The Year of the French

by Thomas Flanagan

  In the weeks which had passed, summer had begun to move towards autumn, but the morning was bronze, warm sunlight bathing fields which were turning yellow. Mayo had its own seasons, a flat land held between ocean and mountain, and was now at the turn.

  At the near side of Ballina, he drew rein before the massive pillars which once had held the gates to Mount Lawrence Hall. The house, standing on a knoll and screened by a leafy plantation, had been burned. Smoke and the stench of charring clogged the nostrils of his imagination. And yet the Lawrence harvest was being reaped: he could see small figures moving in the distant fields. He rode up the straight avenue until he was abreast of them, then jumped the low wall and cantered along the narrow path until he was within hailing distance. The reapers paused and stood watching him, forearms shading their eyes.

  “Where are Mrs. Lawrence and her daughters?” he called. They stood silently, watching. When no one answered he dismounted and walked towards them. “I asked you about Mrs. Lawrence.”

  An old man, scythe blade resting on the ground, said, “They went into Killala, to the Protestant clergyman’s.”

  Moore looked behind him, towards the house. “Who did that?”

  After a pause: “It was burned after the big battle. There is nothing left standing in there. Not so much as a chair. It has all been burned or carried off.”

  “By the rebels,” Moore said.

  The old man rubbed the back of his hand against a stubble of grey. The much younger man beside him, who might have been a son, said, “Sure who could say? They came after dark, and they seemed like a small army. We stayed in the cabins until they were gone.”

  “But you stayed,” Moore said. “Is it for Mr. Lawrence that you are saving the harvest?” Moore’s Irish was very weak, and his vocabulary small.

  “Mr. Lawrence may not be back, nor any of his family. ’Tis said that all of the gentry are leaving Mayo forever.”

  “Then you are saving it for yourselves?”

  The man shrugged. “All of the cattle were driven off by the men who came at night. All but a few. And do you know what they did with those few? The gates were taken off, and those few were roasted on them, over a great fire. They took their leisure here, by God.”

  The old man gave a long, phlegm-choked cough, and then spat between his feet. “What is there can be done with a harvest but save it, whoever it is to be saved for? The gentry are gone out of it. Mr. Lawrence is off with the English soldiers, and the ladies are in Killala.”

  Moore looked from one face to the other, and then back to the fire-gutted house. He had never visited there. The Lawrences were hard Protestants.

  “Are you an Englishman, sir?” the younger man asked.

  Moore stared at him, puzzled, and then said quietly, “No. I am Irish.”

  “If you are English you should not go into Ballina. The men that are now in Ballina are very bold.”

  “I will be careful,” Moore said gently, and then turned back towards the avenue.

  The main street of Ballina, straggling off at an angle from the placid Moy, was green with trees and boughs of liberty. As Moore turned into it from the river road he was stopped by four men with pikes. One of them closed a fist upon his bridle. They did not recognise his name, but he persuaded them to lead his horse to the tavern which Michael Geraghty was using as headquarters. He found Geraghty in a small inner room, dressed in one of the French uniforms with unbuckled collar, a plate of bacon pushed to one edge of the table. Moore sat down facing him.

  “What has been happening in Ballina, Captain?”

  “Sure what would be happening here, with all the excitement below in Castlebar?”

  “You’ve had your excitement. I have just seen Mount Lawrence Hall. Or what is left of it.”

  Geraghty nodded, and then reached towards the deal sideboard for glasses and a bottle. “A bad business.”

  “Is that all you have to say about it? And it was more of Malachi Duggan’s work, I take it.”

  “It was not,” Geraghty said slowly. “It is not. My own boys burned that house. The United boys.”

  “Your own men! What in hell are you telling me, Geraghty? If you had a hand in that business you will answer for it. Men have been whipped bloody in Castlebar for less than that.”

  “Then let you whip my boys and not me, for I had no part in it at all, beyond saying that they could take the cattle and the goods. And I said that only after the thing was done, to make it official, like.”

  “Lawrence was a decent landlord, by all that I have ever heard, and now what does he have for his pains?”

  The glasses were smeared, and the whiskey raw.

  “Don’t I know that better than yourself? It is here in Ballina you should be and not below in Castlebar writing proclamations. It is all I can do to keep some kind of hold on my boys. They are wild boys at best, Mr. Moore, faction fighters and the like. If I didn’t slack off once or twice, I’d be sitting here in Ballina by myself, and that would serve no man’s profit.”

  “Ferdy O’Donnell in Killala has no trouble holding on to his men.”

  “Then let you make Ferdy O’Donnell a general. I am doing the best I can at a task for which I have little skill. There has been no Protestant killed in Ballina, nor will there be if I can prevent it. But it is landlords and not the British soldiers that these lads have spent their lives fearing and bowing down before and hating. What this rising up means to them is that the landlords will be driven out and will not come back. And that is what it means to me as well.”

  “Then you have scant understanding of the oath which you took, which was to an Ireland free of the English, not free of landlords. It is to a landlord that you are talking, Geraghty, or at least to the brother of one.”

  “Well do I know that, Mr. Moore. Yourself and Malcolm Elliott both. Do I not hold my own farm from Malcolm Elliott? But neither of you need stay as I must in Ballina and Ferdy in Killala, protecting those for whom we have no love against our own people. That is a task that might well be beyond you or beyond Malcolm Elliott or beyond your French general.”

  “You need not bide here much longer,” Moore said. “We will be moving out of Mayo soon, and the men from the towns and villages with us. All save the garrison at Killala.”

  “Moving where, if that is not too much to ask?”

  “Towards the midlands, I think, if we can give Cornwallis the slip. He was at Athlone a day or two ago. He must be closer than that by now.”

  Geraghty refilled his glass and took a deep swallow from it. “With a great army of the English?”

  “Large enough,” Moore said. “But not as large as the midland rising will be.”

  “Much midland means to me,” Geraghty said. “Save that it is a word. I have never been to Athlone even, and neither have my men. We are Mayo men. And we thought that the men of all Ireland would be rising up, and not the men of Mayo carried off to fight in strange fields of which we do not even know the names. Let us bide here in Mayo, and let the Frenchmen go to the midlands.”

  “So you may say. But that is not how wars are fought. The French general will need all the men he can get.”

  “My wife is at work out there,” Geraghty said, nodding towards the window, across the Moy, towards hidden fields. “Saving the harvest. And a bad job she is making of it, poor woman.”

  “There will be a great battle,” Moore said. “In the midlands, most likely. And another one near Dublin. Then you can go back to your crops.”

  “I could be with my crops by a shorter way than that. I could be with my crops without leaving Mayo.” He pulled the plate towards him and picked up a slice of bacon.

  “You could,” Moore said, “but you will not.”

  Geraghty grunted, and nodded towards Moore when he rose to leave. “For a man as young as yourself, you have firm ideas as to what other men will or will not do.”

  Riding north, beside fields and farms which he had passed on his earlier journey, Moore could find no marks o
f the rebellion save untended fields and a second burned house. An army had gathered in Castlebar and other armies were moving against it. Killala, like Ballina, was in rebel hands. And yet the landscape was unchanged, the fields green, the trees thick with leafage, no trace of brown yet showing. He had helped to set events in motion which sent flames moving from room to room of Mount Lawrence Hall and peasants clambering up the dew-wet slopes of Sion Hill. But the quiet, sun-drenched fields asserted the inconsequentiality of his actions, of all action. The sound of a distant pheasant, leaves stirring in a mild, brief wind, hoofbeats on the road, were more actual than smoke-blackened stones, pikes, cannon, muskets, monarchies, republics.

  The coldness with which Thomas Treacy received him set a seal upon this, for Treacy, as he soon made plain, regarded him less as a rebel than as the wilful younger son of a neighbouring family, bent upon dragging family and friends towards irretrievable disgrace. He had seen Moore riding up the short avenue and was waiting for him on the steps, his spare, elongated figure framed by the open door.

  “I knew that you would wish to see us, John. Sooner or later. Or at least to see Ellen.”

  “To see both of you, of course, sir. But I am not certain of my welcome.”

  Treacy walked down the steps to face him. “It is difficult for me to say this to someone of whom I have been fond. But you are not welcome, and I cannot believe that you could have thought otherwise.”

  Moore sat awkwardly on his mount, fingering her reins. “And yet you knew that I would come.”

  “Because of Ellen. Yes, yes, I knew that. Don’t sit there, boy. However brief our conversation, it had best be conducted indoors.” He gave Moore a brief smile. “Or rather, I assume that that is best. I have had no experience of receiving heads of state. A most remarkable accomplishment for one of your years. Even Mr. Pitt was older when he became Prime Minister, and he has been accounted a prodigy.”

  He led Moore to the smaller of the two drawing rooms, sparsely furnished, two clumsily painted portraits, a heavy crucifix, a mawkish engraving of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. A decanter of wine stood on the sideboard, but Treacy pointedly left it untouched, although he gestured Moore to a chair.

  “It is very quiet here in Ballycastle,” Moore said.

  “Very quiet indeed, at least between Bridge-end and the river,” Treacy said, with hostile courtesy. “As of course you must know, my friend Falkiner’s house was raided.”

  “No,” Moore said, “I did not know that.”

  “Oh, yes. Raided but not burned. One of your bands of ruffians was apparently driven off by a second.”

  “It is probable,” Moore said, “that those other ruffians, as you call them, were the men under Ferdy O’Donnell’s command. He has been charged with the maintenance of order in this barony. And you surely must know that he is no ruffian.”

  “I have known him for years, and have thought only well of him. A decent, hard-working farmer and well educated. But then, until recent months I have had a high opinion of yourself. I no longer have.”

  Moore did not reply. Embarrassed, he looked beyond the tall window to the flat, green meadow.

  “It is being said,” Treacy went on, “that I have myself been spared because of the friendship between your family and mine. Or else because I have the good fortune, as it has suddenly become, of being a Catholic.”

  “If you wish,” Moore said, choosing his words with care, “you may give the lie to both of those rumours. The army of the Irish Republic—”

  “The army of the Irish Republic,” Treacy echoed derisively. “I would be amused to learn your brother’s views on that subject. When I walk from room to room of this house, I am shamed by the mere suspicion that I owe my safety to my creed, or to any connexion with a rebel against the King.”

  “I can only repeat that you are mistaken in your suspicions.”

  “What else is to be thought? A dozen houses to my knowledge have been looted or burned between here and Castlebar, and all of them the houses of Protestants. When this wretched business is over, the position of Catholics in Mayo will be worse than it has been for thirty years.”

  “Most landlords are Protestants,” Moore said, fighting a rising impatience. “And most peasants are Catholics. There is your answer. They have risen up, and their anger has spilled over upon those whom they see as their oppressors. But the Society of United Irishmen is not at war against any man’s property or any man’s religion.”

  “I have been to visit poor Falkiner’s house,” Treacy said. “What has been done to it is dreadful.” Distracted by the recollection, he drew fingers through thin white hair. “It is what may be expected when brutes are turned loose, and yet the sight shocks one—tables smashed to splinters, paintings hacked and cut. Many a pleasant evening I have spent in that befouled and violated room. George Falkiner has been all his life well disposed towards those of our faith. His was the first Protestant name on the Connaught petition for Catholic rights. Did you know that? And there is what thanks he gets. And those brutes are now your allies and your chosen companions.”

  “The petition failed,” Moore said. “It failed because the people of Ireland do not have control of their own affairs.”

  “Words,” Treacy said. “The facts are men killed and houses gutted. A brutal peasantry has been turned loose upon the countryside. Those are the facts.”

  “I have earned your displeasure,” Moore said. “Let us leave it at that.”

  “Displeasure is the language of circulating libraries. You are a rebel in arms against your lawful King, and you are in so sore a danger that neither your brother nor any other man will be able to save you. You have disgraced your religion and your nation.”

  “A nation in whose Parliament I am forbidden to sit because of my religion. There also is a fact. Does it carry no weight with you?”

  “I am fully conscious of the wicked burdens which have been placed upon us. That does not tempt me to turn the country over to drunken spalpeens and French brigands. I have no wish to debate the matter with you. You had hoped to marry Ellen. I have favoured this intention and so has George. George has been most generous in this matter, for there is a wide distance between the fortunes of the Moores and of the Treacys. But now you can best display your affection for Ellen by forgetting that any such plans were ever considered. You can bring to her now only sorrow and misery.”

  “You might at least credit me with common sense, Mr. Treacy.”

  “That is the very last virtue which I am prepared to grant you, John.”

  “I am engaged in a hazardous enterprise, and like yourself I have no wish to expose Ellen to any of its dangers. But I trust that I shall be returning to Mayo with my prospects far brighter than they may seem at present. I have ridden here today only to speak with her, and I trust that I may have your permission to do so.”

  “Speak with her by all means. I have no wish to prevent that. But you must accept the fact that Bridge-end House must hereafter be closed to you, and that our friendship with you has ended.”

  “That is a very cold statement.”

  “It is indeed. I am doing my best to remain calm in speaking with you, John. I have had a great fondness for you, as I am sure you must know. But I despise the course which you have taken. It is both a folly and a crime, a crime which is breeding other crimes. You will not be returning to Mayo, but the British army will, and they will very likely turn this county into a wasteland. I have lived in penal days and I have watched as the Catholics of Mayo struggled—lawfully and peaceably struggled—to establish their rights—”

  “This is too much!” Moore said. “Why do you think that the United Irishmen are fighting, if not to establish the rights of all Irishmen? What have these peaceful struggles earned you save a string of miserable concessions doled out decade by decade—”

  “That will do,” Treacy said. “I will not debate with you, and neither will I suffer you to defend the actions of murderous peasants. Now, if you wish to
have an hour’s conversation with Ellen, you will find her in the sewing room, where I have asked her to remain during your visit. You and I may take our farewell of each other here, in this room.” He rose, hesitated, and then suddenly held out his hand. “I am more sorry than words can express, my dear John.”

  “I cannot accept that my friendship with this family can end in such a manner,” Moore said. Treacy shrugged.

  But when Moore knocked on the door of the sewing room, he was astonished by a different reception, for Ellen flung open the door and hurled herself at him, a girl thin as her father and almost as tall as Moore himself. She twined her arms around his neck, and with her head pressed against his began to cry violently. He stood awkwardly, stroking her long, sand-coloured hair and speaking quietly, until she drew back and led him into the small, sun-filled room.

  For a minute she stood looking down at the litter of silk and muslin scraps on the table, and then picked one up and held it against her eyes. She stood with her back towards him, narrow shoulders shaking, and then turned to face him with tear-swollen eyes.

  “I had never thought that it would be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “The way you had it, there would be ship after ship coming in from France, great armadas of them. And the whole island would be rising up. Not three miserable ships and a few hundred men.”

  “There will be a second fleet,” Moore said. “And perhaps a third.”

  “It will be too late.”

  “It will not. Your father and yourself are two of the gloomiest mortals on earth.”

  “We are indeed, if you mean that we are sensible. And my father says now that we are not to see each other.”

  “Do you accept that?”

  “What else is a girl of my age to do, may I ask? I have not a choice. If you go off from Mayo with the rebels, you will not be returning here to me. You will be put to the bayonet in some ditch or else hanged at a crossroads. Your brother will not be able to get you free from this scrape.”