A Close Run Thing

smiled again. Hers were the only native smiles he had seen since leaving Cork, but such smiles they were — warm, open, full and free, in such contrast to the sullenness of the rest of the village. They did more to soothe the pain in his hands than the balsam. He almost sighed with the ease, but suddenly the dim light by which she worked failed and he turned to see two men filling the doorway as completely as if the door itself had been closed. He braced himself ready to spring up with his sabre. Only when the two moved into the cottage and the light from the window fell on them did he see that they were unarmed — young men in their twenties and with the same thick copper-red hair as Caithlin O’Mahoney. She seemed unperturbed by the scowls on their faces, her own smile scarcely diminished.

‘Fineen, Conor,’ the old woman began roughly, ‘say welcome to this officer. He has saved Finbarre, and burned himself in the bargain.’

They muttered a passable greeting, the scowls remaining but redirected at their sister.

‘These are my sons, sor,’ explained the old man, ‘two of them anyway.’

‘Good day,’ Hervey said. ‘I am sorry I cannot offer my hand, as you can see.’

Neither son responded, leaving the cottage instead without a word.

‘Forgive the boys’ manners, sor,’ said the old man, discomposed by their exit.

‘Sure they’re mad with themselves that it had to be an outsider who came to your aid, Father — and an Englishman at that. Everything that happens passes them by. I wonder they don’t go to America as they’re always vowing to.’

‘We are at war with America, miss,’ Hervey had said before realizing that ‘we’ might not have been the word the O’Mahoneys would have used.

The old man sighed. ‘Will the English fight everybody, then? Ireland is a peaceable enough place: there’s no cause for fighting,’ he said, handing a cup to Hervey now that Caithlin O’Mahoney had finished with the balsam. ‘Slainte!’ he said, raising his own.

‘Slainte!’ replied Hervey — the word was familiar enough from many nights in the Peninsula with Highlanders. He took a sip and knew immediately what it was. The old man winked, and Hervey laughed.

* * *

The regiment had returned from Dublin a week later, and after one night in Cork the squadrons had dispersed to their outstations, one troop each at Mallow, Bandon, Tallow and Gort, and three in Limerick, plus smaller detachments in places like Skibbereen, leaving one troop and headquarters in Cork itself. The best part of Munster was thereby covered by light, mobile reinforcements able to support the garrisons of infantry in the major towns, though what threat the native Irish were, from his perception of their condition at Kilcrea, Hervey could scarcely imagine. His own troop remained in Cork, but his initial disappointment at not being sent further west all but disappeared when, some weeks later, Captain Lankester took three months’ home leave, giving him temporary command. ‘I hear you have been riding the countryside,’ Lankester had said to him when handing over. And to Hervey’s reply his troop leader had fixed his gaze and added accusingly: T hope you have not started developing romantic notions about this place. It will be so much the harder when you have to draw your sword. Stay detached, Mr Hervey.’

Lankester was, by Hervey’s own reckoning, the most humane of officers, and such an injunction might have given him cause for thought; but, since he would admit not the slightest fanciful attachment to the country, there was, to his mind, no cause. It was true that he had been back to the ruins at Kilcrea. He had learned that it was an old Franciscan house — Father O’Gavan, the priest whom he had met on his second visit to the village, had taken him there one afternoon. Hervey had been to Kilcrea village several times, in fact, and he had begun to learn something of both the language and the people. He had come to know the O’Mahoney sons not as Fineen and Conor but as Finghin and Conchobhar, and not as O’Mahoney but O Mathghamhan. Was this not all useful intelligence (if not of direct then at least of indirect value to the authorities)? Caithlin was a good teacher and had already given him a rudimentary understanding of the language. He learned, too, that the brothers were married, with smallholdings of their own in Kilcrea, tenants in their own right. Too young to have been with Tone’s United Irishmen, Hervey had little doubt that they would have been if given the chance. Neither of them could read or write, unlike their sister, and though they tolerated his presence whenever he came to the village they would not welcome him. Caithlin’s father, on the other hand, had grown positively to relish his visits, and he and Hervey had drunk many cups of poteen together, preceded always by the wink. But Lankester had nothing to concern himself about, Hervey had assured him.

Lord George Irvine, now quite recovered from his wound, had remained the while in Dublin where he filled — in a temporary capacity, it was understood — the appointment of commander-in-chief’s military secretary. Command of the regiment had once more devolved on Joseph Edmonds, who had elected to leave his wife and daughters in Norwich (the speculation in the mess was that gentlemanly lodgings in Cork were beyond his means). By convention, as commanding officer, he ought to have quitted his rooms in the mess and taken even the smallest bachelor establishment in the city. At first he had shown some interest in the apartments being constructed in the old fort at Huggartsland, amid the market gardens on the western edge of the city, but instead he had remained in the barracks, to the increasing discomfort of the few other officers with whom he shared the mess.

Hervey enjoyed his company there more than most, but soon he, too, had reason for disappointment that Edmonds had not set up a family establishment in the city, though this was less to do with the major’s irascibility and more because he had received a reply from Henrietta and his sister to say that they were accepting his invitation to visit. Where, therefore, would he accommodate them — at least, without a hefty bill? Lady George was in Dublin with her husband, so there was no other regimental lady with whom his guests might stay. But then by a following post came another letter from Longleat to say that she and Elizabeth would stay at Lismore, the home of the Cavendish family. Lismore was over thirty miles away, but since there was a troop at Tallow nearby he thought it a good enough plan — not that he knew the Cavendishes in the least, except by reputation. November could be an inhospitable month, Michael O’Mahoney had told him, but it could also provide the best hunting, and he concluded that it would be good that they should have such comfortable lodgings — and in so advantageous a place from which to follow hounds.

The last of the summer was soon gone, and the first cold mornings of autumn brought mists over the city and the countryside. The fields were now empty of crops as well as of labourers, the late wheat and barley having been cut and the potatoes on the smallholdings dug. Through such a mist one morning Hervey rode over to Kilcrea for another of Father O’Gavan’s discourses on the history of monastic Ireland. He expected that Caithlin would also be there, as she had been hitherto. She seemed to have more appetite for learning than the whole of the village, the result, no doubt, of the priest’s faithful instruction (despite there being no obvious purpose to which it might ever be put). Hervey had even found his Greek, which was better than the priest’s, being for once sought after. He had come to know the byways well and could find his way to Kilcrea without passing through any settlement larger than a dozen dwellings. That morning, with the mist shrouding everything, he reached there without seeing a soul. The village itself seemed deserted except for another mounted figure in the main street, a rare enough sight. A second man then joined the other, his horse in a lather. As Hervey got closer he saw, and heard, that they were angry.

‘Good morning, Captain,’ said the younger of the two, though twice Hervey’s age at least, a solid-looking man riding an equally solid iron-grey. He wore a green coat and top hat, which he lifted. The other man had the look of a bare-knuckle fighter, and remained silent.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ replied Hervey, touching the peak of his forage cap, ‘but I am a lieutenant not captain,’ he added cautiously, for there was something about these two.

‘What brings you here, Lieutenant?’ the man asked cheerily enough.

‘Visiting friends,’ he replied.

The man’s eyes narrowed.

‘Then, you must be well out of your way. Shall we point you back to the high road?’

‘No, thank you. This is Kilcrea, is it not?’

At that moment Caithlin O’Mahoney emerged from a cottage with Father O’Gavan. She smiled, the same warm smile that greeted him each time he came.

‘Ah, Lieutenant, now I see your purpose here right enough. You find the Cork ladies less obliging,’ leered the younger man.

‘But ye’ll find it hard to crack her pipkin with the priest forever around!’ laughed the older one.