The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (30 page)

 

 

Emer blushed. “Oh,
no, you
couldn’t. What
on earth will they
say when they found out a female prisoner wrote it?”

 

 

“On the first
count, if you like we
can just give your initials, E. N. Dillon, and on the second,
we can say that
your ideas are gleaned from all of your valuable experiences
as farmer,
teacher, housekeeper, cook, doctor, and prison inmate,”
O’Brien said with a
touch of admiration in his voice.

 

 

“The same can hold
true for your
proposals on the working farms, and I am sure
The Times
will print your
scheme if I send
it. Nothing will
change without
bold action, now will it?”

 

 

Emer glanced up at O’Brien sharply.
“Is that one of
your speeches from Ballingarry?”

 

 

His face closed up then, and he
sighed. “No, it
was one of Mitchel’s, you know,
my colleague from the
Nation
who got
transported to Bermuda earlier this year for sedition when
myself and Thomas Meagher were on trial as well.
He led us down this path, and God only knows where it will end.”

 

 

“It ended at
Ballingarry, at least
for the present. We
will have to
wait to find out the ultimate destination, but in the
meantime, I can still
dream, can’t I?” Emer smiled gently, and waved the papers in
front of his face,
until he blinked, and began to copy them out as he had
promised.

 

 

Though Emer had
tried to sound
optimistic in front of O’Brien, by the time their trial date
came up, Emer
dreaded to think what would happen to O’Brien and Terence, and
was certain that
Botany Bay was the best fate she herself could expect under
the
circumstances.

 

 

The only question
in her case was
whether her transportation would be for seven years, fourteen,
or life.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY

 

 

Emer’s trial
finally took place on a
cold day in early October, and was notable only for its
brevity.

 

 

Emer and the four
wounded men from
the farmyard were present, as was Thomas Francis Meagher,
brought over from
Waterford, where he had been arrested, so that all the
so-called rebels
could be tried
together.

 

 

Meagher was a
dashing young man of
twenty-four, the son of a prosperous merchant who was also the
Catholic Lord
Mayor of Waterford and a staunch supporter of O’Connellite
policies such as the
Repeal movement.

 

 

Meagher spoke with
a strong English
accent, the result of an expensive education at one of the
best English public
schools, and when it was his turn to speak, he declared calmly
and with
impressive dignity, “The history of Ireland explains my crime
and justifies
it. Judged by
that history, the
treason of which I have been accused loses all guilt, is
sanctified as a duty,
and will be ennobled as a sacrifice.”

 

 

Terence McManus
stood tall in the
dock, and gazed straight into the eyes of the judge
piercingly. He
refused to be cowed by the solemnity
of the proceedings, and asserted boldly, “In my so called act
of rebellion, I
have not been motivated by any animosity towards Englishmen,
amongst whom I
have spent some of the happiest and most prosperous years of
my life. It is
not for loving England less, but
for loving Ireland more, that I now stand before you.”

 

 

O’Brien asserted
that the whole
episode was not worthy of the name insurrection, for he
admitted he had been
disorganised and ill-prepared, and had merely sought to awaken
the Irish to a
stronger sense of the injustice they had faced so placidly for
so long.

 

 

Emer was able to
explain how she had
come to be with the rebels on the fateful day, and though the
judge insisted
that if she was as innocent as she claimed, then she should
have run away from
the farm house, rather than towards it, Emer held her head
high, and declared
boldly, “I saw unarmed men being shot like dogs. Your government has
more cause to fear
the truth of this matter
coming out than I do, for I have committed no offence other
than to try to save
lives. If you
wish to punish me
for that, then I gladly admit my guilt, and will suffer for it
accordingly. But
if you wish to see justice served,
then let all these men go free, and enact new laws that can
help rather than
punish them.”

 

 

The judge scowled
darkly under his
bushy eyebrows, and moved on to the next witness at the trial.

 

 

The Governor of
Clonmel prison had
been kind enough to come to testify on their behalf. He informed the
court that Emer, O’Brien
and Terence had
been model prisoners, and outlined all they had done to help
alleviate the
appalling conditions in the jail.

 

 

But Emer was
certain from the
general atmosphere in the court, that his kind words on their
behalf would fall
on deaf ears.

 

 

The governor was
particularly
effusive in his praise for Emer’s efforts in the prison
infirmary, and Emer
grew embarrassed at the fact that she would probably get off
more lightly than
the other men by virtue of the fact that she had simply tried
to help those she
saw suffering.

 

 

But in the end it
all counted for
nothing, for the British government wished to make an example
of them all. Emer
was found guilty of aiding and
abetting felons, and sentenced to seven years transportation
to Tasmania. The
other four rebels were given
fourteen years.

 

 

But the shock in
the courtroom was
palpable as Meagher, Terence McManus and William Smith O’Brien
were sentenced,
for though the jury had argued for mercy, all three leaders of
the rebellion
were given the mediaeval punishment of being hung, drawn, and
quartered, with
their dismembered bodies to be disposed of as Queen Victoria
saw fit.

 

 

Emer clung onto the
two men to
steady them as well as herself as they swayed in the dock. Emer felt
as though
an earthquake had
rocked her entire world.
They had
certainly been prepared for hanging, but not something as
barbaric as the
sentence actually handed down.

 

 

Meagher said a
hasty farewell to his
colleagues before he was led away first, and then the other
four men were taken
out of the dock.

 

 

At last Emer and
her friends were
led back to the closed carriage they had arrived in, and
headed back to Clonmel
prison.

 

 

The three of them
rode along in
silence for a time, with O’Brien looking at his grubby
fingernails with a
devil-may-care insouciance, and Terence shutting his eyes as
if all he wanted
was a nap.

 

 

Emer grew angry at
their calm
acceptance of their fates.

 

 

“You’ll just have
to appeal,"
Emer argued hotly. "The
British
have no right to inflict such a harsh punishment for what,
after all,
proved to be a tempest in a teacup! The jury argued for
leniency.  We can get a petition going, and...”

 

 

“I want no mercy
from them. Have
they shown us any when we asked
for help during the Famine?” O’Brien argued bitterly.

 

 

“I can see your
point, William, but
the question is, were
you
any better? We
none of us are perfect, I know, but your comrade John Mitchel
was arguing that
the Irish should all refuse to pay the Poor Rate to show our
disloyalty to the
Crown!  If
they had obeyed,
it would have meant removing what little help those poor
starving wretches
had! Your
political ideals are
commendable, but you’ve successfully ignored the impoverished
residents of this
benighted island along the way.

 

 

“Surely you must see that you can do
no one any good
by becoming martyrs to the cause.
Mitchel is gone, transported to Bermuda, and though he
stirred up all
the trouble in the first place, he never even lifted a hand to
save
Ireland.

 

 

"Think how much
good you can do
for the Irish, even over in Australia, if you're alive. Dead, you’re
both
just another pair of
corpses on a pile of three million dead bodies,” Emer said
impatiently.

 

 

O’Brien blinked at
her owlishly, and
then relapsed into silence.

 

 

“For heaven’s sake,
Terence, you
don’t want to die as well, do you?” Emer demanded when he
remained silent.

 

 

“No, I don’t, but
perhaps as
martyrs, people will rally round our cause at last.”

 

 

“Haven’t you
learned anything from
your weeks here, and the chance to pause and reflect upon what
it is you’ve
done? No one is
going to rally
around if they are starving, now are they? I swear to you, one day,
when I'm a free
woman again, I will
set up a fund for the poor to make sure that no one goes
without food, clothes,
a decent roof over their head, and medicine for their
children. I
will
carry out all of my plans for
reform that you have helped me with. Dead, you can do nothing. But
alive, you can join me in
the struggle to
improve things for everyone,” Emer coaxed her two friends.

 

 

Terence shook his
head. “There
wouldn't be much chance of improving anything, even if we did
get the sentence
commuted to transportation to Tasmania.”

 

 

“I don’t know, Tasmania isn’t another
planet, now is
it!  It’s
only eleven
thousand miles away. With plenty of Irish who will need your
help there too.
The point is that I can help people if I'm still alive to have a
better life
than I’ve ever had, but only if I survive this.
  Please, William, Terence, let the
lawyers go forward
with the petition for clemency.”

 

 

Terence nodded, but
O’Brien remained
adamant.

 

 

“I can’t do it. I’m descended from
Brian Boru and the
high kings of Ireland. I shall ask for no
man’s mercy.”

 

 

“Aye, and what
happened to the great
Brian Boru? He died at the end of a Viking axe. That’s where his
pride got him,” Emer
retorted.

 

 

“And where has your
pride brought
you, Emer Nugent Dillon?
Look at
yourself. For
all your fine words,
you're crippled, ill, with less flesh on you than a skeleton,”
O’Brien snapped.

 

 

Then he sighed. “I’m sorry, Emer, I
didn’t mean that.”

 

 

“I know you
didn’t," she
replied quietly, resting her hand on his own. "Besides, all of
what you
said is true. But
I've also had
some great successes, though I seemed to be defeated now. I have
good
friends, and a huge family
at the orphanage. I've
been
persecuted unfairly, it’s true, and I do bitterly regret the
loss of my son,
but perhaps this is my destiny.
Maybe all of this has happened for a reason.

 

 

“All I know is,
that through
adversity I've grown stronger. I know I've helped people, and
improved their
lives in some small way.
I might
have spent my whole life quietly at Kilbracken, remaining
sheltered from all of
this suffering and woe.
Now that
I've seen it first-hand, I can’t simply turn my back on it."

 

 

She sighed, then
continued,
"Yes, I’m tired, and heart-sore, and would like nothing better
than to
give up the exhausting struggle. But our people need hope, and
only great
leaders like you, O’Brien, and people willing to fight for
their principles
like you, Terence, can make any difference now." She smiled at
the dapper
young Liverpudlian.

 

 

“Please, gentlemen,
there's no
principle being served if you allow the government to treat
you like traitors,
and hang, draw and quarter you like animals in an abbatoir,
when you are in
fact patriots,” Emer persisted.
“Carry on fighting them in the name of justice if
nothing else. Please,
William, Terence, tell me
you’ll file for an appeal.”

 

 

The carriage pulled
up in front of
the prison just then, and they were ordered to get out.

 

 

“We’ll talk about
this later, when
I’ve had time to think about what you’ve said,” O’Brien
murmured. Stooping
down, he hugged Emer’s slender form, and retired to his cell.

 

 

Terence stooped to
kiss her on the
brow, and said, “If you want to be alone, you can have the
room to yourself for
a while.”

 

 

“No thank you,
Terence. You take the
room. I have so much to do in the infirmary, and so little
time. Besides, I’m
not really surprised at my
fate. I’ve sort
of been expecting
it all along. I’ll
be fine. It’s
you I’m worried about.”

 

 

“To tell you the
truth, I am rather
rattled by the whole affair.
But
to ask for clemency without the others following suit would
seem an act of
cowardice. Either
we are all given
a reprieve, or none of us.”

 

 

Emer smiled. “I understand. Talk to William, and see if he will
agree to it.”

 

 

“You’d better talk
to him as
well. You’re the
only person I’ve
ever met who's more stubborn than he is,” Terence teased,
ruffling her thick
burgundy tresses.

 

 

"I hope to God
you're right,
for the last thing I want to see is your heads up on pikes, my
dear."