Song of the Silent Harp (3 page)

Even shrunken as he was by old age and hard labor, Grandfar was a taller man than most. Still, he had to look up at Morgan. His mouth thinned as they eyed each other, but the expected sour retort did not come. Instead, the old man inclined his head in a curt motion of acknowledgment, then walked away without a word, his vest flapping loosely against his wasted frame.

Morgan stared after him, his heavy brows drawn together in a frown. “'Tis the first time I have known Dan Kavanagh to show his years,” he murmured, as if to himself. “It took the Hunger to age him, it would seem.”

He turned back to Daniel's mother. “So, then, where is Tahg? I was hoping to see him.”

Nora glanced across the kitchen. Tahg lay abed in a small, dark alcove at the back of the room, where a tattered blanket had been hung for his privacy. “He's sleeping. Tahg is poorly again.”

Morgan looked from her to Daniel. “How bad? Not the fever?”

“No, it is not the fever!” she snapped, her eyes as hard as her voice. “'Tis his lungs.”

Daniel stared down at the floor, unable to meet Morgan's eyes for fear his denial would be apparent. “Nora—”

Daniel raised his head to see Morgan searching his mother's face, a soft expression of compassion in his eyes. “Nora, is there anything I can do?”

Daniel could not account for his mother's sudden frown. Couldn't she tell that Morgan only wanted to help? “Thank you, but there's no need.”

Morgan looked doubtful. “Are you sure, Nora? There must be something—”

She interrupted him, her tone making it clear that he wasn't to press. “It's kind of you to offer, Morgan, but as I said, there is no need.”

Morgan continued to look at her for another moment. Finally he gave a reluctant nod. “I should be on my way, then. The burial—will it be tomorrow?”

Her mouth went slack. “The burial…aye, the burial will be tomorrow.”

Hearing her voice falter, Daniel started to take her hand, but stopped at the sight of the emptiness in her eyes. She was staring past Morgan to Ellie's corpse, seemingly unaware of anyone else in the room.

Morgan shot Daniel a meaningful glance. “I'll just be on my way, then. Will you walk outside with me, lad?” Without waiting for Daniel's reply, he lifted a hand as if to place it on Nora's shoulder but drew it away before he touched her. Then, turning sharply, he started for the door.

Eager to leave the gloom of the cottage, and even more eager to be with Morgan after months of separation, Daniel nevertheless waited for his mother's approval. When he realized she hadn't even heard Morgan's
question, he went to lift his coat from the wall peg by the door. With a nagging sense of guilt for the relief he felt upon leaving, he hurried to follow Morgan outside.

2

Oh, blame not the hard if he flies to the bowers
Where pleasure lies carelessly smiling at fame;
He was born for much more, and in happier hours
His soul might have burned with a holier flame.

T
HOMAS
M
OORE
(1779-1852)

D
espite the frigid evening air, they walked all the way to the edge of town, heading toward the pier. The lines of Killala's low, grim buildings were smudged by the gathering darkness, their stains from the wet Atlantic winds scarcely visible. It was a heavy, menacing dusk, thick with the inhospitable silence of a village in mourning.

Although he held a near-sentimental fondness for the village, Morgan had long ago observed that Killala was much like Ireland throughout: at a distance it presented an alluring appearance, with its gently sloping grounds, its fertile meadows and groves, and its picturesque setting by the bay; seen closer up, however, the beauty was spoiled by disorder and squalor, by a dismal aimlessness among its winding streets and its poverty-stricken inhabitants.

Despite its location in Mayo, the wildest and poorest county in all Ireland, Killala had once been a cheerful, bustling town, the center of episcopal authority. Years ago, however, most of the trade had moved south to Ballina, destroying Killala's economy. Eventually the church consolidated its jurisdiction in Tuam, adding to the village's declining prosperity.

The cathedral still stood at the center of the town, as did an ancient round tower, from which Killala's three main streets diverged—one turning west toward the miserable hamlet of Palmerstown, one going south toward a site known as the “Acres,” and the other leading east. The tower was the only building of any real interest; even the cathedral was spare and plain. In addition, Killala boasted the handsome residence of the Protestant clergyman—still referred to as “the palace”—a small Wesleyan meetinghouse, a Roman chapel, and a schoolhouse that was often without a master.

As they walked through the town, Morgan's distress for its ruinous conditions grew. Still, he should not have been surprised; the same
oppressive death pall that now hung over Killala had draped all the other villages he had passed through during the last few months. Like the dreaded potato blight that had settled over the country's fields for two consecutive growing seasons, an uneasy hush seemed to permeate the whole of Ireland. It was, Morgan knew, the silence of a people whose hope was dying, a people who had lost sight of tomorrow. The sound of the fiddle and pipes had been exchanged for the mourners' keen; the rhythm of dancing feet had slowed to the dirge of the death cart, the cadence of the burial march, and the desperate, shuffling steps of a homeless people in search of refuge.

They must have passed twenty or more poor, uprooted wretches before they came to the outskirts of the village. Most of them stood huddled and shivering around their tumbled cottages, waiting for night to fall so they could creep back beneath the remains of their roof and walls to shelter themselves until daybreak.

Morgan knew their ways, for he had encountered hundreds like them. For days they would hover close to what was left of their houses—houses often destroyed for payment by some of their own neighbors. Unwilling to break the final tie to the land on which their homes and those of their ancestors had long stood, they would spend the night in the tumbled shelter, then crawl outside before dawn to avoid discovery by one of the agent's henchmen. Making themselves scarce until evening, they would then repeat the ritual all over again. Eventually they would have to leave and take to the road.

Evictions were routine now, the sufferings of the homeless a pandemic tragedy in Ireland. The nation was fast becoming an open graveyard, burying its memories, its traditions, its spirit—and its people.

People were dying by the thousands: dying from hunger, from the vicious fevers that never failed to accompany a famine, and from the total despair of utter hopelessness. From their ancient beginnings the Irish had been a valiant, generous people of open doors and open hearts, who in the very worst of times were never without their poems and songs, so gregarious by nature they made a festival out of a wake. Now they lurked behind locked doors, quaking in fear and dread and defeat.

And it was killing them. Morgan had seen the dying wherever he went—not all of it physical, not by far. The people were losing their sense of themselves—their homes, their dreams, their pride, their very
identity
—to a faceless, seemingly invincible enemy.

And who would bear the guilt for the changes that ravaged Ireland? People blamed the British, who continued to claim Ireland as her own personal breadbasket, ruling her with an incredible lack of Christian conscience. They
accused the greedy absentee landlords, who owned enormous chunks of the small island, yet cared nothing about their properties except for the collection of exorbitant rents. They condemned the land agents, who managed estates for the absentee landlords, often with a total disregard for the lives and health of their tenants. And they vilified the disease itself, which was, with a vengeance, claiming the children of Eire by the thousands.

But despite so many areas to which communal guilt could be apportioned, Morgan reflected, Ireland's great destroyer was the
ukrosh.
The Hunger. The life-destroying, heart-freezing, soul-stealing Hunger—

“Morgan? Morgan, look!”

The lad's voice at his side brought him up short from his brooding. He looked at Daniel John, then followed the boy's gaze to see what had caught his attention.

Across from them, in a ditch off the right side of the road, huddled a woman and two wee girls, all clothed in rags. Both the mother and the children were without coats or shawls, and their dresses were so tattered they might as well have been wearing paper ribbons. Even in his cloak, Morgan was chilled; he could not imagine how these poor souls could bear the cold with no protective outer clothing. They were clearly half-frozen and in the throes of starvation. The woman appeared to be watching their approach through glazed, dull eyes; but as they drew nearer, Morgan saw that her gaze was the empty, fixed stare of one whose strength is so depleted she could see nothing beyond the mists of gathering death.

He glanced down the road and saw others on their way out of the village: an old man and woman, both coatless, plus a number of other walking skeletons covered only by rags or torn sacks. Some hovered lifelessly in the ditches on both sides, while others marched in the wooden, moribund gait of impending death. Some were grown; some were children; many were carrying infants.

Where had they all come from? Not from the village, Morgan suspected. Killala was a wee place, fourteen or fifteen hundred at most. Besides, from the looks of these stricken souls, many had been traveling for days. Most likely they were refugees from other towns in search of work or relief or shelter—none of which they were likely to find.

As they came abreast of the woman and her little girls, Morgan put a hand to Daniel's shoulder, indicating the lad should wait for him. He turned toward the ditch where the small family huddled. The woman watched his approach with no real show of interest or emotion. One of the girls, the smaller of the two, fastened dazed, unseeing eyes upon Morgan; he sensed she was but hours away from death. The older lass seemed to be holding the smaller one
up, as if to keep her from falling into the ditch. Both were gaunt like their mother, with skin hanging in folds and cavernous eyes that burned a tunnel to Morgan's heart.

“Sure, and you'd not be on the road, you and your lasses?” he ventured by way of greeting.

The woman stared at him. When she opened her mouth to speak, it seemed to require great effort. “We are that.”

“Where is your man, then?”

Again the woman gave him a blank look, as if she didn't understand. She was shaking so hard and her voice was so weak and phlegmy that Morgan could scarcely make out her words. “Dead two weeks now, from the fever.”

“Here, in Killala?”

She shook her head. “We come from Rathroeen. The agent turned us out yesterday.”

What kind of man,
Morgan wondered,
could throw a starving woman and two wee girls into the snow?
But he already knew—a man such as their own local agent, George Cotter. More beast than some, less man than others. And the island had more than her share of them.

“Do you have someone here in the village?” he asked. “Family, perhaps?”

Shivering, the woman drew her children close against her, as if to gather some warmth from them. Neither showed any sign of awareness, but simply continued to stare at Morgan with hollow eyes. “Not here,” she answered dully, her voice shaking as hard as her body. “We are going to Kilcummin; my man's family is there.”

“Kilcummin?” Morgan stared at them with dismay. “Your little girls are not up to the road. Haven't you anyone nearby?”

The woman turned her head without replying, as if she had not heard. Morgan looked from her to the tiny girls, clutching their mother's ragged dress. With a mutter of frustration, he pried open the pouch tied about his waist. “Here,” he said, fishing out a coin and handing it to her. “There's a woman on the Rathlackan road who lets rooms. It's not a tavern, mind, but a decent place. Give her this and tell her Morgan Fitzgerald says she should give you a room and some food until you're able to go on to Kilcummin.”

The woman stared at Morgan's outstretched hand as if it held a rainbow. Her eyes went from his hand to his face, then back to the money he was thrusting on her. At last her stiff fingers reached for the money with a jerk. “God bless you, man,” she mumbled, stuffing the coin down the front of her dress. “May God in His mercy bless you. You have saved us.”

Morgan started back to the road, but before he could reach Daniel John, he was stopped. As if a call had been sounded to a host of phantoms, raggedy
marchers swept in upon him like a flock of buzzards, grasping, crying, whimpering—all reaching for him at once. They clawed at his clothes, wailing and pleading that he must help them, too.

“I can't—I'm sorry, but I can't—” In vain he tried to make himself heard, but his protests were lost amid the clamor.

Throwing up his arms as a shield, he tried to draw back without striking out. He stood more than a head above them all, yet so desperate and determined was the press of their bodies that he knew a moment of alarm for fear they'd bring him down and trample him.

He was shouting now, but in vain. Afraid they might turn and swarm the woman and her little girls, Morgan twisted around and shot her a warning look, jerking his head toward the road. It took her a moment to react, but at last she moved, dragging the children with her. Stumbling and weaving, they finally managed to leave the ditch for the road.

Over the heads of the crowd, Morgan saw Daniel John; the lad had left the road and was running toward him.
“No!”
Morgan shouted above the din. “Stay there!”

Still unwilling to turn the power of his own large, healthy body against the starving, pathetic scarecrows encircling him, Morgan flung his arms up, snapping himself sideways like a whip through the first opening he spotted. The force of his movement caused a tear in the frenzied crowd, and they began to fall back.

Finally free of them, Morgan felt himself seared by their accusing eyes as they followed his retreat. A hot, irrational flash of guilt struck him in rebuke of his own well-being.

Daniel John had managed to skirt the mob and rushed to his side, his face milk-white. “Are you all right, Morgan? Did they hurt you?”

“No, no, lad, I'm fine,” Morgan assured him, straightening his clothing. “How could the poor creatures hurt me, and them so near death?”

Not wanting the boy to know just how badly the incident had shaken him, Morgan forced a note of gruffness into his voice. “We must be getting back. Your mother will be furious with the both of us—especially with me, keeping you out in this cold so long.”

“Let's just go the rest of the way to the pier first, Morgan. Please, can't we? Like we used to?”

Morgan hesitated, then slung his arm around the lad's shoulders, catching his breath at the sharpness of bone he could feel beneath the thin coat. “All right, laddie, but only for a moment, and then we must be off.”

They reached the edge of the rude pier and stood in silence, staring across the dark, sullen waters of the bay, now thick with ice. Wind laced with mist
stung their faces, and Morgan pulled the scarf from his neck and wrapped it about the boy's throat. “So, now, is it true what I've heard—there have been numerous deaths in the village from the Hunger?”

Daniel John nodded, touching the scarf at his throat with a grateful smile. “Aye. From the Hunger or the fever—or both.”

Morgan stooped to clasp the boy's shoulders. “I want the truth now, Daniel John. Have you food, you and your family?”