A Close Run Thing

intelligible.

He turned instead to Sister Maria’s vade-mecum. It, too, had lain at his bedside scarcely opened, the very sight of it a daily challenge to his conscience. The hand, its upright strokes and perfect loops a credit to any medieval scriptorium, reminded him at once of the few days’ peace of mind he had found in her company at the Magdalen convent. ‘Choose a passage of a devotional nature and read it before retiring. Select not more than three elements within it on which to meditate. On waking, recall the subject and, after short preparatory prayers — perhaps including an act of contrition — compose thyself by three “preludes” for the body of the meditation.’ He could not but admire the economy of her English. ‘Prelude One: recall the elements; Two: compose in thy mind’s eye the place, with thine own self a part of it; Third: pray for grace.’ He grew drowsy. Of the body of meditation itself he could read no more, and, turning out the oil-lamp, he closed his eyes and prayed for sleep. Yet, as if St Ignatius spoke to him direct through the pages of Sister Maria’s book, he could only ponder on Miss Edgeworth’s proposition, and whether it might indeed be flawed — fatally flawed.

CHAPTER TEN. IN AID OF THE CIVIL POWER

Trafalgar Day

It was raining hard as fifty men of ‘A’ Troop in their dark blue cloaks, oilskin covers over shakos and carbine locks bound with cloth, formed up in the chill darkness. The horses were restless. They would put up with most things but they did not like rain. In the dim glow of the oil-lamps around the parade square they could be seen backing and fidgeting, bringing curses for their hapless riders from NCOs trying to keep the three ranks straight. Private Johnson had brought Nero to the front of the officers’ mess, and Hervey had mounted as the barracks clock struck the three-quarter hour. Within the minute he was exchanging salutes with Serjeant Strange on the square. It was no morning for excessive formalities: ‘Sub-divisions, to the left turn,’ he ordered immediately, then ‘Walk- march!’ And without further ceremony, except for the orderly trumpeter sounding them out, they marched from the Royal Barracks south and west to Ballinhassig.

It took little but an hour to cover the six miles, and throughout Hervey said not a word, instead turning over and over in his mind Castle Rackrent’s proposition: ‘Ireland … will look back with a smile of good-humoured complacency.’ He wished profoundly that he had studied Sister Maria’s vade mecum with more application, for he sorely felt the need of its method in weighing this notion. He knew he had to do whatever he judged right. That, indeed, was ever the duty of an officer. But where would right be this morning, and how might he know? With the law? The magistrate would, he supposed, be a reliable enough guide in matters of statute. With expediency? Again, the magistrate, as representative of the civil power — of government — might be expected to be the best judge of that. Would it be with justice? In this, however, there could be no higher judge than conscience. There was no counsel but his own, and he could confide now only in more prayer for strength and the wisdom to do his duty. Trafalgar Day — Nelson himself must have prayed at this very hour nine years before.

It was still raining when the troop made its rendezvous with the chairman of the Bench who was sheltering in a mean little inn near the edge of town. It was not many minutes before Hervey learned the worst: that they were to serve immediate eviction warrants on two dozen of Sir Dearnley Lambert’s tenants in Kilcrea. The magistrate, a nervous man in his fifties whose shape suggested he had never known the want of four square meals a day, would give no indication as to how he intended to proceed with the evictions. All he would say was that they must first meet the agent and his ‘crowbar brigade’.

As they trotted north up the rutted and uneven road to Kilcrea, with the first streaks of daylight to help them, Hervey learned the reason for the Ballinhassig magistrate’s jurisdiction. Sir Dearnley Lambert’s estates extended both north and south of that town and were treated therefore as an entity. This, he considered, was a faintly reassuring punctilio: he had at first assumed that it must be because the agent found the Ballinhassig justices more compliant than those from Ballincollig. However, when eventually they made the rendezvous with the agent, Hervey became uneasy again, for though Fitzgerald must have recognized him he made no sign of it, speaking instead, and pointedly so, only to the magistrate. It was proper enough in one respect, for only the magistrate had the power to summon the assistance of the military, and if the agent’s aloofness were uncivil, then so be it (Hervey had hoped never even to see the man again). But it did not bode well.

Twenty yards away, in a huddle under the trees, trying to shelter from the rain which still beat down in the grey dawn, was a gang of some two dozen men with crowbars and sledgehammers. Just beyond them was a curious-looking waggon, with all manner of pulleys and levers, yoked to two sturdy draught-horses.

‘What do you think is the purpose of that contraption, Serjeant Strange?’

‘I’m no engineer, sir, but pound to a penny it’s not for construction.’

‘I was afraid so,’ he sighed.

Father O’Gavan appeared, striding towards them in a great black cloak, his broad-brimmed hat taking a lashing from the sheets of rain. The crowbar brigade shuffled uncomfortably as he passed, and those with hats removed them. So much for Catholic fellowship, thought Hervey. The magistrate raised his hat, too, though perfunctorily, and Hervey saluted, but the agent sat impassively astride his big grey.

‘Good morning, Mr Gould. What will your intentions be this day?’ asked the priest.

‘Good morning, Father O’Gavan. Twenty-two tenants have been served notice to quit by Sir Dearnley’s agent and they have failed to comply. I have immediate eviction warrants, and they will be evicted forthwith. Peaceably, I hope, but forcibly if necessary.’

‘Now, Mr Gould, you know very well they have nowhere to go. The landlord has forbidden any of his other tenants to take them in. Will you have them sleep and starve in the ditches?’

The magistrate looked about awkwardly, but not the agent, who was eager to begin his business. ‘Your advice would have been better directed to the tenants before now, Father O’Gavan,’ said Fitzgerald defiantly. ‘They’ve had ample warning to quit the estate.’

‘Mr Hervey,’ began the priest, ‘if these evictions are to proceed, then we must at all costs avoid bloodshed. I hope your men will show restraint?’

‘Do you know this officer, Father?’ asked the magistrate with some surprise.

‘Indeed I do: he is a good friend of the village.’

Gould looked uneasy again as Hervey began to speak. ‘Father, my men will show every restraint, but I am obliged by law, as you know, to assist the magistrate if called on to do so.’

‘I am afraid that all have barricaded themselves in their cottages, Mr Gould,’ explained Father O’Gavan. ‘I have tried already to tell them that such resistance is futile, but I have to say that, with nowhere else to go, they believe they have no option but to resist the evictions.’

‘Come on, come on, Gould! Let’s be about it!’ snapped Fitzgerald.

‘Very well,’ stammered the magistrate, ‘let’s be about it. Mr Hervey, please dispose your men so as to protect the agent and his men as they do their duty.’

Hervey would have liked to debate the notion of duty with him, but instead he began disposing the troop as the magistrate had requested. The first cottage to receive the crowbar brigade’s attention was easy prey. A violent assault on the boarded window and barred door gained them rapid entry, followed by the ejection of the occupants, a man and his wife no older than Hervey, and their five children. The eldest, a girl of about eight, clutched a crucifix in the way that Horningsham girls clutched their dolls. As they stood hunched in the downpour, with as desolate a look as ever Hervey had seen, the man mouthed some plea or other to the agent, whereupon one of the foremen stepped forward and struck him on the back of the neck with his blackthorn, felling him head-down in the mud. Hervey’s blood rose at once: he spurred Nero forward, drew his sabre and sent the foreman sprawling with the flat of it before anyone could say a word. How close the man had come to feeling its edge he would never know.

‘You’re too damned quick to draw that sword, mister! It’s an abuse of government property,’ the agent bellowed.

‘I should have been as happy to use my bare fists but I would have done him more harm — and the sword is