Bold Sons of Erin

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  Twas I who did the holding now. She was frail as a crystal glass on a ledge.

  “Do not worry,” I told her. “For I am a bad penny and will always turn up.”

  She wept.

  “I will always come back to you, my darling,” I assured her.

  “That’s what every one of them tells his wife. Don’t you know that?”

  “But we are different, see. And you will not be rid of me so easily. A war is not enough to keep me from you.”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “Laughing I am not.” Oh, I loved the smell of her. Wherever she might be would be my home.

  “I’m so afraid, Abel. Afraid you’ll be gone forever. That you’ll leave John and the baby and me alone. I don’t know what I’d do, after waiting so long.”

  “And there is Fanny. She is our daughter now.”

  Mary stiffened, putting an inch between us. “She is welcome to stay in the kitchen, for your sake. But she is not my daughter.”

  “Well, a daughter never harmed a house.”

  “That is a lie,” Mary said. “And she is not my daughter.”

  “Well, we will see.”

  She looked into my eyes. With those Welsh-green eyes of hers from up the valleys. So serious she was, and lovely as Heaven’s Grace.

  “Wickedness,” she said. “Most men come to ruin through their wickedness. But not you. The greatest danger in your life is your goodness. Don’t you see that?”

  I tutted her and held her, and stroked her back, which pained my Mary at times.

  “Goodness is never a danger,” I told her.

  “Yes, it is,” she muttered into my coat.

  FOUR

  “NO, IT’S NOT,” FATHER WILDE INSISTED. “IT ISN’T THAT simple at all.”

  He turned his back on his bookcases and stepped toward me again. His elegance of manner was as out of place in a mining patch as a holy Hindoo monkey would have been. A lock of white hair—of utterly white hair—fell onto the youthful skin of his forehead. I hardly thought him a man of thirty years. Even his black cassock could not age him. And the curiosity of his hair only made him more striking.

  “You cannot simply impose the law on these people,” he continued. “They must be made to understand its purpose. We must all of us educate them, Major Jones. It is our obligation.”

  As he passed a table, he brushed a tobacco-keeper with the back of his hand, then passed his fingertips over a fancy decanter, the contents of which did not pretend to innocence. His fingers were long and delicate, almost a woman’s, and I judged him the sort of fellow who likes to touch the world, who yearns to feel the character of things, but whose intelligence warns him off. The sort of man whose strictness is particular, not uniform. Whose duty is a refuge, not a vocation. I have known such in the army, see, and recognize the signs. I will even allow that, to some measure, I am speaking of myself.

  “You must endeavor to understand them,” he went on. “The Irish have experienced the law only as an instrument of oppression, not of protection.” He paused in his lecture, settling his fingertips upon the spine of a book spread pages down. “Indeed, can we claim it to be otherwise, even here? In America? Really, you know, these people must be won for the law. First, they must see evidence of its benefits.”

  “First,” I said, “they must learn not to murder.”

  His eyes flashed for a moment, as if confronted with a servant’s insolence. But his tone remained almost blithe, more Sussex than Sligo. If Irish, Father Wilde’s family was of the very best. If English, they were not the worst in the county.

  “I shall agree with you that they must learn, although I do not share your confidence that they have murdered.” The smile he gave me was a practiced thing. Perhaps it was a smile they teach to priests. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of St. Kiaran, Major Jones? Or St. Kyran? Or Ciaran, with a C? Who watches over our fine, new church? He rose from the working classes of his day to found the monastery of Clon-macnoise, where learning was valued and preserved among the Irish. I should like to imbue that spirit into my parishioners. For learn they must. If ever they are to advance.”

  He smoothed the cloth of a chair back. “But these are hardly matters of concern to you. No more than the Irish themselves would concern you, had you no interest in criminal affairs. So I shall confine myself to your interests and lay mine aside: If you persist in opening that grave, I cannot answer for any disturbances. The villagers are frightfully upset over the grave-robbing two nights ago. And, of course, there is concern for infection.”

  “Father Wilde, if you look out your front window, I believe you will see my men about their work. The grave will be opened. As I have told you. You have seen the papers yourself.”

  “Then I must forbid you to open Daniel Boland’s grave. As the priest of this parish. It’s a sacrilege, you know.”

  Twas the strangest business. He spoke as if reading the lines of a play without much care for their meaning. Twas almost like a schoolboy’s recitation, a matter of necessity, not passion. His accent suited manors, not the mines. He might have been talking hunters with a squire. We spoke of murder gruesomely done, but the fellow never relinquished the tone of the class that breakfasts late. I would have thought a priest would be more earnest, for that is a quality of the first importance in a religious fellow. We Methodists are splendid in our gravity.

  “Forbid me you cannot,” I told him, holding my own voice in check. “And is it not a sacrilege to bury a body in another’s grave, to dissemble identities and even the cause of death? Would it not be more than merely a crime, but a terrible sin for a priest?”

  He did not flinch. “Whatever are you talking about, my dear man?”

  “I believe you know full well.”

  “I fear that I do not.”

  “Daniel Boland is not in that grave. He never was.”

  “And how on earth might you know such a thing, Major Jones?” He eased back toward his bookcases, as if they exercised a magnetic force upon him. Strange it was. His parish house was little more than a shanty, but filled with handsome books and painted china. He even had a pair of pictures hung, the themes of which did not adhere to religion. Not even of the misfortunate Roman variety.

  “I know because I was the one who opened the grave,” I admitted. “There was no robbing. Only the corpse of a lass where a lad was to be. And no least hint of cholera. Only of a second murder, and a wicked one.”

  The priest remained as calm as a cold Welsh Sunday. “But you’re speaking fantastically! I buried Daniel Boland myself. There are numerous witnesses.”

  “Who were not shy of the cholera?”

  “Manly sorts, you know. Elders. The Irish aren’t afraid of death, not really. I rather think it’s life that unnerves them.”

  “Father Wilde, I do not see your purpose. Even priests must obey the laws of the land. There have been two murders. And you are playing with me. I am not such a fool that I cannot see it. You seem not the least concerned, but I think you are.”

  For the first time, a shade of annoyance colored his voice. “My concerns,” he said, gesturing at the gray sky past the window and the valley below that sky, “lie with those entrusted into my care. With their immortal souls, certainly. But also with the injustice that is done to them. Of course, I am aware of the report that this general of yours was killed nearby. Upon the road to Minersville, I believe. And, yes, I am aware that Boland, perhaps in his cups, claimed he had done the crime. He was an unsettled young man, unhappy, I think. But I cannot believe him a murderer.” He sighed, a schoolmaster despairing of his pupil. “Be that as it may, I will not have the Irish blamed en masse, sir. That would be no law, and certainly no justice. Furthermore, I have a serious concern about the incidence of cholera in this village. Unearthing an infected corpse may have deadly consequences.”

  “Consequences there may be, but I do not think they will arise from cholera, Father Wilde. And I do not believe that you believe it, either.”


  “That, sir, is rude.”

  “A girl is dead. Murdered. Weeks, perhaps months ago. Do you not find that rude?”

  “Such a loss would, of course, be unfortunate. Especially if the poor thing died without receiving the sacraments. But I have no intelligence of a murdered girl.”

  “But that you do, Father Wilde. From me. She was in that coffin, not Daniel Boland. Who likely is in Canada by now.”

  “Daniel Boland is dead of cholera morbus. I know nothing of this girl of whom you speak.” The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. Thin lips they were, in a handsome face whose bones looked made of glass. Waiting for life to shatter them. “But do I see it now, Major Jones? By your own admission, you have yourself interfered with the sanctity of the grave. Might I not suspect that the government, wishing a pretext to send troops among the Irish, removed Boland’s body and placed a young girl’s corpse in his coffin? To sow confusion and alarm?” That white hair might have been the emblem of the coldness in his soul. “After all, you were the last one to have knowledge of the contents of the coffin. By your own admission, I must repeat. You may have a writ today, but did you have a writ to violate that grave two nights ago?”

  “I had the authority. And you will not—”

  “But what authority? Whose authority? I will not see these people abused, Major Jones. I simply will not have it. I shall protest the matter to the diocese and, if necessary, to Bishop Wood himself. Know-nothingism abounds in the county seat, and in the state capital, as well. Let us not pretend otherwise. I find your commercial interests fond of damning the Irish, even as they exploit their labor. And the government in Washington may welcome them for its war, but will not put fair value on their work. It hardly seems a model of Christian fellowship—isn’t that what Protestants proclaim? Fellowship and brotherly love?”

  Smug he was, and a great surprise to me with his debating-club twists and turns, a smooth fellow in a place that was all roughness. I had known priests in India, where the Irish died in droves from drink and the heat. The most seemed decent fellows, if benighted. They might dissemble sobriety, but they did not lie about murder. And harder they were on a wastrel than was our colonel. I encountered a fierce, brute fellow up in the wilds of New York, whose faith burned in him. He, too, championed his Irish, but in the rough accents of Mayo, not in the fancy-dress speech of the university.

  “Father Wilde, you are an educated man and—”

  “Shall that be held against me? Are you one of those who would prefer that Catholic priests be ignorant and rough, Major Jones? To keep the Irish downtrodden and illiterate?”

  “That is not what I meant to say.”

  “But it is what I think, you see.”

  “Then you would be wrong,” I told him bluntly, although I am most respectful even of Musselman and Hindoo holy fellows. “You are quick of wit, while I am not. But I will see this matter through to the end. And if you will oppose the law, Father Wilde, you will find that the law will oppose you in return. Even your holy office will not shield you.”

  “Ah, a threat! That is unbecoming of you.”

  “No. It is not a threat. Two are dead. And if the deed was done by Patrick Boland, he will be found out. If by another, then I will find him. And nothing will stop me, see.”

  “That does sound rather like the sin of pride. One of the major sins, you know. Even for Protestants.”

  I was deep in frustration and trying to keep my temper, which has not always been the best of friends to me. So bedeviled I was that I had to look away from the fellow. My eyes were not focused, but they happened to point in the direction of a portrait hanging from a bookcase.

  He mistook my gaze.

  “My sister. Lady Caroline Wilde-Dudley. Not much of a resemblance, I’m afraid. Do you smoke?”

  “Smoke I do not. And I will not change the subject.”

  “And you will dig up that grave. I know, I know. All that famous Welsh tenacity . . .” He set to preparing himself a pipe. Then he stopped, the instant he realized his hands were shaking. He looked up at once, eyes asking if I had noticed.

  I looked away, as if I had seen naught.

  He shifted to put his back to me, then returned to filling his pipe. “You must try to understand my position,” he said to the bookcases and, secondarily, to me. “I petitioned to come to a parish of this sort, you know. Irish miners. Their families. I have made it my personal care to assist them, as they accustom themselves to their new homeland.” Of a sudden, he turned back to face me. “Oh, nothing romantic about it. No longing for martyrdom in the cookpot. Not that sort of thing at all. But aren’t they the poor, who are beloved of God? The poor for whom Jesus Christ had infinite mercy? The poor whom we are called to love as our brothers?” He shook his head. “Dig up their graves? Worst thing you could do.”

  He sat down across from me and made to light his pipe with a wooden match. For a moment, he remained quiet, concentrating on steadying his hands. I smelled the instant sweetness of fired tobacco.

  “They are devout in their faith,” he resumed. “But I’m afraid their faith is impure. Oh, they believe in the Church, certainly. But half of them still believe in fairies, as well. They cling to the past, to spells instead of medicines. These people need education, not threats. Honest wages, not maltreatment. They must be led into the modern world.”

  He puffed, looking down at the bowl of his pipe, then lifted his eyes to me. “It would be all too convenient to accept their devotions, while ignoring the heathen practices that persist among them. But I, for one, believe that we who have given our lives to the service of Our Lord Jesus Christ must not abandon them to their ignorance. Modern faith is not about bogeymen and pitchforks, after all, but about the challenge of living a life that is pleasing in the eyes of God. And I should not think Him pleased by charms and incantations.”

  Father Wilde feinted a smile. “Many of my fellow seminarians would disagree, Major Jones, but I am not convinced that the faith of the fool is a worthy faith. Nor am I convinced that ceremony without understanding is a valid form of devotion. You will find I differ with Cardinal Newman’s approach to the times as much as I do with your Dr. Pusey’s. Why, I’ve always felt rather sorry for the hounding that sort gave poor, old Colenso. I do believe the fellow meant well. Although I would not defend his mathematics. But you see, I’m hardly the Ultramontane sort your people prefer in a Catholic priest. Don’t you agree, after all, that Protestants rather enjoy a close-minded priest to whom they may condescend, but won’t quite like a fellow who believes God gave us brains so that we might exercise them? I prefer a thoughtful devotion, if you will.”

  At last he managed a smile of some authenticity. “These are challenging days for us Catholics, but days of great spiritual renewal, as well. Especially, in the English-speaking lands. Newman has done us well, in that respect. He simply feels the diffidence before God of the newly converted. Rigor answers his doubts.”

  Like you, I knew the name of Cardinal Newman. A fellow who left the Church of England, where the incense was not thick enough for his nostrils. He led young men astray who were confounded by the pain of modern times. But let that bide.

  “You will do your flock no good by hiding a murder,” I told the priest. “Or two murders.”

  “And do you mean to do them good, Major Jones?”

  A colliery whistle blew, shrill enough to pierce the deepest grave. Twas not the hour for such a blowing. But I knew what it meant. Our period of uninterrupted digging was done. We had been noticed by someone in the valley.

  I rose to my feet. For I was not confident the shabby fellows we had hired for the digging, or even the deputies placed over them, would stand up well against an Irish mob. They would need spine.

  I looked down at the priest, who puffed his pipe and did not think to rise.

  “Where will I find Mrs. Boland?” I asked him. “When the fuss is done, I want to talk to her.”

  “I’m afraid you shan’t be able to do that.”
/>   “Why not?”

  “She’s disappeared. Hasn’t been seen since her husband died.” He gestured, lightly, toward the woods with his pipe. “We’re all very concerned about her. An unusual person, you know. Odd habits. One of those of whom I spoke, the sort who cling to the old, rural beliefs opposed by the Church.”

  “You mean she’s mad?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Upset, of course. Show me the wife who wouldn’t be. No, my concern is that the poor woman’s run off in her grief and might come to harm. Personally, I rather fear she took the cholera from her husband. She may be lying dead out in the forest.”

  “She is not dead. I saw her.”

  For the first time, his composure failed him utterly. He reconquered himself with the swiftness of an Alexander, but not before a blush had spoiled his cheek.

  “Oh? Where was that?” His voice had an unmistakable quiver in it. He stabbed his pipe back into his mouth, lips thinned to disappearing.

  “Not a hundred yards from this house. In the night.”

  He had to remove the pipe from his lips again, if only to stop it from shaking.

  EVERY MINER was sullen as a Herod. A hundred of them there were, both men skilled in the ways of the pit and laborers whose tools were picks and shovels. Black-faced and black-handed, with all the color stolen from their clothes, they stood beneath a washwater sky and muttered. They reminded me of Afghanees from the hills, gathered to resist a foreign intruder. Such men never think outsiders good.

  Their wives and children, gray the lot of them, stood by. When the colliery whistle blew, the miners had come up from their gangways and galleries to join the lesser men who worked the yards, marching all together through the patch of company shanties, collecting their families, and trudging on up to the graveyard. Quiet as death they come, and hard-faced. Some were black as minstrels in a show, with white eyes, while others—the men who tended the mules or machinery—were but smudged in comparison. Breaker boys with hands cut raw stood in little bands, defiant of all authority in that hour, and yearning for the excitement of disaster. The great pack of them gathered just beyond the piled-stone wall that separated their dead from the rest of the world.