"It was all in Irish," he explained. "The O'Connells had to translate, because most of us from Leinster didn't have enough Irish to understand. First, he reminds them of their duty, and they all look suitably solemn, but he isn't sure he has them. Then he reminds them of all the others that are voting as they should, and how accursed they will be by all their fellows if they let them down. That affects them considerably, by the look of it. And then comes the clincher. Did they not know, he cries, wagging his long bony finger at them, that one of the Catholic men voted for the Protestant- and that he was struck down by an apoplexy as soon as he stepped out of the booth? 'Divine retribution will be swift,' he cries. 'You may count upon it. The saints are watching, and taking note!' He was quite terrifying. I was frightened myself."

The earl gave a wry smile. Stephen was chuckling. But Tidy was not amused.

"Do you mean that there was an unfortunate who was struck with an apoplexy, or that there was no such man?" he asked seriously.

"Heavens, man," cried Stephen, "I haven't the least idea. What does it matter?"

"Does it not matter to thee whether a thing is the truth or a lie?" the Quaker asked.

"You haven't the spirit of devilment in you," said Stephen, "or you would understand."

"I hope," answered Tidy quietly, "that I have not."

It was a little while later, walking along the street where the local newspaper, the Clare Journal Clare Journal, had its offices, that Stephen caught sight of the big, blue-eyed fellow he had noticed in the band of tenants who'd been harangued by Father Murphy. They'd all voted for O'Connell. He'd checked. Now it remained to be seen whether Callan the agent would evict them, or whether he could be persuaded not to.

The big fellow was standing by a small cart and looking serious. Beside him was a girl, maybe ten or so, pale and with a solemn face. The big man had his arm around her shoulder. Father and daughter, obviously. Was he comforting her, or she him? She must know what he had done.

Pity, he thought, that the girl was so plain.

1843 It began quietly, in America. A farmer in the New York region, looking out over a field of growing potatoes one day, noticed that something was amiss.

Some of the potato leaves had spots on them. He waited a few days. More of the leaves were spotted now, and the ones he had first noticed had withered. The stems on which they grew seemed to be affected, too. That night, he discussed with his wife whether he should dig them up or lift the entire crop early.

The following morning, when he went out to the field, there was a stench of putrefying matter rising from the ground.

He set to work at once. He dug up everything that looked infected. Many of the potatoes were already rotting; in others, rot had clearly begun. When he had completed this work, he made a large bonfire and burned them all. About half of the crop was still in the ground.

Being a decent man, he went to all his neighbours and then into the local town, to warn of the blight and discover whether others were experiencing similar problems. A number of farmers were reporting the same thing.

Some days later, he saw spotting once again and said to his wife: "Better lift the whole crop. Save what we can." A good many of the potatoes were obviously infected, and these he destroyed, as he had the others. About half the remaining crop, fortunately, appeared to be sound, and these he stored in a pit.

Ten days later, he checked the crop he had saved. He picked out a potato and cut it open with a knife. It was rotten. He tried another. The same. Half the potatoes he had thought were sound were now useless.

Phytophthora infestans: it was a fungal infestation. But where had it come from?

Nobody knew, but the likelihood was that it had come into the United States as an importation. For, desirous of avoiding any degeneracy in the potato stock, the American agriculturalists were in the habit of importing fresh seed potatoes from Peru. Some of the ships also brought guano, the seabird manure used as fertilizer. It seems likely that the fungus spread from the guano to the seed potato on the ship.

Having established itself in New York, the fungus was already starting to spread with astonishing rapidity. It would cross New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By 1845, it would reach the American Midwest.

The trade in seed potato was triangular. From America's eastern seaboard, the seed was exported east to Europe. By the time it was established in the Midwest, the blight would also appear in the Low Countries of Holland and Belgium, and on the south coast of England.

"You have never read The Wild Irish Girl The Wild Irish Girl?" Lady Mountwalsh looked at Dudley Doyle with astonishment. She thought everybody had.

Everyone liked Henrietta. She must be fifty, Doyle thought; yet there was still something girlish about the Englishwoman William had chosen as his bride. And the complexion, the peaches-and-cream complexion that had turned heads in every drawing room in London and Dublin-it was still the same. That, and the china-blue eyes that were turned upon him now, and the delectable, plump little breasts. He envied Mountwalsh his marriage bed. The couple had been happy and had raised a healthy family. She might be a little silly, but there was certainly no malice in her. And she was, as he supposed, an enthusiast for all things Irish.

"And you," she said, "with those dark, Celtic good looks." He smiled. One had to like her.

"You know, Henrietta, in Irish, my name actually means 'dark foreigner.' So I must suppose that my ancestors were Viking pirates," he explained to her, "rather than Irish heroes." Vikings who would certainly have married local Irish women, themselves a mixture of tribes from northern France and, so the legends said, people from the Spanish peninsula. Since those ancient days, what other strains would have entered the blood? Norman, Flemish, Welsh, English, to be sure. Some more Spanish, probably. His clever, somewhat ruthless mind enjoyed such analysis. "It's hard to know what Celtic means, really," he remarked.

But Henrietta knew. It meant the romantic heroine of Lady Morgan's famous novel, the wild daughter of the "Prince of Con-naught," who wins the heart of the prejudiced Englishman and teaches him to love the glories of Irish wit and learning, bravery and generosity. It meant the purity of soul that came from the timeless Celtic wellsprings. It meant Hibernia-a land of heroes and mystics, a magical counterpart to the sterner beauties of Scotland in the novels of Walter Scott. It had made Ireland quite fashionable. In fact, Doyle had read the book, though he preferred to tease Henrietta gently by pretending that he hadn't. And if, to him, it was all nonsense, the fictional romantic Celt was at least an improvement upon the traditional view of the Irishman as a bog-dwelling murderer and devious papist-a slander that was still to be found in the cartoons of Punch Punch magazine or the pages of any English newspaper. magazine or the pages of any English newspaper.

Every time Henrietta went back to London with her husband, she told people about the Ireland she knew. True, he thought wryly, it was an Ireland that consisted of the big house on St. Stephen's Green and this great estate in Wexford, with its rolling pastures and its ornamental gardens. It was a land where you called upon similar-minded neighbours, enjoyed their dinner parties, where you were waited upon by their loyal Irish servants, played cards, went to the club. Since her husband was a decent man and one of the best landlords in Ireland, she had encountered a friendliness from the local Irish tenants and labourers that was entirely genuine. And all this was glossed with a magical Celtic romanticism that coloured the landscape like a charming evening sunset amongst the hills. However, if she induced some members of the English governing class to take a more kindly view of the western island, then so much the better, he supposed.

"This is a most excellent meal," he added with a smile. Gaston, the Mountwalshes' chef, always performed miracles with the produce from the estate whenever he accompanied them into Wexford. Outside, the dusk was gathering. The magical season of Halloween, the old Celtic festival of Samhain, was only days away.

Much as he liked Henrietta, however, it was not her that he had really come to see. He glanced across the table at Stephen Smith. They hadn't spoken much yet, as the fellow had only arrived that afternoon, looking tired. But when William Mountwalsh had invited Doyle to stay, he had told him: "Stephen Smith is a man I think you should know better." And William, he always reckoned, was a fair judge of men. "Though, of course," the peer had added, "I know how hard you are to please."

If his ancestors had always chosen to remain in the merchant class, Dudley Doyle had chosen a slightly different style. To all outward appearances, he looked, dressed, talked, and, to a large extent, thought like a country gentleman. He belonged to the Kildare Street Club, whose members were mostly landowners. But although he owned two farms in Meath, he had always lived in town except in the summer months, when he resided in a seaside villa he had built at Sandymount, in the southern part of Dublin Bay. He had ample funds. The collection of Dublin properties that old Barbara Doyle had passed on to his grandfather was still in his hands. He owned a half share in a thriving wine merchants, and received ground rent from three large pubs. And though he met the country gentry at his club, at the races, or as a guest in their houses, he often preferred the company of the university men. At Trinity College, he had been a precise, classical scholar. But for many years now, he had chosen to occupy his spare time in the private study of political economy. Since being widowed two years ago, he had devoted himself to these studies even more. From time to time, if asked politely, he would even give a lecture upon the subject.

As his eyes took in Stephen Smith, he saw much that he did not like. A trace of carelessness in his dressing. He himself was always fastidious. An intelligent face, certainly, but not a university man. A pity. The earl had said that he was poor, and poverty, Dudley Doyle considered, was always a mistake. Also that he was amusing. But what were his verbal weapons? Were we speaking of a mere gift of utterance, the broad blade of humour, the vagaries of vulgar whimsy, thrown over a company like a gladiator's net? Or were we speaking of something with more politesse, the rapier of repartee, with which he himself was adept, quick, and deadly? It remained to be seen.

"You are an associate of Mr. O'Connell, I understand?" he said to Smith. "Do I take it, therefore, that you are a Whig?"

Since his astonishing election for Clare, fifteen years before, it was hard to imagine how Daniel O'Connell could have played his cards better. The English government had been so shocked by the result that it had promptly removed the right to vote from the forty-shilling freeholders, Catholic and Protestant alike, and raised the qualification so high that only the better sort of farmers-the more responsible element-could vote in future. But they had been forced to give way and let Catholics sit in Parliament. O'Connell, hailed as the Liberator, had gained his main objective. And soon after that, when the liberal Whig party had come to power, O'Connell had seen his chance. Building up a large following of sixty Irish members, he had skilfully managed an alliance with the Whigs that had been fruitful. He charmed the Whig grandees in person; and leading his sixty followers to their aid in close votes, he made them very grateful to him. The Irish Catholics gained. "We'll do all for you that we can," the government promised. A year after young Queen Victoria came to the throne, even the vexed question of tithes was finally resolved. Above all, the long decade of Whig government saw enlightened men sent out to govern Ireland: fine men like the Under Secretary, Thomas Drummond, who came to love the country and who never ceased to remind the Ascendancy landowners: "Property has rights, gentlemen, but it also has responsibilities." A dozen years after his election, O'Connell could say that his compromise with the Whigs had produced real benefits.

Could he have done better? The cause of Repeal-the breaking away from Union with England-had been indefinitely postponed. It couldn't be denied. And some of his younger followers felt that the great Liberator had degenerated into a political deal-maker. "But since the government wasn't going to give us Repeal anyway," he'd remarked to Stephen, "I think I did the right thing."

"I am that noblest of beasts, Sir," Stephen replied to Dudley Doyle with a wry smile. "I am a Catholic Whig."

"For reform, but through Parliament? You are prepared to be patient?"

"I am a political animal. I abhor violence, just as O'Connell does. That is why," he said with a sigh, "I have been his man for twenty years."

"Then what, might I ask, do you intend to do now?" asked Doyle. "After Clontarf?"

Stephen shook his head.

"My life," he answered sadly, "has reached a point of crisis."

It was three years ago that the strategy had started to break down. First Drummond had died, and the Irish had buried him with sorrow. Then the Whig government had fallen and the Tories had come in. What should O'Connell do now? Some of his young followers were certain-Young Ireland, they called themselves, and even had their own journal, The Nation The Nation . "It's time to fight for Repeal," they declared, "by any and all means, if necessary." The great Liberator wasn't ready to lose the movement he'd built up. He placed himself at their head, and this very year he had launched a campaign of huge rallies across Ireland. O'Connell's monster meetings were beyond anything seen before. Tens of thousands would come to hear the great Liberator speak. All over Leinster, Munster, and Connacht he went: Dublin and Wicklow, Waterford and Wexford, Cork, Sligo, and Mayo; to Ennis, where he had triumphed; even to the ancient royal site of Tara. "We will force the British government," he cried, "to give us justice or our freedom." But Britain's Tory government would not be moved. The monster meetings were to climax with the biggest rally of them all. It was to be held just outside Dublin, on the northern bank of the Liffey estuary, at Clontarf, where, eight centuries before, Ireland's heroic king, Brian Boru, had fought his final battle. The massed ranks of priests, the Repeal men with their banners were all prepared-most of the population of the capital would probably turn up. But the Tory government had had enough. . "It's time to fight for Repeal," they declared, "by any and all means, if necessary." The great Liberator wasn't ready to lose the movement he'd built up. He placed himself at their head, and this very year he had launched a campaign of huge rallies across Ireland. O'Connell's monster meetings were beyond anything seen before. Tens of thousands would come to hear the great Liberator speak. All over Leinster, Munster, and Connacht he went: Dublin and Wicklow, Waterford and Wexford, Cork, Sligo, and Mayo; to Ennis, where he had triumphed; even to the ancient royal site of Tara. "We will force the British government," he cried, "to give us justice or our freedom." But Britain's Tory government would not be moved. The monster meetings were to climax with the biggest rally of them all. It was to be held just outside Dublin, on the northern bank of the Liffey estuary, at Clontarf, where, eight centuries before, Ireland's heroic king, Brian Boru, had fought his final battle. The massed ranks of priests, the Repeal men with their banners were all prepared-most of the population of the capital would probably turn up. But the Tory government had had enough.

"Call off your meeting or face jail," it told O'Connell.

It had been the terrible decision. Stephen had been at a meeting with O'Connell and a number of others when the matter was discussed. "We must operate within the law," the Liberator had declared, "or we give up everything we stand for." Stephen himself had agreed. "In politics," he'd reminded everyone, "you can live to fight another day." But not all the great man's followers had agreed, especially the Young Ireland men.

Two weeks ago, O'Connell had called the meeting off. Nobody knew what to do next. Some of the younger men spoke of revolution, which Stephen knew to be useless and mistaken. The movement was in shock. He himself had experienced a huge sense of frustration. And he had been grateful indeed when, shortly afterwards, he had received an invitation from Mountwalsh to come and spend a few days down in Wexford. "It might," his lordship had kindly suggested, "cheer you up."

"A crossroads rather than a crisis, perhaps," Dudley Doyle offered, not unkindly.

"The crossroads, I believe," Stephen said, "is for Ireland rather than myself. For whatever good we have been able to do in these last dozen years is still so little, when you consider the problems that beset our country. The poverty is terrible."

"Take some comfort, Stephen," said William Mountwalsh. "Things here in Leinster are not so bad. And remember," he added, "the war with Napoleon was very good for Ireland, because we sold the English so many provisions. When it ended, we were worried. The beef industry took a terrible knock. Yet look what happened," he went on cheerfully. "Thanks to the new railways in England, we can send live cattle to every part of the market there, which we never could before. There are more people, so the price of grain has held. Our farmers do well. Speaking for myself, I've never done better."

"I accept what you say for Wexford," replied Stephen. "Though I can tell you that up in the mountains of Wicklow, my family and their neighbours live near subsistence. Last time I was up at Rathconan, I found twice the number of folk that I remember as a child, with miserable little potato patches dug right up onto the bare hillside, where nothing but sheep have ever been raised before. Some of the people are quite wretchedly poor."

"That may be," Dudley Doyle countered, "but consider the case of Ulster. The people there have small farms, but they are prosperous. They have the linen industry, and much else besides."

"Ulster I scarcely know," Stephen confessed. "O'Connell never goes there. The Presbyterians have become so strident of late that he'd hardly be welcome." He paused. "But I was thinking of the west above all. Of Clare, Galway, Mayo. The situation there is terrible and getting worse."

"Ah, the west. That is another matter," Mountwalsh acknowledged.

"Isn't it a case of bad landlords?" asked Henrietta. "I mean, if the landlords were like William . . ."

"It would be better," Stephen said politely, "but the problems are too big even for the best landlords to solve. I really don't know what's to be done."

William glanced around the table. There was a fifth person there, who had not yet spoken during the present conversation. He turned to her now.

"And what does Miss Doyle think?"

It was strange that Dudley Doyle's eldest daughter was not married. Both her younger sisters were. She was handsome, and it was known that her father had settled three thousand pounds on her. She was twenty-five, with a calm and pleasant manner; her colouring was good, her brown eyes fine and intelligent. She smiled now.

"I leave those things to the men," she said.

"Oh, so do I," said Henrietta.

Doyle looked at his daughter curiously. Now why, he wondered, would she say that? Stephen also gave her a glance-polite, but just a little weary.

"I fear I disappoint you, Mr. Smith," she said.

"Oh no, not at all," he answered, though of course it was not true.

"The problem really," said William Mountwalsh, "is that there are too many people for this island to support. The government estimates that we are well past eight million now. Farming methods, especially in the west, need much improvement. But it seems that Ireland is living proof of the theories of Malthus: that humans will always breed faster than the food supply increases. That is why we have always had wars down the ages." Having brought the conversation back to life, as a good host should, he turned to Doyle. "You make a study of these things, Dudley. Tell us what is the answer."

Doyle surveyed them all. He did not mind having an audience. He paused for a moment.

"The answer," he said, with a faint smile of satisfaction, "is there is nothing wrong with Ireland at all."

"Nothing wrong?' Stephen looked at him incredulously.

"Nothing," said the economist. "And I am surprised, Mr. Smith, that you, as a Whig-which you say that you are-should think that there is."

"Explain, Dudley," said William with a broad smile, as he settled back in his chair.

"As a Whig," Dudley Doyle addressed Stephen, rather as a lawyer in court addresses a witness before a jury, "you believe in free trade, do you not?"

"I do."

"You do not think that governments should intervene, as the British government was once so fond of doing, to protect inefficient farmers and manufacturers with tariffs or restrictions on trade? You believe in the operation of the free market-that, over time, it is always best?"

"Certainly."

"Then that is what we have. There is now an excess of people in Ireland. Very well. The result is that their labour is cheap. There is therefore an incentive for enterprising manufacturers to employ them."

"That may happen in Ulster, but it does not happen in Clare. And the people go hungry."

"I believe that eventually it will, but no matter. The hunger of the people is not a bad thing. It will drive them to seek work further afield. Do we not see that occurring?"

"Labourers from Clare take their spades and migrate for seasonal work as far as Leinster, or often England," Stephen agreed.

"Excellent. Britain benefits thereby, for the cost of its labour is reduced and the Irishman is fed."

"Many have to leave entirely, though," Stephen said sadly, "forced to emigrate, to England or America."

"Do you know," interposed Mountwalsh, "that over a million people have left this island during my own lifetime? About four hundred thousand in the last decade."

"Splendid," said Doyle, smiling at them both. "The whole world benefits thereby. There are too many people in Ireland? Well and good. America has need of them. A vast, rich continent in need of willing hands. They can do very well there. Indeed, without Ireland, what would America be? We must take a larger view, gentlemen. The temporary misery of the Irish peasant is a blessing in disguise. Do not interfere with the market, therefore. Thanks to the market, the whole world turns."

"But the process is so cruel," Stephen said.

"So is nature."

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Isn't it fascinating to listen to them?" said Henrietta to Caroline Doyle. "I think it's time for the dessert."

William was delighted when Caroline Doyle asked him to show her the library after dinner. It was he, after all, who'd suggested to Doyle that he should bring her. She admired the collection and found a few of her favourite books. Then she turned to him and smiled.

"Well, Lord Mountwalsh, I know you've asked me here to meet him. So what sort of man is Stephen Smith?"

"I suppose," he answered truthfully, "that I wouldn't have asked you if it were easy to say."

Her father had only agreed to the business because, as he freely confessed to the earl, he didn't know what to do with her. He might have an incisive mind himself, but though he admired his daughter's intelligence, he couldn't really see the point of it in a woman. It was certainly no help in getting married. "I must warn you," he counselled her, "that men don't like too much intelligence in a woman. A man likes a woman with just enough intelligence to appreciate his own. If you wish to be more than that, you would be wise to hide it." But though she agreed to do this-usually-she made a further demand that was just as awkward. "She wants to find a man," he told William, "who she thinks interesting. I told her, 'Interesting men usually give their wives a lot of trouble.' But I'm not sure she believes me."

"Stephen Smith is certainly interesting," the earl continued now.

It was also time he married. He was already thirty-five. A few years more, William considered, and the fellow would become so set in his ways that he'd never tolerate anybody. And it was time that Stephen had a home. He'd been living in lodgings for years.

William Mountwalsh had known other men like Stephen Smith. Men who were so fascinated by the daily business of politics, with its excitement, uncertainties, and nighttime confabulations, not to mention the thrill of feeling you were close to influence and power, that they could spend decades in busy backrooms and corridors, and never realize that life had passed them by. Politics, he knew, was a drug, and Stephen was an addict. He needed to be saved.

William had also observed that these cynical political men were often secret idealists. Stephen Smith did not worship O'Connell; he was too intelligent. But he truly believed that O'Connell was guiding the Irish to a better destiny. Like a prophet of old, the Liberator might not lead his people out of the desert, but he had already taken them part of the way. Sometimes men like Stephen also dreamed of becoming leaders themselves. That was hard for a poor man, though not impossible. Did Stephen have such dreams? Perhaps. William had heard him give a speech once or twice, and he was talented. There was an aura about him. But if the young man had dreams of standing for Parliament, those dreams were probably idealistic. He'd like to be a great figure in a great cause, the earl shrewdly guessed, rather than win just for the sake of winning, as a true politician would. The fellow had one other weakness also, the usual weakness of the poor man: he was proud. "Stephen Smith would rather do anything than have it seem he had been bought or sold," he remarked to the young woman, wondering if she'd understand.

"Does he like women?"

"Yes. When he has time." He paused. "Women like him."

"I expect they do. He has wonderful green eyes."

"Does he? Yes, I suppose he does."