Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  “May she rejoice in Your kingdom where all tears are wiped away, unite us together again in one family, to sing Your praises forever and ever.”

  The priest continued his eulogy for a woman who had been “dignified and kind.” By then, Johannah’s eyes were again full of tears and her chin trembled. Ever since her mother’s death—a sudden ailment of the heart and she was gone—Johannah had felt a powerful grief she had not expected. A huge black hole had opened in her life, one she could not get around or through.

  She and her mother had grown closer than she thought possible in the last few years. She had hoped for many more years with her, and her sorrow was tinged with bitterness at the loss of a friend that had just been found.

  The funeral party was remarkably small, with Raffy, two of Johannah’s second cousins on her father’s side, three graziers who looked after the twelve hundred head of cattle now on the estate and two elders of the church and one of their wives. But where were her old friends? Where was Lucy? She had not received a letter from Lucy in over a year and a half and even her own mother, on her last visit to London, had been vague, pretending to not even remember who Lucy was. Johannah had expected at least some of the tenants to be here, but her father said they had moved too far away to return. She would have invited the world but, inexplicably, her father wanted the ceremony small, just family and a few friends, and of course the four soldiers who would stand guard. Her father had said there had been trouble with thieves and hooligans and the soldiers were a precaution. Soldiers at a funeral. Johannah wondered again what that was about.

  She had arrived the day before, and it was so strange to be home after almost six years away, especially under these terrible circumstances. Her father seemed older and weary but his edge was not gone, nor his anger.

  At supper, she had told her father a little about her life in London. But when she asked about Lucy and the others, he seemed unclear about where the tenants had gone and Johannah felt just too tired to push the matter.

  The question she didn’t dare ask of anyone yet was the whereabouts of Jim Donnelly. Was he still in Manchester, as Lucy had written? He had stayed persistently at the back of her mind, with his perfect lips like the plaster angel. He was the only boy she had met who could truly make her laugh. He would be a man now. She had kissed other men and done much more than that in London, but no kiss had excited her as much as the forbidden one on the churchyard wall.

  Now, as the first shovelful of earth boomed down on the casket, Johannah’s eyes strayed to the old wall they had walked six years before, the spot they had kissed. Her fingers went to her lips. She became aware of the sudden silence in the service. Everyone was waiting for her. Her father held out the loaded spade and she blushed at her wayward thoughts. How could she think of Jim at this moment?

  She took the shovel and spilled the earth down on her mother’s casket as gently as possible. The filling in of the grave was such a final act and the tears came again and they felt good and full, a tribute to the woman her mother had tried at the end to be.

  Had Johannah looked a bit higher, just beyond the cemetery wall, she would have seen him up in the branches of an oak tree. From that safe distance, Jim Donnelly watched the proceedings. He could have been down in the cemetery—they could not have stopped him—but it would have been awkward with Magee. He respected their grief and he had wanted to see Johannah before she saw him. My God, he thought, the skinny young girl has butterflied into a full-blown woman, with beauty and confidence. He suddenly felt intimidated and diminished hiding in the oak tree like a shy, curious child. If she were to see him like this, he would certainly be mortified, but the important thing was he was not disappointed by the present Johannah. She was breathtaking. His memory and his old desire for her remained true. The desire for her and the desire for retribution against the bastard beside her.

  * * *

  On the day after her mother’s funeral, Johannah changed from her black wardrobe into a riding outfit and decided to escape the gloom and grief of Ballymore to do a short tour with Cuchulain. The glistening milk-white boy with his combed-out tail and mane had been well cared for by the one remaining groom. The horse knew her immediately, as if they had ridden together the day before. Their years apart dissolved to a moment as they took their old route across the glen and up along the ridge where she could see the Ballyfinboy River wandering through the fields toward the Shannon and the sea. They cantered through the enchanted woodlot—Johannah could almost hear Lucy singing in her ear—and they ran down again well clear of the bog and then along the shaded path by the fishing stream, where horse and rider slowed down to cool themselves and strong memories of Jim Donnelly came to her again.

  Johannah soon found herself standing on the edge of the rich green pasture where the tenant houses had once been, full of life and activity. It was as if she were in some sort of dream now as everything lay in ruins, all of the roofs of the cottages gone, the scorched stone walls crumbling, the silence overwhelming. Her body felt weak as she dismounted, dropping the reins and walking over to stand in front of what remained of Lucy’s old cottage. Hers was only one of several within sight around the pasture, all gone, burned-out foundations left overgrown with deep green grasses and ferns, liverwort and thistle, blue-eyed flowers and vines, nature’s attempt to soften the shock of the human absence in these once lively places. She had been told some of the tenants were gone, but they were all gone. And why this burned-out devastation?

  She reached down her gloved hand to gently pick up a broken tea cup, the delicate curved handle still intact, which lay amid the ashes and mud, and gave it close inspection. This fragment of the past had a blue rose pattern—there had been three such cups—that held a memory for her of tea with Lucy’s family. What had happened here? She looked beyond to the many fat cows grazing nearby as if for answers. Then she gently placed the remnant of the cup back into the ashes and mounted Cuchulain. Wheeling his muscular body around, she rode off toward town to find out, scattering the fat indolent cows like so many pigeons.

  Ruins

  At the Borrisokane canal outside the Cavendish warehouses, on the edge of the town square, Jim, Mick and their boys stayed undercover and watched as men loaded a barge with rough crates and barrels of meat and other foods for export. That year’s poor potato harvest had been made worse by a strange fungus affecting in some cases as many as half the plants. Nearby a soup kitchen serviced a long line of the poor who had come in from neighbouring lands, the people in need, some desperate, approaching a single monk in robes who distributed the thin soup in measured portions, ladled from an enormous iron vat. On the river’s edge, not far from the soup line, huge pallets of salted meat, sacks of oats and barley, crates of turnips and apples and barrels of whiskey and ale that came from a warehouse alongside the wharf with the name “Cavendish & Company” awaited loading. The manager of the Cavendish estate, who oversaw all of this injustice, was the man Jim hated most: George Magee. With a passion equal to what he felt for Magee’s daughter, Jim loathed this man, for all his sins. Magee rode a black mare, as fine a horse as any in the township, and he wore a pistol on his hip and retained five armed soldiers to stand guard as the food was hoisted by crane on board the barge for Dublin, where it would be transported to Liverpool and on to London, away from the mouths of the starving and onto the tin plates of the soldiers of the English army. The English were bad enough, but the man who betrayed his own country, his own people, was evil indeed. The soldiers guarding the shipment were led by a young English corporal on horseback, monitoring the docile crowd to be sure they stayed that way. The Whiteboys’ job was to see they didn’t.

  “All right lads,” Mick murmured. “Nice and casual like, keep smiling, a nod to the ladies, move to your positions and watch for my signal.”

  Jim, Mick and two other boys made their way slowly through the soup line crowd toward the barge, twirling their canes and smiling cheerfully at on
e and all. They kept a careful eye on Magee and the soldiers. The crane hoisted and swung another pallet of salted meat half the size of a tenant house aboard the barge. George Magee was ever watchful of the men working as the vessel was slowly filled, and his presence kept the soldiers vigilant. Three stevedores took a barrel of salted beef, one of ale and a crate of fresh vegetables to the side door of St. Patrick’s rectory across the square. They pushed them forward as the priest held the door, pleased with the offering. Jim glanced at Mick, his voice quiet. “Look. Beef and ale for the priest. But for the sinners, that thin gruel the church is spooning out.”

  When all was safely inside, the priest quickly closed the door.

  The boys spread out and continued to make their way across the crowded square to the loading dock. They had done a few minor jobs like this before. They couldn’t just do nothing. Jim whistled his favourite little Limerick tune, “Oyster Nan.” Then while he was standing there, watching the crane, who should ride into town but Johannah Magee.

  He studied her as if she had suddenly descended, an angel from heaven, or a ghost or a goddess, and now in this moment all his buried feelings for her rose up, strong and fresh. She was not merely a pawn in his plans of reckoning, and any attempt to control his feelings for her was a ridiculous fraud. He watched her with the horse, as he had done many times from a distance in their youth. She was now even more the competent and impressive horsewoman, carefully making her way through the crowd toward her father, his enemy George Magee. He hoped Magee loved her deeply, for he was soon to lose her.

  Her electric eyes swept across Jim’s, passing without recognition, and he suffered a pang of heartache. She was haughty, direct and lovely as she rode right past him.

  Jim steadied himself and calmed his breathing as he watched her lean forward to speak to her father. She seemed preoccupied, even upset.

  “Da.”

  “Good morning, my dear.”

  “I rode out to the O’Tooles’ and Donnellys’. The cottages are destroyed. There is no one left. What happened to them?”

  Her father looked at her blankly, then suddenly, distracted, he turned and called out to the stevedores loading the barge.

  “No, no you fools! I said meat barrels and crates at the back! All together!”

  As her father rode away from her to direct his men, she studied the ragged people in the long soup line with a sudden alarm. When she left, there had been a level of dignity and health among even the poorest of the tenants and townspeople, but here she was presented with ragged clothes and gaunt faces and a new aura of desperation in their eyes. She had heard no reports in London about any change in Irish fortunes, nothing in the papers save a reference to a poor Irish crop. Her mother had never spoken of such things and yet the transformation of a hundred local souls was shocking. What could have happened?

  Jim had to turn away from the distraction of Johannah’s presence to get back to the mission at hand. He made his way toward the crane while Mick manoeuvred himself near the front of the tightly packed soup line. Mick backed hard into an old fellow who tumbled against another and almost knocked down a thin young woman with a fussing baby. This started a pushing match in the soup line with recriminations flying.

  The English soldiers turned all their attention toward the fray. One snarled at the surging crowd, “Stop it! Or you go to the back of the line!”

  The peasants glared at the soldiers and settled. Mick crouched down behind them and called out in a projected voice, “English shite! Dirty Protestant!” then moved smoothly away.

  “What? Who said that? You!”

  The soldier grabbed one man with a goiter on his neck the size of an apple and dragged him out of the line. The unfortunate struggled to get away.

  “Wasn’t me, sir! Wasn’t me!”

  Two of Jim’s boys had worked their way into the crowd and called out to the soldiers, “Leave him alone! Cowards! British bastards!” then hid themselves.

  The soldiers grabbed others, trying to identify the name-callers in the line. The innocent ones resisted and feelings turned hostile toward the redcoats. All eyes, including those of the bearded man operating the crane, were on the scuffle in the line when Jim pulled up a kerchief to mask his face, moved to the base of the derrick, withdrew his sheath knife and quickly began severing the rope, thick as a child’s wrist, that suspended the substantial pallet of food high above the dock.

  While all other eyes were turned away, one soldier several yards across the crowd saw him at the rope. “You! What are you doing? Get away from there!”

  Jim ran the sharpened blade two more times across the thick, taut hemp. The rope strands separated cleanly, the end flew through the block and tackle, and the huge suspended pallet came crashing down, splitting open sacks of barley and crates of turnips, and breaking open barrels with slabs of salt beef cascading onto the dock in a very satisfying manner, like a grocer’s display open to the public. His face still covered, Jim made his escape from the soldier, who could not get to him through the thick crowd and dared not use his rifle. People in line had heard the crash of the pallet and now turned, leaving the promise of only thin soup to rush forward and claim the glory of spilled meat and meal. They filled their pockets with grain and their arms with turnips and grabbed the raw beef in their hands.

  The soldiers ran in the direction of the shattered pallet to fight them off, shouting, pushing and threatening with their rifle butts, but the hungry crowd would not be dispersed. With the people now pushing back, threatening the soldiers who tried to protect the spilled food, the situation quickly descended into a riot. The Whiteboys had accomplished their simple mission and Jim saluted Mick and his mates over the heads of the crowd, pleased with the results.

  Jim moved quickly through the fray toward the bounty, spurring the people on. “Grab it now, my friends. Take it away!” He placed two big beef tenderloins in the arms of an old woman, tossed a sack of oats to a burly plowman. “Come on, now. Take it all and run!” He put an unripe melon in the hands of a skinny, excited boy.

  George Magee bellowed to the young corporal leading the soldiers.

  “Stop them!”

  The corporal moved into the crowd on horseback in a vain attempt to separate the people from the spilled food. He had a long sword to threaten them with, but he did not use it.

  In the melee, Johannah was caught up in the dense crowd, and two rough men took the opportunity to try to steal her horse. She beat them back aggressively with her riding crop as they attempted to pull her off the saddle. Seeing this, Jim charged over. She was bellowing at her assailants, “Get away! Get away, I said.”

  Cuchulain reared up. Jim arrived and though his first punch landed well, the men almost overwhelmed him. With skilful use of his cane, he finally knocked one unconscious and drove the other away. He grabbed hold of the horse’s reins to lead Johannah through the surge of people toward the safety of an empty alley, but with his face covered, she must have thought him one of her assailants, for she hit at him with her crop, striking him across the head. He was amazed she didn’t recognize him despite the handkerchief, for he knew her in a moment and would have known her at a thousand yards. Still, he was reluctant to identify himself to her just yet.

  “Get away, I said!” she yelled at him.

  He put up an arm to defend himself from further blows as he led Cuchulain away from the crowd.

  “I’m not kidnapping you. Just trying to save your arse.”

  “I can save my own arse, thank you all the same.”

  They arrived at a quiet place of safety in the mouth of the alley, away from the canal and the spilled provisions. Jim felt Johannah’s curious eyes settle on him as he saluted her, then turned back and re-entered the fray.

  The people were still scrambling for food. It was all going well, Jim thought. Magee’s whip had little effect. The food from the broken pallet was fast disappear
ing. Then the estate manager called out to the soldiers, “Fire at them!”

  The soldiers were rightly fearful of the repercussions of firing on a crowd that outnumbered them thirty to one. They looked to their commanding officer for orders. Magee glared at the young corporal.

  “Did you hear me? Shoot the thieving bastards!”

  The soldiers pointed their rifles at the crowd and waited, unsure.

  “Over their heads! Squad One…” Half the soldiers raised their muskets.

  “FIRE!”

  The volley of musket fire almost immediately achieved the desired effect: the peasants cowered and retreated. The other half of the soldiers prepared to fire again while the first squad reloaded, but it was not necessary. In a moment, control was resumed. A few members of the crowd who were hurt in the scramble lay suffering on the ground. The soldiers let others, the Whiteboys among them, help the injured retreat or carry them away. Somehow the vat of thin soup had been overturned.

  With the square now deserted and still, a few rolling turnips meandered slowly down the cobblestone grade. A young boy grabbed one and made his escape. Magee called out to the stevedores, “Come on, come on. Clean this up! Keep loading.”

  Jim watched Magee from behind an overturned cart. How he yearned to drag him off that horse and find some satisfaction. Instead, for now, he withdrew from the scene.

  * * *

  In the saddle atop Cuchulain, from the mouth of the alleyway where the kerchiefed man had led her to safety, Johannah watched her father dealing with the soldiers and the workers returning to loading the barge. She had seen the desperation in the faces of the people as they ran for the food and seized it in their hands, even with the soldiers’ muzzles trained on them. How had it come to this? When she was a child, there were no soup lines, no ragged clothes, no surrender of dignity. What had happened? She turned Cuchulain around and made her way back to the estate.