“All in a day’s work, hah?”
The man’s expression did not change. Jim looked down at the officials on the ground. There was the jail warden and another man in a suit, three uniformed policemen and the priest, who had decided to stay below, which was for the best. And there at the back was Fitzhenry in a suit. Good old Fitzhenry had come to see him off. Jim smiled and raised a shackled hand in greeting. Fitzhenry raised his hand back to him but he did not smile. In fact the big chief constable looked very stern and his eyes were moist.
Imagine that, Jim thought to himself. Fitz is going to miss me.
The hangman guided Jim to where he had to stand, over the trap door, and he and another policeman removed the shackles from his hands and feet. They were replaced by leather straps around his ankles and ties to his hands behind his back.
“You have anything to say, now’s the time,” the hangman told him.
“I send my love to my wife and children. I am sorry for taking the life of Pat Farrell and I ask forgiveness here and afterwards, if there is an afterwards.”
There was nothing more to say. Jim would miss this life and his children and most of all the sweet woman who had loved him despite everything. There was nothing to do now but accept the event before him with the dignity of an Irish nobleman.
“Let’s get on with it.”
The hangman approached him with the black hood in his hand.
“I don’t want that. I’d rather do without.”
“It’s not for you, Donnelly. It’s so the others don’t see what your face does.”
He put the hood roughly over Jim’s head so he was now all in darkness. He could hear the young priest reciting the twenty-third psalm. Jim supposed that too was more for the others than himself. He closed his eyes, despite the hood, and went back in his thoughts to the sunny glade beside the Ballyfinboy River where he and Johannah had caught the salmon and years later made love for the first time. He waited there in that happy memory for the trap to spring.
But what he heard was the creak of another door opening and a voice calling out. “Wait! Is it done?” There was a shuffling of feet below and muffled inquiries and agitated speaking but Jim couldn’t get the gist. Can a man not die in peace? he wondered.
A voice called his name and through the material of the hood he finally said, “Yes. I am here.”
The hangman took the hood off his head and he looked down to see a small, officious man with a message in his hand. The man seemed irritable, as if Jim’s case was creating disorder in his orderly day.
“You are Jim Donnelly, correct?” he asked again.
“Who else would I be?”
The small man continued with his chore. “This is from the attorney general’s office. John A. MacDonald has granted you an order of clemency.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not to be hanged, sir. Your sentence is commuted to fifteen years in Kingston Penitentiary.”
Jim let the information sink in that he would not die today. There was a brief moment of joy. He would see her again. But almost immediately he began weighing the long, hard prison time. All that time without her. Fifteen years. The noose almost seemed a kindlier destiny. But not quite.
“All right, then. I’ll take it.”
“No one is giving you a choice, Donnelly. You will, in fact, not die today.”
* * *
In Jim’s tiny prison cell in the London jail, Johannah sat on the cot and held his hand. She had been allowed, again through the generosity of Attorney General MacDonald, a rare and brief spousal visit before Jim was transferred to Kingston Penitentiary to serve his term. She brought baby Jenny to show him and she wore a cotton dress, her hair held up with combs the way he liked it, subdued as she looked around at the clammy limestone walls, clinging to the hand she would not hold again for many years. Far too many years to think about.
Jim tried to make her smile. “Well…it’ll be free room and board.”
Baby Jenny was gurgling and cooing, trying to talk. Johannah turned and looked into Jim’s eyes, all business now.
“I’ll petition for a lighter sentence. And we’ll keep the farm going. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine, I promise. I swear we’ll get through this and find a good life again. You and I are like wolves, Jimmy. We mate for life.”
“Yes. We are wolves.” Jim smiled at her sadly. “Do you remember the time on board the ship when you climbed on the railing and stared down at the sea? I found you and I grabbed your hand.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I won’t be there to grab your hand. You’ll have to be strong.”
“I was a silly girl then. Don’t you know me, Jim? I will get through this. It’s you I’m worried about. It’s you that must be strong. Don’t change.”
“You tell the boys I’ll be fine. They have to look after you and stay out of trouble.”
“Don’t forget you have a daughter now.”
He looked at the child, held out his hands and took her, bouncing her on his knee. She stared up at him, wide-eyed.
“Hello, you little one. If I stay the full term, you’ll be a young lady when I see you next.” At this Johannah was struggling to hold back tears. “You’ll remind her over the years she has a father?”
“Every day.”
The guards came to escort Johannah away.
“It’s time, ma’am.”
Jim and Johannah looked at each other and stood up. They held each other with the baby between them and kissed. Johannah studied his face intently. She grabbed a fistful of his coarse prison shirt and squeezed it as tight as she could, as if she could hold him here with her for good. The guards unlocked the cell.
“Goodbye, my love,” he said.
“Goodbye, Jim.”
Jim reached up and touched the tip of her nose.
“See you in no time.”
* * *
Jim arrived at Kingston Penitentiary by open wagon with six other prisoners, all shackled together. They had been transported by train in a cattle car from London to Toronto, then from Toronto to the garrison town of Kingston six hours east, then the last two miles by wagon to arrive at the huge dark stone fortress prison on the shores of Lake Ontario, where men unfit for normal society were sent to be excluded from it.
After a scrub down and fresh clothes, Jim appeared before Warden Piggott in his office, in shackles on hands and feet, accompanied by four guards as if he might make a break for it at any moment. The warden’s office windows overlooked the prison yard. His large desk had three plush armchairs of oxblood leather arranged in a half-circle in front of it. Jim wondered who sat in those chairs. Never a prisoner, he was sure.
Jim faced the warden with dignity as he came out from behind his desk. Jim met his eyes, unblinking. The warden was a tall man and he stood over him and looked down.
“Welcome to Kingston, Donnelly.”
“Thank you, Warden Piggott.”
“You’ll grow to like it here.”
“I don’t think so, Warden.”
The warden looked at the floor for a moment, disappointed with this response, licked his lips and gave a thin smile.
“You might be surprised. Just don’t make any trouble and we’ll get along fine. Do what you’re told. Follow the rules. Listen to me now,” he continued as if to a child. “It’s very important to carefully follow the rules that we teach you. That’s all we ask. Like…the swearing rule or the silence rule or raising your eyes. Do you understand?”
“What the hell is the raising your eyes rule?” Jim asked, looking directly at the warden.
“Oh no.” The warden shook his head in disappointment. “There, you went and broke all three of them.”
He nodded to the guards. A wooden club smashed Jim across the head and he went down. With their clubs and boots, the four guar
ds continued beating and kicking him on the floor. And the warden watched until Jim lost all track of place and time.
Part Two
Prologue
Spring assizes—Old Court House, London, Ontario. June 2, 1880.
“All right now, Johnny, do you feel ready to continue?”
“Yes, sir, I do. I’m sorry about before.”
“That’s fine. It must be hard for you.”
“Yes, Mr. Irving, it is. But I think I’m ready.”
“All right, then, you are still under oath. We were talking about the Donnelly family. Let’s go back to that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell us again from your point of view how the Donnellys were regarded in the neighbourhood.”
“Well, some folks called them ‘the terrors of Biddulph County’ but to their friends, the Donnelly boys were good people and loyal and that’s what I seen. They had a reputation, as they say, as drinkers and fighters and ladies’ men. And ’course behind their backs, people talked about the cold fact their father was a murderer serving hard time in Kingston and so they was all tarred with that brush. Of course, I heared that any words in the schoolyard and the boys would deal with those reckless yackers with bloody noses, twisted arms and oaths it would never be talked about again.”
“Johnny, do you know what the term ‘Blackleg’ or ‘Blackfoot’ means?”
“Yes, sir. Them’s Catholics with Protestant friends.”
“Did you ever hear the Donnellys called that?”
“Yes, sir. They was called ‘Blacklegs’ behind their backs. But Johannah and Will told me they didn’t want to live with all the old feuds from Ireland. This were a new country, they said. The Donnellys had as many Protestant friends as Catholic and they was proud of it, and frankly made prosperous by it ’cause it were the Protestants who had the money. And as Johannah said, it were Catholics caused the problems with the land, pushed the fight with Farrell and almost got Mr. Jim hanged. It were Protestants that saved him.”
“Would you agree there are lots of Catholics fraternizing with Protestants in Biddulph County?”
“Oh, sure. Most Catholics do a bit of quiet Protestant business on the side. But the Donnellys did it proud and open, especially Johannah. With their crops of corn and barley, and their horse and cattle breeding and trading, the woodlot with the little sawmill and their stagecoach business, I’d say at least half was Protestant customers. At the time before Mr. Jim came back, they was doing real good businesswise.”
“Let’s get back to your own experience. What else can you tell us about the Donnellys? How would you describe them when you started working there?”
“Well, the Donnelly boys was the life of any good party. They danced and played music, got into horseplay and flirting with the girls. They was big, strong good-looking fellas, most of them. They was loyal to their friends and fast to fists with their enemies. They wore the best clothes and boots, especially Michael and John and Will, and they all had a little money to jangle in their pockets and was willing to spend.”
“Why do you suppose that would create enemies?”
“Well, some of the boys was getting into trouble with the ladies, you see. Courting a Blackleg Donnelly was probably the worst thing a young Catholic girl could do, but lots did. I suppose it added a little excitement to the girls’ dreary lives on the farm. Drawn like moths, as they say. Many was the bar brawls I heard about over a sister or daughter’s honour. There was even stories of farmers paying the Donnelly boys cash money to leave their girls alone. Imagine that!”
“But did you hear about any criminal activities they were involved in?”
“Objection. Any such information would be hearsay.”
“Please rephrase, Mr. Irving.”
“Very well. Johnny, in the time you worked on the Donnelly farm did you ever witness them doing anything against the law?”
“No, sir, not really.”
“Just say yes or no.”
“No, sir. I do remember there was high talk in town about all the things they did, what with them barns burning down and them horses being killed, men beaten up and robbed. And their mother, Johannah, ordering these actions against whoever she pleased, so the gossip went, but I never seen any of it. The truth was, some people just blamed the Donnellys for everything bad that happened around Lucan.
“Like I say, we just considered them the neighbours down the road and they never did nothing to us, in fact only favours, and frankly I can’t see a Donnelly killing a horse or letting one burn in a barn. They really loved them horses.”
“So you found the Donnellys to be good, law-abiding citizens?”
“Pretty much.”
“Just yes or no, please.”
“Yes.” Johnny thought for a moment and started up again before Irving could stop him. “Mind you, they weren’t angels neither. Like at Maggie Thompson’s wedding. But I’d say whatever the Donnellys did, it usually didn’t seriously hurt anyone and whether you were friend or foe, you’d find they was always most entertaining.”
The Terrors
Since late winter and into the warm early spring of 1879, Will Donnelly had been deeply heartsick, sullen and morose that Maggie Thompson would do this to him. His own golden-haired Maggie who had pledged her love to him, and he to her through three summers. He’d laboured over pretty words of poetry to trap her heart, sang and played fiddle songs to her and behaved the complete gentleman, never touching her but only with her full welcome and encouragement.
Will was confident with his appearance; he had grown into a handsome man with his mother’s intense green eyes and a long face and narrow nose. He chose to wear his red hair to his shoulders and had an imperial goatee on his chin. Many in town whispered how much like the devil he looked, even down to his one “cloven hoof” and his fiddle playing, and this he didn’t much mind.
Will was aware for years that the Thompsons had no love for his family and though he had pressed her, Maggie would not let him approach her father for her hand. She talked of running away with him, but that didn’t sit right with him. Three blissful summers they loved in sweet passion and secrecy, which was her choice—the hard winters were restrictive to their trysts as people stayed indoors and socialized less—and then came that bitter letter in which she told him all had been found out, she had confessed to her family their carnal relationship and Will had heard the mortifying news that his letters had been read by her dullard father and her brothers, Matthew and Zebadiah. He imagined them holding his letters in their clumsy paws, laughing over his most intimate disclosures. She had promised them never to see Will again and intended to stick by that evil bargain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Will read in her last letter, as if plunging a knife over and over into his already battered heart.
So then Will began to wonder if her letter was penned through intimidation, and then he began to feel sure of it. As if in confirmation, another letter arrived one day in early June, a short, scrawled missive asking him simply to come and take her away!
Will decided to make the visit on horseback to the Thompson homestead with four of his brothers: Michael, James, Tom and Robert. He wanted to do it properly, respectfully, but if things went badly he would need some backup. Thompson opened the door to him and eyed him with hostility. Will had brought gifts of tobacco and whiskey, which he gave to Thompson. The old man took the gifts but did not invite him in, so standing outside Thompson’s door, Will declared himself, as he thought he should have done from the beginning.
“Thompson, it would be my wish to take your daughter, Maggie, as my wife.”
Old Thompson and his two sons laughed at Will’s proposal.
“I would sooner see her dead than married to a Donnelly,” Thompson replied with a snort.
“Then we are prepared to take her by force,” Will told his friend, Hoga
n. The Donnelly brothers pushed the Thompsons back and entered the house. It was a large structure, but dank inside without fashion or comfort—small windows, crude male-dominated furnishings, a moose head on the wall, clothes drying on any structure and dirty dishes piled in the sink. Will was heartsick to think his Maggie lived in this house. They searched the bedrooms and then the summer kitchen where a skinned deer was hanging. Will returned to Thompson, who told him, “You could have saved yourself the trouble.”
“Where is she?”
“Jean’s taken Maggie someplace secret and safe, far away from you.”
Will gave Old Thompson points for his bollocks as the brothers had by then grabbed hold of his arms and Will was very close to damaging him severely with his fists, and his brothers would sure have left the two Thompson sons senseless on the floor. But Will didn’t feel right beating up a man in his own house, much less the father of the woman whom he still clung to the hope of marrying.
“And she’s going to stay there in that secret place until she is married by her own consent.”
“To whom?” Will asked, astonished.
“Pat Carroll.”
The name was like a club to the head.
“What? That pitiful excuse for a man?”
“But he won the girl, didn’t he? And you didn’t.”
God help us, Will thought, what a waste. Old Thompson had said it with such triumph, a broad smile displaying his broken teeth. There was nothing more to be done there without violence. In deep despair Will left the Thompson house, his brothers following behind.
“She can’t stay hid forever, Will.”
“If she’s chosen Carroll, maybe she wasn’t the one for you anyway.”
Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys Page 22
