Stranger in Dixie

by James Fearn

  Eliza’s concern for the poor stemmed largely from the influences of her schooldays. St. Margaret’s had a reputation for producing women of strong social conscience, which was inculcated by the powerfully persuasive words and estimable example of the Principal, Mrs Fortescue, a lovable character who had previously headed a school for girls in the Indian city of Lucknow.

  Some were quick to criticise St. Margaret’s for this humanitarian emphasis to the apparent detriment of scholastic endeavour. Not that Eliza had suffered. Indeed she had done very well at school, taking honours in her final year and captaining the school’s royal tennis team. This had pleased Sir Richard immensely. At twenty-one she had matured into a poised young woman with no lack of dashing suitors, and it was quite obvious to all that Eliza was the apple of her father’s eye. With her blue ankle-length gown and her auburn hair, Eliza made a picture of elegance that distracted the men. With a disarming smile, she moved towards her brother and stood beside him linking her arm through his as if in agreement with what she had overheard him saying.

  ‘John,’ Sir Richard paused while he puffed slowly several times on his pipe. At heart, he was ambivalent about his son’s attitude. There was a pride that another of his offspring should be so concerned for the disadvantaged, but an apprehension that his impetuosity would lead him into further trouble with the authorities.

  ‘Remember this’, he went on, ‘social change in this country is and always has been a slow process. Look how long we’ve lived with slavery. But every word you speak and every action you take will further the cause you believe in. John, my boy, I might not agree with all of your arguments, but I admire your passion.’

  Sir Richard smiled at his children and withdrew slowly from the room. John and Eliza watched as he closed the door behind him. Turning, they strolled out on to the balcony through the French windows.

  Eliza’s hair glowed softly in the moonlight. ‘John’, she said. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation with Father. Tell me, have you ever met any of the starving children you were talking about just now?’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen a few urchins on the streets from time to time,’ replied John, wondering where the conversation was leading. Well, might he have wondered.

  ‘Come with me’, she said impulsively. Without explanation, she grasped his hand and led him back through the study and down to the stables. Within five minutes, the horse and jinker were harnessed, and brother and sister had set off into the darkness towards the city with Eliza typically in the driving seat. The moon had temporarily receded behind a large cloud so that the trees and buildings lining the road had lost their definition. Candlelight shining from the small street-level windows highlighted the potholes in the road, and Eliza had to concentrate keenly to avoid them.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Laughed John as the jinker bumped violently over the stony corrugations.

  It was never a journey that Eliza had enjoyed, for what she saw troubled her conscience. The spacious green-lawned mansions of the better suburbs had given way to the narrow-fronted hovels of the inner city from excessive affluence to stark poverty in thirty minutes, from the obesity of over-indulgence to malnutrition, and from power through the best education that money could buy to the impotence of unschooled ignorance.

  Since her teenage years, Eliza had spent a good deal of her time, helping the Sisters of Charity, a Catholic Order devoted to the relief of poverty in the city streets. Mother Assumpta, the principal of the order, was a close friend of Mrs Fortescue. With the onset of the Irish Potato famine, they had had their work cut-out feeding and housing the destitute refugees who had fled in considerable numbers from famine and death in their own sad land.

  ‘I want you to meet some of these people face-to-face, John. It’s all very well for you to talk about their plight from a comfortable distance. But come and meet them in their own hovels. Listen to their stories. Then you’ll know what you are talking about.’ Eliza’s eyes glistened in the moonlight and her voice choked with emotion as she remembered the awful stories that she herself had heard from some of these poor wretches.

  For the rest of the journey, brother and sister sat staring ahead with hardly a word between them. The dull thud of the horse’s hoofs on the muddy track provided a soporific accompaniment as John pondered all that had been said that evening. Little did he imagine that the casual visit he was about to make would so profoundly influence his whole future.

  But life’s like that. One has the feeling that one is in charge—that decisions and plans will always find fulfilment in the expected outcomes. Just as the flight path of a great seabird can so readily be altered by a sudden downdraught of wind, so the course of human experience is subject to unforeseen forces and influences that buffet and bruise even the most well-ordered life—a life-threatening illness, a charismatic encounter, and unexpected failure. How fortunate that none can see the end from the beginning, for much would never be attempted and many lives would remain unfulfilled.

  It was nearly ten o’clock when the jinker reached its destination. Eliza was the first to alight. With coat flying in the cold night air, she ran up the path of one of the poorest cottages in the dimly lit street. ‘Follow me, John!’ she shouted.

  John stepped down slowly and walked somewhat tentatively after his sister. He could see the flickering light of a single candle coming from the small front window. Not all of the family had yet retired for the night.

  The door opened in response to Eliza’s knock. Silhouetted in the doorway stood two figures who greeted Eliza with obvious delight. John could hear the strangely familiar brogue of the man who spoke first.

  ‘Oh, Begorra! It’s Eliza, to be sure! Com’ on in m’ Deary.’ The warmth of the welcoming words suggested to John that Eliza was no stranger in this place. ‘An’ what might be bringin’ yer out at this toime o’ night?’

  As John approached the door, he wondered where he had heard the voice before. He had a good musical ear and felt certain that it was one that he had heard fairly recently.

  ‘I’ve brought my brother to meet you,’ said Eliza. ‘Then show ’im in’ said the man with the enigmatic voice. ‘Let’s make ’im wilcome.’

  No sooner had his eyes become accustomed to the dim candlelight than John let out a gasp of surprise as he recognised the poorly clad figure of the man who stood before him.

  ‘Well, for goodness sake, it’s you!’ exclaimed John with incredulity. ‘I got myself into trouble with the police last night because of this fellow, Eliza,’ John went on. ‘But I enjoyed it. The pompous parasite who insulted him won’t forget the experience in a hurry I’ll be bound’. The Irishman roared with delight as he relived the fracas of the previous evening. ‘We Oirish always did loike a gud shindy.’ He chuckled.

  ‘Meet my brother, John,’ said Eliza. ‘John, this is Harry O’Meara and his wife, Colleen.’ The surprise on Harry’s face was as marked as John’s reaction. ‘I’m sure glard t’ meet y’ John. Y’re as wilcome as the flowers o’ May.’ Harry extended a rough but friendly hand to his visitor and motioned them both to sit on the crude bench he had constructed himself from axe-hewn forest oak. ‘Oi’m sure glad to meet an Englishman with a feelin’ ‘art,’ he continued. ‘Oi’m tillin’ yer, there ain’t too miny of ’em in dese parts.’

  An extraordinary mixture of emotions swept over John. He had entered Harry’s humble cottage with a certain patronising concern. People shouldn’t have to live this way. Surely, all human beings deserve a simple, decent place to live. Let’s do something for them.

  But within ten minutes, here he was at home in the warm acceptance of this immigrant family in the slums of Sheffield with the distinct feeling that they were ministering to him. The gulf of wealth and education seemed to have disappeared. He began to feel that such things were little more than a veneer upon the essential persons that reached out to each other in that cold candle-lit room.


  John took an instant liking to Harry. The indomitable spirit, the typical Irish sense of humour and, above all, the genuine kindness of this man some fifteen years his senior became the basis of a friendship that was to blossom in the coming months. John reflected upon the fact that poverty does not necessarily equate to unhappiness. Despite their impoverished lot Harry’s home had an air of love and security about it that would have been the envy of many an affluent family in the English Midlands.

  Colleen went about her business quietly. There was a weariness about her demeanour that spoke of the years of grinding poverty in her homeland. From the cupboard in the corner of the room, she took a jug of buttermilk, poured it into small mugs, and offered them shyly to her guests.

  Colleen lowered her eyes continually as if ashamed of the poor place that she had to call ‘home’. The house consisted of two small rooms. The one they were sitting in served as a living room with a stone fireplace on one side, a bare wooden floor, and a roughly hewn table in the centre around which they sat with their mugs of buttermilk. The other room was the bedroom. John noticed a calico partition separating a double bed from a single. A cracked stone jar stood in a wash basin in the corner on the floor.

  It was quite a cool evening, and John shivered at the thought of the bitter winter winds that must cut through the cracks in the thin walls of the cottage. He pictured himself in the drawing room of his own home with a blazing log fire to keep his family warm and was deeply troubled that the poor had to live like this.

  Sitting inconspicuously on a stool in the corner of the living room, a young girl of about twelve years of age sat, busy with her sewing. John noticed that she was quite a pretty lass with a finely sculptured face and long blonde hair. Her hauntingly blue eyes looked up shyly from time to time, but dropped immediately to her work whenever John’s gaze met hers.

  ’Dis is m’ darther, Anna,’ said Harry with a note of pride in his voice. John stood up and took a small step towards her, smiled and said, ‘What are you sewing, Anna?’ An indignant yelp came immediately from the far corner of the room as the pet terrier expressed its displeasure at this stranger’s unwarranted interest in his mistress. ‘A shirt for m’ father,’ she replied momentarily glancing at John. Such a handsome and well-dressed young gentleman was a rare sight in the slums of Sheffield and unknown in her own humble home.

  ‘Harry’, said John, wishing to know more about the family. ‘You have just one child?’ Harry’s face darkened. Colleen, sensing his distress, slipped her arm through his, and laid her head lovingly on his shoulder.

  ‘We ’ad two lads, but they died o’ the fever last year durin’ the potata famine,’ he explained sadly. ‘Oh, it were a nightmare, John. The little ones lay dyin’ by the ’undreds in that tirrible place.’ Colleen began to sob as she remembered the horror of watching helplessly as her children grew weaker and weaker from fever and starvation.

  Harry stared fearfully into space as if he was seeing these shocking things for the first time. ‘I remimber as clear as day, John, some tirrible sights when the famine was doin’ its worst las’ year in County Cork.’

  ‘Father O’Kelly of St. Mary’s Church asked me t’ go along wi’ ’im while ’e visited some of ’is people in their ’ovels. I remimber we went inta one ’ouse t’ find six wasted bodies. I wus for tinken’ they were dead. They ’uddled in a corner on some feelthy straw ’arf covered by a ragged ’orsecloth. They all ’ad the fever, they did—the four chilther, a woman and what ’ad waunce bin a marn. Dere wus nuthin’ we cud do for ’em, sure as gun’s iron.’

  ‘In another ’ouse’, Harry went on, ’a woman grasped at me fur ’elp. She ’ad a newborn babe in ’er arms an’ the remains of a feelthy sack ’cross her loins, the only coverin’ of ’erself and ’er little’n. It was arful, arful, to be sure.’

  There were tears in Harry’s eyes as he relived those harrowing experiences, the horrific images etched deeply into his memory.

  ‘I remimber too the toime the pleece broke into a ’ouse which ’ad bin shut up for miny days. Dey found two frozen carpses lyin’ on the mud floor ’arf eaten by rarts.’

  ‘An’ dere was that poor muther sufferin’ typhus ’erself, draggin’ the carpse of ’er twelve year-auld darter out ’o the ’ouse an’ leavin’ it under a pile o’ stones to rot’ he continued.

  ‘Then that fellow was right. You have come from hell,’ replied John thoughtfully recalling the landlord’s heartless taunts at last night’s political meeting.

  For most Irish folk in these harsh circumstances, survival had been their all-absorbing concern. Would the lightning of the next storm strike their thatched roof? Would the next potato crop be any better? Would they be able to pay the rent and keep their few acres? Would any of their children live to adulthood and support them in their old age? It was social Darwinism at its worst. An evil compounded by the callous indifference of the rich.

  Harry glanced across the room at his daughter. ‘We’ve sometimes tarked about doin’ some crime or other, harven we, Anna? P’raps they’d transport us t’ Van Diemen’s Land. I tink we’d even risk thart,’ said Harry with a glimmer of grim optimism in his voice. Eliza, who had been listening intently to these tales of horror, and watching her bother’s reactions, knew exactly what John would say next.

  ‘Then why don’t we try to get you there?’ said John. ‘I believe that the Van Diemen’s Land Company is running some fine-wool sheep down there. Perhaps you could get a job as a farmhand, Harry.’ At first, the suggestion seemed ludicrous to Harry’s family, but as they talked it through Harry began to feel a glimmer of hope.

  Suddenly, John stood up and shook Harry’s hand warmly. ‘I’ll make some inquiries for you if you like,’ he said. Harry smiled excitedly.

  Bidding the O’Mearas goodnight, John and Eliza set out for home. ‘Our sort of people have no idea how some poor wretches have to live, have we, Eliza?’

  ‘None indeed,’ she replied with a barely perceptible smile. They both fell into a state of quiet reflection as the jinker bounced along the road towards their comfortable home.

  Early next morning, John set out for the newly opened railhead at Sheffield, intending to make the long journey to London. The British Government had recently completed a dramatic expansion of the rail network throughout Britain. This frenetic burst of construction had come to be known as railway mania as freight and passenger services grew rapidly in popularity amongst the British public and industry.

  As John took his seat in the simple but comfortable railway coach of the 8.30 a.m. to Liverpool Street, he noticed a tall bowler-hatted gentleman making his way towards him. Removing his hat, the gentleman sat down beside him and proceeded to peruse a copy of yesterday’s edition of The Times. The smooth untanned skin and the modest pot-belly of this middle-aged traveller suggested that he was a businessman returning to his city office.

  From the corner of his eye, John observed that the man was reading a report of the prime Minister’s fight with the Cabinet over the Corn Law issue, a subject of considerable interest to John, and with just cause.

  The train lurched as it jolted abruptly into motion bound for the capital. ‘What do you think of the Corn Law debate?’ asked the stranger unexpectedly in a voice that betrayed his Yorkshire origins. John, who was far from incompetent in conversation, immediately launched into an erudite defence of the Prime Minister’s views. His travelling companion was quite impressed, and the two of them began an animated discussion about a wide range of current issues from the Corn Laws to the Irish famine.

  Suddenly, John remembered the reason for his presence on the train. Anxious to learn all that he could, John abruptly changed the subject and asked, ‘Do you know anything about Van Diemen’s Land? I hear there are good opportunities out there for the adventurous.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read good reports of farming down there. Mind you, they’re still deporting the riff-raff of thi
s country to the place—murderers, thieves, rapists, and the like. But I guess there’s much less transportation now than there used to be,’ said his companion. ‘Can you imagine such a place: the dumping ground for the worst of British society?’

  ‘I don’t mind a bit of adventure,’ said John. ‘But where would you go to find out?’

  ‘Well, if you’re prepared to risk it, I’ll give you a contact in London. Go down to the Company’s head office in Great Winchester Street and ask for Mr Mercer. He’s one of the directors. Tell him Randolph Porter sent you. He’ll treat you kindly, I’m sure.’

  It was about three o’clock when the train pulled into Liverpool Street Station. John bade Randolph farewell and set out to find a place of lodging for the night. This he found in a boarding house in Threadneedle Street just a stone’s throw from the Bank of London.

  As was his custom, John rose early next morning. A brisk walk brought him to Great Winchester Street where he found the head office of the Van Diemen’s Land Company. It occupied a stately sandstone building whose door opened on to a portico paved with white marble. A small company flag hung limply in the fog in the middle of an attractive garden. John was immediately impressed by the grandeur of the place and by the apparent efficiency with which the staff were going about their business.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ John was being addressed most courteously by a junior clerk. ‘I wish to see Mr Mercer if he is available,’ replied John. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but Mr Mercer is presently out in Van Diemen’s Land, reviewing the company’s business interests.’ John’s spirit flagged. ‘Can I be of help to you?’ asked the clerk.

  ‘Well’, John went on, ‘I was hoping to speak with Mr Mercer. A mutual acquaintance told me that he could advise me about opportunities in the colonies. Are you able to tell me anything?’