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his surprise, Sean had tears in his eyes, and embraced Jamie, and wished

  him well, and Jamie clung to his friend, and felt, for the first time,

  that he was leaving home.

  The following morning, when Jamie set off in the trap with Quinn, on his

  new adventure, Sean was waiting at the gate, and rode with them to

  Carrickmacross. He told Jamie it was as well he was leaving. The country

  was in turmoil, and the long-promised battle was looming. It was better

  that Jamie be out of it, comparatively safe, in the big city. At

  Carrickmacross, Sean jumped out of the trap, shook hands with Jamie, said

  a gruff good-bye, and wandered away into the crowd.

  Sean's cautionary farewell distressed Jamie, for he realized that his

  friend did not think him brave. But he was brave, and he would prove it,

  and make Sean proud of him.

  He loved Dublin. It was everything his sisters, especially Eleanor, had

  promised him it would be. He loved the elegance and graciousness of

  Merrion Square, where his uncle Henry lived, and he was shocked by The

  Liberties, where the tattered

  18 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  poor squatted in mansions that had once been the homes of the fich. He

  strolled on the banks of the meandering fiver, the Liffey, and stood in

  awe before the imposing Dublin Castle, the grandest he had ever seen. He

  thrilled to ride with his uncle through the grinding slums of Whitechapel,

  and wept at the poverty he saw there, and did not know that his uncle was

  carefully appraising his reactions. His ears were enchanted by the strange

  music of the city, the perpetual noise, out of which came chants that he

  began to recognize, the street vendors announcing their wares, the tinkers

  and apple sellers, the muffin inen and costermongers and herring women.

  He loved the sense of unity that prevailed among the governed Irish, and

  he shared the general hatred of the governing British. His blood boiled

  when he saw the red-coated soldiers marching through the streets, pushing

  the poor and the beggars out of their way, and arresting or beating any

  who offended them, no matter how slight the cause. His mind raced at the

  conversations in his uncle's house, at the dinner parties, where he was

  allowed to sit and talk with the older guests, and was included in their

  conversations. His nerves tingled at the sense of revolution and

  rebellion that was the undercurrent of all their talk, however guarded

  they might be in front of him.

  He came to love and respect Eleanor, whom he had never known well. The

  red-haired passionate young woman and her wealthy, deeply committed

  husband, Oliver Bond, were frequent visitors to his uncle's house, and

  brought with them a sense of danger and glamour and excitement,

  It was Eleanor who questioned James about his political beliefs, for she

  had heard something of his adventures with Sean, in Ballybay, and it was

  she who cautioned him.

  "I must warn you to keep in strictest confidence whatever

  you see and hear in this house," she said, when they were

  alone together. I

  Jamie, in awe of his sister, swore that he could be trusted with any

  secret, and told her how he had kept to himself the information that

  Father Moran would say mass. Eleanor nodded, and seemed satisfied, and

  gave him books to read by Rousseau and Thomas Paine.

  The books introduced him to concepts of democracy, and of the equality

  of all men, and he began to sympathize with

  BLOODLINES 19

  the plight of the poor as he had sympathized with the peasants. He cheered

  as lustily as any when Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his beautiful wife, Lady

  Pamela, rode by in their carriage.

  Lord Edward was now the commander of the revolutionary forces. The

  British knew this, but were loath to touch him, because of his title and

  position, and because he had not yet given them any great cause. But the

  very sight of him offended them, just as it enthused the masses, for he

  wore simple clothes, his hair was close-cropped in the peasant style, and

  his lovely wife was dressed in peasant linen with a muslin apron.

  With a young man's zeal, Jamie had mistaken the function of revolution;

  he saw virtue in poverty and felt guilty because he was not poor. The

  appalling contrast between the desperate masses and the few rich was so

  overwhelming that he thought he had found the cause he had been looking

  for. Again, it was Eleanor who instructed him.

  "It is not just for the poor and the peasants," she told him. "it is for

  all of us. It is for Ireland. When we are free of foreign domination,

  when we rule ourselves, then we can address the problems of the masses."

  Jamie knew he was teetering on the very edge of tumultuous times, and

  longed to be closer to the center, although he was, by his relationships,

  nearer than many. He spoke to his uncle Henry, and begged to be allowed

  to join his association.

  "It is not altogether your youth," Uncle Henry said, shaking his head

  slightly. "It is that you are so new to the idea."

  But Henry saw the potential of the young man, and did not dash his hopes

  entirely.

  "But I would say you are a fair possibility," he said, and smiled.

  Soon after Christmas, Oliver Bond and Eleanor came late at night to

  Henry's house, and whispered the depressing news. A great French fleet,

  led by Wolfe Tone, had sailed into Bantry Bay to invade Ireland and begin

  the conquest of the British, but had been forced back by foul weather.

  Oliver correctly predicted the bloodbath that was to come, but looked to

  the future. They would strive for the revolution, and they would succeed,

  but without French help. The disappointed nationalists retired and licked

  their dashed hopes for

  20 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  a while, but the violence of the British reprisals against the people

  stirred them, and the coming spring brought them renewed vigor, renewed

  hope, and renewed determination. But thev needed more men.

  o on a cold and rainy April night, Jamie went with his uncle Henry to

  a guarded garret in the slums of Whitechapel and was admitted to the

  association of United Irishmen, and swore his solemn oath. Jamie's

  youthful soul thrilled to this new world of whispered plots and plans and

  secret passwords, and the inclusion in the company of men.

  That summer, Jamie went home to Ballybay for Sara's wedding to Jimmy

  Hanna, who was now tutoring Washington. Jamie was a hero to Washington as

  Sean was a hero to Jamie, and Washington reveled in his company. His

  father was surprisingly affable, perhaps because, with most of his

  children living in Dublin or America, his position was more secure. Jugs

  wept, and overfed Jamie, convinced he had lost weight, when he was merely

  growing taller. Quinn shared a welcoming mug of poteen with him, and Sean

  welcomed him as if there had never been a difference between them. Sean

  was aware of some change in Jamie, and obviously approved of
it, but did

  not question him closely, nor could Jamie have told him of his new

  political associations, because of the binding secrecy of his oath. But

  now it was summer and they were young men, anxious to test their

  burgeoning manhood and growing muscles, and they passed a pleasant season,

  fishing, and boxing and wrestling, and getting into young men's trouble.

  Jamie gave his virginity to a buxom peasant girl, who had long had Sean's,

  under a hayrick, drunk on cider.

  Of all the good summers of Jamie's life, this was golden, for underlying

  their pastoral idleness was the growing whisper of rebellion.

  Still the call to arms did not come, and, back in Dublin, Jamie chafed at

  the lack of activity. They seemed to be doing nothing, getting nowhere,

  and the British were still riding roughshod over the Irish community. He

  poured out his frustrations to Eleanor, and she listened, and nodded her

  head gravely.

  "When?" he cried, for if anyone knew, it was Eleanor.

  BLOODLINES 21

  "When Ivers or Carlow is come," she told him, and he could see the

  twinkle in her eyes.

  It was the whispered password that got them into their meetings: "Is

  lvers or Carlow come?" The two names were changed frequently, for fear

  of traitors, but the substance remained the same, and one day, when the

  given answer would be yes, Ivers or Carlow is come, the revolution would

  begin.

  Ivers, or Carlow, came the following March, but not in a way that any of

  them expected or wanted. Rioting by peasants farther to the south, in

  County Wexford, persuaded the British that it was time to destroy the

  leadership of the United Irishmen. A traitor came to them, Thomas

  Reynolds, a silk merchant, who had been in Paris during the Terror, and

  was appalled by the mob rule. After the debacle of Wolfe Tone and the

  French fleet, he was persuaded by his wife that perhaps they should

  reconsider their commitment to the Irish cause. Both were social

  climbers, both realized what patronage from the British could do for

  them, and as the possibility of Irish victory receded in their minds,

  Reynolds turned his coat to the British.

  Oliver Bond himself opened the door to the three burly men whose faces

  he did not recognize.

  "What do you want?" he demanded.

  "Is Ivers or Carlow come?" the first man said, smiling. It was the proper

  password, but still Oiiver was confused, and hesitated a fraction too

  long. The men burst into his house, and arrested all who were gathered

  there. United Irish guards keeping watch on the house from the Brazenhead

  Inn, across the street, were astonished to see the reinforcing British

  troops that now arrived, and, knowing the game was lost, some scattered

  into the night to wam the others. Those remaining saw Lord Fitzgerald's

  coach arriving, and rushed to head him off. He needed no second bidding

  but whipped his horses, and drove, hard as he could, toward Whitechapel.

  The troops gave chase, but as they came to the slums, word spread like

  wildfire, and the poor people thronged into the streets behind Lord Ed-

  ward's carriage, and blocked the passage of his pursuers.

  A lookout got to Henry's house just before the soldiers, and raised the

  alarm. For himself, Henry saw no point in flight, but worried for his

  nephew. He gave Jamie a little money, and

  22 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  told him to get to Ballybay, where he would be safe. Jamie was reluctant. He

  had a young man's need to prove himself.

  "This is just a skirmish, not the battle," Uncle Henry urged him. "You are

  more useful to us free than in prison. Go free and fight."

  He pushed Jamie out of the back door, and returned to the hallway, where

  the -soldiers were already battering their way inside.

  Jamie crept through the back alleys and lanes to the slums, where he used

  the password to find friends. He was sheltered for the night, and in the

  morning they guided him to the outskirts of the city. They cropped his hair

  and put him in peasant clothes, and found a friendly farmer, who hid him in

  his cart and took him to his home county. Along the way they heard the news.

  The conditions of martial law were to be made stricter, harsher. British

  troops would now be dispersed throughout Ireland, and free-quartered

  wherever they chose. It was Crown-ordered that the association of United

  Irishmen be crushed by whatever means necessary, and many of the leaders

  were now in Newgate Prison, following the arrests in Dublin. The Sheares

  brothers and Oliver Bond. Uncle Henry, although not a ringleader, was with

  them. Lord Fitzgerald, who had not been caught, was in hiding somewhere in

  the city, and Lady Pamela. Eleanor had not been arrested, as women were not

  considered dangerous.

  At Rockfield, Jamie bade farewell to his farmer friend, and made his way on

  foot, under cover of night, to Carrickmacross and thence Ballybay. He

  avoided the towns,and villages, slept in the hedgerows, and used the money

  his uncle had given him to buy food at peasant cottages.

  On a moonlit evening, he reached his father's house, and saw half a dozen

  British soldiers gathered around a campfire on the front lawn. He sneaked

  through the grounds, made his way to the stables, and scraped his nails on

  old Quinn's door. The hostler, rubbing sleep from his eyes, was immediately

  awake when he saw Jamie. He dragged the boy inside, shushed him to silence,

  and closed and barred the door.

  "The sodyers are after ye," he said. He hid Jamie under the bed, and went

  to find Jugs. She came to him in dead of

  BLOODLINES 23

  night, and held him to her, and wept for him. The soldiers had come for

  him, and were waiting in case he should come home. His father was

  practically a prisoner in his own house, a suspect despite his past record

  because of Henry and Eleanor, and their known association with the United

  Irishmen. Jamie's membership was also known, and, despite his youth, a

  warrant was out for his arrest, as brother-in-law to the traitor Oliver

  Bond, and nephew to Henry Jackson. Jugs had a message from his father,

  given in case he should come home.

  "Don't come here, and I may yet be able to get us out of this."

  Jamie was touched, for these were almost the kindest words he had ever

  had from his father. But he despaired. He could not stay in his father's

  house, and had nowhere else to go. Jugs came to his rescue again. Quinn

  created a distraction with a horse, causing it to bolt in its paddock,

  and the soldiers mocked and jeered the old man's apparently feeble

  efforts to calm it down. Jugs led Jamie through the night and took him

  to a small, abandoned barn on a nearby property,

  Sean was there, in hiding from the soldiers.

  Jamie smiled in relief when he saw his old friend, and Sean was

  astonished at the muddy, peasant-clad, crop-haired young man who stood

  before him.

  "Is Ivers or Carlow co
me'?" Jamie whispered with a grin, and Sean grinned

  too, and hugged Jamie hard.

  "Yes," Sean said. "He is come."

  3

  They talked until dawn, and made their plans. They were not

  safe in Ballybay, and they needed to fight, for they were

  young, and their blood ran hot for their cause, and they were

  men of Ireland, and their country was bleeding. Sean had

  heard, as Jamie before him, of the riots to the south, in County

  Wexford, and they looked at each other, and nodded their

  24 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  heads, and knew, without voicing it, where they would go.

  Maureen and Jugs made food for them, and wept in their hearts, but would

  not show their tears to their sons, for they were women of Ireland. Old

  Quinn gave them two nags from the stables, workhorses too old to work,

  who would otherwise have been sent to the knacker's yard, and justified

  it, not as stealing, but as a contribution to his young master's need.

  Under cover of night, Washington and Sara stole to the bam to greet their

  brother and wish him Godspeed.

  There was no moon to guide them south, but they knew the way, for they

  knew all the byways of their county, which was their own, their native

  land. Maureen and Jugs waved them on their journey, and took comfort from

  each other, and wept, for that was the way of it.

  And their country was bleeding. On the morning of the second day, they

  saw the bayoneted corpses hanging from trees, and then more dead,

  peasants shot in a field. They came upon a father, wounded himself,

  carrying his dead son.

  "Bastards wiped 'em out," he gasped to no one, or to anyone who might

  hear his piteous rage. "Just boys, armed with sticks, all gone, gone."

  He staggered on with his awful burden, to take his dead son home to his

  mother, who would weep for her lost boy, her only son.

  A little farther down the road they saw the bodies of the boys, similar

  in age to themselves, white-hooded heads almost severed from their

  shoulders, and left for carrion.

  They aged, not in years, on their short journey south, but with

  experience of the world, and a new kind of passion engulfed them, the

  need for revenge.

  As they rode into the county of Wexford, they stopped in taverns in all

  the villages they passed through, listening for rumors of rebellion, but

  the fight they were looking for, the war that they needed, eluded them,

  until they came to Boulavogue. They rode toward the town and saw a

  platoon of redcoated soldiers marching in that same direction. They

  looked at each other and thrilled, and spurred their horses.

  In Boulavogue, the people were gathered in the town square, listening to

  two priests, brothers, who held carved wooden crosses and a paper.

  BLOODLINES 25

  Father John Murphy and Father Michael Murphy might have been twins, but

  were not. Dedicated to the welfare of their parishioners, they had spent

  their lives as priests in search of peace, practiced their religion

  covertly, and bridged, when they could, the awful gap between the rulers

  and the ruled. The local British Commissioner knew of their existence,

  but the brothers were useful to him, as mediators between himself and the

  people, and on many occasions the priests had been able to calm angry

  crowds, and bring order and reason to a disordered world. The riots and

  the subsequent bloodshed in the county had shocked the Commissioner, and

  he believed that the actions of the military were fomenting rebellion

  rather than suppressing it. He had suggested to the brother priests that

  if all the citizens signed a petition of loyalty to the Crown, Boulavogue

  would be left in peace.

  Father John and Father Michael stood before their flock now, and urged

  them to sign the petition, for they had seen the disastrous aftermath of

  earlier riots, and could not believe that any good could come from the

  use of force, if only because the soldiers, although fewer in number,