“Yes, Emer, we know, but who would pay for it all, even assuming that the authorities agreed with you? That sort of set-up cost money for teachers and raw materials and so on,” O’Brien pointed out.
“People with money, like your good self, sir, should all take their responsibilities to the poor more seriously. It’s no good them paying money for Parish relief that does little more than fill the belly for a day. People want to work. It keeps them occupied during the day, and gives them a purpose in life.
"Instead of paying a pound a week per person to feed thousands of people a tiny amount of oats, as the relief committees have been doing, why not take those thousands of pounds, and buy farming implements and seed, and let them raise food for themselves?”
“And who would own the land?” O’Brien queried.
“Perhaps in time they could all buy their own land, say within ten years? The ones who worked hard would thrive, so long as they didn’t depend exclusively on the potato,” Emer suggested.
“You're forgetting that the policy of subdividing land is what got us into trouble in the first place in this country,” O’Brien reminded her.
“In that case then, there could be collective ownership, instead of everyone just struggling with their own tiny plots. The land could be leased to the tenants in perpetuity provided they all cooperated to produce what was needed. Carrots, turnips, livestock, dairy cattle, pigs, varied crops, not just the potato, and in that way the entire estate would be self-sufficient, and even if one failed, some other crops would succeed.
"My orphanage would have been self sufficient and a model of what could be accomplished if the wretched building hadn’t been burnt down by my enemy,” Emer said with a sigh.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t a wonderful success, my dear girl,” Terence said, “but it nearly cost you your life. Though you are getting better every day, you could have ended up a permanent cripple.”
Emer looked at Terence angrily, and argued, “It was a success. It burning down had nothing to do with the children or staff. It had everything to do with that horrible woman I told you about who was trying to get rid of me.
"If I tried something like that here in Ireland, or attempted to start a new farm prison, I'm sure it would work. O’Brien, Terence, you’re both merchants. Look over these figures I’ve drawn up, please. Then if you seriously think I’m wrong, I shall forget about the whole idea. But if I’m right, I'll bet you that in six months, I could make such places going concerns.”
Terence grinned lazily. “Well, my dear, we have nothing better to do with our time stuck in here. So what do you say we humour this revolutionary, O’Brien, and have a look at her ideas?”
O’Brien shrugged, and said, “Why not? It could be diverting.”
Emer smiled sweetly. “I’ve got an even better idea, gentleman, if you're so bored. I need some firewood, and the privies are just about to overflow.”
Terence and O’Brien looked at each other warily. O’Brien just missed grabbing the axe off the block by a split second.
“I say, Emer, that’s the third time this week I’ve been stuck with the privies. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were playing favourites,” O’Brien complained in a hurt tone.
“I am, O’Brien, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. A Member of Parliament you may be, but I still have to share a room with Terence,” Emer laughed, "so I have a vested interest in keeping him in the best odor."
O’Brien smiled good-naturedly. “Point taken. But just for that, when I finally do read your plans, I shall be ruthlessly critical.”
“I don’t mind, so long as you both look at them seriously.”
In the end, they admitted that Emer did seem to have worked things out, so well in fact that O’Brien encouraged Emer to submit the prison farming proposal to the governor, and even helped her copy it all out neatly in a professional manner just like an estate ledger.
“And before you give it to him, I know several people in England concerned with prison reform who would be most interested to see these ideas. So I shall make a second copy, and send it to them, though with your name on it, of course,” O’Brien offered.
Emer blushed. “Oh, no, you couldn’t. What on earth will they say when they found out a female prisoner wrote it?”
“On the first count, if you like we can just give your initials, E. N. Dillon, and on the second, we can say that your ideas are gleaned from all of your valuable experiences as farmer, teacher, housekeeper, cook, doctor, and prison inmate,” O’Brien said with a touch of admiration in his voice.
“The same can hold true for your proposals on the working farms, and I am sure The Times will print your scheme if I send it. Nothing will change without bold action, now will it?”
Emer glanced up at O’Brien sharply. “Is that one of your speeches from Ballingarry?”
His face closed up then, and he sighed. “No, it was one of Mitchel’s, you know, my colleague from the Nation who got transported to Bermuda earlier this year for sedition when myself and Thomas Meagher were on trial as well. He led us down this path, and God only knows where it will end.”
“It ended at Ballingarry, at least for the present. We will have to wait to find out the ultimate destination, but in the meantime, I can still dream, can’t I?” Emer smiled gently, and waved the papers in front of his face, until he blinked, and began to copy them out as he had promised.
Though Emer had tried to sound optimistic in front of O’Brien, by the time their trial date came up, Emer dreaded to think what would happen to O’Brien and Terence, and was certain that Botany Bay was the best fate she herself could expect under the circumstances.
The only question in her case was whether her transportation would be for seven years, fourteen, or life.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Emer’s trial finally took place on a cold day in early October, and was notable only for its brevity.
Emer and the four wounded men from the farmyard were present, as was Thomas Francis Meagher, brought over from Waterford, where he had been arrested, so that all the so-called rebels could be tried together.
Meagher was a dashing young man of twenty-four, the son of a prosperous merchant who was also the Catholic Lord Mayor of Waterford and a staunch supporter of O’Connellite policies such as the Repeal movement.
Meagher spoke with a strong English accent, the result of an expensive education at one of the best English public schools, and when it was his turn to speak, he declared calmly and with impressive dignity, “The history of Ireland explains my crime and justifies it. Judged by that history, the treason of which I have been accused loses all guilt, is sanctified as a duty, and will be ennobled as a sacrifice.”
Terence McManus stood tall in the dock, and gazed straight into the eyes of the judge piercingly. He refused to be cowed by the solemnity of the proceedings, and asserted boldly, “In my so called act of rebellion, I have not been motivated by any animosity towards Englishmen, amongst whom I have spent some of the happiest and most prosperous years of my life. It is not for loving England less, but for loving Ireland more, that I now stand before you.”
O’Brien asserted that the whole episode was not worthy of the name insurrection, for he admitted he had been disorganised and ill-prepared, and had merely sought to awaken the Irish to a stronger sense of the injustice they had faced so placidly for so long.
Emer was able to explain how she had come to be with the rebels on the fateful day, and though the judge insisted that if she was as innocent as she claimed, then she should have run away from the farm house, rather than towards it, Emer held her head high, and declared boldly, “I saw unarmed men being shot like dogs. Your government has more cause to fear the truth of this matter coming out than I do, for I have committed no offence other than to try to save lives. If you wish to punish me for that, then I gladly admit my guilt, and will suffer for it accordingly. But if you wish to see justice served, then let all these men go free, and enact new laws that can help
rather than punish them.”
The judge scowled darkly under his bushy eyebrows, and moved on to the next witness at the trial.
The Governor of Clonmel prison had been kind enough to come to testify on their behalf. He informed the court that Emer, O’Brien and Terence had been model prisoners, and outlined all they had done to help alleviate the appalling conditions in the jail.
But Emer was certain from the general atmosphere in the court, that his kind words on their behalf would fall on deaf ears.
The governor was particularly effusive in his praise for Emer’s efforts in the prison infirmary, and Emer grew embarrassed at the fact that she would probably get off more lightly than the other men by virtue of the fact that she had simply tried to help those she saw suffering.
But in the end it all counted for nothing, for the British government wished to make an example of them all. Emer was found guilty of aiding and abetting felons, and sentenced to seven years transportation to Tasmania. The other four rebels were given fourteen years.
But the shock in the courtroom was palpable as Meagher, Terence McManus and William Smith O’Brien were sentenced, for though the jury had argued for mercy, all three leaders of the rebellion were given the mediaeval punishment of being hung, drawn, and quartered, with their dismembered bodies to be disposed of as Queen Victoria saw fit.
Emer clung onto the two men to steady them as well as herself as they swayed in the dock. Emer felt as though an earthquake had rocked her entire world. They had certainly been prepared for hanging, but not something as barbaric as the sentence actually handed down.
Meagher said a hasty farewell to his colleagues before he was led away first, and then the other four men were taken out of the dock.
At last Emer and her friends were led back to the closed carriage they had arrived in, and headed back to Clonmel prison.
The three of them rode along in silence for a time, with O’Brien looking at his grubby fingernails with a devil-may-care insouciance, and Terence shutting his eyes as if all he wanted was a nap.
Emer grew angry at their calm acceptance of their fates.
“You’ll just have to appeal," Emer argued hotly. "The British have no right to inflict such a harsh punishment for what, after all, proved to be a tempest in a teacup! The jury argued for leniency. We can get a petition going, and...”
“I want no mercy from them. Have they shown us any when we asked for help during the Famine?” O’Brien argued bitterly.
“I can see your point, William, but the question is, were you any better? We none of us are perfect, I know, but your comrade John Mitchel was arguing that the Irish should all refuse to pay the Poor Rate to show our disloyalty to the Crown! If they had obeyed, it would have meant removing what little help those poor starving wretches had! Your political ideals are commendable, but you’ve successfully ignored the impoverished residents of this benighted island along the way.
“Surely you must see that you can do no one any good by becoming martyrs to the cause. Mitchel is gone, transported to Bermuda, and though he stirred up all the trouble in the first place, he never even lifted a hand to save Ireland.
"Think how much good you can do for the Irish, even over in Australia, if you're alive. Dead, you’re both just another pair of corpses on a pile of three million dead bodies,” Emer said impatiently.
O’Brien blinked at her owlishly, and then relapsed into silence.
“For heaven’s sake, Terence, you don’t want to die as well, do you?” Emer demanded when he remained silent.
“No, I don’t, but perhaps as martyrs, people will rally round our cause at last.”
“Haven’t you learned anything from your weeks here, and the chance to pause and reflect upon what it is you’ve done? No one is going to rally around if they are starving, now are they? I swear to you, one day, when I'm a free woman again, I will set up a fund for the poor to make sure that no one goes without food, clothes, a decent roof over their head, and medicine for their children. I will carry out all of my plans for reform that you have helped me with. Dead, you can do nothing. But alive, you can join me in the struggle to improve things for everyone,” Emer coaxed her two friends.
Terence shook his head. “There wouldn't be much chance of improving anything, even if we did get the sentence commuted to transportation to Tasmania.”
“I don’t know, Tasmania isn’t another planet, now is it! It’s only eleven thousand miles away. With plenty of Irish who will need your help there too. The point is that I can help people if I'm still alive to have a better life than I’ve ever had, but only if I survive this. Please, William, Terence, let the lawyers go forward with the petition for clemency.”
Terence nodded, but O’Brien remained adamant.
“I can’t do it. I’m descended from Brian Boru and the high kings of Ireland. I shall ask for no man’s mercy.”
“Aye, and what happened to the great Brian Boru? He died at the end of a Viking axe. That’s where his pride got him,” Emer retorted.
“And where has your pride brought you, Emer Nugent Dillon? Look at yourself. For all your fine words, you're crippled, ill, with less flesh on you than a skeleton,” O’Brien snapped.
Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Emer, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know you didn’t," she replied quietly, resting her hand on his own. "Besides, all of what you said is true. But I've also had some great successes, though I seemed to be defeated now. I have good friends, and a huge family at the orphanage. I've been persecuted unfairly, it’s true, and I do bitterly regret the loss of my son, but perhaps this is my destiny. Maybe all of this has happened for a reason.
“All I know is, that through adversity I've grown stronger. I know I've helped people, and improved their lives in some small way. I might have spent my whole life quietly at Kilbracken, remaining sheltered from all of this suffering and woe. Now that I've seen it first-hand, I can’t simply turn my back on it."
She sighed, then continued, "Yes, I’m tired, and heart-sore, and would like nothing better than to give up the exhausting struggle. But our people need hope, and only great leaders like you, O’Brien, and people willing to fight for their principles like you, Terence, can make any difference now." She smiled at the dapper young Liverpudlian.
“Please, gentlemen, there's no principle being served if you allow the government to treat you like traitors, and hang, draw and quarter you like animals in an abbatoir, when you are in fact patriots,” Emer persisted. “Carry on fighting them in the name of justice if nothing else. Please, William, Terence, tell me you’ll file for an appeal.”
The carriage pulled up in front of the prison just then, and they were ordered to get out.
“We’ll talk about this later, when I’ve had time to think about what you’ve said,” O’Brien murmured. Stooping down, he hugged Emer’s slender form, and retired to his cell.
Terence stooped to kiss her on the brow, and said, “If you want to be alone, you can have the room to yourself for a while.”
“No thank you, Terence. You take the room. I have so much to do in the infirmary, and so little time. Besides, I’m not really surprised at my fate. I’ve sort of been expecting it all along. I’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“To tell you the truth, I am rather rattled by the whole affair. But to ask for clemency without the others following suit would seem an act of cowardice. Either we are all given a reprieve, or none of us.”
Emer smiled. “I understand. Talk to William, and see if he will agree to it.”
“You’d better talk to him as well. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who's more stubborn than he is,” Terence teased, ruffling her thick burgundy tresses.
"I hope to God you're right, for the last thing I want to see is your heads up on pikes, my dear."
They both shuddered, and went on their respective errands with that image haunting them both.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Emer delayed the in
evitable for a few more days, trying to truly come to terms with her sentence of treason and punishment of transportation, but finally, late one night, when she knew she could put it off no longer, she wrote to her friends in Canada, and finally explained her full predicament.
She was sure now that she would never see her son again, and decided that it was unfair to make Dalton wait for her for so many years.
So she wrote a second letter to Dalton, renouncing any claims upon him, and trying to make her future sound positive. Tasmania was not the end of the world, and seven years was not forever. She would survive, and thrive, no matter what, but any chance of coming back soon was well and truly gone.
Only Terence could see the bitter tears as she hastily pushed the papers to one side and tried to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.
The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) Page 21
