hands on Jacob Scanlon. If I ever hear of the like happening I’ll flay the skin off your bones. But – and let this be a lesson to ye – just take the afternoon and the Bible into the corner and learn the 118th psalm and if ye haven’t it off by the time I come home ye can prepare yourself for the consequences.’
Relieved beyond expression that she had escaped severe corporal punishment, Jean turned and ran from the house.
Tom Gibson relaxed his grip on the spoon and passed it through the soup. He looked up to his wife.
‘Ye couldna blame her.’
‘No, Tom: I don’t think you could. It’s a pity to think of that puir unfortunate Johnny MacMime.’
‘Aye … if ye could look out anything for the laddie and take it down the night when it’s dark …’
‘I’ll see to that, Tom. God help a bairn in this world when he has neither father nor mother to look after him.’
‘Aye … but Jacob Scanlon should have known better than lay hands on that boy and that I’ll teach him this afternoon.’
He met old Jacob coming into the steading. Tom Gibson laid his immense hand on the ganger’s shoulder, causing him to wince.
‘Aye, Mr. Gibson – ye spoke to your lassie then?’
‘What passes between me and my lassie, Jacob Scanlon, is my business. But you’ve done something to-day that’ll never be forgiven ye.’
‘Me, Mr. Gibson? Whatever may that have been?’
‘For taking advantage of a fatherless bairn.’
The grip tightened painfully on the old ganger’s shoulder.
‘It’ll take a damned lot o’ praying to pray that away. Ye may be an old man, Jacob, and deserving some respect for your grey hairs – but, lift your hand to that bairn again and I’ll break your bloody back with my own hands – grey hairs or no grey hairs.’
‘But Mr. Gibson–’
‘That’s enough.’
Tom Gibson released his grip from the ganger’s shoulder: he recoiled as if he had been struck. The grieve turned in his step and strode off towards the stables.
Jacob Scanlon rubbed his aching shoulder. Under his bushy grey eyebrows his eyes burned black with hatred. A stream of scarcely audible but filthy curses poured from his grey whiskered lips.