Cold Is the Dawn

by Charles Egan

Still, he thought of the idea of a strike on Murtybeg’s works. Unionising the navvy? An impossible dream. The navvy was there to be used and abused. Most of them were single men, with no other source of pay.

  But what was he himself? A navvy too. And an evictor! What of it? He, at least, had a wife working and no children to worry about. Nessa and Danny dead, Murtybeg, a ruthless, wealthy contractor. He and Aileen could pay their rent, and eat. But what would happen when he was too old to work anymore. Would they end up in the workhouse, the same way as Nathan might? How could that happen when he had such a wealthy son?

  A son? What son?

  *

  And what of the mills? One night he spoke to Kitty about it all after dinner. Aileen was already earning good wages, and from what Sinéad and Máire said, she would soon be earning more. He asked Kitty about wages in the mill.

  ‘The spinners are up to nine shillings a week – one and six pence a day,’ she told him. Loomweavers the same. Better than the ragsorters, I can tell you. Six shillings is their weekly lot. The piecers are even less, up to three shillings if they’re lucky.’

  ‘But sure no one could live on that.’

  ‘Not if they’re feeding a family, they can’t. But they’re part of the family. Boys and girls, and whatever they make is extra for the family. It’s important, don’t you see? If the child doesn’t work, it’s only a mouth and a mouth takes feeding, and feeding costs money. But a child has hands, and hands earn money. No, a family can’t afford to have too many children not working.’

  Yes, Murty was thinking. Not as much as what we’re earning on the Lancashire & Yorkshire, though the work can’t be as hard, and the hours are only sixty a week.

  ‘But what age do they start them at?’

  ‘God only knows. They’re only kids, some of them. Whether they’ve five years on them, I wouldn’t know?’

  ‘Five years?’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m saying? It’s a hard job too, being a piecer. If a thread on a spindle breaks, the ends have to be repaired at once. The piecer goes forward and joins them, there’s a knack in doing it, and the kids learn it fast. And they’ve many spindles to be watching, running backwards and forwards as needed. Running miles and miles a day. And near half the mill would be children. The ones who live, that is. Sure half the children in Bradford die before they make it to men or women. You should listen to the older women talking, they can tell you how many of their own have died. I reckon the most of the women started off working in the mills as children, five to ten years old, that kind of age. You can ask all the women on the looms, they’ll tell you the stories of what they went through when they were young.’

  ‘And what of Aileen, Kitty? Do you think she’s able for all this?’

  ‘More so than I might have expected,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s the hours that hit her first, that’s what she tells me. But she was well used to spinning and weaving before, so even with the new machines, she learnt quick enough. She’s strengthened up too. But whatever about the long hours and hard work, it’s the other women that make it easier. Us Irish, we just stick together, make our own fun. It’s strange how people can laugh, no matter what. And I include Aileen in that.’

  ‘Laughing?’

  ‘And talking more than ever. The mill is taking her out of herself.’

  ‘I’d say you’re right,’ Murty said. ‘And it’s not just the mill neither. It’s yourself too. I don’t know how we’ve done without you all these years. Nor how we could in the future. You’ve worked miracles, you have.’

  *

  On a Sunday afternoon, the unseen Nathan was taken to the Bradford Workhouse. Murty watched from the door as he was carried out on a stretcher. He heard the raspy breathing, and knew full well that Nathan would not live long.

  Murty offered to help, but the two brothers refused politely, and brought Nathan to the waiting cart.

  ‘And we’ll never see him again,’ Bríd said. ‘A hard life, and him only a young man.’

  *

  A few days later, Arthur and Samuel joined Murty and Tomás around the table in Kerrigans’.

  ‘Well, how did he take it?’ Tomás asked.

  ‘Not so well, Tommy,’ Samuel answered. ‘We walked over this morning. He was upset he hadn’t seen us for a few days. He’s in there with all the other old miners, a ward all to themselves. Not a place I’d care to stay, what with all the puffing and panting. It’s hard on him.’

  ‘It’ll be hard on you too,’ Murty said, ‘when you end up there yourselves. Have you thought of that?’

  Arthur laughed. ‘That’s not for us,’ he said. ‘It’s like I told you, it’ll be a rockfall or an explosion.’

  ‘And what of the Miners’ Association?’

  ‘In one word, dead. Dead as a doornail, no matter what Sammy thinks. What difference could they make to us? The firedamp won’t go away just because the Association orders it. Nor will the rocks stop falling.’

  *

  On the McCormack Cutting, Murty always looked forward to Saturday afternoons. Sometimes, when they had been paid, he would go with Doyle and Higgins to their shack on the edge of the Works. The shack disgusted him now. But every time he visited, there was good company. The men were from home, and their high spirits and good humour never failed to lift him. Sometimes whiskey was produced, sometimes poitín, but only for special occasions as they saw it. Sometimes they played pontoon, and from time to time, even poker, gambling for farthings and halfpennies.

  On Sundays, he enjoyed the harangues with Tomás and the Yeadon brothers. They, too, were all advanced in their thinking, and in some ways this surprised Murty. Tomás could read and write, and while his writing might have been limited, his reading was certainly good enough for the Bradford Observer.

  When Murty suggested to the Yeadons that they should learn, they scorned the idea.

  ‘Reading isn’t for the likes of us,’ Samuel said.

  ‘How can you say that?’ Murty said. ‘It’s the only way you’ll be able to beat the bosses.’

  ‘Not in our lifetimes,’ Arthur said.

  He might be right, Murty thought. The miners’ lung will catch them both soon enough. If, of course, a rockfall doesn’t get them first. There was no way he could beat their fatalism.

  This showed itself in another way.

  Murty knew Kitty had come from a poor background, and was both illiterate and innumerate. One morning he took her aside.

  ‘Isn’t it time you learned to read and write?’ he asked her.

  ‘Me!’ she exclaimed. ‘But sure how could I do that?’

  ‘I could teach you. And isn’t it a great chance for you? Here you are, living with a teacher, and I can tell you, it would be a great pleasure for me to be back teaching.’

  ‘But how could I pay you?’

  ‘Sure forget about that. After all you’ve done for Aileen, how could I ever charge you.’

  Kitty hesitated.

  ‘Not wishing to upset you,’ she said, ‘but you’re a man can read and write, and you’re only working on the railway. Aren’t you?’

  ‘True enough,’ Murty said. ‘I don’t have to tell you, I was long enough working as a teacher, but when the new schools came to Mayo, they wouldn’t take me on because I wasn’t practised their way. Same thing over here. So when I came across, I was working with Danny, and then with Gilligan’s gang. I wasn’t working as a labourer there, they had me on clerical work, and I was as much a part of the gang as anyone else. But that was when we worked as a gang, here we’re just common labourers, and McCormack sure as hell doesn’t have any more need of clerks; he’s enough English ones of his own.’

  ‘But you could look for other clerical positions?’

  ‘I could, Kitty, but my age is against me now. And you’re right, I should try. But you, you’re young enough, you can do it if you want.’

  ‘There’s other reasons though,’ Kitty said. ‘You talk about clerical work, sure that’s not for women. Irish women wouldn’t
have a chance in hell. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Things will change.’

  ‘Oh, but will they?’

  ‘They will, Kitty, they will. There’ll be other openings for you. Like teaching…’

  ‘Teaching!’

  ‘Why not? There’ll be chances for intelligent women, Irish or not.’

  ‘But teacher training costs money. And time too. Time I’d not be earning.’

  ‘We’d find a way. But first you’d have to read and write.’

  *

  That night, Kitty came to their bedroom. Aileen answered her knock.

  ‘Kitty child, come in.’

  Kitty entered, and sat at the end of the bed.

  ‘I was thinking of what you were saying about teacher training,’ she said to Murty. ‘I’d have to learn my numbers and letters first. So I’ll accept your generous offer.’

  ‘I knew you would,’ Murty said.

  ‘But how long before I’d be able to start their training.’

  ‘Hard to say. Five years. Could be six. It wouldn’t just be writing and arithmetic. There’ll be other subjects too. And examinations to take, before they’d let you in.’

  ‘It’s not easy then.’

  ‘It’s not. Every evening, every weekend we’d be working, you and I together.’

  Kitty looked to Aileen.

  ‘Has he been talking to you of this?’

  ‘It was I spoke to him,’ Aileen answered.

  ‘You said it first?’

  ‘And sure why not?’

  ‘But teacher training? We could never pay for it.’

  ‘Wewll wait till that time comes. After that, Murtybeg will pay.’

  ‘Murtybeg!’ Murty exclaimed. ‘Just how in hell…’

  ‘We’ll write to him,’ Aileen said.

  ‘And what would we say?’

  ‘Tell him Kitty is in England.’

  ‘Arra, what. Would he even know who Kitty is?’

  ‘He’d know, right enough. They played together as children back in Mayo.’

  Murty shook his head, baffled.

  ‘But how could we ask him for money?’

  ‘Sure there’d be no need to ask. He’ll see she’s living with us, and is to be schooled.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘It’ll give him a chance to atone for his sins. He’ll do it, Murteen will. He’ll do it for his sister.’

  ‘Sister!’ Kitty exclaimed, wide-eyed. ‘But then…then I’d be your daughter.’

  ‘As you already are, alanna.’

  Chapter 28

  Manchester Courier. July 1849:

  Very early one morning last week Mr. Fogg, as inspector of nuisances, accompanied by two police officers, made an inspection of the lodging houses in New Town, occupied by the Irish tramps, or wretched beings of the same station in society. In the cellar of a man named Murphy, in Bridge’s Court, Newport Street, they found 15 men and women, and in the coal-hole a man and his wife, making 17 in one cellar, besides Murphy’s family. In the lodging house of William Hornby, Cross Street, they found 14 men and women in one room. In another house in Back Dawes Street, they found 11 men in the kitchen, and upstairs 20; making 31 persons in a small house, besides the family of the occupier. They also visited another house in Back Dawes Street, kept by John Patten, and found 12 men and women on the ground floor, the room being 12 feet by 12 feet, and 8 feet high. In the room above there were 16 men; and in the garret, there were 18 men and women, making 46 lodgers in the 3 rooms, in addition to Patten’s family. The sexes were indiscriminately huddled together, the rooms without any ventilation, and frightfully filthy.

  Murtybeg’s relationship with Irene changed beyond all knowing. Their desperate coupling that night swiftly saw to that. Here, at least, she yielded to him as master, though her driving urgency pushed his manhood to the utter limits.

  When at last she slept, he stayed awake, watching the flickers of the street lights reflected on the ceiling. Was this the woman he had hated so bitterly? A woman he would gladly have strangled, if he could have gotten away with it. So what did he feel for her now? Love? He thought of his mother, and how protective he had been towards her. And Nessa before she had died, his own sister snatched away in childbirth. That was love. There were other women – girls too – when he was younger. Some of these he had thought he had loved, but none had lasted.

  But what was this? A wild animal passion? No, it was far more than that. It was no softness, though. It was a hard way of loving, based on their ability to test each other to the extreme. Was that love? Did it matter? It was an unbreakable bond, stronger than any, and Irene was his only future.

  Next morning, after their aching lust was spent, they had a quiet breakfast and returned to the office. It became evident now that Irene respected Murtybeg, far more than she had ever respected Danny. The link between them was based on another passion too – their shared ambition to make Edwardes & Ryan the top labour contractor on the railways in the north of England.

  Now, he deferred to her on dealing with the suppliers to the business, where her tough dealings forced prices down to the minimum. Their smaller suppliers knew she could break them, and often Edwardes & Ryan was their only lifeline for survival.

  She left the sourcing of labour to him, whether off the boats in Liverpool, or from the workhouses and slums of Liverpool, Manchester or Bradford. He also continued dealing with the main railway contractors, especially Brassey and Mackenzie. Responsibility for the smaller contractors was divided between them.

  Dealing with the banks was also a joint concern, though Murtybeg played the lead role. The Manchester & Salford bank was not used to dealing with women at a high level, but he knew that Winrow and his colleagues would grow to respect Irene, and while negotiations would always be tough, he and Irene would always bring them to a profitable finish.

  *

  His relationship with his family was a different matter. His father’s refusal to return to work in Edwardes & Ryan had depressed him, but it was no surprise. He knew how much Murty despised Irene. Now that Irene was his future, Murty and Aileen could not be part of his life. Danny’s break with his parents had been one of the reasons for him killing himself. More and more though, Murtybeg felt that he was stronger than Danny, working closely with a hard woman who saw him as her equal. He had chosen his road in life, a choice that Danny could not make, and the need for which had torn him asunder.

  His relationship with his gangers changed too. He could see Roughneen and Lavan regarded him with a new respect, almost deference. They had quickly sensed the future and were working to keep their part in it.

  Of the other gangers, Gilligan seemed nervous at first. Murtybeg knew he too understood the changes taking place in Edwardes & Ryan, and he too came to respect him and learned to deal with the navvies with the same callousness.

  The gangers had other concerns too. Roughneen was the first to bring it up.

  ‘The stories of cholera,’ he said.’

  ‘I know,’ Irene said, ‘they say there’s people dying in Manchester.’

  ‘Worse than Manchester. The Woodhead Tunnel too. There’s been navvies dying. If it gets a grip on the railways, it will spread right across the network.’

  ‘Let’s pray it doesn’t,’ Murtybeg said.

  But it did spread. When Murtybeg next travelled to Bradford to visit the Colne Extension, he met with Gilligan. New shacks were being rapidly built.

  ‘Are we employing more men?’ he asked.

  ‘We are,’ Gilligan replied. ‘We’re employing more to fill in for the ones with cholera. And those shacks there, they’re our infirmaries, if you want to call them that.’

  ‘Infirmaries?’

  ‘We have to quarantine them, that’s the law.’

  ‘But surely the Bradford Infirmary would take them?’

  ‘Not now. There’s too many cases across the city. Broomfields and Kirkgate mainly. They’re trying to cut back on the numbers they’re taking in
the city, and they don’t see why they should take Irish navvies.’

  ‘This’ll slow things down on our contract.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Gilligan said. ‘Like you said yourself, there’s plenty of Mayo men in Broomfields, half-starved too. No, we’ve no problem filling the openings.’

  ‘Fine,’ Murtybeg said. ‘Just take care of yourself, Joe, we wouldn’t want you ending up with cholera.’

  *

  One evening, the subject of the Molly Maguire gang arose.

  ‘It’s always been a dangerous situation,’ Irene said. ‘You know that Danny had been caught up with them?’

  ‘Yes,’ Murtybeg said, ‘I’d known that at the time.’

  ‘He was a fool to do it,’ she said. ‘They’re a very dangerous gang. Danny had his excuses, of course, he only wanted to clear the shebeens off his sites, but as you know, that resulted in one death and Jamesy McManus was killed in return.’

  ‘I know all that. There was a police investigation at the time.’

  ‘There was. The police were looking for information from Danny, but he was terrified to give it. While he might not have asked the gang to murder anyone, men had died, and Danny thought he might hang for it. I thought a long prison sentence was more likely, but I think that terrified Danny even more. And there was an even worse problem. If he informed the police, the gang would kill him.’

  Murtybeg shook his head. ‘I hadn’t known that he was thinking like that.’

  ‘He might have been overstating his fears, but even so, right or wrong, he could see no way out of it.’

  ‘But he’s dead now. Surely, it stops there.’

  ‘So you might think,’ she said. ‘My only concern is that the gang won’t let it rest.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Murtybeg said. ‘They will now.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘They’ve already made contact. Mr. Brady, that is. He wanted to offer us ‘protection’. But I wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have it?’

  ‘I threatened him with hanging.’

  He walked over to the desk and took out a copy of the ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letter. Irene glanced through it.