The house is built of stone, a farmhouse, built on ground that is thin and poor. In his family, he is the tenth child, and the last. When there is no room at the fire, he is kicked out into the yard.
Gradually, as he sees his siblings carried to the churchyard, room is made, but by then he is not accustomed to hearthside comforts, and the company of those who remain makes him uneasy.
At six years old he is sent out into the fields to pick stones, and also to scare crows. The crows watch him for any advantage. They circle in the air, talking about him in their intelligent voices. Sometimes he thinks they are plotting to take out his eyes.
Once your eyes are out you can’t get a second pair. He pictures himself flipping on his back like a landed fish, his spine flexing and arcing, beating the ungiving ground with the flat of his palms. The first scream is practising to come out of his mouth and the first stream of vomit. The crows have got his eyes in their beaks and are toddling over the ruts in the direction of East Kilbride.
There never was a man that wanted to be a great man ever was a great man. My present state of life I neither thought of nor could imagine. I am not a rich man, in fact I am poor, yet not poor in esteem; I say without boasting – pride not being in my nature—that the finest medical scholars of Europe have written me testimonials, and the most eminent surgeons in these islands and beyond crave for their sons a place at my table. And how, as the unmannerly Scots lad I am, could I have predicted this eminence?
While my brothers prospered at the academy, my school was the moor, hedge and field. I asked questions to which few knew the answer and none cared to give it. Why do the leaves fall? Why do the birds sing? They would hit me across the ear and shove me out into the stark, away from the smell of humanity. In the end I preferred it so, I liked the keen wind against the smoky fug, my silent company against their chattering. My outdoor life, the labour to which I was born, hardened my hands and my spirit. I was thought of small account, and believed I was. My eyes followed the turning leaf, the bird in flight, the moon’s phases.
His father, fifty when he was born and suffering with the gravel, frequently hit him across the ear. Mostly; whenever he saw him. This went on until he was thirteen, when his father died. By then he had acquired a high-shouldered look, and a habit of trying to see behind him.
London is like the sea and the gallows. It refuses none.
Sometimes on the journey, trapped in the ship’s stink and heave, they had talked about the premises they would have at journey’s end. They should be commodious, Vance said, and in a fashionable neighbourhood, central and well-lit, on a broad thoroughfare where the carriages of the gentry can turn without difficulty.
‘My brother has a lodging in St Clement’s Lane,’ Claffey said. ‘I don’t know if it’s commodious.’
Vance blew out through his lips. ‘Nest of beggars,’ he said. ‘As to your perquisites and your embellishments, Charlie, they say a pagoda is the last word in fashion.’
‘A pagoda?’ The Giant frowned. ‘I’d sooner a triumphal arch.’
‘Let’s see when we get there,’ Vance said. ‘I think we’ll call you Byrne, Charles Byrne. It’s more select.’
A lurch of the timbers, a fresh outswell of mould and fust; Jankin was sick—he had the knack and habit—on Claffey’s feet. Claffey kicked out. Hot words flew in the stinking space.
‘Will you have a story?’ the Giant soothed them. For the time must be passed, must be passed.
‘Go on,’ Vance said.
The Giant did not stop to ask what kind of story they would like, for they were contentious, like fretful children, and were in no position to know what was good for them. ‘One day,’ he began, ‘the son of the King of Ireland journeyed to the East to find a bride.’
‘Where East?’ Vance asked. ‘East London?’
‘Albania,’ the Giant said. ‘Or far Cathay.’
‘The Land of Nod,’ said Claffey, sneering. ‘The Kingdom of Cockaigne.’
‘Wipe yourself, stench-foot,’ O’Brien said, ‘then pin back your ears. Do you think I tell tales for the good of my soul?’
‘Sorry,’ Claffey said.
‘One day the son of the King of Ireland journeyed to the East to find a bride, and he hadn’t gone far on his road when he met a short green man. The strange gentleman hailed him, saying—’
‘I don’t like a tale with a short green man in it,’ Jankin said.
The Giant turned to him, patient. ‘If you will wait a bit, Jankin, the short green man will grow as big as the side of a hill.’
‘Oh,’ Jankin said.
The wind moaned, the boards creaked and shifted beneath them. From the deck the world appeared no longer solid but a concatenated jumble of grey dots, sometimes defined and sometimes fusing at the margins, the waves white and rearing, the clouds blackening en masse, the horizon crowded with their blocky forms and their outlines unnatural, like the sides of unimaginable buildings, set storey on storey like the tower of Babel. Conversing with the sailors—who cowered away from his bulk—the Giant found he had regained his command of the English language. One day, he thought, we will be making tales out of this. Our odyssey to the pith of London’s heart, to undying fame and a heavy purse. Rancour will be forgotten, and the reek of our fear in this ship’s dark hole. In those days Jankin will say, Do you remember, Claffey, when I was sick on your feet? And Claffey will clap him on the back, and say, O I do indeed.
And so at that time, after his father’s death and he being fourteen, fifteen years of age, John Hunter was still in the fields largely, the business of sending him to school having met with scant success. Having come home from the field to drink a bowl of broth, he heard one day a beating at the door, the main door of the house at Long Calderwood, and himself going to open it and propping out the door frame, short for his age but sturdy, his sleeves rolled and his red hands hanging, and there’s the carrier with some distressed bundle wrapped in a blanket. It’s human.
His first thought was that the man had been asked to transport some sick pauper, who being now about to take his leave of this mortal world was not required, I’ll thank you very much, to piss and shit his last in the cart, and so the fastidious tradesman was attempting to pass on his responsibilities and let some unsuspecting farmer’s floor be soiled. ‘Get off with you, and go to the devil!’ he’d cried, his temper even then being very hot if he thought anyone had made a scheme to take advantage of him.
But then from within the bundle came a long, strangulated coughing, and after that the words, ‘John, is that you, my brother John?’
His brow furrowing, John approached the cart, and pulled back the blanket where it obscured the man’s face. And who should it be, but his own dear brother James? James, who had taken a degree in theology? James, that was a gentleman? James, that had gone to London to join brother Wullie, and become a medical man, and a man of means? See how far education gets you.
‘Y’d
