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  "In that case," Tomas answered softly, "your sin will be as grave as mine. I know it's disappointing to you after having waited so long for the sweet victory of Kilty and Tomas Larkin both inside St. Columba's at the same time . . . one laid out and the other on his knees praying for his immortal soul. But God won't know who we are anyhow, because we've priests here who don't even know how to pray in the Irish language . . . it's that English they are."

  "You'll never rise high enough to see purgatory. Now get in there and take his coffin out of my church."

  "Very well . . ."

  Father Lynch grabbed his sleeve quickly. "No, wait This is no good at all. If you come I'll say the mass for no fee . . . provided you don't tell anyone."

  "No, I'll take him. He'll be happier sleeping in the hills, anyhow."

  The priest knew the faith of his people was bottomless. They obeyed meekly. Yet with all that faith there was one thing more powerful and that was their memory. Everyone knew Kilty had received absolution. Never having had his authority challenged, Father Lynch was in a quandary. Moreover, he was taken with a spell of uncluttered fear and broke into a sweat.

  The assemblage crept closer over the yard. The father could sense their breaths. "For the sake of the departed soul," he said loud enough to be heard, "and for the peace and comfort of your innocent wife and children …"

  "And to save the face of the priest," Tomas interrupted, and turned and walked away.

  "As representative of Jesus Christ I am imposing on you, Tomas Larkin, eternal damnation in this life and forever after and you're never to come sniveling to me for absolution, for I'll not give it!"

  The villagers bounced back in horror.

  Tomas slowly retraced his steps, shaking his head. "Ah, Father, you are a blister," he said, and beat a path to McCluskey's.

  The enraged man turned slowly to his mesmerized flock, who retreated into the church openmouthed. Fighting to regain control of himself, he started praying at the moment for the day, months or years away, that Tomas Larkin would come whimpering and crawling, prostrating himself, begging atonement. As he made down the aisle he told himself he was a merciful and forgiving man who would not glory in the vengeance, but nevertheless, he would pray for the time. And then, deciding to have the last word on the matter, he would not give a lengthy mass over Kilty nor would he go out to the graveyard and say any special words there. Slipping the fee into his pocket, he mounted the steps to the pulpit and faced a congregation that dropped to its knees in unison as though they had been felled by a single shot.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was not that Dooley McCluskey was irreverent of the dead. For an ordinary funeral he would have closed his public house until after the mass. However, Kilty's passing brought up a large delegation of Protestants from the Township. Most of them would no more enter St. Columba's than a good Catholic would allow himself to be seen inside St. Andrew's Presbyterian or St. George's Anglican. After all, one could not just leave one's neighbors standing about idly. And besides, he had donated a dozen bottles at the wake and was surely entitled to make up the loss.

  As Tomas adjusted his eyes to the low-ceilinged pit of drink, their hats came off and their heads bowed slightly. One by one they offered an awkward consolation. Luke Hanna, the flax mill foreman who had years of dealing with both Kilty and Tomas, acted as senior spokesman. He intoned praises that Kilty had never heard during his life. They had been adversaries most of their lives but the kind of adversaries who were able to proclaim the public house as mutual sanctuary and drink together without fussing.

  Luke Hanna's litany was a mixture of relief that the old bastard was out of his hair and sorrow over the passing of such a powerful man.

  "I saw the doings with Father Lynch," Luke said, shoving a whiskey to Tomas.

  "Ach, that man has the smile of last year's rhubarb."

  "Are you in trouble with him?"

  "It's my wife I'm after fearing now."

  Tomas' cup was running over with free drink to the delight of Dooley McCluskey. Tomas was just verging on the staggers when Conor entered. "They're digging the grave, Daddy," he said.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let go of a thunderous belch and followed his son out.

  Father Lynch had abolished some of the more grisly graveside customs such as thrusting the dead man's hand into a pail of milk to make the cream rise. However, he reinstated a loathed tradition of separating the men and women, burying each sex in its own section. The priest left the final prayers and sprinkling of holy water at graveside to Father Cluny, wishing no second confrontation with Tomas.

  While the men alternated at digging, most of the others wandered about the cemetery visiting graves of relatives, clearing weeds and smoking pipes. A half dozen women keened over the coffin but not in the terrible lamenting of the wake. It was a lyrical weeping and a soft feeling of each other's rhythm of prayer so that it all harmonized in the creation of a primitive melody.

  After Tomas arrived, the coffin was set down into the ground and covered. Each mourner passed by in turn and placed a rock on it until the pile became a small cairn. In twos and threes the men drifted to McCluskey's public house and the women back to the village.

  Fergus O'Neill balanced himself cross-legged atop Kilty's cairn. Bertie MacDevitt stood alongside playing the flute, his lips still puffed from the fight with Dinny O'Kane, while Fergus spoke his recitation.

  “Tora loo, tora loo,

  I'll set me here till darking

  A soldier of the green is croaked,

  So weep for Kilty Larkin.

  Tora loo, tora loo,

  The Fenians he was sparkin',

  That lad who killed the hated tithe,

  God love ye, Kilty Larkin.

  Tora loo, tora loo,

  The neighbors kept embarkin",

  Through famine's hell, he kept his land,

  Farewell, ye, Kilty Larkin."

  After fifteen more verses the poem was done and over the years it would be enhanced by a hundred more. Kilty had received the hero's reward of a song in his honor. Fergus and Tomas remained and Bertie played until his lips pained too greatly to continue. Finally Conor and Liam and Brigid quit and trudged home and Tomas was alone by his father's cairn until dusk fell over Ballyutogue.

  In the wee hours of the night Conor pushed open the door of McCluskey's. All who remained standing were his father and Luke Hanna and two other Protestants, with McCluskey keeping account of each pouring. Conor tugged his daddy's coat. Tomas' eyes looked like a red tide and it appeared to his son he was halfway into the spell again.

  "Daddy, I'm after taking you home."

  "Out with you!" Tomas bellowed.

  "Well, I have to know when you're coming home," Conor persisted.

  "When I finish drinking, that's when."

  "I'll wait."

  "I repeat. Out. I cannot enjoy my pints with a small boy hovering about me."

  "I'll stay in the corner and I'll be quiet."

  "Is it a thrashing you're sporting for!"

  "I have to wait. I promised Ma I'd bring you home."

  Tomas drew his arm around as if to give the boy the back of his hand but Conor merely stared unintimidated and with a tinge of disgust. Tomas dropped his hand and sulked, groaned and grumbled, scratched his hair and jaw and finally wilted under Conor's glare. "Ach, Christ," he moaned, setting his glass down and timidly following the boy into the night.

  He drank the cool tinged air into his lungs and steadied himself on Conor as they plodded silently with naught but the sounds of the wind and the smells of the fields for company.

  "I guess Ma has heard about my little conversation with Father Lynch?"

  "She has."

  "Oh, I can see the look on her face now. It will sour the cream for a fortnight."

  Tomas steadied himself before the cottage, emitting little beepings of self-pity punctuated by pained Irish groans. "Conor, my boy. Why don't you tell Ma I passed out in th
e public house? Aye, that's it. I passed out and Fergus came and fetched me and put me to sleep in his place."

  "Ma will never believe you passed out. Everybody knows how much drink you can hold."

  "Won't work, eh?"

  "Uh-uh."

  "Well then. Let's just sit in the byre until the old head stops dinnlin'."

  Tomas stumbled along the walls telling the cows to hush, then wilted into the hay as Conor lit the lantern.

  "Daddy, everything's going to be all right. You've done nothing out of turn."

  "It's a good lad you are. They'll be writing songs for you one day."

  "Shouldn't you be going to bed?"

  "Aw, I'm not ready to face that in there, yet"

  Tomas rubbed his head hard to wipe out electric circles of confusion now racing through him, tilting him, nauseating him, breaking his skull with throbs, blurring his vision, muddling up his words.

  "Daddy, I know how you loved Kilty and I'd grieve the same way after you."

  Tomas slumped over on his back and thrashed in agony. "And I'd keep you alive like Kilty did for me. Oh, God . . . oh, God . . ." The breaths were loud and tortured and the cattle rustled with nervousness. "Kilty!" he cried. "Kilty!"

  The sobbing of his father nearly tore Conor's heart. He cried, watching the giant shake, Tomas' great back bulging with strain and sounds coming from him the likes of which Conor had never heard before. Finally it slowed to soft pathetic little gasps.

  "It's no use, Kilty. The potatoes have all turned black we're going to die . . . we're going to die. . ."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "Isn't he a grand-looking sight," Finola said, entering the byre.

  "He's feeling sorely," Conor apologized.

  "No doubt of that," she said, bending over laboriously to get a closer look. "I've seen better-looking faces eating hay."

  "He's not faking, Ma," Conor said, "he's truly destroyed."

  "Ach, we'll be saying penance for his nonsense till All Saints' Day. You'd better stay here and see he doesn't drown in his own bile, and if he gets too noisy just give him a pail of water in the face." She paddled off contemptuously.

  "Conor."

  He looked up to the loft where Liam had stuck his head into the opening and Brigid rubbed her eyes. "Is Daddy back?"

  "Aye."

  Liam shinnied down the ladder and looked his father over. "Sure he looks like somebody gave him a fair bash in his lug."

  "Aw, he's just resting," Conor snapped.

  "I'll stay with you. We can take turns watching him," Liam said, becoming excited over the prospect of being his father's protector.

  "I'll take care of him myself. Go on back to sleep."

  Liam clenched up at what was unmistakably a command. "I ought to stay too."

  "Go on!"

  Liam contemplated making a stand but retreated meekly under his brother's authority. Conor dimmed the lantern and arranged a place for himself. Tomas' hands worked open and closed in a twitch like grab at the straw, writhing slightly. He moaned incoherently.

  He sat for ever so long, dozing as he did but always waking up alert each time his daddy moved. Tomas was wending his way down a torturous road and not a body could help him.

  With sharp suddenness, an air of ultra silence enveloped the byre so that Conor was aware of the loudness of his own breath. This was followed by a swift pierce of wind shooting through the place, drawing the boy up in a shiver, and the flame of the lantern danced precariously, then doused, pitching it into total blackness. Conor groped about, the cows groaned uneasily as though a stranger had made his way in.

  An unaccountable light, more of a radiation, bubbled from one of the stalls at precisely the location Finola had seen the banshee. Conor felt seized by a fit of fright

  The light flickered up unevenly as if it were trying to find its way out of the stall.

  "Who's in there?" he managed with quivering tone.

  "Only me," came an answer.

  The boy's mouth ran dry. He recognized the voice but only vaguely, and was in no temper to think things out He crawled on hands and knees to try to get a better vantage, and as he did the light emerged into the open, glowing eerily around the figure of a man.

  "Who . . . who . . . are . . . you?"

  A sardonic laugh came in answer.

  "Oh, something crazy is happening," Conor said, springing to his feet, thinking of running out. But that would mean leaving his daddy. Perhaps, scream at the top of his lungs. A translucent figure stepped closer.

  "Have a look, Conor."

  The boy placed himself defiantly between the advancing shadow and his prostrate father, squinting the faintest glimmer of recognition. It was someone be knew all right but for the life of him could not place. He saw an outline of a robust man, dressed for the fields, sinewy-armed and with a large mop of curly black hair. It was the head of hair Conor fixed on, for he'd seen its likes, but what he had seen was stone white on an old and wilted man.

  The ghost smiled, sporting a mouth of big bright teeth. No, it was not the same man at all, for the one he was thinking of had not a bar in his grate . . . he was toothless.

  "Granted, I've changed a mite," the man said, "but you should know me."

  The voice! The voice! "Daddo?" Conor ventured.

  "Good lad."

  Conor slowly put his hand out directly before the man's face.

  "What are you doing that for?"

  "Can you see me?"

  "Of course I can see you."

  "But you're next to blind."

  "Oh, that. Considering when you saw me last I was forty years older than now."

  "But it was only last night!"

  "Now, if we're to continue this discussion, you've got to accept certain facts, such as my presence. I wasn't always feeble and sightless, you know. Not any more than Kilty was. Unfortunately, that's all you remember of both of us. Forty years ago we was a pretty scrappy pair. I was never the lad Kilty was. Why, he could break rocks with his bare hands, he was that strong."

  Conor backed off suspiciously as the man advanced. It could have been Daddo in younger times. The longer he studied, the greater the similarity. Daddo proceeded to make himself comfortable, producing a large jug of poteen from nowhere and swigging it heartily. He shook his head as he studied Tomas Larkin and offered Conor the jug. Conor nearly choked in a coughing fit trying to hold the vile stuff down but at the same time he was complimented at being treated as a man.

  "Did he ever tell you about the great hunger?"

  "Nae, not really."

  Like most of the kids, he had heard about the famine in snatches, tales from the shanachies, whispers about the turf fire on a winter's night. Famine sayings, famine foods, famine fears . . . it was all in loose and mysterious threads. When talk of it heightened, Tomas Larkin invariably closed up. The better part of a half century had passed but the memory and effects were still in every cottage and field of Ballyutogue.

  "We live," Daddo said, "with a number of rooms inside us. The best room is open to the family and friends and we show our finest face in it. Another room is more private, the bedroom, and very few are allowed in. There is another room where we allow no one in . . . not even our wives and children, for it is a room of the most intimate thoughts we keep unshared. There is one more room, so hidden away that we don't even enter it ourselves. Within we lock all the mysteries we cannot solve and all the pains and sorrows we wish to forget. When Kilty died, it unlocked the last of these rooms inside Tomas Larkin and all the bitterness escaped."

  Conor looked to his daddy, who seemed peaceful enough now. Still cautious of Daddo's appearance as the work of fairies, he remained alert. Daddo did not seem to have evil intent but the situation called for caution.

  "Tomas was about your age at the time of the great hunger and quite like yourself. Kilty and I were very close. I lived in the next village at the time and rode with him as his most trusted lieutenant, so I knew every last bit of what happened. To understand ho
w such a thing could have happened, you have to know what was going on in those days . . ."

  *

  After the crushing of the Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen Rising of 1798, the British were determined not to have to contend with any further liberation-minded Dublin Parliaments.

  To this end, William Pitt, the British Prime Minister, engineered an Act of Union for the sole purpose of total political suppression of the Irish.

  Cornwallis, the Viceroy of Ireland, embarked on & campaign of rank chicanery designed to coerce the Dublin Parliament into dissolving itself after five hundred years. When it was done, the Cross of St. Patrick was added to the British Cross of St. George and the Scottish Cross of St. Andrew, all fixed on a single banner known as the Union Jack to fly over a so-called United Kingdom.

  For their participation in the scheme, the Irish bishops had their loyalty purchased by the British with promises of Catholic emancipation.

  A major seminary was established at Maynooth under English eyes and supervision to create a British version of Catholicism that would eventually diminish the old Celtic and Norman versions.

  The Act of Union was a shotgun wedding. With the death of their own Dublin Parliament, any chance of guiding Irish destiny was removed from Irish hands. A small Irish delegation with a smaller voice was lost in the enormity of Westminster. England was able to rule Ireland through Crown servants from the infamous Dublin Castle.

  Over a quarter of a century went by after the Act of Union before the first Irish Catholic was able to take a seat in Westminster. It took the enormous person of Daniel O'Connell to achieve it As he dominated the Irish political struggle, the goals of emancipation seemed attainable. O'Connell then devoted his life to a second goal, repeal of the Act of Union . . . a divorce from England. This was not to be realized.

  *

  "So you see," Daddo said, "why the upcoming election is so very important. For eighty-five years of this century we have been fighting for Home Rule, a Dublin Parliament and the end of the Act of Union."

  Conor nodded in understanding. "Why did the crop fail?" he asked.