Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery by Andrew Pepper Read Free Book Online Page A

countrymen.
    A mob of about fifty or sixty had gathered outside the gates of the workhouse and Knox and the constables had to push their way through, using the butts of their carbines to get to the gates. There, they found Michael Doheny, chairman of the Board of Guardians, trying to plead with the men. Some were brandishing pickaxes, others brickbats. Earlier that afternoon, it transpired, the workhouse had stopped issuing any outdoor relief. Doheny was promising to see whether any food could be found for them. He was a hero to these men. A few years earlier he had stood up to one of the largest landowning families and forced them to make good the rate they owed the town. He’d used the money to fund relief projects in Cashel which, in turn, had kept many men and women from starvation. Now, this source of income had dried up and the mood was desperate. Hands aloft, Doheny was pleading with the men to go home to their families.
    ‘Home?’ one of them yelled. ‘We don’t have a home. Not since we were turned off our land.’
    ‘The workhouse can’t take any more.’ This time it was James Heany, vice-chairman of the Union, who’d spoken.
    ‘We just want to eat.’
    ‘My wife and baby haven’t fed in a week,’ another man shouted. ‘If I don’t get food, they’ll die.’ Further pleas were drowned out by the shouting.
    Knox and the other constables fanned out in front of the gates. They were holding their carbines but hadn’t yet turned them against the crowd. Knox tried not to think about what might happen if one or two of the mob tried to storm the gates. Were they desperate or hungry enough to do such a thing? He stared at the crowd, saw his own terror mirrored in their faces.
    ‘I will personally make sure that supplies of corn are made available tomorrow for you to buy,’ Doheny yelled through cupped hands, trying to magnify his voice.
    ‘We can’t
afford
the prices the traders are charging,’ someone shouted back. There were murmurs of agreement.
    Doheny held up his hands and waited for complete silence. ‘I willpersonally make sure you’ll be charged no more than two pennies for a pound.’
    The market rate was now almost five pence for a pound of corn. Knox wondered how Doheny would make good on his promise but it seemed to do the job. Slowly the mob began to disperse, and the relief among the constables was palpable. Knox went over to congratulate Doheny. Grim-faced, the chair of the Board thanked him but said he still had to secure an agreement from the traders to sell the corn – if they had any left – at the low price.
    A meeting to discuss the relief effort was due to start in the town hall on Main Street at eight, he added. It promised to be another stormy affair, as Lord Cornwallis and a representative of another large landowning family were due to attend. They would be asked to explain their unwillingness to pay for further supplies of corn, and Doheny wondered whether Knox and the other men would mind attending, in their capacity as defenders of the peace.
    ‘They’ll heckle Lord Cornwallis to start with, but mark my words, when he finishes, he’ll have the whole room eating out of his hand.’ Doheny – a man who had once organised a giant meeting in Cashel to agitate for the repeal of the Union and who fervently believed that Ireland should fight for independence – seemed more sad than angry at this prospect.
    Knox hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast but said he would be there. Doheny patted him on the back. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it, when the side you’re on is not the side you want to be on.’
    Knox wondered whether Doheny knew that he, too, was in favour of Irish independence and had even named his dog after a man who had done as much as anyone to further this particular cause.
    The town hall was full to capacity by the time Knox had pushed his way to the front of the room; a heaving mass of pale flesh and damp kerseymere exuding the smell of stale sweat and tobacco.