‘Mr Brock?’
A woman’s voice brought him to his senses and he turned as a ragged woman ran from the poor-house toward him.
‘It’s about Shelagh, Mr Brock. We were friends. She was good to me when my child died.’
The voice was that of a young woman but the face turned up to his was lined with care and defeat.
‘You know where she is?’ Nathan Brock’s hopes soared.
‘No … but I know where she was going. She said she would go to Wexford, to seek you. I work in the kitchen here. I managed to get some food for her to take to eat along the way.’
‘Bless you! But did she say where in Wexford she was going?’
‘I’m not sure. It might have been Wexford Town.’
Behind them a door slammed inside the poor-house and noise spilled out on the street.
‘You’d best be getting far away from here as quickly as you can, Mr Brock. The master is a spiteful man. He’ll have the constabulary out looking for you in no time.’
‘The constabulary know better than to search the countryside for a man in the dark. When did Shelagh leave?’
‘It will be four weeks ago on Tuesday. She was hoping to find you before Christmas. She had told the boys you would all be together again by then.’
‘God help them all.’ Anything could have happened by now. Nathan Brock felt sick inside at the thought of his family wandering for a month, friendless and without money.
The woman standing before him shivered uncontrollably in the night air, and Nathan Brock put a big hand on her shoulder.
‘Thank you for telling me … and for helping Shelagh when she needed a friend. You had better go inside before the master misses you and suspects you of talking to me.’
‘I’ll pray that you find Shelagh and the boys, Mr Brock. She was the only friend I ever had in this place.’
The woman turned and ran for the poor-house door. As she reached it she was engulfed in a crowd of complaining inmates. The enraged poor-house master had turned them all out of the building to search for Nathan Brock.
The noise quickly roused the whole town. Men holding lighted torches advanced on the poor-house, and Nathan Brock thought it was time to make his escape. Slipping into the dark shadows between two houses, he ran silently away from the scene of chaos behind him.
He was about to begin a search that would test the power of prayer, and his own determination, to its limits.
Nathan Brock followed the road southward until a late dawn broke over the hills. The road had been constructed during an earlier famine, when men had been employed on such public works. Because there would be no more work when it was completed, the road swung this way and that, covering twice as many miles as it might otherwise have done. Even so, Nathan Brock had put a considerable distance between himself and Rathconard.
He left the road and plunged into the forest that came down to the road on either side, pushing his way through the clumps of hazel and blackberry that tangled the forest floor.
Finding a dry nook in the shelter of an ancient oak-tree, he settled down to sleep away the daylight hours. A mile ahead the forest gave way to rich farmland and, as he was still in County Wicklow, Nathan Brock preferred to pass through this area unnoticed.
Sleep was long in coming to him. He tried to put himself in Shelagh’s place and work out where she might go. It was impossible. She could be anywhere south of where he lay. She might even have changed her mind and gone north to Dublin. He tried not to think of the other alternative, but once, when he dozed off, he dreamed that he found them in one of the cottier communities of death that he had so often seen.
Eventually, Nathan Brock slept, but it was only for a couple of hours. He was brought awake by the high-pitched protest of an ungreased cart-axle. The horse was labouring up the hill from the unwooded valley, and Nathan Brock could hear the cursing of the farmer as he goaded the beast to greater effort.
He could hear another, younger voice, too, speaking in plaintive tones, but could not make out what was being said.
Curious, Nathan Brock left his bed of dry leaves and made his way to the top of a high ivy-covered bank beside the road as a farmer’s cart passed by. It was laden with swedes and bundles of green kale – but that was not all. Lying uncomfortably balanced on top of the nobbly swedes, bound hand and foot, was Jeremy, the boy who had run away from Kathie and Kilmar a few weeks before. It was he who was doing the pleading. As Nathan Brock watched, the boy struggled to a sitting position and said something to the man holding the reins. The farmer turned around and with a backward cuff of his hand knocked Jeremy to a prone position once more.
The farmer’s cart squeaked on its way for another quarter of a mile until it reached one of the steepest sections of the road through the hills. Here the road twisted to and fro across the slope in a bid to lessen the gradient. On one of the sharp bends the farmer saw a man reclining on the grassy bank beside the road, apparently asleep. As the cart drew nearer, the resting man moved and a hand rose to push back the soft-brimmed hat from his eyes and look upon the approaching farmer with exaggerated surprise.
The reclining figure was Nathan Brock. Just before the cart reached him, he rose to his feet and stepped out to the centre of the road, brushing himself down with great care.
The farm vehicle creaked to a halt as Nathan Brock completed his grooming and gave the farmer a beaming smile.
‘Good day to you, sir. It’s a fine day for this time of year.’
‘Get off the road and let me pass. I’m late enough for market as it is.’
‘Market, you say?’ Nathan Brock walked around the cart and gave the incredulous Jeremy a cheerful wink. ‘You have a fine load of swede and kale, but I can’t see you getting much for the young boy. He’s far too thin.’
‘He’s on his way to the constable. I caught him stealing. Caught him red-handed.’
‘Did you, now? And what was he stealing? Cattle? Sheep? Your valuables?’
‘He was stealing ducks. He crawled into their house during the night and wrung the necks of two of them.’
The farmer moved a bundle of kale to one side and exposed the corpses of two plump white ducks.
‘I’ve brought the evidence to show the constable.’
Nathan nodded seriously. ‘Nothing is safe these days. You must have a hard time with so many hungry cottiers ready to steal food wherever they can.’
The farmer snorted. ‘They are no problem to me. I threw them off my land when the potato failed and I had the Army behind me. They know better than to come back and try anything.’
‘But take this youngster, now. Wouldn’t it save you a lot of trouble to give him a whipping and send him on his way with a sore backside to remind him of the virtues of honesty?’
‘Not him! You only have to look at his face. He’s a vicious young rogue if ever I saw one. A few months in prison will do him a power of good.’
Jeremy looked pleadingly at Nathan Brock. ‘It won’t just be a few months in prison. I’ve been caught stealing before. I was whipped then. Now it will be transportation for sure.’
‘There! I told you he was a rogue,’ said the farmer triumphantly. ‘Perhaps they’ll hang him this time. A good riddance to him, too, I would say.’
‘You would have them hang a hungry boy for stealing two ducks?’ Nathan Brock’s voice had dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘Yes, I believe you would. A man who would turn out poor cottiers to certain death would not care about one more young boy.’
‘I am running a farm, not a poor-house…. But you have held me up for long enough. Stand aside, if you please. Get up there!’
The farmer raised his short whip above his head, but before he could bring it down upon the flanks of his horse Nathan Brock reached forward and took a grip of the farmer’s long coat. With a single jerk of his powerful arm he lifted the farmer from his seat and stood him on the road.
‘Why, you….’ The farmer brought his whip down hard on Nathan Brock
’s shoulder.
The ex-prizefighter released his grip on the farmer and, bringing his fist back no more than six inches, he jabbed it almost casually up to the other man’s chin.
The farmer slumped to the ground without a sound and, stepping over him, Nathan Brock swung himself up on the cart. Leaning over the boy he quickly released his hands, leaving him to untie his own ankles.
‘That was a beautiful punch.’ There was hero-worship in Jeremy’s eyes.
‘Never mind the talk. Hurry up and free yourself. The farther we get from this road, the happier I shall be.’
‘Just a minute.’ Jeremy freed his feet but stopped to delve beneath the kale. When he leaped from the cart he was holding the two ducks by their long white necks, and there was the bulge of at least two swedes inside his ragged shirt. ‘I couldn’t leave these ducks behind, not after all the trouble they’ve caused you.’
Nathan Brock and Jeremy were two miles from the road, in a remote treed valley, before they stopped to light a fire and cook Jeremy’s ill-gotten booty.
‘What were you doing down among the farmlands?’ asked Nathan Brock. ‘Where are your friends?’
‘They were no friends of mine,’ said the boy briefly. ‘I left them as soon as I could, and I was down in the valley because I was hungry and there is nothing up here to eat.’
‘Nothing to steal, you mean. You’d best stay well clear of farms for a while, my lad. There will be a noose waiting for you one day for sure if you carry on the way you are going.’ Nathan Brock tried not to look at the ducks roasting over the fire. ‘I must be on my way as soon as I have eaten. Will you be returning to the mountains?’
Jeremy shrugged. ‘One way is the same as any other for me. There’s no place in particular I want to go. I’ll come along with you for a while.’
‘Oh no! Trouble follows you around like a tinker’s dog. I have enough of my own. I’m off to Wexford to search for my wife and family. I can do it better without your company.’
‘Two people can look in twice as many places as one. I’ll be no trouble to you, Nathan – and I promise not to steal anything … unless we’re going hungry. You won’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to.’
Jeremy tried desperately to think of a plea that Nathan Brock could not refuse, but nothing would come to him. ‘Besides, I’ve got nowhere else to go,’ he ended lamely.
It was this last stark statement that got through to Nathan Brock. It brought back painful memories of his own childhood, unwanted by parish or poor-house.
‘If I take you along with me, you look after yourself – and that means getting out of trouble as well as getting into it. I haven’t time to worry about you.’
‘You won’t have to, Nathan, honest you won’t. I’ll do everything just the way you tell me. Cross my heart and hope to die if I don’t.’
Jeremy spat on his finger-tip and made the sign of a cross on his chest where he vaguely imagined his heart to be.
‘All right.’ Nathan Brock was moved by the boy’s desperate bid to avoid being left alone, but he had other things on his mind. ‘Just remember that I am not going to wander aimlessly about County Wexford. My family is out there somewhere. They set off from Rathconard a month ago with no money and very little food. We need to find them quickly.’
Nathan Brock feared it might already be too late, but that was a half-thought he would never put into words.
‘We’ll find them, Nathan, don’t you worry. We’ll set off as soon as we’ve eaten these ducks. Here, this one is ready now.’
Jeremy laid one of the spit-roasted birds on a rock and, taking the knife that Nathan Brock held out to him, cut the duck in two. After only the slightest hesitation, he handed the larger portion of the bird to Nathan Brock.
In this simple manner, Jeremy made the first truly unselfish gesture of his young life.
Chapter Sixteen
A severe storm delayed Liam on the English side of the Irish Sea and he did not arrive in Kilmar until the year 1845 had only a few dark hours to run. He travelled alone. Eugene Brennan had intended returning with him but was forced to change his mind at the last moment. A Coercion Bill was being introduced to an emergency session of Parliament. Once passed it would enable the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to impose martial law in any area he wished, giving the Army almost unlimited powers. The Irish MP knew he had little hope of succeeding, but he intended fighting the Bill at every stage of its passage through the House of Commons.
Norah McCabe was sitting in her kitchen with only the flickering flames from the fire lighting the room. Bringing up two boys without a husband, she had long ago learned the futility of tears, but after a week alone in the house her relief at seeing Liam broke her hard-won composure. She clung to him as he comforted her and fought desperately to regain control of herself.
Afterwards, she busied herself with familiar things, cooking a meal for her elder son as she told him of the events that had prompted her to send for him, and of the flight of Dermot and the others to avoid the soldiers.
‘This wound of Dermot’s, is it bad?’
‘Bad enough, but he’d had a few days’ rest, and with Kathie to look after him I’m sure he’ll make out. But what does the future hold for him, Liam? He’s a hunted man and will never be able to show his face in Kilmar again.’
‘I doubt if anyone here would turn Dermot over to the soldiers. On the other hand, someone must have given them the names of those who took part in this stupid raid. I can’t believe it was Sean Feehan. Seventeen he might have been, but he was as much of a man as anyone else I know.’
Liam looked at his mother. ‘What I really can’t understand is why Kathie went off with the others. She wasn’t involved.’
‘She felt Dermot needed her – and she blamed herself for encouraging him to carry out the raid on the wagons.’ Norah McCabe wished her son’s thoughts were easier to read; she could tell nothing of his feelings from his face.
‘Then she’ll be back again when Dermot is well?’
‘I don’t think so. She said she would not return until Dermot was able to come with her.’
‘Does Dermot have an understanding with her?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that – and I am sure she will be back in Kilmar as soon as Dermot is well enough to look after himself, for all she has said she won’t.’
Norah McCabe prayed she might be proved right. She believed Liam and Kathie would make a fine couple, and it was high time he settled down. Something had happened to him while he was in London, she was sure of that. Something had unsettled him, but Norah McCabe knew her son too well to ask him what it was. She would find out in due course; for now it was enough that he was home.
‘Is there anything we can do to help Dermot?’ Norah McCabe watched her son tuck into a meal as though he had not eaten during the whole of the time he had been away.
‘Not for the moment. As soon as I can I will go to the Wicklow mountains and see how he is, but I would like to know what the Army intend doing first. I doubt if they will simply go away and forget anything happened.’
Liam was quite right. The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland was furious that no one had been arrested for the attack on the corn-wagons and he ordered the army commander to take retaliatory action against Kilmar.
The same company of Gordon Highlanders as before entered the village at dawn, a week after Liam’s return. They had marched from Dublin to carry out a well-planned operation. While some soldiers sealed off the roads from the village, others went to the houses of the men known to have been on the raid against the wagons and unceremoniously kicked in the doors to search for the wanted men.
The Captain in charge of the Highlanders had expected to take the outlaws by surprise and was angry to have failed. Liam was taken from his bed and spent a cold and uncomfortable hour convincing the Captain that he was not Dermot.
Then, when Liam was evidently freed, the officer called him back before he had walked ten paces.
‘Your
brother has a fishing boat. Where is it?’
‘It’s a family boat, not my brother’s.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Tied up alongside the quay.’ Liam had spent the previous day cleaning the boat and checking his fishing equipment, ready for an expected change in the weather.
‘I have been instructed to take and destroy all property of value belonging to those members of the All-Ireland Association involved in the attack on English soldiers and the wagons they were guarding. Sergeant.’
The officer called to a giant of a man who wore three gold stripes on the sleeve of his red tunic. ‘Take an axe and go down to the quay. Find the rebel McCabe’s boat and destroy it. Then do the same with the boats used by the other men.’
‘But I have already told you – it is a family boat. As the elder son it is more my boat than Dermot’s. The same goes for the curraghs belonging to the others. They are all young single men. I doubt if there is one of them with his own boat.’
‘That makes no difference to me. Let it be a reminder to Kilmar to keep its sons within the law in the future. You have your orders, Sergeant.’
Liam took a step toward the Captain, his fists clenched, and immediately two of the kilted soldiers lowered their bayoneted muskets to bar his way.
‘Make one more threatening move and you will find yourself in Dublin Jail,’ said the Highland Captain. ‘I’m not fussy which McCabe I take. I don’t doubt you were both involved.’
‘I have already told you I was in London when the raid took place,’ said Liam angrily. ‘Even an English court would have difficulty in getting around that fact. But you don’t really care, do you, Captain? You have been sent out after Irish blood and you don’t mind whose it is you spill. Just be careful, Captain. You’ll find an Englishman’s blood spills as easily as an Irishman’s.’
Liam’s anger had prompted him to say more than was wise and, turning his back on the officer, he strode away toward the quay.
The Music Makers Page 15