Read Online The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan - Free Book Online

this year and rebels the next. If there was ever a rebellion in Mayo, wouldn’t your Whiteboys be in the thick of it?”
    “They would, by God,” Cooper said.
    “There you are then,” Kate said. “Take your yeomen and ransack the barony. Bring the wrath of God down on them. That is what your own father would have done. He was a mean, yellow-skinned Protestant, but he knew how to deal with Whiteboys.”
    “Will you not listen to me when I tell you that it is not my father’s time now, and much less is it the time of your own father. I hold my commission from Dublin, and I am answerable to Dublin.”
    “You are fearful to make use of the yeomen, is that it? Then why must I tell you what you must do? You must have a word with Dennis Browne. He is the High Sheriff for Mayo and he is the Member of Parliament for Mayo and he is brother to Lord Altamont. If there is one man who has the management of Mayo in his own two hands it is Dennis Browne.”
    “Dennis Browne, is it?” He laughed and turned to Fogarty, who responded with a smile. “It is little you know about the affairs of your own husband. Sure didn’t Dennis Browne and I stand on the field five years ago and bang away at each other with pistols.”
    “Indeed I did not know that. What possessed the pair of you?”
    “It was a matter closely touching a young lady’s honour. Now that is enough said on that subject.”
    “Touching a lady’s honour,” Kate said. “That is the only part of a woman that Dennis Browne would not touch. He is as bad as MacCarthy below in Killala.”
    “There were circumstances,” Cooper said. “Very delicate circumstances. It was all over and done with before ever I met you, love.”
    “You may depend on that,” Kate said.
    “Over and done with,” Cooper said. “But there is little affection between us. Ach, what use has he ever had for fellows like myself or Gibson or Saunders or any of the other small landlords? He cares only for the men of great property, his brother and the Big Lord and those. And his brother and himself are safe, out there in Westport.”
    “No one will be safe,” Kate said. She bit her lip in thought. “Is there no one in these parts who has his ear?”
    “One man,” Cooper said. “George Moore of Moore Hall.”
    “A fine-looking man,” Kate said. “He keeps to himself, but he is a fine-looking man. And he is a Roman Catholic.”
    “Sure the Brownes are half Papist themselves. They are neither fish nor fowl. And George Moore is mad. A man who sits in the middle of Mayo and writes books is mad.”
    “Unlike yourself,” she said, “he never tried to kill Dennis Browne, and unlike yourself, he is gentry.”
    “Gentry, is it? By God, there is fine talk from Mick Mahony’s daughter.”
    “I am glad you like it. I have more.”
    “Fogarty, why the hell are you sitting there, gawking at your betters while the affairs of the barony are being discussed? The tea is stone cold, and Paddy Joe and his son are down by the pasture fence wondering how do you put one stone on two others without it falling off.”
    “My own thought, Captain. My own thought. I’ll be on top of them in two shakes,” He stood up, and then pointed to the letter. “Mrs. Cooper is right, though, Captain. It has to be stopped now. You saw who that was written to. Not to yourself alone. ‘To the Landlords and the Middlemen of this Barony,’ it begins. That is the proper Whiteboy stuff, and it has to be stamped out, the way your father used do in the old days.”
    Cooper watched the door until it closed. Easy enough to say. Thirty, even twenty years ago, his father would have taken some brisk Protestant lads—or better, his pet Papists the MacCaffertys—and turned Tyrawley inside out. Now nothing was clear. Perhaps Cooper wasn’t gentry. Perhaps he was only a farmer trying to hold his land in a hard county. Pity for himself spread, a soft sponge, in his chest. He squeezed it dry.
    “Maybe I am not gentry, Kate, but I