The Rebels of Ireland

  A piper’s lament. The haunting strain echoed around the hillside, mournful yet strangely comforting. And despite himself, Pincher experienced that special sensation, the melancholy yet thrilling warmth about the heart that only the sound of the pipes can bring. He listened, and wished it might go on forever. But after a time it ended.

  Then there was a little pause, followed soon after by a lilting tune, half soulful perhaps, but in which the more cheerful sound of a fiddle joined beside the piper like a good companion. The melody was pleasant, Pincher supposed; but it seemed to him that there had been enough music, and that it would be more fitting if, having paid their respects, the guests were now to take their leave. He was glad when the music stopped.

  He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. From below, he could hear the faint sounds of conversation, even of laughter. It had been a long day. He hoped that he might fall asleep. In the morning, he thought, he would leave at the earliest opportunity. If he could just shut out the voices and lie very still, he could begin to drift into sleep. He breathed slowly, kept his eyes shut. He felt himself drifting.

  And then the fiddles began. Loudly. Several of them, accompanied by a whistle. A merry sound. There were shouts, laughter. By all that was unholy: they were playing a jig. He started in fury from his bed and rushed to the window. Torches were being lighted outside. He could see the company all round the tower. They were dancing. It was like a pagan orgy or a scene from the infernal regions. They were dancing a jig.

  He gazed in horror. Not only were they merrily dancing, but the jig went on and on, as if to see who could dance the longest without dropping.

  And now—he had known it from the beginning, of course—but now, having heard, having seen with his own eyes, having looked down upon this dreadful jig, it seemed to Doctor Pincher that he understood with a new and ghastly clarity that, even if they smiled at you or put on English clothes, these Irish papists were, indeed, lower than the beasts. They were all, all destined for eternal damnation. There could be no possible doubt of it. With a cry of anguish, he turned round, threw himself facedown upon the bed, and tried to stop his ears.

  But the dancing and the music went on. Some of the dances were jigs; others he did not recognise. He had heard that the Irish performed a sword dance. For all he knew, they might be doing that. What he knew for certain was that he could get no rest.

  Perhaps, if he could distract his mind from the sounds below, he could get to sleep. He tried thinking about the journey he was to make the following day. That prospect, at least, brought him some comfort.

  Both Trinity College and Christ Church Cathedral were endowed with many lands—on which, from time to time, good leases might be obtained; and he had long been hoping to obtain one of these. But the opportunity that had now presented itself was even better.

  For of all the Protestant landlords in Ireland, none was richer, or more godly, than Richard Boyle, the great Protestant settler. Having acquired, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vast tracts of land in Munster, he was the patron of numerous livings, from which a good Protestant preacher might derive an income. “I’ve just heard there’s a living coming free any day in north Munster. And you’re just the kind of godly man that Boyle would approve of,” the Chapter Clerk had told him. “It’s a little wild there, however. The land will have to be cleared before you can grow anything. Would you mind that?”

  “Oh no,” said Pincher. “I shouldn’t mind at all.”

  Woodlands. For centuries, the vast forests that had once covered most of the island had been a valuable source of timber. Mostly, it had been exported. Some of the greatest English cathedrals had roof beams of Irish oak. And during the huge building of Tudor England, timber had been increasingly in demand. Gradually, therefore, the forests of Ireland had yielded to the axe. Most of the best oak trees in the Dublin region had already gone, but farther south there were still plenty of fine old forests waiting to be cut down. And the harvesting of woodlands provided an instant, one-time cash crop that could make a new lease highly profitable for an investor. Sometimes entire hillsides would be stripped in a matter of months.

  “I shall let in light,” Pincher had declared with feeling, “where before there was darkness.”

  The track across the hills, he had been told, led past some of the finest views in all Ireland. In a couple of days, it was to be hoped, he would reach his destination spiritually refreshed. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the journey. And although he was conscious of the music outside, he might have slipped into unconsciousness once or twice before, at about midnight, he became aware that the music had finally stopped and he felt ready to sink, at last, into a deep sleep.

  Indeed, for a moment he almost supposed he was dreaming when a sudden creak made him sit up with a start, to see that the heavy oak door of the chamber was slowly opening.

  There were so many sleeping in the rooms below and the hall that they had left candles flickering all over the house so that people would not fall over each other if they moved about in the night. It was by the light of several candles, therefore, that Pincher could now see, framed in the doorway, the terrible figure who was about to enter his room. A wild Irishman’s dress, bare legs, a pale face with staring eyes, and a great, ugly mass of hair falling in ringlets to below his shoulders—faced with such an apparition, it was no surprise that Doctor Pincher should have convulsively clutched at the bedclothes and opened his mouth, ready to cry out “Help” or “Murder” if the creature took another step.

  But Tadhg O’Byrne did not enter yet. He stood at the door, preferring to sway a little, cautiously, before committing himself to a further step into the unknown. He was not drunk. He might have been a little while ago, but he was rather in a state where his thoughts and actions, though carefully considered, were somewhat slow. He had tried to sleep on the floor beside the bench in the main hall upon which his wife already lay deeply unconscious. But he could not seem to get comfortable. He had considered going outside. The night was not cold, and a good Irishman like himself, as he was proud to say, would be as happy sleeping on the ground like a cattleman, or a hero from olden times, as lying about in a house. But on balance he had decided to rest inside and, walking carefully over several bodies he had managed, taking his time, to negotiate his way to this place where he had encountered a door. Unable to see the quaking preacher in the darkness, he now very reasonably enquired:

  “Is there room for a body to sleep in there?”

  The question, being asked in Irish, was not understood by Pincher, but clearly some response was required.

  “Go away,” the philosopher cried.

  The reply, in English, surprised Tadhg O’Byrne, but was perfectly understood. He studied it. The first thing about the answer, apart from the language, was that it came only from a single source. He listened for the sounds of others breathing but heard none. Framing his next question in English therefore:

  “Is it a woman you have with you?” he obligingly asked.

  “Certainly not!” hissed Doctor Pincher.

  Though he was not trained in philosophy, it was clear to Tadhg, after only another moment or two, that the figure in the dark had, willfully or not, been guilty of a non sequitur. For if there were no others in the room, and the stranger was not engaged with a woman, then, ipso facto, there was no need for him to go away. Not wishing to offend, he went over this in his mind again to make sure it was correct; but he could find no weakness in his reasoning. And he had just come to this definite conclusion when Doctor Pincher made a great mistake. Speaking very slowly and clearly, on the assumption that the figure before him must, by its every appearance, be both drunk and stupid, he carefully enunciated:

  “This . . . is . . . my . . . bed.”

  “Bed?” This was a new consideration. “Is it a bed you have there?” Tadhg might despise the presumed decadence of his kinsman Brian when it came to feather beds, but at this moment, the prospect of sharing a comfortable bed rather than the h
ard floor seemed to him a good one. Entering now, and closing the door behind him, he made his way with surprising accuracy to the bed and stretched out his hand to where, shrinking in disgust and some terror from him, Doctor Pincher had inadvertently supplied the very space he was seeking. “There now,” he said companionably, “there’s room enough for the two of us.”

  And he would have fallen asleep at once beside the startled preacher if a sudden curiosity had not seized him. Who might this English stranger be who was given a chamber to himself at the wake of O’Byrne of Rathconan?

  “A fine man,” he opined into the inky darkness. “There’s no question, Toirdhealbhach O’Byrne was a fine man.” He paused, expecting some response, but the stranger beside him was as silent as the corpse below. “Had you known him long?” he enquired.

  “I did not know him at all,” said Pincher’s voice, coldly.

  It was clear to Pincher that his life was not in any immediate danger from this loathsome figure. The main question in his mind was whether to get off the bed and sleep on the hard floor himself, or to remain where he was and endure the closeness, and the smell, of his presence.

  “But you came to his wake from respect, no doubt,” said Tadhg. English or not, one couldn’t deny that this was a proper if unusual thing to do. “Would you mind if I ask your name? Myself being Tadhg O’Byrne,” he obligingly supplied.

  Why was it, Pincher wondered, that these Irish must have such barbarous names? The sound of them—Tighe O’Byrne beside him, Turlock O’Byrne the corpse below—was bad enough; their spellings, Tadhg and Toirdhealbhach, defied all reason. He placed a silent curse upon them all. He certainly had no wish to engage in conversation with Tadhg; on the other hand, if he refused to reply, it might make the creature angry.

  “I am Doctor Simeon Pincher, of Trinity College, Dublin,” he said reluctantly.

  “Of Trinity College?” An Englishman and a heretic, therefore. But a scholar, perhaps, all the same. “You’d be learned, I dare say,” he ventured, “in Latin and Greek?”

  “I lecture in Greek,” Pincher said firmly, “in logic and in theology. I preach at Christ Church. I am a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.” He hoped this impressive list might reduce his unwelcome companion to silence.

  Tadhg might have little use for Englishmen and heretics, but he was impressed. This was a gentleman and a scholar, a learned man who had come all the way from Dublin to pay his respects to a leading O’Byrne. Courtesy was due. He lay there in silence, wondering what he should say to such a distinguished person. And as he did so, a further thought occurred to him. Here was an important man of learning sharing a bed with him, and no doubt imagining that he, Tadhg O’Byrne, was a poor sort of fellow. He owed it to himself to let the stranger know that he, too, was a person of some account. Not his equal in learning, to be sure, but a gentleman like himself at least.

  “And you wouldn’t know, I don’t suppose, who I might be?” he suggested.

  “I suppose not,” sighed Doctor Pincher.

  “Yet it’s myself,” Tadhg announced proudly, “that is the rightful heir to Rathconan.”

  The effect of this statement was highly satisfactory. He felt the doctor’s body give a small start in the bed.

  “But I understood that Brian . . .”

  “Ah.” Now Tadhg bent to his theme. “He has it. That he has. But has he the right to it?” He paused to let the question establish itself in the surrounding dark. “He has not. It’s myself that is in the senior line, you see. His family took it, but they’ve no right to it. Their claim is false,” he ended triumphantly.

  The fact that under the very law, that ancient Irish law and custom, which he so ardently defended, Brian’s ancestors had been rightfully chosen and his own rejected, the fact that as a good Irishman he had no claim to Brian’s position whatever and that any good Irishman would have told him so in no uncertain terms, and the even more astounding fact that it was only under the English law, not the Irish, that the claim of the eldest son had any particular significance—all these facts had miraculously been dissolved in the blackness of the night, or rather, they had been hastily buried underground by Tadhg, like a criminal burying a body.

  “So you mean,” Pincher sought to clarify, “that Brian O’Byrne does not in fact possess a clear title to this property?”

  “He does not. Under English law.” He did not like to say it, but he knew that this would be the way to impress a Trinity College man. “Under the king’s law, he’s no right to it at all. It’s myself who is the rightful heir.”

  “That,” said Doctor Pincher, “is very interesting. I think,” he added after a short pause, “that I should like to go to sleep.”

  And Tadhg O’Byrne, having made his point to his own satisfaction, was contented enough to fall into unconsciousness, which he did immediately. But Pincher did not sleep. He had no wish to sleep just yet. Instead, he lay there thinking. The information he had just received, if correct, was highly significant. Not, of course, that the disgusting wretch lying beside him would ever derive any benefit from it. God forbid. But if the kindly young man who had welcomed him to his house had any sort of defective title to the property, there were legal ways in which he might be dispossessed. Pincher wondered if anyone else in Dublin knew about this. Possibly not. The value of an estate like Rathconan would be many times greater than the profits he had in prospect down in Munster, no matter how closely the oak trees grew.

  He wondered how he might turn this unexpected news to his advantage.

  For some time now, it had seemed to Orlando that his father was out of sorts. He was conscious of these small changes of mood because he saw his father almost every day.

  Though he was sixteen, Orlando was still at home. Martin Walsh had quietly resisted the several attempts of Lawrence to have Orlando sent to Salamanca. “No, I’d rather have him with me,” he would say. “He can get a fair education from the teachers we have here. I shall teach him the law myself.” Once, overhearing an argument between his brother and his father, Orlando had heard his father declare: “Have a care, Lawrence. The government men in Dublin Castle are suspicious of foreign colleges. My loyalty is not in question, but remember that there are men in the Castle who would like to forbid Catholic lawyers to practice. They already know very well that you’re a Jesuit. As it’s Orlando who will inherit this estate after I am gone, it may be wiser that they don’t see him going off to a seminary. It’s better they see him safely at my side.” Orlando heard Lawrence murmur something in reply, but could not make out the words. He did hear his father answer, very firmly: “I think not. Speak of it no more.”

  Martin Walsh usually went into Dublin to transact business a day or two each week. Quite often, he would take Orlando with him, and it was easy to see, wherever he went, how much his honest, cautious father was liked and respected.

  “A lawyer,” Martin would tell him, “comes to know a great many men’s secrets. But men must know they can trust him with their confidences. A lawyer knows everything, Orlando, but tells nothing. Remember that.”

  Sometimes, he would genially point to a pretty girl and ask Orlando if he’d like to marry her. This had fallen into a comfortable routine. Orlando would always say that she wasn’t pretty enough and tell his father he’d have to do better. Then his father would ask him how many children he wanted. “Six boys and six girls: a round dozen,” he’d say. And Martin would look pleased.

  Often as not, they would call in on his sister. Anne had three girls already, and they still hoped for a boy, whom they would call Maurice. She had filled out a little since her marriage, and she was always busy with her household and her children, but in other ways it seemed to Orlando that she was still the same. Her husband Walter had proved to be a great success. The older Orlando grew, the more he liked him. A kindly, manly fellow, he was obviously devoted to Anne. Though it was certain that he would one day inherit a large fortune from his father, old Peter Smith would proudly say: “He’s no nee
d of me, though. He’s already a man of substance on his own account.” Old Peter Smith preferred to spend his time out at the estate he held in Fingal, but Walter and Anne spent most of the time in the city with their children. They had a handsome, gabled house on Saint Nicholas Street near the old Tholsel town hall. The only subject that was never mentioned was the drowning of Patrick Smith. But Orlando felt sure that his sister must be happy with her life now, even so.

  It would be at the end of the day, sometimes, after they had ridden back to the house in Fingal, that Orlando would notice his father looking a little tired and depressed. He supposed it might just be fatigue after the long hours of business. Martin’s hair was mostly grey now. When he sat in his chair in the evening and gazed down thoughtfully at the floor, it couldn’t be denied that his face looked somewhat haggard and older. Occasionally, Orlando would observe him suddenly wince and shake his head. But then, when he rose from this chair, Orlando would see him straighten his back, take a deep breath, push out his chest, and give himself a little nod of approval. And then he would reassure himself that his father was still strong and would be with him for many a year.

  It was unusual for his father to conduct Dublin business out at the house, so Orlando was surprised one evening, as they were riding home, when his father remarked: “I have received a message from Doctor Pincher. He wishes to call upon me tomorrow morning. On a private matter, he says.” Though he had only occasionally caught sight of the tall, thin doctor of Trinity College, the black image of Pincher crossing the Plain of Bird Flocks the evening before Anne departed for the seminary was still indelibly imprinted on his mind. “What did he want?” he asked his father. “I have no idea,” Walsh replied.