Read Online Land of a Thousand Dreams by BJ Hoff - Free Book Online

mindless of the danger of typhus and other diseases. It wasn’t unusual for them to have some hired thugs close-by to guarantee their own protection,as well as to make sure none of their victims escaped on the way out of the harbor.
    Patrick Walsh and others of his ilk had refined this corrupt practice to a new level of efficiency. Using a middleman as a broker, Walsh would purchase complete lists of steerage passengers, usually from mercenary captains who sold out to the highest bribe. Upon arrival, entire groups of frightened, bewildered immigrants were herded off the ships, then led to boardinghouses owned by Walsh. Outlandish rents were demanded, and those who might dare to raise questions were threatened with the law.
    To the already oppressed Irish, the law was synonymous with unfairness and brutality. Tierney’s father, a policeman himself, maintained that the Irish immigrant’s fear and hatred of the law was to be expected. Their experience with the police was limited to the toadying constables back in Ireland who, carrying out the demands of English landlords, tumbled the cottages of the poor and drove them out, half naked and starving, onto the road, where they would die of the hunger and the cold.
    In Ireland, the law meant harsh judgment, swift punishment, and no mercy. Only God knew what the law might do to them in this strange new land!
    The two runners Tierney was tailing tonight were little more than professional pirates who had been particularly successful during their short time in Patrick Walsh’s employ. Too successful, perhaps. Apparently, Walsh was convinced that Monk Ferguson and Sweet Bailey were up to a bit of other business on the side.
    The ship Tierney had been watching for the past half hour was a big one, an English coffin that had put in at South Street just this evening, after clearing the quarantine station at Staten Island. Steerage passengers were milling about on deck, the fretful cries of children and worried murmurs of their parents adding to the clamor on the docks.
    Nighttime made little difference in the harbor. Even now, going on eleven, sailors and runners pressed through the noisy crush of disembarking immigrants. Cursing and shouting rose above the babel of foreign tongues. What laughter could be heard sounded shrill and uncertain. Women keened and strong men wept, and Tierney suddenly felt himself engulfed by a thousand dreams and as many sorrows.
    How many of those dreams would be washed out to sea before this night ends? How many new sorrows would rise with the dawn of their first day in New York City?
    A foghorn bleated in the distance. Shivering, Tierney pulled the collar of his seaman’s jacket snug about his throat. The night wind blowing in off the water stung his face, and he ducked his head against the cold.
    Next time, he vowed sourly, he would not be so quick to rise to Walsh’s challenge.

    In the candlelit dining room of the mansion on Fifth Avenue, Sara Farmington and her father lingered over dessert.
    â€œI can scarcely believe I have you all to myself this evening,” Sara said, toying with her spoon. “That’s rather a rare occurrence these days.”
    Lewis Farmington lifted one dark eyebrow. “Have I neglected you, dear? I’m sorry. I’m afraid it’s been a somewhat hectic week for me.”
    â€œSo it would seem,” Sara agreed. “You’ve dined out, what, three times, with Winifred this week?”
    If she’d expected to fluster him, she should have known better. Scooping up a spoonful of lemon pudding, he merely beamed a cheerful smile, saying, “Why, yes, I believe I have. I’ve been trying to help her make some order of her financial affairs.”
    At Sara’s questioning look, he nodded. “Winifred hasn’t much head for business, I’m afraid. Obviously, it’s going to take a great deal of work to get her straightened around. But it seems the Christian thing to