Chapter 25

There was frost on the grass in September, on the first day back at school, and before the month was out showers of hail and wet snow flurried round the houses. They dropped particles down the chimney so that the fire hissed and spat and Hannah, reading, or preparing schoolwork at the table, knew that within minutes of that first warning sound, the light would drop and the familiar picture of the track down the mountain framed by the front windows of the cottage would be blotted out by a sweeping curtain of sleet, or snow.

When the cold weather set in, she had put aside her work on the napkins to make a heavy pinafore for Rose to wear over her usual school dress. Then, to her surprise, the highly active Sam admitted that he too felt cold in Daniel’s cottage, despite the fire, where they took it in turns to warm themselves. She puzzled for a whole morning and then made a garment, not dissimilar in style for him. She referred to it as a tunic and all was well.

But the chill of the worst days was not the hardest thing to bear. Much more chilling was the news that came day by day through newspapers, or by word of mouth. That was indeed far more dispiriting. Many of the worst cases that Hannah and Jonathan had talked about at the kitchen table were rapidly proving to be the case indeed. It was now official. ‘There are only enough potatoes to feed the Irish population for one month.’

In fact, there were no potatoes left at all in their valley by the beginning of October 1846. The sound potatoes, used for planting, by those who had them, had proved to be unsound after all. They had simply developed disease as they matured. Given the supplies of meal and flour, still being provided by the school and delivered by Dermot Donnelly, this was not the disaster it might have been, in the length of the valley, but elsewhere in Donegal starvation had indeed struck. Things were particularly bad in areas to the west of them, especially on the coast where there were no roads and the scattered mountain settlements were remote and difficult to access.

While the news was bad in Donegal, the news coming from much further afield was even more distressing. At the end of October the price of wheat, flour and oatmeal in Cork rose by fifty per cent in one week and at the same time Skibbereen became internationally famous for its death rate.

The workhouses were rapidly filling and the landlords, deprived of their rents for yet another year, were beginning to evict their tenants for non-payment of rent, leaving families not only without food, but also without shelter of any kind in the worst of weather.

*

‘Well, my colleagues and friends, what should we do?’ asked Daniel soberly, as they gathered by the fire, in the schoolroom, at the end of the second week in October.

Hannah had left Rose and Sam with Deirdre Friel and had come back to school to join John and Bridget in the empty classroom, the tables folded up against the walls, the benches left ready for evening visitors. Daniel had said only that he wanted to share his thoughts with them, but given all that had happened since the beginning of the school year, they were each, in their different ways, apprehensive about what he might have to say.

‘There are those who might say, and indeed I think are already saying,’ he began quietly, ‘that we are fiddling while Rome burns. We are spending money on books and writing materials when there are people dying of hunger, though not, thank God, in this valley. Not yet, at any rate,’ he added, his voice dropping, as he spoke the last words.

‘We still have our pupils, we still have funds to keep the school going,’ he went on more vigorously. ‘We can still distribute meal and flour with money we’ve been given, but the question is, do we carry on with our educational work, or do we accept that the chances of survival are so slim that it is probably not worth the effort? Could it now be argued that what effort we may be capable of as individuals, would be better directed in other ways?’

Hannah exchanged glances with Bridget, who now not only looked after school lunches, but also prepared food to take to elderly people and to those who were sick. It was Bridget who found out when problems in the home affected their pupils. Her own family long gone, her husband working away like Patrick, she’d taken on the responsibility for knowing how things were with their pupils and doing whatever she could to help both them and their families.

John dropped his eyes and pressed his lips together. Then he looked at them both, saw neither of them about to reply, took a deep breath and began to speak.

‘I think we should go on,’ he said, baldly. ‘We may not survive, or perhaps not all of us may survive, but what is the point of giving up when there is still hope? We’re not just trying to educate a group of children and young people, we’re also trying to help each other, trying to keep up life and spirits at a bad time. What’s to be gained by giving that up? Nothing that I can see. I think we should keep going.’

‘And what do the ladies think?’ Daniel asked, his voice neutral.

Bridget looked down into the embers of the fire. She seemed anxious and uneasy.

‘I agree with John,’ said Hannah quietly. ‘So much of the normal pattern of life in this valley has been torn away, but school is something that still goes on. It’s not just for the pupils, it’s a focus for everybody who has a child, or even an interest in a neighbour’s child, coming and going every day. It’s a known, continuing thing, at a time when most normal, everyday things are just not there any more.’

‘Hannah’s right,’ Bridget said. ‘Sure, hearin’ those children out there at playtime laughin’ and shoutin’ wou’d put heart in you. An’ look at all them letters that come back when they sent the wee pictures away after the holiday school last July. Sure, aren’t there people out there, half the world away, wishin’ us luck and hopin’ we’ll pull through. We can’t give up an’ let them down as well, can we?’

They were agreed. As they talked together in what proved to be a memorable, quiet hour, they acknowledged that Daniel had put into words the uneasy thoughts they’d all entertained in different ways. Now, suddenly, it seemed more possible to share one’s feelings, to shape words, or to ask a question, rather than puzzle away inside one’s own head.

‘I’m grateful to you, colleagues,’ said Daniel. ‘I confess I often feel I cannot do my fair share of the work, but perhaps in the hours I spend in my chair “doing nothing”, I can gather up for us the possibilities. It is you who have to make these possibilities into reality, but at least my thinking is some kind of a start.’

‘It’s much more than just a start, Daniel,’ John said vigorously. ‘You’re just like that man in the story of the two bottles, we all now know so well. You sit us down and say: “Now do your duty” and lo and behold, a feast is served up.’

Hannah and Bridget laughed and Daniel nodded, as he always did when he was pleased. How often had the children performed the play John had written for them, based on the story he’d heard in Galway. Both in Irish, and in English, they’d taken it in turns to play the main parts. Suddenly, it seemed they’d been given something to help them.

They talked and laughed together as they hadn’t done for a long time.

‘Maybe, we’ve a wee bit of magic bottle ourselves, Daniel,’ said Bridget, suddenly looking easy again. ‘Sure look at the way money keeps turnin’ up when we think we’re runnin’ low. If we keep goin’ it’ll encourage other people. Maybe, even if we were doin’ nothin’ else but that, it wou’d be worth doin’, but you’re doin’ somethin else as well. Can’t even the wee ones here at school write a bit and read the storybooks? That’ll stan’ to them, whether they stay or go.’

*

In the following weeks much of the news shared in the valley, and in the towns and villages nearby, was of people going. Thousands of families all over Ireland could see no possible future for themselves or their families. Some of them sold their remaining possessions to find the ticket money, some were tempted by the rock-bottom fares offered by individual vessels and some were helped to buy tickets by landlords who wanted to clear their land in the hope they could recoup the losses of the last years by moving their land to grazing and cattle-rearing.

Many of those individuals never reached their destination. Setting aside the losses from the wrecking of overcrowded ships, and the effects of the starvation diet on the cheap passages, survival was still doubtful on board ship where disease spread with the greatest of ease in the crowded and confined spaces.

Stories were brought back from Derry that told of queues miles long, of ships lined up at Gross Isle awaiting clearance to proceed to immigration, when no progress was possible with most of the passengers on board the ships either ill or dying.

*

A few days after Daniel’s staff meeting, one of the harvesters who had travelled with Patrick to Mackay’s farm arrived home, his right arm bound and splinted. He was well enough in himself, he said, he had been well looked after, but the weather in Scotland had been bad.

He’d been on the top of a haystack, he said, winding straw rope into a thatch that would prevent the stack being ripped apart in the winter storms. The hay was slippery, he had lost his footing, fell headlong and landed on a wooden rake.

It was not just the hay that was suffering. All the late crops were in a bad way, he said, many of them rotting in sodden fields. All the harvesters would be home several weeks early.

For Hannah, the news that Patrick would be back so soon was a wonderful surprise. She’d already been counting the weeks till he was due. Now she could count the days. But her joy was much modified when she began to think of the loss of income for farmers in Scotland, including her own father, and the loss of wages to so many harvesters from other parts of Ireland who would, like Patrick, now come home with significantly less money to tide them over the winter months.

‘John dear, have you had any news from home?’ Hannah asked one lunchtime a few days later as they sat eating their piece and keeping an eye on their pupils. ‘I’m trying my best to keep cheerful as we all said we would, but I’m flagging. Is your mother still doing well? And have you found out yet about why your father’s going to Dublin so regularly? Please, think of something?’ she said desperately, hoping to make him smile.

‘Well, something has just happened, but I can’t really make sense of it. The letter only came yesterday and it was from my sister. She does write sometimes to save my mother the trouble. My mother usually doesn’t mention my father, except to say: “We are all well” in the last paragraph, but Kitty just let it drop in passing that my father is working for the Quakers!’

‘John! How extraordinary. How on earth can that have come about? And what is he doing for them?’

‘Well, I did read in one of Sophie’s papers that the Coastguard Service was getting no credit whatever for the invaluable work they were doing. The article said there were coastguard stations all along the west coast of Ireland, a hundred and seven of them, if I remember correctly. Apparently, they are ideally placed for getting supplies into places with no roads. The service boats and cutters can get into even the smallest creeks and the permanent offshore gunboats can carry fifty tons of supplies when they are needed.’

‘But where is the food coming from?’

‘I had no idea. But then, when Kitty mentioned “going up to Dublin to see the Quakers”, in her letter, I realised that my father is responsible for all the movements of craft at sea, in his area. If the Quakers have supplies to distribute, then he’s the man who would have to authorise it, as well as organise it.’

‘Is he now?’ said Hannah quietly.

John pressed his lips together and looked so distressed she wished she could put her arms around him.

‘Oh, John dear, that has to be good news,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘Perhaps something happened to him when he was much younger that means he can’t cope with his feelings. He reacts angrily and then can’t apologise. Or something like that. I wish I could be more help, but I haven’t known all that many men, except my father and brothers. And Patrick, of course.’

‘Have you heard yet when your big day will be?’ he asked, smiling broadly.

‘No, I’m waiting for a letter,’ she replied, wondering if he was trying to change the subject.

‘So am I,’ he said, steadily. ‘I’ve written to my father and asked him what I’ve done, or not done, and will he please tell me.’

‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘Well done! That must have been a very difficult letter to write.’

‘Yes, it was. I wasted a lot of paper, I’m sorry to say,’ he replied wryly.

‘John dear, it certainly won’t be wasted. One way or another it will help us both. I’d so like to understand myself what went wrong.’

‘Well, you know you will be the first to hear.’

*

Counting the days until Patrick arrived home was one thing when it was months or weeks, but once a departure date arrived it became a matter of guesswork. Sometimes the party travelled by way of Stranraer; sometimes it was Cairnryan. That depended on ‘doing a deal’ with the captain of the vessel and sharing out the cost between them.

Then there was the problem of getting from Dundrennan to the coast, and, once in Ireland, getting from the east coast to Derry, or even Rathmullan. It could sometimes take a week, and with bad weather even more.

Hannah always tried to be very cool and steady about Patrick’s homecoming. Sam, in particular, could get so excited by the prospect that he didn’t want to go to sleep at bedtime in case he missed his father’s arrival in the evening or even during the night.

At the end of October, after a short note with the departure date had already arrived, there was the first of a series of heavy snowfalls. Getting to school was difficult enough for both Hannah and the children, but as they ‘picked their steps’ through the most tramped places on the way, Hannah wondered what might it be like on the long road home for the band of men who had left the valley in April.

She found it hard to concentrate on reading and spelling on her three mornings at school. She kept thinking of what she could cook or bake, to welcome Patrick home. On the last Friday in October she was still preoccupied with his arrival as she came back up the track after lunch at school. She looked down and realised she was walking between the wheel ruts of the turf cart and following the unmistakable marks of Neddy’s hooves.

Startled, she looked up suddenly and there was Patrick standing in the doorway.

He slipped and nearly fell as he ran towards her, put his arms round her and kissed her.

‘I’m early,’ he said. ‘I saw Neddy in Ramelton and when I stopped to stroke him, Dermot appeared. He insisted on bringing me home.’

‘Where is he now?’ gasped Hannah, as he clutched her even more firmly.

‘Making a pot of tea and pretending he hasn’t seen us,’ he said grinning, as he slipped his arm round her waist and drew her back up the slope to the front door.

‘Welcome home, Hannah,’ said Dermot, as he poured the tea. ‘Your good man got here before you, so I made us a bite to eat. I hope that was all right,’ he said, passing her the milk.

‘As right as rain, Dermot,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘Have you looked in the cake tin?’

‘No, I can’t say I have,’ he replied, cautiously.

‘Well, pass it over and I’ll open it,’ she said, looking from one to another. ‘Here you are. By special request of Rose and Sam, prize-giving biscuits to welcome their da home. Thank you, Dermot, for your first-class delivery service. Even better than your service for meal and flour,’ she said, as they helped themselves from the tin.