Boycott

by Colin Murphy

The young constable did as promised and returned the fork to her.

  ‘Good as new,’ he said.

  Madeleine thanked them again and then realised she had no further reason to linger. She glanced at the plank they had been sawing, which was about twelve feet long and a foot in width, and saw they had cut out several large U-shaped segments from one side.

  ‘Whatever are you doing?’ she inquired brightly, pointing at the curious shape.

  The two men looked uncomfortably at each other.

  ‘Is it a shield of sorts? And you fire your guns through the holes. Is that it?’

  One of the constables scratched his nose and looked away and the other stared at his feet, but neither responded to her inquiry.

  ‘Is there someth–’ she began, then stopped dead. Several thoughts rushed at her as once – the separate partition, her uncle telling the sergeant to move the latrine away from the house, the wooden plank with the holes. The embarrassment was so sudden and inescapable it was like the kick of a mule. She felt a sharp, warm rush of blood to her face and a droplet of perspiration tickle a track from her underarm. She yawped in mortification, then turned on her heels and ran, casting the fork aside as she fled.

  Annie was still in the hall with William when Madeleine burst in from the rear of the house, fleeing towards the sanctuary of her bedroom, tears streaming down her cheeks. She glanced at her aunt and yelled at a tremendous pitch: ‘I hate this place!’

  It was the last day in September but it was unseasonably warm. Weekes lowered the scythe and leaned on the cart. He had removed his jacket and waistcoat and his shirt was soaked with perspiration. He was no longer a young man. Until he’d resigned his army commission some years previously he’d considered himself fully fit and able-bodied, but a life of relative leisure hadn’t been kind to his physique. Now he found that the labourer’s work cruelly exposed his physical limitations. He wiped sweat from his brow and felt his vision sway.

  Boycott lowered his scythe and looked about him at the field of corn, a third of which had been cut. ‘Damn fine luck with the weather.’

  Weekes rose to walk towards Boycott, but immediately felt his knees go weak and his head swim, and he collapsed on the ground on his hands and knees. Boycott cast his scythe aside and rushed across.

  ‘Are you ill, old man?’ he said with evident anxiety.

  Weekes registered the concern in his friend’s voice, something so rarely expressed it helped to restore his energies.

  ‘Just a faint, I think, Charles.’

  Boycott helped him onto the end of the handcart and brought a flask of water.

  ‘We can’t do it, Charles,’ he said presently.

  ‘Can’t do what?’

  ‘Even if the weather holds, we’ll never get all the corn cut, gathered and threshed.’

  ‘We must, Weekes, we must!’ Boycott slammed his palm against the cart.

  They were silent for a while, Weekes looking across the field at the two constables standing guard. They provided no great comfort, so exposed were the two men in the open fields, but Charles had insisted the remainder protect the house and perimeter. Yet ten men spread over several miles were like a net with a mesh so large a whale might pass through.

  ‘Damned shocking about Mountmorres,’ Weekes said.

  ‘Man was a fool and a drunk, by all accounts.’

  ‘Charles–’

  ‘I’m sorry, Weekes, but he rode alone at night with no constabulary. And I knew the man. Too soft with his tenants. Mountmorres showed the peasants too much leniency. And now one of them has been arrested for his murder. It’s a deuced shame, don’t misunderstand me. Outrageous, The Times called it. But much as I regret Mountmorres’s demise, it could work in our favour. There are calls for new coercive measures and we might finally see the army off their behinds in Ballinrobe. They could round up all the Land League agitators in a week. In the meantime, I had the sergeant convey a message to that fool magistrate, McSheehy. He’s contacted the Chief Secretary’s office in Dublin Castle and made an official request for more constables and huts. What with Mountmorres’s murder, I’m certain we’ll get them.’

  Weekes gestured towards the field with his chin. ‘Yet it doesn’t solve our central problem, Charles. Could you not hire labourers from Dublin and bring them by train? I know it would be expensive but–’

  ‘I cannot.’ Boycott said decisively, then looked away.

  ‘But it makes sen–’

  ‘I’m almost bankrupt.’

  Weekes was shocked. He knew that Charles Boycott was not a particularly wealthy man, but had always assumed he had reasonable financial resources.

  ‘I’m behind with the mortgage on the Kildarra estate and with the land agitation its value is a fraction of the original mortgage.’

  ‘I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Weekes…Asheton…I’m on a financial knife-edge. If we don’t save the crop I will be bankrupted. Disgraced. We’ll lose everything.’

  Weekes had never heard such utter wretchedness in the man’s voice.

  He mused on it, then said cautiously: ‘Charles, you could end this by meeting the tenants halfway.’

  The land agent was on his feet in a blink, shouting defiance. ‘Absolutely not! I categorically refuse to submit to their threats!’

  Weekes, in the face of Boycott’s obstinacy, was moved to anger himself. ‘Very well, Charles, but you must do something! Sell the herd, raise some cash and then we can concentrate on the harvest. As it is, Madeleine only milks the dairy cows to relieve them. Most of the milk is thrown away, a waste of money! And as for the cattle–’

  ‘Very well!’ Boycott shouted.

  Weekes was so shocked that Boycott had agreed to his suggestion, he was momentarily dumbfounded.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said very well. We’ll sell the herd, keep one cow for milk. Now, shall we get back to work?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And, Weekes, not a word of this bankruptcy thing to anyone. Not to Annie or anyone else. If that popish agitator O’Malley should get wind–’

  ‘He’d be the happiest man in Ireland.’

  Fr O’Malley slammed the newspaper on the table, his face red with rage. Redpath had just shown him a clipping from The Birmingham Daily Gazette which claimed that ‘people danced in derision on the spot where Mountmorres fell and threw soil stained with his lifeblood in the air’ and that ‘those guilty of inciting these outrages are the most prominent of the Nationalist party.’

  ‘It’s outrageous! And hinting that Parnell and Davitt were behind it. I’m beyond speech!’ he thundered. ‘And you say The Times wasn’t much kinder? Or The Illustrated News? It’s a disgrace!’

  ‘Calm down, Father, please.’

  ‘Calm down? They’ve tarred us all as murderers. They’ll use this as an excuse to enforce any measures they want.’

  ‘Gladstone might be able to hold them off. He’s got a comfortable majority, especially if the Home Rule Party supports him. The last thing he wants is war in Ireland.’

  The priest poured himself a stiff whiskey.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, but with the press calling for coercive measures, it can’t be too long before the British army are marching past our door. These hothead British politicians and newspapers are playing right into the hands of the militants. Was there ever a bigger collection of jackasses in this world?’

  Thomas looked in his wallet at the six five-pound notes. To his brother it would represent almost half of his annual income, but he knew Owen would call it the wages of sin or use some other pious rhetoric if he knew its source. Or its purpose.

  He stood in the main street of the village of Cong, a tiny hamlet indeed, notable for the ruin of a medieval church, Cong Abbey, and a pretty, riverside setting. But Ireland had enough beauty to keep countless poets happy. What she didn’t have in any measure was freedom from tyranny, he considered. And that was where men like him came in. And why her countless banished children were
willing to provide the finance to bring about that freedom. Maybe two million had died in the famine. Another million had been forced to flee Ireland in search of salvation. In the years since, another two million had been forced to flee the economic tyranny of the landlords and the British Government. Countless other souls who had sought to remain had died an early death through poverty and neglect, forced to live in cramped cottages, half-starved and freezing. In thirty-five short years almost five million people had gone, either dead or scattered to the winds. Sometimes the notion of it overwhelmed him and he wished dearly to kill as many of the British assailants as possible before they would strike him down. His hatred was like a fathomless well, and no matter how often he drew up the pail it would never run dry.

  Yet, ironically, he believed that the decimation of his countrymen would ultimately rebound on their British tyrants. For America had opened her arms to those pitiful refugees and in her embrace they’d been reborn. He’d witnessed the teeming masses of Irish grow strong again in America, and far from forgetting their homeland the ties grew proportionally stronger. Their American-born children were no different. Or their grandchildren. All of them were Irish first and American second. And all were willing to pay their nickels, dimes and dollars to support the cause of Irish freedom. Much of the money found its way into the coffers of organisations like the Land League, but even more went to the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other militant movements. And that money would be well spent. Guns, horses, information. And safe houses. Places where men could lie low until the day of armed rebellion. And Thomas, these past years, had finally found his way home and into the heart of the rebellion that had filled his dreams for decades.

  Originally Boycott had been deemed a minor target compared to the likes of Mountmorres. Just a pathetic land agent. But thanks to the efforts of Parnell, the priest O’Malley and his own brother, Boycott’s star was rising. According to Doherty, the press was starting to take notice as this was the first time a land agent had been ostracised. And he, Thomas, had been granted the honour of putting the bullet in Boycott’s head.

  His brother had inadvertently provided him with a safe house. And who would suspect a Fenian killer to be hiding under the thatch of one of the main instigators of the non-violent protest, and on Boycott’s own estate?

  But Owen wasn’t stupid, far from it. Just naive and misguided. He knew that sooner or later Owen might link his absence with Mountmorres’s murder. Somehow he had to kill that notion completely. He’d continue to worm his way into the family. He’d acknowledge the success of Boycott’s ostracism and offer to support it, perhaps make a contribution to their relief fund. But he would start by blinding them all with his kindness.

  He stroked his horse’s nose and stepped up towards the ladies’ dress store, his interest in the frocks earning him a couple of giggles from two passing girls. He smiled at them and saluted, then pressed open the door. It was time to put some of the hard-earned contributions of the emigrant Irish to work.

  The three youths recognised William the moment he rounded the bend in the track. He paused at the sight of them but it was too late to duck, so he steeled himself and pressed on until he came face-to-face with them.

  The previous evening he had heard his uncle and Mr Weekes discuss their frustration at the unsent mail in the bureau. Even if a constable had taken it to Ballinrobe, the postmistress would refuse to handle it. So he had conceived a plan whereby he would take the mail to Ballinrobe barracks and ask them to despatch it through the military postal system. The soldiers were English and would surely be glad to help. And William was determined to play a big part in helping his uncle.

  He had decided that he must act like a clandestine spy, keeping his mission secret from everyone in the house. So he’d taken the letters from the bureau early that morning and slipped over the wall. Ballinrobe was just five miles away and he calculated that he could be back by noon with news of his success.

  He’d been trotting along with seven letters in a leather pouch clutched at his side, seeing only an occasional farmer in the fields, his confidence growing with each step. Until the moment he’d rounded the bend.

  They stood side-by-side, completely blocking his path.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said with his well-practiced politeness.

  One of them pushed him in the chest but he managed to stay upright.

  ‘I wish to pass.’

  ‘I wish to pass,’ one mimicked with a sneer. ‘Ye’ll have te pay te pass.’

  ‘Pay? I have no money.’

  ‘What’s in the pouch?’

  William instinctively clutched the precious pouch. He couldn’t surrender it at any cost or his endeavour would take a disastrous turn.

  The boys looked at each other; the pouch was clearly worth investigating further. They abruptly rushed at him and pushed him to the ground, one of them landing a fist on his nose and drawing blood. They clawed and tore at his pouch but he clung to it tenaciously, even as the punches began to land on his stomach.

  ‘Let go of it, ye little bastard!’ one of them snarled at him.

  William was beginning to lose hope and felt the first of the tears sting his eyes when a shape moved above his assailants and he suddenly saw two of them yanked away.

  ‘Get off him! Get off!’

  Owen, who’d been driving to Neale to meet Fr O’Malley when he came upon the commotion, pulled the third boy free and almost threw him across the track, then helped William to his feet.

  ‘He’s one of the Boycotts. Little bastard’s running messages for them,’ the tallest of them shouted as the youths re-grouped.

  ‘We’re only helping Father O’Malley,’ another said.

  Owen stepped up to them. ‘I know what Father O’Malley’s going to say when he finds out about this. And I know what your fathers will do. Not to mention your mothers.’

  The boys looked nervously at each other.

  ‘And remember what Father O’Malley said about violence? Well, I wasn’t listening when he said that bit.’

  Owen suddenly struck the leader a ferocious clatter across the ear and followed with similar strikes on the ducking heads of the other two. As they turned to scamper away, he planted a couple of painful boot marks on their backsides. The youths gone, he turned back to William and frowned, taking the lad’s chin in his hand and turning his head left and right. Bloodied nose, swollen lip; nothing more serious. He handed a rag to the boy to mop his nose.

  ‘You put up a good fight considering there were three of them.’

  William’s evident sense of pride bolstered his spirit. ‘Thank you, sir, for helping me.’

  ‘C’mon, I’ll take you home.’

  He helped the boy on to his rickety car and they set off.

  ‘Does your uncle or aunt know you’re here?’

  William shook his head, then looked downcast.

  ‘Where were you going?’

  ‘To deliver my uncle’s letters. Our post boy has stopped coming.’

  Owen felt a twinge of guilt and they rode in silence the rest of the way, stopped only by a constable inquiring what was happening. As they approached the house he saw a group consisting of Boycott, his wife, Weekes and two constables. Annie Boycott was yelling in panic. When she saw William on the car she screamed his name and rushed across. Her ragged appearance, unkempt hair and filthy dress shocked Owen.

  ‘William! Oh Lord, I was frantic with worry. What in heaven has happened to you?’ She lifted him down with surprising strength and hugged him.

  ‘What have you done to my nephew? It’s you, Joyce, I know you! Constable, arrest this man for assault!’ Boycott yelled.

  Owen reflected that aside from his similarly unkempt attire, Boycott had changed little. He began to turn the car.

  ‘No, Uncle! This gentleman stopped some boys from beating me! But he said I fought well, didn’t you, sir?’ William called out from within Annie’s clasping embrace.

  Owen smiled down at the boy and winked. As
he began to drive away, Annie Boycott met his eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Her situation had rendered it impossible to express thanks, not that he sought any, but he saw it there nonetheless.

  If there was any integrity within these grounds, Owen thought, it was to be found in the mind and heart of Boycott’s wife.

  The evenings were drawing in fast and Owen’s working day was growing shorter. He wasn’t particularly worried now about getting the harvest in, thanks to his brother’s help, yet he was troubled that the situation with Boycott continued to go unresolved. He felt like Damocles in Cicero’s tale, that above his head dangled a sword suspended only by a hair, which at any moment could snap and leave them homeless and without the means to survive the winter.

  He washed his hands in the lough and began to walk back up to the cottage. There was still no sign of his brother and as the days passed he was becoming increasingly concerned. He wasn’t worried about Thomas’s safety – he’d survived for thirty years in the wild frontiers of America – but by the reason behind his absence. He had said he’d be gone a week but it was the third day beyond his expected return and much as Owen tried to deny the notion, he couldn’t help making a connection between his brother’s absence and the murder of Mountmorres. He had been very vague on the subject of the work he’d been hired to do and Owen regretted not having subtly pursued the details further. All he knew was that it was down Cong way, but Clonbur and the scene of the crime were in the same general area. The idea was too disquieting to contemplate and, besides, it had no solid basis in evidence. He knew Thomas detested landlordism, but so did nine-tenths of the population, himself included. Perhaps the entire notion was ludicrous and he was worrying needlessly.

  As if in response to the thought, Thomas trotted into the farmyard on his black mare, a large bundle tied behind his saddle. He didn’t notice Owen and continued past to the horse pen where he unsaddled the animal and returned laden with his knapsack, the saddle and the bundle.