‘Here, take these. We’ve had a collection among ourselves. Use it for those people up the hill. We’ll not be troubling you again. We are returning to barracks in Scotland next month and there is talk of the regiment going to India later in the year.’
The Scots sergeant moved away before Liam could thank him and, her brief encounter with the captain at an end, Caroline moved through the ranks of the soldiers toward him.
‘Come, Liam, this ridiculous misunderstanding has wasted precious time. If you will send someone to show the doctors where the poor cottiers are lying, you and I will have a talk to your priest and Eugene to see what more we can do.’
With Caroline holding his arm and Tommy Donaghue walking on his other side, Liam walked away from the soldiers who had been holding him prisoner and they moved back respectfully to allow him to pass.
‘Perhaps we might talk in your cottage, Liam. It is very cold out here.’
Caroline shivered in an exaggerated manner, but she was smiling at Liam and the relieved fisherman returned the smile. He knew that had she not come to his rescue he would have been taken to Dublin and thrown in jail until he was able to prove his innocence.
The sight of her son and this elegant woman smiling at each other in such an intimate way told Norah McCabe much of what had happened during Liam’s stay in London, and the knowledge filled her with dismay. Nothing good could come from such a relationship. But now was not the time to pursue the matter. That would have to come later. Doing her best to ignore the way Caroline touched Liam’s arm and hand at every opportunity, Norah McCabe thanked her for securing her son’s release and welcomed her to the McCabe cottage.
‘With luck we have seen the last of the soldiers,’ said Liam as the kilted Scotsmen marched from the village. ‘But they were not all bad.’ He held out the money given to him by the Sergeant and told them what he had said.
It was important news, as everyone in the room was aware. With this particular regiment gone from Ireland it should be safe for the young men of Kilmar to return to their homes.
As it happened, the Scots Captain and his company would never again bother the people of Ireland and few of them would board the boat taking them to their homeland. They marched from Kilmar carrying with them the seeds of a typhus epidemic that swept through the close-packed barrack-room in Dublin and claimed hundreds of victims. Among them were the sergeant who had proved to be well disposed toward the Irish – and Captain James Brody. So, another of Bridie O’Keefe’s prophecies was fulfilled and the cottiers of Kilmar hill wreaked a terrible vengeance for the indignities suffered by their benefactors.
Tommy Donaghue took the two doctors and their fellow-Quaker up the hill to the sick cottiers, leaving the others to discuss ways to help them.
It was not long before the Quaker relief organiser returned to the cottage, alone. He was a much shaken and chastened man.
‘I have never in all my life seen such appalling poverty and degradation,’ he declared. ‘There would be a public outcry in England if animals were found in such a condition. Why has the Government done nothing to help?’
‘Because Sir Robert Peel and his Ministers are governing Ireland from comfortable warm offices in Westminster,’ said Eugene Brennan fiercely. ‘They believe a few maggoty biscuits and a shipload of Indian corn will remove all the problems we have here.’
‘Then they must learn the truth,’ said the Quaker. ‘I will personally lead a deputation of Friends to the House of Commons to inform the Prime Minister of the plight of these poor people.’
‘I wish you well,’ said the tired old MP. ‘I have been telling him of their suffering for more years than I care to recollect, yet the cottiers still starve to death.’
‘Are there many cottiers left in the area?’ asked Caroline.
‘Yes,’ replied Liam. ‘Many of them have returned to their plots of land in a bid to till this season’s potatoes, but we still have more than enough begging about Kilmar.’
‘God will that the potatoes do not rot in the ground this year,’ said Father Clery.
‘Amen to that,’ agreed Caroline. ‘But first we must do something to keep them alive until the potatoes are ready. Is it possible to obtain food for them?’
Liam shrugged. ‘We can provide a certain amount of fish, and there seemed to be no shortage of produce in Gorey market when I was last there – but the cottiers have no money with which to buy.’
‘If the Society of Friends will set up a soup kitchen here, in Kilmar,’ said Lady Caroline, ‘I will guarantee the money to pay for the food. Will the people of Kilmar help?’
‘I can promise you there will be no shortage of helpers,’ said Father Clery. ‘It is a very generous gesture, Lady Caroline. I can assure you I will do my best to ensure its success.’
‘I think the soup kitchen should be just outside the village,’ suggested Liam. ‘Perhaps on the lower slopes of Kilmar hill. We must try at all costs to keep black fever from the village. There will be little sympathy or help for the cottiers if it should break out here.’
The others nodded their agreement and it seemed a good moment to sit back and enjoy the tea Norah McCabe brought into the room for them.
‘What a dear little cottage this is,’ said Caroline conversationally. ‘It has such a happy atmosphere.’
Liam thought of Caroline’s London house and the magnificent family home where she had been born.
‘It is no more and no less than it was intended to be – a working fisherman’s home. As for being happy, it has had its share of happiness and sorrow. It was a happy day when I gave birth to Liam in the big bed upstairs and a terrible one when I lay in the same bed alone, knowing his father would never be beside me again. Then Liam bought the wooden boat and gave us some good years again. Now Dermot is away there is an emptiness in the house once more.’
‘There will be happy times again, Mrs McCabe. For you, for Liam – and for Dermot, too. You will see.’
‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. One thing is certain; if you hadn’t talked Liam away from those soldiers, things would have been worse – much worse. I thank you for it again.’
‘Men like Liam are hard to find, Mrs McCabe. We all need him.’
It was said innocently enough, but of all those in the room only Father Clery thought Caroline was referring to the cause of the cottiers.
‘Lady Caroline, if I went to Dublin to speak to your husband, do you think he might help our cause and appeal to the English Government for funds to help the cottiers?’ The question came from Eugene Brennan.
‘He has no great sympathy with the Irish people, but I will write a letter for you to take to him. It may help.’
‘Thank you,’ said the old MP. ‘In that case, my brief holiday is at an end. There is work to be done in Dublin and London.’
He smiled ruefully at Father Clery, ‘I must remember to go elsewhere for a rest in the future. Whenever I come to Kilmar I end up becoming involved in a cause that cannot be ignored.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting the Home Secretary’s warning? If you push the cottiers’ cause again, he will ban the Association and throw you in prison.’ Liam was genuinely concerned for the dedicated old man’s well-being.
‘If something isn’t soon done, the Association will be totally discredited and there will be no Ireland left to fight for. At the rate the cottiers are dying the countryside is fast becoming a huge graveyard. If I allow it to go on, then the dreams of a foolish old man will be buried along with the bodies of the children who should be Ireland’s future. Should I measure the few years I have left to me – or the name of an organisation – against such a prospect? If the All-Ireland Association is banned, it will quickly be reborn under another name, and there is no shortage of good men to take over from me, Liam. You, Dermot – or Nathan Brock. You each see things in your own way but are all heading in the same direction. One day someone will find the right path to take and lead Ireland to freedom. I am satisfied that I have been able t
o guide it part of the way and I will continue to do so while there is life left in my body. I was wrong to allow Sir James Graham to frighten me into submission, and he was equally wrong to attempt it. The freedom of Ireland will be written in the history books, one day. Who writes it matters little.’
The long silence that followed was broken by Caroline.
‘I think I have just listened to a major political speech, Eugene – but when you meet Richard you had better restrict yourself to pleading the cottiers’ cause. He is an Englishman and does not understand the Irishman’s love of words. He is also a friend of Sir Robert Peel, so say nothing you would not wish to have repeated.’
Eugene Brennan inclined his head. ‘I thank you for the warning. Now, unless I am mistaken, our fiddler friend has news of some importance to impart to us.’
Through the window he had seen Tommy Donaghue hurrying along the street from Kilmar hill, and now the Northern Irishman threw open the door of the cottage and stumbled inside, red-faced and breathless.
‘… Up behind the top cottage … in a shed … a woman and two boys with the fever…. We’ve just found them.’
Those already in the room waited for an explanation. There had been so much misery and suffering that three new cases would make little difference.
‘One of the boys was able to talk to us,’ panted Tommy Donaghue. ‘His name is Brock. We’ve found Nathan Brock’s family.’
Chapter Nineteen
Liam set out on foot for the Wicklow mountains the next morning, accompanied by Tommy Donaghue. The old man would slow Liam down, but he wanted to see his daughter again, and, as he pointed out, any soldiers they might meet along the way would be less suspicious of an itinerant fiddler and a companion than of a fisherman travelling alone, miles from his home village.
Liam expected to find Nathan Brock living with the Kilmar fugitives, but he had only the vaguest idea of their whereabouts. He would have to trust to luck and the little information that had filtered back to the village.
At first, it appeared that luck might have deserted them when on the second day they met up with a patrol of militiamen who did not attempt to hide their suspicions of the two men.
Not until Liam informed them he was looking for a man whose wife and children had gone down with the black fever did they cease their questioning and order Liam and Tommy Donaghue to go on their way.
‘Mention of the black fever seemed to put an unholy fear into them,’ commented Tommy Donaghue as he looked back over his shoulder and saw the militiamen hurrying away.
‘Are you surprised?’ asked Liam. ‘I’ve seen nothing that I fear more in this life. It could have been sent by the devil himself.’
The two men did not meet up with Dermot and the Kilmar fishermen until the fourth day of their search and then it happened with a suddenness that took them completely by surprise.
Tramping across a wide upland moor dotted with gorse and coarse tufted grass, they were suddenly confronted by two armed men who seemed to rise out of the very ground. For a second, Liam thought he and Tommy Donaghue were to be shot. Then he recognised Eoin Feehan and called his name. Moments later Liam and Tommy Donaghue were surrounded by Kilmar men who thumped Liam on the back with all the wild enthusiasm of exiles meeting old friends.
Liam was concerned that Kathie and Dermot were not with the others, and the first evasive answers to his questions alarmed him even more. Then Eoin Feehan said airily, ‘Oh, Dermot is all right. Perhaps not quite as fit as he might be, but he gets about – and he has Kathie to look after him. Find one and you’ll find the other. They are as close as two maggots in a pea.’
The Kilmar men took the new arrivals to the place among the rocks where they had their dug-out cabins, questioning them along the way about their own families, the state of the fishing and the latest news of Eugene Brennan and the All-Ireland Association.
They found Dermot sitting outside his dug-out, making the most of the weak spring sunshine. He stood up and held his arms out in a gesture of delight when he saw his elder brother, but Liam was shocked at his appearance. Dermot was painfully thin and had the stooped round-shouldered stance of a man who is in constant pain.
The brothers embraced and Dermot asked after their mother.
‘She is well. Missing her younger son, of course, but well.’
Liam stood back from his brother and smiled at him. Then he saw Tommy Donaghue looking about him anxiously.
‘But where is Kathie – and Nathan Brock?’
‘Kathie!’ Dermot shouted. ‘Show yourself. You have visitors.
‘Kathie has her own dug-out,’ he explained so that Tommy Donaghue could hear. ‘She keeps herself busy trying to stitch our clothes together. These mountains are hard on fishermen’s clothing. But why do you ask after Nathan Brock? He brought us here and then left to collect his wife from the poor-house and take her and his children back to Kilmar. He intended making a new life for himself as a fisherman.’
‘His family seem to have found Kilmar,’ explained Liam grimly. ‘But they are very ill with black fever, and Nathan needs to get to them as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m afraid we can’t help very much, Liam. We all thought Nathan had returned to Kilmar…’
At that moment Kathie emerged from her dug-out cabin to be greeted by her father with a roar of delight which echoed around the granite outcrops. Tommy Donaghue hugged her to him, swinging her off the ground in his exuberance. When he released her Kathie greeted Liam with a quick hug and looked at him with a shyness that the Kilmar fugitives had not seen before.
‘You are looking well, Liam. You have put on some weight.’
‘And you have lost some … but you, too, are looking well.’
It was quite true. There was a slim fitness about Kathie that came from tramping the mountains in search of food, and from doing more than her own share of work about the camp.
They talked about Kilmar until darkness came down. Then fires were lit, and Liam produced the food he and Tommy Donaghue had brought with them. To the fugitives it was a feast.
The only sour note came when Eoin Feehan asked how his father was faring with his fishing.
‘He is doing well,’ replied Tommy Donaghue, before Liam could say anything. ‘Better than anyone else – but, then, he never lost his boat when the soldiers came to Kilmar.’
Immediately, the others clamoured for an explanation, and Liam told them about the destruction of the boats on the soldiers’ first visit. As he spoke his gaze was fixed on Eoin Feehan’s face, watching every change of expression there. The red-haired fisherman did not return Liam’s look, nor once meet his eyes. Liam became more than ever convinced that Eoin Feehan knew why the soldiers had arrived at Kilmar with the name of every man – except himself – who had taken part in the raid on the wagons.
After they had eaten, the fugitives gathered about Tommy Donaghue. He tucked his fiddle beneath his chin and played for them, giving them all the songs most calculated to bring a lump to the throat of a man exiled from his home and family. Liam took the opportunity to talk to his brother.
‘I see you have a few muskets. Where did they come from?’
Dermot chuckled. ‘We stole one from a drunken militiaman and then used it to hold up one of his companions. They are old guns but they help to keep us fed – after a fashion.’
‘With luck you won’t need to skulk up here for much longer.’ Liam told Dermot what the Sergeant had told him.
‘I wouldn’t believe the word of a soldier,’ replied Dermot. ‘Besides, we are not skulking. We have two guns that each of us has learned to use. When the time comes we will get muskets enough for everyone and lead all Ireland to a victory over the English.’
Liam looked at his young brother incredulously.
‘What are you talking about? You are a handful of fugitives with two muskets between you and only your own village on your side. The country is reeling from famine and fear. A rising is the farthest thing from any man’s min
d. All he can think about is staying alive. Forget such dreams, Dermot. Wait until the Gordon Highlanders have left Ireland, then return home. You have already suffered enough for your cause. Come back to Kilmar and you will be pointed to as a hero for the rest of your life.’
‘No, there is no returning home for any of us. This is only a beginning. Until Ireland rules herself we have no homes. On the day we leave these mountains the men of Counties Wicklow and Wexford will flock to join us. By the time we reach Dublin the whole of the country will be behind us.’
Dermot’s face burned as though he had a fever and his eyes looked far beyond his brother. Liam was alarmed at his intensity and, reaching out, rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘I don’t think you are well enough to lead anyone at the moment, Dermot. Come home with Tommy and me tomorrow. We’ll find somewhere in Kilmar to hide you. Let Ma look after you for a few months. When you are well again you can begin to plan for the future.’
Dermot shook off his brother’s hand angrily.
‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you? I’m well enough to do what needs to be done. If you are so anxious about me, then come and join us here. We will not go home until the final battle is won, Liam. I swear that. To go before then would be to admit defeat. People would point their fingers, yes, but they would be fingers of scorn. We are none of us going back to Kilmar for that.’
The last few words were flung back over Dermot’s shoulder as he limped away to his dug-out cabin, and by the fire the fiddle music died away uncertainly.
‘Don’t stop now, Father,’ Kathie whispered quickly. ‘Play something cheerful and get everyone singing.’
As Tommy Donaghue drew his bow across the strings of his fiddle and broke into a song about the fishermen of Connemara, Kathie moved to Liam’s side and stopped him from going after Dermot.
‘Leave him, Liam. He will be all right again in a while.’
The Music Makers Page 18