The Paradise Tree

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Squire Daniel nodded. “In 1695 harsh penal laws were enacted by the English against the Catholics in Ireland. To say we were forbidden to practice our religion is an understatement of some magnitude. The laws were designed to squeeze the heart out of us. It was punishable by death to educate an Irish Catholic child. A Catholic man could not enter a profession, nor hold public office, nor engage in trade and commerce. He could not own land, lease land, or own a horse of greater value than five pounds. The Holy Mass and all Catholic sacraments and worship were forbidden. Priests who did not conform to the laws could be punished in a most cruel and horrible manner. The Irish language was forbidden. We could not vote, bear arms for our protection, nor be named guardian of a child. If Catholic parents died, the children were given to Protestants to rear, never to Catholic relatives. And we could never get ahead in our finances, since a Catholic was not permitted to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent, nor even rent land that was worth more than 30 shillings a year.”

  Fergie glanced at George with horror. “How did the Irish Catholics survive, Grandpa?”

  “We refused, when e’er we could, to obey such wicked and unjust laws. Indeed, so harsh were the laws that many Protestant authorities would not enforce them, and looked the other way. The religious orders, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Carmelites did not abandon us, but kept the faith of our people alive. They built tiny chapels, but those were few and far between. In my grandparents' day, Catholics went to Mass in private homes, at the back of the pub, or in the open fields at places called scathlans or Mass rocks. My parents went to hedge schools in the countryside, and the brave Presentation sisters taught many Irish children in and around Cork.”

  “I suppose it would have been easier for the Irish if they had all become Protestants?” Fergie wondered. Now that he was going to school, he was acutely aware that not everyone in the world was Catholic.

  The grandfather chuckled at the idea, so unthinkable that it was humorous. “Aye, easier to live, Fergie lad. Easier to live, but not easier to die.” His heavy brow furrowed again. “But as I was saying...by the time my father was born, the evil penal laws had done their damage to our people. We Irish owned only a small fraction of the land in our own country. The worst of the laws were repealed by the time I was born. I knew when I was only a boy that if ever I wanted to have a family, I would have to find some way of supporting them, and there seemed to be no way of doing so in Ireland. It is a sad and desperate act for a man to leave his father and his mother, his home, his country and his people. But to an Irishman, land is life. And it is a good bit of land I earned for myself here in Canada, through God’s blessings, a fine fair piece of land, where my wife and I reared our children, and we built a schoolhouse for them, right on our property. They have all been educated; all but two have been schoolteachers, and all have lands and homes and families of their own. We O’Connors love our land, but we will always move on if survival demands it. And we always keep the Faith. ‘I neither fear nor despise,’ that's our motto."

  When Grandpa died, Fergie and George ran through the snow to the loom house, a small building behind the main residence. There were the looms, all made by Grandpa. The loom house, adorned with drying strips of cloth, was empty of people; everyone was weeping in the house. But Fergie did not want to cry in front of his aunts, because of the fuss they would make.

  “Grandpa could make anything,” Fergie said to George through his tears.

  All the rag carpets that warmed the floors of the farm house had been woven in the loom house. Often, especially in the winter months, Fergie would sit with his Mother, his aunts, and any of his cousins that happened to be visiting, and tear up old shirts, dresses, gowns, underclothes and towels into strips. The strips would be dyed from colors derived from the plants and flowers of the Canadian land. When dried, they would be arranged into designs by one of the women; the scraps of the past would be given a new life and purpose amid the entwining colors.

  “The whole world will be different now,” Fergie murmured again, blowing his nose into one of the handkerchiefs that Mother kept clean and starched in abundant quantities.

  “Yes,” agreed George. “It will.” George's cerulean eyes welled with tears. He had coal black hair, dimpled cheeks and a cleft chin, and slightly pointed ears; small and slender, he moved with dexterity and speed. “But Grandpa O’Connor will always be with you, Ferg. He can guide you from the place where he now is.”

  “Oh, George, I don’t know what I would be doing without you,” said Fergie. There was no boy his age on the farm, and his cousins all lived some distance away.

  “I will stay as long as I may. It is hard to be sad, when one is already feeling lonely. But your loneliness won't last, for the relatives will be coming to Grandpa O'Connor's wake.”

  By eventide, George’s words had come to pass. Sleighs large and small, from wagons to cutters, lined the road in front of Long Point Farm. The stables were crowded with stamping, neighing horses. Fergie was called upon to help, for he possessed a gift for soothing equine agitation. At last, he was summoned to the house, for it was getting time to say the rosary, which would be followed by supper. If the stables were jammed, the house was even more so.

  They entered the house through the kitchen, where Mother and all the aunts were fussing with the food which everyone had brought. There appeared to be a rivalry between Mother's eldest sister, Aunt Kate, and Father's maiden-lady sister, wiry Aunt Ellen, who lived at Long Point, as to who was in charge of organizing the proceedings. Aunt Joanna, Father’s eldest sister and the most petite of them all, who lived with her husband Ben Slack on a farm about two miles away and had been one of the first to arrive, arranged bread in a basket with quiet efficiency. Fergie had no doubt that she was the only one who really knew what was going on.

  Aunt Nancy, the wife of Father's only brother Uncle Mick, and Aunt Margaret, stouter than ever, were helping each other baste a turkey. Aunt Bridget, always lovely and elegant in spite of the hard work of running a hotel with her husband at Delta, smiled at Fergie through her tears as she undertook to slice an enormous ham, while thin Aunt Annie, Father's younger sister, arranged the slices on a plate. Her kindly eyes twinkled as she tossed him a slice. Aunt Annie loved children; it was a pity she was a spinster. However, there had recently been talk that Uncle James MacDonald’s younger brother John wanted to court Aunt Annie, and probably would, now that Grandpa and Grandma had both died. Aunt Annie, while taking care of her parents, especially Grandpa, had been too busy to get married. However, Aunt Ellen was insisting that she and Aunt Annie live together forever in Aunt Ellen’s house; “like a couple of nuns,” Father said. Aunt Mary and Aunt Lottie were not there; they lived too far away in New York State. There would not have been room for them in the kitchen anyway.

  Mother, small of stature but erect and graceful, hugged Fergie and kissed his forehead. She had the dignity of a queen, without being stiff or prissy; it was easy to believe that her mother's mother had been a Talbot, descended from the Howards, the Dukes of Norfolk, who in turn traced their lineage to the royal Plantagenets. Aunt Kate had in her possession an ancient ring with the crest of the Howards, proof of the family's noble connections. Mother had been born Emily McArdle; her father, Andrew McArdle of Sweet's Corner, who had died only a few years before, had been quite the gentleman farmer, owning not only the first brick house in the area, but also the first piano, which all the McArdle girls learned to play. Sorrow tempered by resignation touched Mother's brow, for all her babies had died except Fergie. He felt surrounded by her love yet never suffocated; he sensed that while his mother wanted him to be happy, she most of all wanted him to be good. Her manner was brisk and cheerful, but intolerant of foolishness, vulgarity or bad manners of any kind. Her face was round and soft, but determined; her eyes were gentle, but they could flash with temper.

  “Fergie, Joe Bevins is here,” Mother said. “Go look after him, like a good host.” Joe lived on a fa
rm about one half mile away; he was the same age as Fergie, but they did not get to play together as much as they would have liked, although they both went to school in the grey stone schoolhouse across the road from Long Point Farm. Fergie turned to look at George; he had disappeared, something he had been doing frequently of late. Fergie found Joe amid the crowd of relatives and neighbors, and together they made their way to the parlor, where Father Spratt was kneeling at the prie-dieu ready to begin the rosary. Grandpa O’Connor lay in the open coffin outfitted in his best suit, now rumpled and oversized for his shrunken form. His wrinkled face was pinched, almost skeletal, with the teeth protruding through the lips yet he was swathed in peace as with an invisible shroud. The candles at his head and his feet illumined him with a nearly tangible glow. Fergie and Joe knelt on the floor next to Fergie’s father, Charles O’Connor, and Uncle Mick O’Connor, Squire Daniel’s oldest son. Uncle Mick was a solid, robust man with white hair and a mustache on his handsome face. Both men were wiping their faces with handkerchiefs.

  “He had a long life, and a good one,” murmured Fergie’s father in a voice raw with tears. Beneath his aquiline nose, he too wore a long, bushy mustache, peppered with grey like the rest of his hair. Mother often said that the touch of grey made him look very distinguished, which made Father's eyes, already the most expressive in the world, sparkle with pleasure. The O'Connors became white-haired fairly early in life. Father was fourteen years younger than Uncle Mick; he was not half so eloquent as his brother and had never been a schoolteacher, but he when he played the fiddle his soul was in his music; he read and composed poetry as well as penning many letters to distant friends and relations. Like Grandpa, he could make anything with his hands, especially windmills, which he constructed for a living. He had a sense of wanderlust and Mother worried that someday he might try to take the family West.

  “Yes, Charlie,” agreed Uncle Mick. “And yet he had his share of suffering, especially when he was young.”

  Had Grandpa ever been young? Fergie tried to picture it, but could not.

  “He never spoke much of his youth, except a bit about his family in Ireland. He never spoke of his sufferings,” said Father.

  “No.” Uncle Mick choked on a sob. “He was not one to make much of his miseries.”

  The priest made the Sign of the Cross. “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I believe in God, the Father Almighty....”

  The rosary had begun as usual with the Credo; for Fergie, every word was heavy with a meaning and a power that had he had never before noticed. He suddenly seemed caught up in the past, present and future all at once. As they moved from bead to bead, from mystery to mystery, praying for the soul of Daniel O’Connor, Fergie studied the dead man’s aspect and felt as if he could see him in Heaven, radiant with eternal youth. It was but a glimpse, but it consoled his heart beyond words. He was swept along by the rosary as if by some chain which linked time with eternity. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he could see his grandfather as a very young man, hiking along the roads of County Cork. He had endured much to build a life for them in Canada. Perhaps the world was not about to end, after all.

  Part I

  The Book of Daniel

  “As I was yet speaking in prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice. And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said: O Daniel, I am now come forth to teach thee, and that thou mightest understand.”

  ─Daniel 9: 21-22

  CHAPTER 1

  Man of Desires

  March 1817

  “Fear not, O man of desires, peace be to thee: take courage and be strong.” ─Daniel 10:19

  Above their heads the skies were turbulent, although no rain fell upon the two young men, as they strode beside the horse-drawn cart containing buckets with cockles, oysters and mussels, as well as piles of salt herring. Arrayed in jackets of coarse, tabby weave and snug, tapered trousers of twill, worn shoes and shabby, high-crowned, broad-brimmed hats, they walked with a buoyant, jaunty gait, like princes of the land. Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, narrow-waisted and slender of leg, they gave the illusion of height, which faded only when one faced them eye-to-eye. The road from Clonakilty to Dunmanway weaved and lurched through County Cork, as if in rebellion against its rocky existence. The swirling clouds cast deepening shades of verdure upon the rolling terrain, with its low stone walls and hedges, marshes and bogs, copses, cottages, and grazing livestock, the latter of which were scarce.

  The preceding autumn had seen the partial failure of the potato crop, the staple of the Irish, and favored fodder for their pigs. It had been a difficult winter; most of the animals had been eaten before Lent, and in some places, people were beginning to starve. The rivers and lakes were quickly being emptied of their salmon, carp, and eels. Therefore Daniel and Owen O'Connor had been sent fifteen miles to the shore to glean the bounty of the sea. They had enough for the entire O'Connor clan to eat better than they had in a long while, and food for the neighbors as well. It was March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, a day to rejoice and forget for a while their troubles, and those of the island. If only the nag that pulled the cart could move along at a quicker pace.

  “We should have gone to Bantry, the road is better,” said Owen, trying to steady the horse as it stumbled.

  “Too many houses, too many people, on the coast. The shore at Clonakilty is easier to breach,” said Daniel. It had been a two-day expedition. They had slept on the beach of Clonakilty beneath a palm tree, warmed by a small fire, their stomachs happily filled with salt herring, which they had acquired from a fisherman after copious blarney and bartering. During the night, the crash of the waves sounded through the chambers of Daniel’s mind, speaking to him of another place, a faraway place mentioned in one of the old songs. The words urged themselves back into his memory:

  There is a distant isle

  Around which sea-horses glisten;

  Let not your intoxication overcome thee;

  Begin a voyage across a clear sea . . . .

  Daniel thought of the legends of the western seas and the Blessed Otherworld, which even holy monks like St. Brendan had sought to find. An inexpressible yearning welled in the depths of his being, as if something indefinable called to him from beyond.

  “To think I would be longing for the taste of bonnyclabber,” said fifteen-year-old Owen of the curdled milk which had been part of their daily diet since they had been weaned – every day except in times of famine.

  “Let us be grateful to God that He has always provided,” reminded Daniel, feeling like quite the elder at age twenty-one, especially with the short beard upon his cheeks and chin.

  Of his six brothers who were old enough to accompany him on the journey to procure food, Owen had been chosen, not because he was more clever or reliable than the others, but because it was hoped the adventure might keep him out of trouble. During the hungry winter he had taken to running about the countryside with a gang of youths, playing pranks upon the English, and even breaking a window of the landlord’s house. Their mother feared it was only the beginning of the mischief.

  “Next he will be joining one of those secret societies, and will be arrested, and sent to a penal colony in Australia. It has happened to others...” she groaned to their father.

  They had also had trouble getting Owen settled in a trade; he had been sent out as an apprentice several times to different craftsmen, with no success. They feared that perhaps at his tender age he had already become over fond of drink. Even their Ronan relations, with their sundry business connections, had difficulty placing him. During the most intense of the penal days, when Irish Catholics were forbidden to engage in trade, the Ronans of Cork, long a merchant family, had taken to smuggling to make ends meet, and though the trying times had eased, some still made a living from it. Owen’s parents thought the underworld intrigue of honest smugglers would appeal to his adventurou
s nature, but he always ended up again with his bundle on the doorstep of the O'Connor cottage at Togher. So they tried to keep him busy on the farm, sending him on plenty of errands.

  As for Daniel, at the age of eleven he had bound himself for three years to the local blacksmith, and became deft in handling metal. At fourteen, during another famine, he headed for England, where the wars with Napoleon had caused a dramatic manpower shortage. He had found work in the Sheffield cutlery, famous for its knives, razors, axes, and nails. Thousands labored in the ancient town, which Daniel thought must be the place on earth that most resembled hell. The narrow, garbage-strewn streets smelled of sulfur; the houses, most of which were built into the sides of the several hills, were blackened from the smoke, which also hid the sky. The workers sickened from lung diseases due to the fine steel dust; youths were stooped like old men from always standing slightly bent, and many died before their twentieth birthday. For two years, Daniel boarded in the dank cottage of an old widow, sleeping in a low-ceilinged attic. “You will not be there forever, my son,” his mother had written to him. He had read a medical book in the evenings, a book which he had sacrificed several meals in order to purchase. He had striven to better himself, all the while missing his family, and Ireland. When the wars ended and the men returned looking for work, it was time at last to go home. He had earned good wages, of which he had saved as much as he was able, as well as acquiring new skills and a fine set of knives for his mother. Upon returning to Cork, Michael O'Leary, the blacksmith, took him back as an apprentice. Daniel worked not only with the iron, but with copper and wood as well, which made him greatly sought after. Also, he gained a reputation for setting broken bones; bone-setting, as well as pulling teeth, were part of a blacksmith’s set of skills and Daniel was adept at both. When people came to the smithy with an injury or a rotten tooth, they usually asked for Daniel.