The Music Makers

by E. V. Thompson

  ‘He broke into this gentleman’s room and made off with a quantity of jewellery,’ said the constable. ‘And if your soldiers will keep hold of him I’ll search him to make sure he doesn’t do away with anything on the way to the lock-up.’

  While the two soldiers held Jeremy fast, with a circle of curious customers looking on, the constable searched through Jeremy’s pockets.

  ‘Ah! I think this is what we are looking for.’

  The constable pulled the rings from Jeremy’s pocket, and there was a gasp from the onlookers as the precious stones flashed in the light of the lamps. ‘There is no doubting that we’ve got the culprit to rights here.’

  ‘And this isn’t the first time he’s been caught stealing other folk’s property.’

  A man pushed his way through the crowd, and with the awful feeling that the whole world was taking a hand in his downfall Jeremy recognised the farmer from whom Nathan Brock had rescued him.

  ‘He stole two of my ducks a few months ago. I was bringing him into Rathconard to face the magistrate when a huge rogue of a man jumped on me, beat me to the ground and made off with this young rascal – and the two ducks I had with me as evidence.’

  ‘Is that so? Then we must be careful none of his villainous friends do the same thing tonight.’

  Turning to the corporal, the constable said, ‘I shall put handcuffs on him, but I would be obliged if you and your men came with me to the lock-up with this young felon.’

  ‘Willingly, Constable, willingly. Stand back there! Clear a way to the door.’

  With the corporal and his soldiers leading the way, the constable led his young prisoner from the inn, while Eoin Feehan slipped quietly away into the night and headed back to the mountains.

  As the door banged shut behind the small procession, the inn erupted in a babble of sound as the customers discussed the events of the evening.

  The younger of the two women bemoaned her bad luck.

  ‘To think, I was sitting next to the young rascal all that time. Had I known, I would have had my hand inside his pocket and by morning you and I would have been on our way to Dublin Town with enough in our purses to keep us living like ladies for a year or more.’

  ‘Hasn’t life always been like that for me?’ said the old woman, blinking tearfully into the vast emptiness of a pewter beer-mug on the table in front of her. Haven’t the good things always been just out of my reach? A poor widow-woman I was, before you was even out of my arms. It has been a hard life with no man to look after the pair of us. Now you’ve let a fortune slip through our grasp. If you paid more attention to what a man carries in his pockets and less to what he has inside his trousers, I wouldn’t be sitting here with an empty pot in front of me.’

  ‘Hisht, Mother! He was only a boy … but he could still do us some good. Didn’t they say he’d been thieving around here for a long time? Then where has he put all the things he’s taken, eh? He’s not going to have any use for them now, is he? Well, then, it’s better that he let’s them go to someone in need, rather than allow that constable to get his hands on them.’

  The young woman drew her shawl about her plump shoulders and stood up.

  ‘Where are you going? You’d not leave me without a drink?’

  ‘Here!’ The younger woman threw some copper coins on the table. ‘You stay here until the landlord throws you out. I am going to see what I can do to help that poor young boy they have just arrested.’

  With a sly wink, she left the old woman grovelling on the litter-strewn floor for a coin that had escaped from her bony grasp.

  The constable was not pleased to see Brighid McFall at his lock-up – not that she was by any means a stranger there. He had himself locked her up for being drunk and for prostitution. He had also arrested her for stealing the watch of a respectable visitor to the town, but that good gentleman had refused to press charges and the case against her had been dismissed. Now she stood in the narrow lock-up doorway, an unctuous smile of greeting on her face and a large pie clutched in her grubby hand, asking to be allowed to visit his latest prisoner.

  ‘What is he to you?’ queried the constable. ‘I have not seen the two of you together.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t,’ said Brighid. ‘I had never set eyes on the boy before tonight. I just feel sorry for him, that’s all. I looked at him with those soldiers twisting his arms and everyone set against him. “Brighid,” I said to myself, “if you’d had a son he might look just like that poor boy standing there.” When you had gone, I said to myself, “That poor child probably hasn’t a single friend in the whole of Ireland.” So I bought this pie and I’m here to tell him he has one person he can turn to in his time of trouble.’

  ‘Friends are not going to help him where he’s going,’ said the constable. ‘He’s an incorrigible criminal, that’s what he is. He’ll be transported for life and think himself lucky. A few years ago he would have been hung and that would have been an end to it. Them as was hung didn’t come back to steal again.’

  Brighid McFall laughed because the constable laughed, and he swung the heavy door open wide. ‘I suppose you had better come and give him that pie – if you must. He’ll have little enough good food where he is going.’

  Brighid McFall entered the lock-up and was shown to an iron-barred pen where Jeremy lay back on a bed of none-too-fresh straw. It was dark in here and the constable lit a candle which he stuck to a small shelf with the aid of a drip, of candle wax.

  ‘You can give him the pie and have a few words with him through the bars,’ he said. ‘But don’t be too long about it. I’m not paid to stay inside here looking after prisoners and their friends.’

  Jeremy sat up on the straw and looked at his visitor with suspicion. He recognised her as one of the women in the inn, but he had never seen her before then, he was quite sure of that.

  ‘Here, I’ve brought you a pie. I bought it specially for you. I saw you wasn’t able to finish yours, back at the inn.’

  Jeremy accepted the gift and took a great bite from it, without saying a word.

  ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve been in here,’ said the woman, with something that might almost have been pride in her voice. ‘I’ve slept in that straw where you are more than once, I can tell you.’

  Jeremy chewed away without a word; the pastry on the pie was tough.

  ‘You know what is going to happen to you, don’t you? You are going to be transported. Sent to Australia – for life.’

  Jeremy shrugged. He would not think about it. He had been made to fight hard for his very existence in Ireland. Australia could hardly be worse.

  ‘You won’t be able to take anything with you. If you’ve got anything of value hidden away, you’d better tell your friends, otherwise whatever it is will be lost for ever.’

  So that was it! Jeremy relaxed. Now he knew what this drab woman was after he was on more familiar ground. He took a big bite of the pie and spoke through it. ‘Did he send you in here to see me?’ He jerked his head toward the doorway where the constable stood. He had to repeat his question twice before the pie had been chewed sufficiently to make his words intelligible.

  ‘Him? He wouldn’t send me anywhere – unless it was to prison.’

  Her reaction was genuine, Jeremy was sure of that.

  ‘No, I came because it makes my heart bleed to see a bright young boy like yourself punished so cruelly because you’ve had to make a living the best way you could. My mother, the dear old soul, felt the same way when she saw those soldiers handle you so cruelly. Fair broke her heart, it did. “Brighid,” she said to me, “Brighid, you get yourself down to the lock-up and see if there is anything you can do to help that poor boy. You do what you can and I’m sure he won’t be ungrateful.” Those were her exact words, and so here I am, just looking for a way in which I can be of help to you.’

  Jeremy looked at the woman thoughtfully. There were a few baubles hidden in a ditch on the edge of town, the proceeds of his earlier house-bre
aking activities; they were worth a guinea or two.

  Gulping down the last of the pie, Jeremy wiped the crumbs from the corners of his mouth and leaned closer to the bars separating him from his visitor.

  ‘I do have some things hidden away,’ he said, in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘But how do I know you will help me?’

  ‘You just ask me to do something – anything. Fetch you food, or drink. I’ll do it, you’ll see.’

  ‘I want a message taken to someone,’ whispered Jeremy. ‘It’s urgent. You would need to go in the morning.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘To the mountains – but only a couple of miles from here,’ Jeremy added hastily as he saw the sudden fear come to her face. More than one band of outlaws had found refuge in the mountains. It was no place for a women to venture. ‘I would think the property I have hidden is worth a lot of money. Hundreds of guineas, perhaps. You take my message and when you return I’ll tell you where it’s hidden.’

  Brighid McFall hesitated for only a few seconds longer. ‘All right, I’ll go. Who is it you want me to find, and what do I say to them?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kathie saw the two women struggling up the hill toward her the following morning and she went out to meet them, overcome by curiosity. Jeremy had chosen his time well; it was fine weather and the Kilmar men were out digging peat and hunting far from the camp.

  The young prostitute had persuaded her mother to come with her, ignoring the old lady’s protests that she was too old to go gallivanting around the Wicklow mountains. Both women were in a state of near-collapse by the time they reached the camp, but as soon as Brighid McFall had gasped out the news of Jeremy’s arrest and told Kathie that he wanted to see her urgently she and her mother turned around and returned to Rathconard immediately.

  ‘But surely you’ll come to the fire to have a drink of something before you go,’ said Kathie.

  ‘No, thank you very much,’ said Brighid McFall. ‘We’ve come this far with our lives but I’m not risking staying up here a moment longer than we have to. I’ve given you the boy’s message. Now we’ll away back – God and the devils who live up here willing.’

  With that, the two women scuttled away down the slope, the younger woman clutching her mother’s elbow, neither one of them daring to look back lest they saw they were being pursued.

  The news of Jeremy’s arrest was very upsetting. Kathie wondered whether the women had been in possession of the full facts concerning Jeremy’s arrest, or whether it could have been connected with Eoin Feehan. She intended going to Rathconard that night to learn the truth.

  Getting away from the mountain camp was an easy matter: by now the Kilmar men were quite used to Kathie spending lonely hours among the rocks on the ridge behind the camp. Her only worry was that she might meet Eoin Feehan along the way; he had left the camp some time before she made her move. But she met no one and had no difficulty finding her way down the mountain in the bright moonlight.

  Once in the town, Kathie asked a pipe-smoking old lady, sitting on her doorstep, the way to the lock-up and was given the directions without so much as a curious glance. The old woman had seen Kathie arrive in Rathconard from the direction of the mountains and one did not ask questions of those who made their home there.

  The lock-up was a small but strongly built stone building with a stout nail-studded door at the front and the two high barred windows overlooking a piece of waste ground at the rear. The faint light from a flickering candle showed dimly between the bars, and Kathie hesitated before knocking at the door. She intended telling the constable she was a relative of the young prisoner and hoped he would accept her explanation without asking too many questions. She knew too little about Jeremy to be questioned closely about his background.

  She need not have worried: the constable was out patrolling the town. The lock-up was a cold gloomy place and the guardian of the law spent very little time there. After knocking a few times, Kathie moved to the back of the building and stood in the shadows beneath one of the barred windows.

  ‘Jeremy?’ she called softly and waited. When there was no reply she called more loudly. ‘Jeremy, can you hear me?’

  Still there was no sound from inside the lock-up.

  Groping around on the rough ground, Kathie took up a handful of small stones and threw them up through the window. Some of them rattled against the metal bars, but most of them fell through into the cell inside.

  Kathie thought she heard someone stir in the small building and threw a second handful of stones.

  ‘Who is that out there?’

  Jeremy’s knuckles showed white against the dark of the window as he gripped the bars and pulled himself up to look out.

  ‘It’s me … Kathie. Can you talk?’

  ‘Yes, there’s nobody else in here. Come close to the window.’

  Kathie stood pressed up against the stone building and in a low voice Jeremy told her of Eoin Feehan’s meeting with the corporal and of their conversation.

  ‘… he told Eoin Feehan to be sure he was not in the camp on the night of the next full moon. That must be when the soldiers are going to come up there for you. They are already in Rathconard, camped just to the north of the town. I heard the constable talking about it today to one of the townsmen. You must move away from there.’

  Kathie nodded her agreement in the darkness. ‘The soldiers will not take any of us by surprise. They will have a wasted climb.’

  ‘The corporal said something else … about it not looking too good for Eoin Feehan if it was known that he had told the soldiers to kill his own brother.’

  Kathie drew in a sharp breath. ‘You are sure of that? That he ordered the death of his own brother?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Then Liam was right. Sean Feehan told the soldiers nothing. But for Eoin to do a thing like that … it … it’s unbelievable.’

  Jeremy was silent, and Kathie realised she had said nothing about the young orphan’s own plight.

  Reaching up, she grasped the hand that was clenched about one of the bars. ‘You have done everything that Nathan asked of you, Jeremy … and done it well. You will have saved the lives of the Kilmar men. Nathan will be proud of you. But what can we do to help you in return?’

  Jeremy allowed Kathie to hold his hand for a few moments, then he withdrew it from the bar.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me. I didn’t steal very much. I’ll probably be whipped and then they will let me go.’

  ‘Will it help if I get Liam, or Nathan, to come to court to speak for you?’

  ‘Nathan mustn’t come,’ Jeremy said quickly. ‘He’s already been in trouble in County Wicklow. And what could Liam say? That when we first met I tried to help my friends to rob you? No, I’ll be all right. I bet they don’t even make me cry out when they whip me.’

  Kathie’s heart went out to the boy. He could be no more than eleven years of age, yet he was facing up to the prospect of his punishment like a man – and a brave man at that. It was as well she did not know the truth – that Jeremy would undoubtedly be transported. She had heard many horrific stories of the brutality and depravity to be found on the transports to Australia.

  ‘Go to Kilmar, to Nathan, when they release you, Jeremy. In the meantime, is there anything I can bring for you? Anything at all?’

  ‘No, I don’t need anything….’

  For the first time Kathie detected something of the eleven-year-old boy in his voice.

  ‘Just tell Nathan I’m sorry for getting into this trouble.’

  ‘I’ll tell him much more than that, Jeremy. You’ve done a man’s job for us. God bless you.’

  The only sound was the faint rustle of straw as Jeremy threw himself down on to his simple bedding. Kathie had gone before the sob escaped past the knuckled fist he had pushed into his mouth.

  Jeremy had given Kathie much to think about. He had confirmed her fears about Eoin Feehan, but the question now was what action sho
uld she and the others take to deal with him? He would deny everything, of course, and the Kilmar men would need more proof than the word of a young boy who was a self-confessed thief. There would no doubt be witnesses at the inn who had seen Eoin Feehan and the corporal talking together, but the fishermen were wanted men. They could hardly walk into Rathconard and begin asking questions.

  The proof would come on the night of the full moon, of course, with an attack on the mountain camp, but that might be too late. Kathie wondered how many soldiers would be involved in the attack. Jeremy had said the soldiers were camped to the north of the town. Having come this far it would be foolish not to learn something more about them.

  Kathie walked quickly through the streets of the small town, her way lighted by the house windows she passed, but once clear of the town it became more difficult to see her way. The night sky was clouding over, the moon slipping from cloud to cloud.

  Then Kathie saw a fire in the distance and she quickened her step confidently – it was too far away for caution just yet.

  She had hardly gone ten yards along the road when something moved in the shadows beside her, Kathie stopped and took a step backward, but before she knew what was happening strong hands gripped her from behind and held her fast.

  The moon scurried across a gap in the overcast sky and she saw the red uniform jackets of soldiers. At first, Kathie thought she had been stopped by sentries, put out to guard the soldiers’ camp against sudden attack. Then one of her captors ran his hands none too gently over her body from neck to waist and she smelled the reek of cheap whiskey on his breath.

  ‘It’s a woman all right,’ said the soldier in hoarse excitement. ‘And a young one by the feel of her.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘Who cares?’ said a third voice. ‘We’ll not be waking and looking at her face in the morning.’

  There was laughter from more than three men, and when the moon half-showed itself again Kathie saw there were at least six soldiers, including the one who held her, but she saw only two faces she would recognise again. One of them had the gold stripes of a corporal gleaming on his sleeve.