Skibbereen
March 1851
AS DAN DROVE FROM BALLYDEHOB INTO TOWN IT GRIEVED HIM TO SEE field after field with tumbled cottages, their stones now used to make low walls, and all the overgrown potato patches covered with weeds and nettles, ferns and gorse, terrible reminders of the hunger. Large areas of land all across the Mizen had been cleared and now lay empty as family after family had been evicted. Those people were now scattered to the winds like birds across the Atlantic to Canada and North America.
From reports he had read, the attrition rate on sea voyages was a disgrace and many died on board. Coffin ships, some called them. Even if they survived the journey, many died in the quarantine hospitals, and for what? The herds of cattle and sheep that now grazed these forlorn grassy fields! What a travesty, he thought as he urged his horse homewards.
He looked into the crib at his newborn daughter, Catherine. A perfect, healthy baby. He prayed that she would stay well.
‘She looks like you, Dan,’ Henrietta said with a smile. ‘See that serious look on her little face, and the way she scrunches her nose?’
‘She is a beauty like her mother.’ He laughed, noting the pert little upturned nose of his daughter and perfect tiny rosebud lips.
The older children were all delighted with their new sister, especially three-year-old John, while one-and-a-half-year-old William was naturally a little jealous of the baby.
‘Now, go run and play, children,’ Henrietta urged them with a smile. ‘Give your dada and me some peace.’
It did Dan good to see the family happy, and Henrietta was in her element with this latest baby to attend to. It had been a straightforward birth and Catherine seemed a good child so far.
He kissed his wife’s head. She seemed surprised by his sudden show of affection.
‘You and the children are everything to me,’ he declared. ‘You do know that?’
‘Of course I do. We all do,’ she said, reaching gently for his hand.
Dan took her in his arms and held her close. His wife was the one constant in his life. Her love gave him the strength and courage to carry on, even on the darkest of days.
‘I love you, Hetty, and I always will.’
‘Dan, I’ve loved you practically from the minute we were first introduced,’ she teased, ‘and I will love you till I am a very old lady.’
Satisfied, he held her close to his heart, where she always was.