Up the Hill

Chapter 1

J ustice Maggie sat on the bench of the Assizes in Donegal town. Cold, bored and hungry, duty demanded that he had to preside over the court four times a year. He hated it, this imposition on his lifestyle. He loathed the stream of humanity that flowed in front of him. These wretched miscreants were the reason for him being here and compassion had no place in his worldd.

The last case of the day, quickly get it out of the way, and back to the comfort of his house, estates and servants, a different world eight miles drive from the town.

Anne Lynch, that is your name?

Yes, Sir, came the almost inaudible whisper.

I see here you have been accused of stealing from your employer. What do you have to say?

Sir, I took some stale bread and a little sour milk to feed my young one. It was to be thrown out anyway.

Guilty by your own admission. There is no room for this dishonesty in our community, and I therefore have no choice but sentence you to transportation; the sentence to be carried out as soon as a convenient passage can be arranged.

Maggie rose to leave, oblivious to the wailing and commotion left in his wake. The short distance from the court house to the inn, that served him as his temporary accommodation four times a year, for the three or four days that the court set, gave him fair warning that the weather was wet and stormy and that daylight would soon fade to a dark winter’s night. At the inn, he called for mulled wine and cold game pie, then sent word to Ryan, his coachman, to be ready to travel. Common sense dictated that he should wait in the warmth and comfort of the inn till the following morning, but he hated it, the town, and the sooner he got home the better.

Two hours later found him a mile and a half from his country seat, travelling across the land he owned, farmed by his tenant farmers and crofters. All was pitch black, saved the two small lights on the front of the carriage, but Ryan was an experienced coachman on a road he knew well. The potholes and cart ruts on the road made for an uncomfortable ride and a provoked a stream of abuse from within the carriage.

Ryan was well used to his master’s temper and secure in the knowledge that as a coachman he was pretty near irreplaceable, smiling to himself he whipped the horses to a fast trot.

Ryan peered ahead trying to cut through the blackness as the coach lurched and bounced between the dry stone walling. The horses veered to the left at the same time as a bedraggled figure appeared in the gloom of the carriage lamps. There was a thump, a scream and the carriage bounced over an obstacle. Ryan reined in the team as an infuriated voice from the carriage yelled at him What the blazes do you think you are playing at. Man? You nearly had me out of the seat.

We appear to have hit someone Sir! I will just go back and check.

No, just leave it, they will be all right.

But it’s sure to be one of your people on this road at this time of night, I better check, Sir.

All right, but don’t be long, I’m getting cold and hungry.

Ryan took one of the coach lamps and made his way back up the road to the heap of rags in the ditch. It seemed to be groaning.

Maggie leaned out of the carriage door and shouted back to Ryan Who is it, do we know them?

No Sir, I don’t recognise him at all, but it wouldn’t be very Christian to leave him here; he seems to be badly hurt.

Oh confound the man, we will just send somebody back for him, growled Maggie.

The wheels appear to have gone over his right leg.

Is it bad?

Well, put it this way, Sir, he wouldn’t find much use for a right boot any more.

Bring him back to the carriage and we will get Martha to have a look at him when we get home.

Ryan struggled back to the coach half dragging, half carrying the wretched figure, muttering all the time to himself Martha might be all right with birthing and fevers, but she wouldn’t be much good for this mess.

The stranger lay groaning on the floor of the carriage, much to Maggie’s disgust, but Ryan soon had them heading up the drive to the big house. Almost before the carriage stops the footman appeared and orders were barked at him Fetch Martha, find somewhere to put this retch for the night, tell cook I am home and ready to eat now, fetch me a mug of mulled wine…

The following morning saw Maggie’s household and life turned upside down, as his leisurely breakfast with his wife, Isabelle, was unceremoniously thrown into turmoil. Martha came bustling into the dining room, tears rolling down her plump red cheeks and sobbing into her bloodstained dirty white apron. I will not stay another moment in this house, not with that devil you brought back last night. I listened to his ranting and raving most of the night, but it wasn’t until this morning that his true colours came out. No good Christian women should hear the likes of it.

Isabelle was on her feet and at Martha’s side in a flash.

Maggie banged his feast on the table Get that damn women out of here, Isabelle, and find out what she is gibbering about, and for God’s sake, leave me to enjoy my breakfast in peace.

Isabelle ushered Martha through to the scullery, but question as she might, no more information was forthcoming. The stout, normally unflappable midwife, who prided herself on having seen the best and the worst of people, now insisted on leaving the house and staying away until ‘that demon’ was removed.

Isabelle reported back to her husband, who immediately sent for the footman and was horrified to hear from him that the ragged stranger from the previous night had been housed in a guest room in the east wing. Surely the idiot of the footman should have known that a tack room above the stables was the right place for a bag of bones, injured or not.

The household quickly degenerated into chaos, servants rushing backwards and forwards to report on the progress of the unwanted guest. Maggie became more and more furious that as simple a thing, to him, as removing an unwanted person from his house, had become so complicated. Finally, with inpatient resolve, he took the matter into his own hands. Muttering to himself If you need a job done properly, do it yourself, he headed down the corridors to the east wing to confront the man himself.

He burst through the door of the bedchamber, and one glance around the room did nothing to improve his temper. There, fussing around the large, comfortable four-poster bed was a young upstairs maid, who looked horrified at the angry expression on the face of her master. On a table within easy reach of the man, sprawling luxuriantly beneath his finest duck down quilt, was a tray of food, a breakfast as good as his own, and there on the opposite wall, was the fire place ablaze with the finest black turf, normally reserved for the fires in the main rooms and his bedchamber. Beside himself with rage, Maggie shouted across the room Unless you wish to go back and starve in the hovel of your mother and father, I suggest you go and do the work you have been employed to do; out, out now and quick about it.

Young Bridy cringed and sidled past her irate and frightful master, and she scampered down the corridor as fast as her legs could carry her.

Now you! You lazy, good for nothing bag of bones, how dare you take advantage of my good nature? I want you out of that bed now, out of my house and off my land. There is a perfectly good corporation poor house in Donegal, just eight miles down the road, they know how to look after the likes of you there. Now man, now, on your feet. Maggie ripped back the quilt to expose a badly mutilated right leg that the skilful dressing and splinting of Martha could do little to hide.

Kind Sir, as you see it would be very difficult for me to stand upright, not to mention walking as far as Donegal. But Sir, I am not ungrateful to you, for if your fine carriage had not run over my stupid leg, I would never have had the chance to sleep in such a wonderful, warm and cosy bed, indeed I would have lived the whole of my miserable life without ever seeing the inside of such a wonderful bedchamber as the one your great generosity provided for me last night! I will take the memory of these to my grave with me, and Sir, your kindness will be spoken of in whatever afterlife God ordains for me. You are a prince among man, no, verily a saint, and I am truly sorry that I have caused you so much trouble. I would, Sir, have cut off my wretched leg rather than cause your carriage to lurch and jerk, as it must have done when it bounced over my careless and mischievous leg. What’s more any service small or large I can do for you, I will look upon as my duty bound, nay as my privilege. I will of course leave your fine home as soon as it can be arranged for four of your fine strong serving lads to carry me as far as the road to Donegal. Just get them to lay me in the wind and the rain to await some kind traveller that will aid me on my way. All I ask is, may be, a few grain shacks to keep the worse of the winter chill from my miscreant leg, though for its parts in the terrible inconvenience caused to your good self, it truly does not deserve such comforting treatment.

Maggie stood by the bed, mouth half opened, bewildered by the man in front of him. Either this man was a complete fool or his litany was the most outrageous sarcasm.

Maggie pulled himself to his full height and desperately tried to regain the initiative Listen to me, my good man, you have thrown my household into turmoil, and trying to ignore what he felt was the obvious sarcasm, proceeded to go down the same tack—that the whole blame should be laid on the injured man himself. If you had not been blundering around my road after dark, you would not find yourself in the predicament you are now. My carriage wheel will have to be checked and possibly repaired, not to mention the fright you put into four fine carriage geldings; and what the blazes did you tell Martha to put the fear of God into her?

To the best of my knowledge, Sir, I said not a word to the woman; but in my sleep and hunger and partial delirium, I may have recalled things from my past that would terrified any Christian man or woman. And what, may I ask, is so terrible in your past that it would cause such a horrendous reaction?

Ah Sir, I have secrets, terrible secrets that the devil himself would shy away from. I have stories that you yourself would blanch at, stories that have haunted me all my long and wretched life; but Sir if it would interest you to hear some of them retold, then I am at your service.

Well man, speak up, tell me a tale that would shock me, but remember I have been a magistrate for the past twenty five years, I have dealt with the worse of crimes and the most horrific cases that the wretched creatures from the most depraved backgrounds can possibly come up with.

Ah, but Sir, I promise you tales that will make those you have gleaned from your time on the bench seem like stories from the nursery. But now Sir, my leg is giving me much pain and I feel if I could but close my eyes and sleep for a while I would be better able to recall stories from my past life.

Very well, you may stay and rest for the day and I will call on you this evening; but I warn you, if you are taking advantage of my kindness then it will go badly for you.

Maggie turned to leave the room and then as an afterthought stopped in the doorway, turned back and said, Well, my satanic guest, I think you should tell me your name.

I am Sean Bean, Sir, and I was born and raised on the west coast of Scotland, but I strove to educate myself in the noble city of Galway.

Maggie left the bedchamber quite bewildered; he knew that Sean Bean was clever and he knew also that somehow he had managed to avoid being evicted; but it would not hurt to listen to his story and if it was as entertaining as he felt it might be, then he would arrange to have the man taken to the poor house on the back of the farm cart.

Chapter 2

T hat night, Sean Bean could not be raised from his sleep and the only words he spoke were garbled and senseless. The following day, being Sunday, meant that all Maggie’s time was taken up with his church and family. Monday the 12 th of January 6.30pm

On entering Sean Bean’s room, Maggie was relieved to see the man sat up in bed with his plate, lying on the nearby table, as clean as a bishop’s heart (an Anglican bishop that is of course.) Cordial greetings were exchanged and the master of the house took a chair from against the wall and placed it near to the bed, relaxed, crossed his legs and leant back. Now my wayward ruffian, entertain me with your tales of horror.

"Well kind Sir, you must bear with me while I start at the very beginning, for to understand my tale you must first hear about the main character, my father, Alexander Sawney Bean. From here on, I will refer to him as Sawney for that was the name by which he went. Sawney was born into a poor but comparatively honest family in the parish of North Berwick, half a day’s walk east of Edinburgh. In his late teens, he was by all accounts, a bright comely lad with a jaunty gate and an eye for mischief. Living close by was Mery, a girl of similar age and full of fun. Inevitably the two became inseparable and with all the enthusiasm of the young, began to plan their future together. The life of drudgery of their parents was not going to be for them; instead they dreamed of a life far away in exciting places, where money came easily and happiness stretched like a never-ending road in front of them.

In the early part of the year, their love sparked and grew as the days grew longer. That spring was warm with gentle breezes bringing the smells of the sea and the blossoming countryside over their small town. In the evening, they could be found often sitting on the small hill, looking out to Bass Rock, talking and laughing happily, content with their own company. One of these evenings a plan was seeded; they would elope and seek their fortune across the water in Ireland, where it was rumoured that money was to be made from the developing flax industry.

The idea grew into a dream and then almost an obsession. So, one night early in the summer, they each gathered together as many of their belongings as they could easily carry, and before first light, they struck out for Edinburgh and beyond. Through the summer months their journey was pleasant; they worked occasionally in the fields for food and a little money, and they slept rough mostly under the hedgerows or in a convenient barn Neither looked back and each was full of hope and expectation.

By August their meandering progress had taken them as far as Ayr, where they found lodgings and work in a hostelry. During the day, Sawney worked as a groom, which in reality meant he cleaned out the stables; Mery was employed as a cleaner and chambermaid.

All was not work though and most nights found them in the common room where they ate, drank and mixed with the guests. They were never short of drinks as Mery’s winning smile and flirtatious good humour made her a favourite with most of the men who stayed.

Sawney, understandably, became