The Foolish Lovers | Page 8

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,"