‘An easy one to answer, I’d say.’
Danny sighed. ‘Essentially, I’m a man of peace,’ he said. ‘I’d fight if anyone belonging to me was threatened, but…’
‘And don’t you think they will be? When this damned war is over, England will renege on her promises of independence and Home Rule like she’s done so often before.’
‘Maybe,’ Danny said. ‘But if it’s on the statute book they must debate it sometime and with so many men giving their lives for England, they must feel they owe us something.’
‘Oh aye,’ Shay put in. ‘And will that stop the nonsense with Ulster and make Ireland properly united?’
‘Ulster can only opt out for six years.’
‘Danny, will you listen to yourself?’ Sam almost roared. ‘You’re as brainwashed as the rest of them. Six thousand years opt out, more like.’
Sam’s shout had caused Bernadette to jump on the breast where she was feeding and Rosie took her off and fastened her nightgown up, intending to close the door and help cut the noise out.
‘Even so…’ Danny put in.
‘Even so, even so,’ Shay mocked. ‘Don’t be so mealymouthed, Danny. Now, with England’s forces and energies directed at Germany and the rest of Europe, now is the time to take up arms and fight for independence.’
No-one noticed Rosie in the doorway, the men were sideways on to her and before them were Phelan and Niall – Shay’s young brother. The two lads were looking into Sam’s and Shay’s faces, hanging on their every word.
‘What we want to know, Danny, is are you for us, or against us?’ Shay demanded. ‘There is no middle way here. When the call comes for Ireland’s freedom, will you answer that call?’
Rosie pushed the door to before she heard Danny’s reply, but not before she saw the patriotic zeal burning in both of the young boys’ eyes. She returned to the bed a worried woman.
Everything settled down after the christening and Rosie told herself, whatever Sarah said, it had been the beer talking with the men that night. Shay had always been a hothead, but it was just talk, surely to God. She mentioned the reactions of Phelan and Niall to Danny, but he told her not to fret. ‘They’re but boys,’ he said, ‘not long out of the schoolroom altogether and boys that age love looking up to someone, having someone to admire.’
‘So you don’t think it’s anything to worry about?’
‘No,’ Danny said. ‘But best not say a word to Mammy anyway.’
It wasn’t long after this that Phelan began arguing with his parents. It was mainly because he wanted to go out at night and didn’t always want to say where he went or what time he would be back. Danny told his parents to go easy on him. ‘He works hard enough through the day and this is his leisure time,’ he told them. ‘It’s a stab at independence, I mind I was the same at his age.’
‘You never went far,’ Connie said.
‘Well, how far can Phelan get in the two or three hours he’s out? He’s probably at a neighbour’s house. He can’t go much further away, I mean, no harm will come to him.’
Danny saw no cause for concern and Rosie, who did, told herself she was making a mountain out of a molehill. The nights were still light enough through August and what could be nicer than walking the hills and dales of Wicklow on a balmy summer’s evening?
By the end of August it was the harvest, and that meant all hands to the pump. There was little time to blow one’s nose, never mind go out for a wee stroll, and Phelan was as tired as the rest at the day’s end and just as anxious to lie in his bed as his elder brother and father.
With the harvest safely in, there was the bog turf to cut and stockpile for the winter. Matt kept his youngest son hard at it beside him, mending fences, whitewashing the cottage and barn, repairing thin areas of the thatch, and any other jobs he could think of.
If Matt was hoping to tire Phelan out by his actions, he was mistaken, for Phelan was toughened by his work on the farm and as the nights drew in he began once more to spend many of his evenings away from the cottage. Connie often wondered where he found to go – if it was just to a neighbour’s house, as Danny thought, then why couldn’t he say so?
Rosie felt sorry for the lad in many ways. The two had got on well from the first and he was enchanted with Bernadette. It was Rosie he often sought out to talk to. She didn’t talk to him about the disagreements he had with his parents, she had no need to, and so he opened up to her. ‘They want to own me body and soul,’ he complained.
‘They’re concerned, Phelan.’
‘They think I’m a wean.’
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘They know the age of you. It’s a habit you get into as a parent. See, wee Bernadette is just a baby, and I do everything for her, change her, feed her. Later I’ll hold her hand as she walks, pick her up if she falls and wipe the tears from her eyes. I’ll get her ready for school, buy her copy books and a school bag and fix her dinner.
‘And through it all, I’ll be there, caring for her, loving her, being the person to lean on. All that care and love cannot be turned off, like water from a tap. As you grow up, parents must adjust and sometimes it’s not so easy. Maybe if you talked more about what you’re doing, and who you’re meeting, it would make it better for them.’
Phelan’s reply lent an icy chill to Rosie’s spine. ‘If Mammy knew the half of what I do some nights, she’d worry herself into an early grave,’ he said.
‘Phelan, for God’s sake, don’t do anything silly.’
‘A man has to do what he believes in, even our Danny said that,’ Phelan told her with a hint of pride.
‘But you’re just…’ Rosie stopped herself in time from calling him a child. He would have really turned against her if she had. But to her he was, the lad was barely shaving yet. ‘You’re so young yet,’ she went on. ‘Things often look different as you grow up.’
‘I’ll never feel any different,’ Phelan promised, ‘not about this.’
Rosie felt helpless then and Phelan said, ‘No-one in the house knows of this but you. Promise me you’ll not tell on me?’
‘Not even Danny?’
‘Especially not Danny.’
That made Rosie uncomfortable, and she wondered later if she should have made that promise. But what had Phelan really told her? Nothing concrete, nothing she could go running to Danny about. What he’d said could mean anything or nothing. Maybe it was just a boy’s bravado.
In the end, she sought out Sarah – she thought Sam might know something and maybe talked to Sarah about it. ‘I wonder what those two rapscallions Phelan and Niall get up to going out in the black night,’ Rosie said casually to her one day. ‘Up to mischief, no doubt. Does Sam ever talk about it?’
‘No, never,’ Sarah said. ‘Sam can be as tight as a clam about some things. He reminds me of a wee boy at times. I mind Danny and his friends had secret societies when they were young and sent coded letters to each other and had passwords to go into what they called the clubhouse. It was nothing more than a dilapidated old shepherd’s hut, just off the track up the hillside. It’s probably dropped to bits entirely now. The times I crept up there with Elizabeth and tried to listen in. I didn’t think it was so grand looking even then, and Danny was furious with us of course.’
‘So, Sam is in a secret society then?’ Rosie joked. Maybe there was some truth in that – she knew the Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret organisation. Even the name of it was spoken in whispers and no-one knew exactly who was in it, but its objective was to obtain Home Rule for all of Ireland, Ulster included. It