The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  ‘Of course it’s the farm. What else could it be?’

  ‘But that’s the way it was always going to be.’

  ‘I know it was,’ Pat said. ‘And I know you’ve been sending all the money back all this time. You’ve paid the rent every year. It’s your farm.’

  ‘But you were half hoping I’d stay away, were you?’

  ‘Half hoping is right. Half of me wanted you home, and the other half wanted the farm.’

  ‘That’s a fair way of putting it,’ Luke said.

  Pat finished the milking and washed the cow’s udders. He picked up the pail. ‘Hold on there, I’ll just drop this over to Mother.’

  When he returned, they both followed the cow and calf back towards the field. Then they leant on the gate, watching the sun go down over the side of the Mountain.

  ‘What’s this about you working the quarry after?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Who was telling you that?’

  ‘Father said it to me.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s what Mother wants, but I doubt a man can make a living out of it. And even if he did, there wouldn’t be much of a living out of the farm without the quarry, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Luke said. ‘Though there’s other farms around here empty, from what I hear.’

  ‘Would you want that? Rent a farm where a man’s been forced out by hunger.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Or evicted?’

  ‘I would not.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Pat said, ‘so I reckon it’s going to be the railways for me. And Murtybeg, he’ll go too, though Aileen is terrified of that.’

  ‘Why should she be terrified?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s just Aileen, you know what she’s like. She can’t take in that Danny is gone. She’d never face up to losing both her sons.’

  ‘But they’ll need the money.’

  ‘They will, but she doesn’t see it that way. She thinks Danny’s money is enough, and Murtybeg should stay teaching in the school with Murty.’

  Luke ran the calf out of the ditch. ‘When would ye go though?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It won’t be for a few years yet.’

  ‘So what about this year. Father was saying how you’ll be going on the harvest in England for the summer.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Murtybeg won’t be going with you, will he?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll go right enough. We’re going over in a couple of days, the both of us.’

  ‘Why so quick?’

  ‘Why not? Now that you’re home, we wouldn’t have the money for corn if I didn’t go. I’ll have to work the summer in England and come back in September. You should have a good crop of potatoes by then.’

  ‘I hope to God we do,’ Luke said. ‘But what about Murtybeg then? Will he come back in September?’

  ‘He’s only going on the promise he’ll come back with me. Aileen insisted on it. But I reckon he won’t.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘He thinks there’s nothing to come back to, that’s why he wouldn’t. Murty’s school is near finished. There’s hardly anyone coming now, and even if the potato crop is a good one the Government schools will close him when they come. No, Murty doesn’t stand a chance. Not a chance in hell. So I reckon Murtybeg will stay in England, promise or no promise.’

  ‘I see,’ Luke said. ‘So Nessy will have to teach the school instead of him.’

  ‘Well…no.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not while she’s waiting for her baby, she won’t.’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘But…is she to be married?’

  ‘There’s not a hope of that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then who…?’

  ‘Jimmy Corrigan’s the father, if that’s what you’re asking. But don’t say I told you.’

  They walked back along the bramble lane towards the house. Luke picked up a stick and slashed at the heads of the ragwort on the ditch. Murtybeg leaving? Nessy expecting? What more could go wrong? He thought again of the road from Dublin. Hungry beggars and families in rags. Could it happen here? Had it already begun?

  ‘There’s something else I don’t understand,’ he said to Pat.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The hunger. They’re all very quiet about it. Just how bad is it?’

  ‘Well, you’ve heard about Sheehys leaving.’

  ‘Yes, Father told me about that. Murtaghs and Tolans and the rest of them.’

  ‘And many more. But I’ll tell you this, it’s nothing like the Mountain. There’s fever up there, hunger too. And bad and all as it is, it’d be worse if it wasn’t for the corn lines.’

  ‘Corn lines!’ Luke exclaimed. ‘Just like 1840.’

  ‘Aye, and longer too.’

  He thought of the Soup Kitchens then. The long lines of hungry people. The look in his father’s eyes.

  ‘But Father – he wouldn’t take charity.’

  ‘He had to,’ Pat said. ‘Or should I say, Mother had to.’

  ‘He wouldn’t stand in line?’

  ‘Of course not. You know Father – it’s not a man’s place to be shamed.’

  ‘Too damned proud, eh?’

  ‘Maybe. But it changed after the first few weeks. They started a paying line, and then Mother and Aileen had to pay for their corn. And you know why? Because Father and Murty wouldn’t let us be fed for free, and that was an end to it.’

  ‘I see,’ Luke said.

  ‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘that’s the way it was. But it was still your money and Danny’s that was doing the paying, and they knew it. Everyone did. One way or another, there was no pride in it.’

  Luke stopped in the dark, watching a half moon coming up over the Mountain. ‘Ye all look well fed.’

  ‘We are, though like I say, there’s many enough around here that are hungry. And from all we hear, it’s desperate out the west of the county. Worse even than the Mountain. They keep passing along the road, poor devils, scarce able to walk. They can’t make it out through Westport, they don’t have the price of the ticket. Their only chance is the cattle boat from Dublin. If they get that far.’

  Luke saw a figure approaching in the shadows. ‘Who’s that, do you think?’

  Pat looked up. ‘You don’t know him!’

  ‘I do not.’

  ’Tis Murtybeg, that’s who it is, you eejit.’

  Murtybeg strode up to Luke. ‘Don’t mind to his teasing now. I’d not have known you either.’

  ‘But God, you’ve got tall,’ Luke said. ‘You must have put on a good two foot in height since I saw you last.’

  ‘Sure, I had to, didn’t I. I couldn’t stay a little runt for ever. But come on now – they’re all waiting for you back at the house. We all came down visiting just to see you, and there you were – gone. We thought something’d happened to the pair of you, you were taking so long.’

  They walked back through the dark lane.

  ‘Pat tells me ye’re both going away to the harvest,’ Luke said.

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Ye’re going early.’

  ‘No reason not to. There’s not much happening at the school. No one’s got the cash to pay. And they can’t pay any other way neither – the potatoes are gone, and the corn’s all for rent.’

  ‘But you’ll be back in the autumn, will you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Murtybeg said. ‘We’ll see.’

  They went into the house. Murty rose from the table and grasped Luke’s hand. ‘By God, so this is the great fellow back from England. Making more money than a poor Mayo schoolmaster could ever do, yourself and Danny. You’ll have to tell us all how you do it.’

  Murty was Luke’s
uncle and Danny’s father. He was a softer man than Michael. During the 1798 Rebellion, he had only been four years old, but the horror of those August days had remained with him, recurring in nightmares.

  Unlike Michael, Murty had never lived with his father again. His mother had ambitions for him. In 1806, Murty had been sent to stay with a cousin of the family, a priest in Tuam, and for seven years he studied at the diocesan school there. He spent another ten years travelling around Galway and Mayo, carrying his blackboard on his back and picking up odd jobs teaching in towns and remote villages.

  In 1823, he returned and started his own school in Carrigard. Some saw him as a spoilt priest and refused to send their children. Many more could not afford schooling for their family. But for most families, the school was seen as the only way out of poverty, and within a few years Murty was teaching over a hundred boys and just about a dozen girls. There were no other teachers in Carrigard School. Instead Murty used the brighter pupils from the senior classes to help him teach the juniors and infants.

  Michael was not too proud to learn from his younger brother, and during the early years he had spent many evenings with him, studying arithmetic, reading and writing in the guttering light from the rushes.

  A few months after Murty returned to Carrigard, he had married Aileen O’Kelly. Three of their children survived to 1846. Nessa was born in 1824, Danny in 1826 and Murtybeg in 1827.

  Aileen came across from where she had been sitting beside the fire. She held her hand out shyly. ‘Luke,’ she whispered. She had the same face and figure as her sister, Eleanor. But the eyes showed it all, a frightened look, hunted even. He wondered what had caused that.

  Nessa had certainly changed. Her face was thinner, but she was more feminine and alluring than he remembered. He could see too that she was carrying a child.

  They sat at the table as Eleanor served out hot punch made from rough distilled poitín spirit. They questioned him about England and about the Carrigard and Kilduff men working with Farrelly’s gang.

  ‘Tell me,’ asked Murty at last, ‘what’s Danny going to do?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nessa said. ‘Tell us about Danny. When will he come home?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know that,’ Luke said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Nessa said. ‘You’ll have a view surely?’

  He hesitated, looking from one face to another. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I can tell you what I think, though it might not be what ye want to hear. I’d thought he might come home, but that was before he decided to go to Leeds. But he won’t now.’

  ‘But why not?’ Nessa asked. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘He reckons he’s nothing to come home to.’

  ‘Nothing to come home to,’ Murty exclaimed. ‘We thought he’d save up and buy himself a farm. Isn’t that the thing to do? Or teach even.’

  ‘Not for Danny. He favours the railways.’

  ‘But the railways will kill him. He can’t work like that for the rest of his life.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s thinking of swinging a pick for the rest of his life. But he’ll still stay with the rails.’

  ‘But what else could he do?’ Nessa asked. ‘Some kind of clerking?’

  ‘Something like that, Nessy. But if he does, I think it’ll be on his own account.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘He’ll work for himself, Danny will.’

  ‘With men working for him?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But that’s only your view.’

  ‘It is. My view, nothing more.’

  Murty tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. ‘You heard about Pat and Murtybeg going on the harvest in England?’

  ‘I did,’ Luke said.

  ‘There’s a gang of them going – the Roughneens, Michael Jordan, Fergus Brennan, Bernie McDonnell and half a dozen more.’

  ‘They’re going early enough from what I hear,’ Luke said.

  ‘They are, but at least they won’t be staying,’ Murty said. ‘Four months on the harvest, and they’ll be home again.’

  ‘They promised they would,’ Aileen said.

  ‘They did,’ Eleanor said, patting her sister on the arm. ‘They promised they’d be home in September. Now you’re not to be worrying about it.’

  Murtybeg stared into his poitín, saying nothing.

  For a few minutes, Luke said little either. He was feeling an attraction to Nessa. The man who won her would be a lucky man, though many might be put off by the thought of another man’s child. Still, she was a striking woman, there was no doubt of that. He tried to put it out of his mind. She was his cousin, his first cousin at that. That could never be.

  It was late when the others stood to go. Luke went out with them. It was a brilliant night with stars.

  Murty stayed back as the others walked on. He took Luke by the arm. ‘What you were saying about Danny, it took Aileen quite by surprise.’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘You know, she still keeps his bed in the outshot. Makes sure it’s warm every night and lets no one sleep in it. It’s as if she’s expecting him to walk in the door every day, though she knows he’s in England.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Luke said. ‘I should have kept my bloody mouth shut.’

  ‘Oh, it’s as well for us to know. But still it’ll upset her dreadfully if he stays away. And she’s enough troubles already.’

  ‘Troubles. Like what?’

  ‘All sorts of things, you know Aileen. The linen price is down – she reckons we’ll have to give it up. The school – she keeps worrying about that, reckons we’ll have to close. But Nessy is the real worry. Nessy’s in trouble.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You noticed, did you? Aileen’s known it for months. I was wondering what was biting her. They only told me lately, the pair of them. Soon everyone will know, and there’ll be all hell to pay then.’

  ‘So what about the father?’ Luke asked, feigning ignorance.

  ‘Jimmy Corrigan, God damn him.’

  ‘Owen’s nephew?’

  ‘That’s right. His father’s dead, and his mother doesn’t want to know. I’d have a word with Owen about it, but I don’t think that’s going to do much good.’

  ‘Damn it, I’ll have a word with Jimmy myself.’

  ‘If you can find him. We can’t.’

  He was breaking stones with his father and brother. Michael handed him a pick. Luke raised it, struck hard at the loose rock, swung out and brought it down again. He continued in a regular rhythm, soon joined by both Pat and Michael working alongside him, keeping up, blow for blow. Michael had always been proud of his powerful build, and Luke was too intelligent to try to work faster than his father, though he knew he could. Even so it astonished him how strong his father still was, more so than Pat, who was already sweating heavily and working slower.

  Some time later, they all stopped and sat on the edge of the rock, Pat gasping hard.

  ‘So this is the way you’d work in England, is it?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Well, perhaps,’ Luke said, ‘but not quite. They’ve different ways of doing it over there.’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘Using spikes. It’s much faster. Do it in one go. Bring the whole lift down.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The lift. The whole ledge of rock, with everything under it.’

  He jumped up and strode up to the shelf of rock they had been working on, studying it closely. His father followed, curious.

  ‘I’m not sure if the rock is the same,’ Luke said. ‘But look here. See this line running along the rock here. This is what we’d call a ‘line of weakness.’ If the rock acts the same as I’ve seen it, all we’d have to do is start driving heavy spikes in along the line until we split it from top to bottom.’

  ‘Top to bottom?
’

  ‘You don’t have to drive it all the way. After a while, the rock does the job on its own. It just comes down.’

  Michael shook his head in disbelief.

  An hour later, Luke took some of his own money from the house and rode into Kilduff, but he could not find the heavy spikes he wanted. He rode to Knockanure, and it was late afternoon before he returned. Pat and Michael stopped to watch as he carried the heavy spikes over.

  He walked along the line of the rock. ‘We’ll try the first one here. Pat, you hold it.’

  His father handed him a heavy sledge-hammer as Pat held the spike over the crack. Luke smashed the hammer down onto the spike which vibrated violently.

  Pat whipped his hands back. ‘Damn it, that hurt.’

  ‘What did you expect and you holding it so tight? Here, hold it again, only grasp it gentle this time.’

  After a few minutes, when the spike had entered the rock deeply enough to stand on its own, he started with a second spike.

  ‘This time, I’ll use the hammer,’ Pat said.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Some time later, they had six spikes hammered into the fault in the rock. ‘I hope this works,’ Michael said, ‘because if it doesn’t, we’ll never get them things back out.’

  ‘Of course it’ll work,’ Luke said. ‘Now what we’re going to do is this. We’ll take the sledgehammer in turns, a dozen blows on each spike, and we keep doing that until it goes.’

  They worked on, passing the sledgehammer between them. Suddenly, silently, the split in the rock started to widen. Michael looked on in amazement.

  Luke, who had been last with the sledgehammer, handed it to Pat. ‘Here, we’ll give you the chance. Last spike on the left, just belt it a few times. And stand on this side of it.’

  ‘Do you think I’m a complete amadán?’ Pat asked.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe you are. Go on.’

  Pat did as he was told. There was a roar as hundreds of tons of rock teetered out and collapsed.

  *

  Next morning, Pat and Luke filled the cart with stone and gravel and led it out into the Kilduff road. They stopped close to the entrance to the well and started to fill potholes and ruts. There was a group of emaciated women at the well, whispering among themselves.