The Rebels of Ireland (55 page)

Nary gave him a wry look.

“Oh, he doesn't think so, I assure you. He has the greatest contempt for me. He told me so himself.” Observing Walsh's astonishment, Nary laughed. “I'm not nearly good enough for him, you know.”

“How can he possibly…?”

“Oh, he's a most furious young Jacobite, you know. He despises me because I am registered and do not flout the law—much as I dislike it—and because some of the Church of Ireland clergy are my friends.” Nary shrugged. “I like to think he does me an injustice.”

In fact, as Walsh knew very well, the priest had done more than write some fearless pamphlets. Ten years ago, he had been forced into hiding and then arrested after illegally helping some poor nuns who'd been dispossessed. Only two years ago, when a Catholic in Cork had been unfairly condemned to death, Nary had openly rebuked the authorities by draping his entire chapel in black mourning cloth. There was no question about the man's courage. He had simply calculated that he could achieve more for the faith by making friends than by making enemies.

“I had been intending,” said Fortunatus a little doubtfully, “to keep an eye on him while Terence was away.”

“You were?” Nary clearly found this quite amusing. “And you a Protestant. Brave man.”

“He sounds a monster,” Walsh ventured, “and yet it seems to me that you like him.”

The priest nodded.

“You are right. I even discussed him with the bishop.” Catholic bishops might not be allowed in Ireland officially, but of course they were often there, and the authorities usually ignored them. “Yet neither of us was certain how to help him. The bishop wondered if he would make a priest. He has the brain, but no vocation.” Nary gazed thoughtfully at Fortunatus. “You might say that he is both the best of young men,” he continued, “and the worst. His mind is very keen. Give him a subject to master, and he will swoop down upon it like a falcon. He will master it with an intensity at which I marvel. I lend him books. He has read prodigiously. But he lacks a centre. I'm not even sure of his convictions. Just when you suppose you have engaged his attention, he'll turn from you—it's as if he's been swept up by a whirlwind into the sky. And suddenly you've lost him.” He paused. “He has a terrible, dark passion,” he added regretfully.

“I asked Morgan MacGowan if there was anything in particular I should know,” Fortunatus remarked. “He said I should ask you. I'm wondering what it might have been.”

“Ah.” The priest sighed. “That would be the girl.”

“He mentioned no girl.”

“How like him. He wouldn't because, in his eyes, she belongs to me.” Doctor Nary stared up at the bookcase where three unsold copies of his translation of the New Testament kept each other company. “Kitty Brennan. A servant girl in this house. Her family live down in Wicklow. Poor farmers. I feel responsible for her. So I take it unkindly that young Smith has made the girl his sweetheart.”

“He has seduced her?”

“I don't say that. For all I know, it was the other way round. But I have asked him to promise not to see her anymore.”

“Has he done so?”

“No. And I shall have to send her back to her family. We can only hope there have been no unfortunate consequences.”

“Terence said nothing of this.”

“He doesn't know. It has all come about this last week or so.”

“Surely the girl should go at once, then, for everyone's sake.”

“I fear so. She's not a bad little soul, and I'm sorry to send her back to her wretched home. But…” The priest shook his head, then suddenly burst out: “The young fool. He could go far. As far, at least, as a poor Catholic boy can go in Dublin nowadays.”

Fortunatus watched him thoughtfully. It was clear that Nary was frustrated with his difficult protégé.

“You say he has read a great deal.”

“He's been through half my library.”

“He comes to dine with Terence and his family every month, as you probably know. I suppose I could do the same. But I have to go up into County Cavan for a few days shortly. I wonder if I should take him with me. It would keep him out of trouble.”

“I could send the girl away while he's gone,” Nary said thoughtfully. “That might do very well. Though you're a brave man to take him. What do you mean to do up there?” It was clear from his tone that to Nary, who came from the rich farmland of County Kildare, the northern county of Cavan with its bogs and little lakes held no attraction.

“I'm to visit an old friend, a schoolmaster. He's a learned man, and a wit as well. It might interest the boy.”

Doctor Nary was listening carefully. Now he gave Fortunatus a sharp look.

“A schoolmaster, you say, with a house in Cavan? And what would be the name of this place, might I ask?”

“The house is called Quilca.”

“Quilca?” Nary slapped his hand on the table. “I might have guessed. Quilca.” He shook his head. “And tell me this—will there be other company there, from Dublin?”

“I believe there will, yes. Another old friend of his.” He grinned. “I think you know already. The Dean of Saint Patrick's.”

“I knew it,” cried Nary, in only partly mock vexation. “The
intolerable unfairness of the thing. It's me you should be taking, Walsh, not young Smith.”

“I'm sure you'd be very welcome.”

“Perhaps. I hope so. But I've other duties here.” He sighed. “I feel, Fortunatus, like the worthy brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Here I am, labouring faithfully in the service of the Lord, and it's that young rascal who's to go to Quilca. Why, man,” he burst out, “you'll be in the finest company in all Ireland!”

“I would not disagree.”

“Take him to Quilca, then,” groaned Cornelius Nary. “Take him for the good of his soul. Though I hope you do not live to regret it.”

“I'm sure I can manage him,” said Fortunatus.

“Perhaps. But I warn you,” said the priest, “that you are taking a considerable risk.”

It was some hours later that the three brothers met in the family house in Belfast. They came together in sadness.

Outside, it was raining. If Dublin was still bathed in evening sunshine, up here, eighty miles to the north, a wet wind from the west was dragging a pall of grey cloud over the Mountains of Morne, and a dreary rain was falling over the great port of Belfast beyond.

A month had passed since their father had died, that sound, God-fearing old Ulster Scot. They had buried their mother ten years ago. There was nobody left in the family now but Henry, and John, and Samuel Law.

Henry observed his brothers. We are decent young men, he thought. We love each other as best we can; and when love is difficult, loyalty always remains. We cling to that.

“Well, Samuel, no doubt you've made up your mind. What's it to be?” John, the eldest, straight to the point. Tall and dark-haired like their father. Hardworking, the undisputed head of the family now.

Samuel smiled. Perhaps because he was the youngest, he was the most easygoing. He was built differently, as well. He was considerably shorter than his brothers, even a little chubby. His hair was sandy, flecked with red—an inheritance from their mother's side, Henry supposed. But he knew what he wanted. Always had. In his genial way, considered Henry, he's just as stubborn.

“I'm going,” he said. “There's a good ship leaving next week. I'm going to America.”

John nodded. If a man left for America, the chances were that you would never see him again.

“We shall miss you,” he said quietly. That was a lot, coming from John, the man who never gave way to his emotions. Even then, Henry noted, he did not say “I shall miss you,” but “we.” That made it a statement of family duty rather than personal feeling. Henry smiled to himself. John never changed. Just like their father. “But I think you are right, Samuel,” John continued gravely. “I believe I'd go myself, except for…” There was no need to finish the sentence. John was the only one married as yet, and they all knew that his wife had made her feelings very clear. She had a large family in Ulster and no intention of being parted from them. “I am sure that it's God's will, and that you'll prosper there,” John added.

“It isn't just for myself that I'm leaving,” said Samuel. “But if God grants me a family one day, I'll not bring them up in Ireland.”

And no one could blame him for that, thought Henry. For under Ireland's English rule, the Law family lived under humiliating disadvantages. Not because they were Catholic but, on the contrary, because they were Protestant.

If there was one thing the Ascendancy believed it had learned from the past, it was that religious disputation led to bloodshed. The disputes must therefore end. The official Church, with its compromise liturgy and its bishops, might not be perfect, but it represented order. It was to be established once and for all, and any other groups, whether papist, dissenters, sectaries, or anything else, were to be rendered impotent. Even the stern Elect of God were now to
be humbled. “We had enough of those damned Presbyterians before, especially the Scotch ones,” the gentlemen of the Ascendancy parliaments declared. So their legislation was directed not only against Catholics but all dissenting Protestants as well. “Join the established Church,” they were told, “or be second-class subjects.” And so the Scots Presbyterians who formed the most vigorous part of the Protestant community in Ulster were therefore debarred from civic and public life, and humiliated.

It was three generations since the Law family had come to Ulster. Hardworking, respectable Lowland Scots, their great-grandfather had proudly taken the Covenant; it had been a younger son, looking to make his fortune, who had come over to Ulster. There he had prospered in the wool trade, conducted through the growing port of Belfast, and raised his family in the Presbyterian faith. The Law family had been horrified when Catholic King James came to the throne, and delighted when King William beat him. And after the Battle of the Boyne, they had assumed that the new Protestant regime would be the end of their troubles, not the beginning of them.

When the English showed their loyalty to their fellow Protestants in Ireland by destroying their wool trade, the Law family had suffered a grievous financial blow. But it took more than that to defeat their sturdy Scottish enterprise.

None of the three brothers would forget the day—they had still been boys at the time—when their father had called them into the cobblestone yard and shown them a small barrel.

“This was just landed, from America,” he told them. “And it will save us. Do you know what is in it? Flaxseed.”

For from flax came linen.

There had been linen in Ireland from time immemorial. But the opening of the New World had now provided a vast potential supply of cheap flaxseed. As the wool trade declined, enterprising men like Law saw an opportunity. They started making linen instead of woollen cloth, and since the English themselves were not much en
gaged in that commodity, they had no need to destroy the livelihood of their Irish friends in this new trade.

And no one was more active in promoting the linen business than the Law family. They did not simply trade in finished linen. Soon Mr. Law had a network of a dozen farmers whom he provided with seed, spinning wheels, anything else they needed for making the yarn. With supplies guaranteed, he devoted himself first to making the linen and then to selling it. By the time King George came to the throne, Law had his own warehouse on the wharf at Belfast, and shares in half a dozen ships. He also had three sons who were thoroughly trained in the business.

The Laws were a typical family of their kind. Their faith, though it derived from the Calvinism of the century before, was of a gentler nature. They found inspiration in the simple affection of their family, in praying, or better yet, singing, the beloved Psalms together. And they were not without humour.

Nonetheless, they were tough Scots, with a strict Presbyterian church, and they believed firmly in the virtue of hard work and frugal living. They had, all of them, a sharp eye for profit and a dislike of unnecessary costs. Mr. Law had been able to acquire a handsome town house in Belfast; but when his wife had suggested she'd like some fine silk curtains for the parlour, she had been told that the old tapestry ones left by the previous owner, with only a small amount of mending—her husband kindly got down on his knees to show her how easily the thing could be done—might perfectly well be made to serve another twenty years. And since a display of silk would, in any case, be vanity and ostentation, religion dictated what her husband desired, and so there had been no need for the matter ever to be raised again.

Close-knit, churchgoing, sober, healthy, frugal, debt-free: this was the Law family. And, there could be no doubt, the Presbyterian faith was of particular assistance for a manufacturer of dry goods. But since that heritage meant that they would not bow the knee to a bishop, the Ascendancy could not accept them; and so, in a
strange irony, the fact that they were strict Protestants meant that they must be treated, almost, like papists.