Celtic Mist Ch. 05

Their conversation quickly told him that the three consisted of two delivery lads and a tavern proprietor --- quarreling about the cost to unload the bottles. The proprietor, standing in an open doorway on the alley, was a grizzle-haired, slightly paunchy chap with a wooden leg. "A shilling to unload me order? 'Tis highway robbery, so it is!" he said.

"'Tis company policy, Mr. Murphy. Usually, the clients do the unloading."

"Company policy be damned! You're just taking advantage of a timber toe."

"Pardon, sir," Declan called out. "Are ye needing assistance unloading?"

The three men turned. The proprietor eyed him speculatively.

"I'll do it for two pence, sir."

The man smiled briefly. "Sure, ye've got yourself a bargain, lad."

The two delivery lads shrugged, opened the wagon gate, and stood aside.

Declan lifted a heavy, sloshing wooden cask from the bed and over the door threshold, rolling it as he followed Mr. Murphy down a short hall into what was indeed a tavern --- pleasant with lantern lights, a worn oak bar and furnishings, and the faint, savory smell of stew. The room was empty at the present time. The man led him into a brick-walled room behind the bar where Declan stood the barrel upright against a wall.

Cask after cask of the stout he transported inside --- then agreed to another two pence to haul the empty barrels to the wagon --- all whilst the proprietor leant upon the bar and regarded him shrewdly. Upon completion of the task, the man paid over the coins. "Here lad, what is your name?

"Declan Muldowney, sir."

"Are you by chance in need of steady employment, Declan Muldowney?"

"Aye, I am."

"I'm in need of a lad to help tend the bar and do the heavy lifting and such."

Declan nodded.

The man drummed his fingers on the bar as he studied him. "We get some rough custom in here, so the duties might include...shall we say...escorting out disorderly patrons." He gave 'escorting' an ironic emphasis. "You look to be a right strong young lad --- can ye handle yourself in a fight?"

A wry grin lifted the corner of Declan's mouth. "I've been told I can hold me own."

When the man told him the wages, Declan hesitated. 'Twas far less than he had hoped. "'Tis but a few hours at night. I canna pay ye a full day's wage," Mr. Murphy pointed out.

Aye, Declan could see the man's reasoning. And he could still seek employment during the day. "I'm in need of bed and board," he ventured at last. "Can we make an exchange instead of the wages?"

Mr. Murphy nodded slowly, pursing his lips. "I need to check with me missus." He disappeared down a hall past the bar. After some ten minutes he returned, smiling, and shook Declan's hand. "'Tis a bargain, lad. You'll start work tonight."

*****

"Tilt the mug so, let it run slowly along the side," Mr. Seamus Murphy instructed.

Declan picked up a mug and copied the demonstrated motions, easing the Guinness tap down. The tavern had just opened, and the first four customers were chatting at the bar in front of them.

"Slow, slow...stop when the head is an inch below the rim. Aye, good." Mr. Murphy nodded. "Then put it aside to settle whilst ye busy yourself elsewhere for a minute or so. Then ye'll come back and fill it to the top. For now, start on the next one."

Declan picked up another mug and began filling it. "'Twill take two pulls to fill the mug," Murphy summed up. As the foam rose, Declan was momentarily distracted by a movement in front of the bar --- a red-haired lass! She was crossing the room towards a table where three men had just seated themselves. From behind, he could make out pinned up braids and a slender curved figure. Since the night six weeks ago that Aoife had vanished, his wistful eyes were ever on the search for her.

"Ho! Stop! Too much!" Mr. Murphy warned.

Glancing down, Declan saw the foam overspilling the mug and hastily shut the tap. "Christ! I'm sorry."

The man looked across the bar at the maid, then his twinkling eyes returned to Declan. "Sure, I see the way of it." He winked.

The lass faced round from the table, and Declan's breath eased...'twas not she. Her hair was a lighter tint of ginger and her eyes were green, not blue.

"Kate, come here...and you too Sophie," Mr. Murphy called to another lass who had just entered the room from the hall that led back to the kitchen. "Girls, this is me new deputy, Declan...these are Kate and Sophie, our barmaids."

"Hullo," Declan said. Kate was the redhead whilst the other lass, Sophie, had thick chestnut locks and hazel-colored eyes. Both were bonnie lasses near his age.

They regarded him curiously, then giggled, exchanging sly looks with each other. Sophie's eyes sparkled as she looked up at him from under her long dark lashes. "Where are ye from, Declan?"

"Kilkenny." He glanced at Mr. Murphy, uncertain what the girls were finding so amusing about him.

"Is this your first time in Dublin?" Kate asked. "Three pints," she said aside to Mr. Murphy.

"Aye."

Sophie and Kate shared another conspiratorial smile.

"You're a rum 'un. Have ye ever worked in a tavern before?" Sophie asked, grabbing a tray from behind the bar.

"Nay, 'tis me first time."

"Your first time, is it? Well, if you're needing help finding things, just holler out." Sophie winked and headed back towards the kitchen. Kate turned to wait on another group of men who had taken a table.

Mr. Murphy gave him a wry smile as they poured stout. "Dinna be a-minding those two --- they're fine girls, but they can be a pair of goosecaps, so they can, rattling on and teasing a lad."

Declan nodded and incorporated that tidbit into the flux of new information he was learning that night.

The tavern quickly filled with men whose weary faces and worn clothes bespoke a life of hard labor. They crowded the bar and filled the tables --- drinking, eating, and conversing in animated tones, whilst Kate and Sophie carried trays laden with food and drink from the kitchen and bar. Both were comely, merry lasses with small waists and advantageously proportioned breasts. Wearing low cut bodices that accentuated their endowments, they maneuvered nimbly among the tables, laughing and chatting with the lads as they served them.

The steady stream of drink orders that the lasses brought from the tables, as well as those from the men standing at the bar kept Mr. Murphy and Declan busy. Notwithstanding, the proprietor continued his instruction as they worked, explaining the appropriate mug for each libation and how to wash the returned mugs. Another delivery wagon presently arrived --- this from George Roe and Co. --- and Declan carried in casks of whiskey.

He had been in numerous ale houses over the past two years as a guardsman, but soon learnt 'twas different on the other side of bar --- being here for work, not diversion. Promptly taking on the mantle of his new responsibilities, Declan kept an alert eye on the patrons for excessive inebriation and rowdiness...indeed his new position was not too dissimilar in some respects from being a guard.

'Twas whilst Mr. Murphy was showing him the proper amount for a whiskey pour that their attention abruptly shifted over the bar to a table where slurred shouting had erupted between a pair of jug-bitten men. "Trouble," Murphy observed, giving him a pointed look. Declan nodded. As he stepped round the bar, the roaring men lurched up out of their chairs, overturning the table. The adjacent customers jumped from their seats and backed away.

"Keep yer bloody hands off me sister, ye bastard!" one screamed, lunging with outstretched hands at the other.

Only a few cursing fisticuffs were exchanged between the two ere Declan's unyielding hand grasped each man's collar and wrenched them apart. Calmly, he walked the flailing-limbed pair to the street. "Kill each other out here," he advised.

Later that night, Murphy alerted him to a man attempting to abscond without paying his bill. Declan intercepted the sidling man at the door with a hand upon his upper arm. "I believe you may have forgotten something, sir."

The man eyed the large hand grasping him and the stalwart young man to whom it was attached. "I-I was only stepping out for a wee breath of air, so I was," he hastily explained.

"Aye, sure." Declan nodded and returned him to the bar.

The activity in the tavern slowed as the midnight hour approached. At last, Mr. Murphy locked the street door behind the final departing customers and led Declan back to the kitchen to introduce him to his wife. Mrs. Murphy was a quiet woman in her forties with light brown hair, a pleasant face, and an apron over a plain gown. She paused in her cleaning to escort Declan up three flights of stairs to a room in the garret. "I'm sorry 'tis all I have now. All me rooms downstairs are taken by lodgers."

"No worries," Declan said, observing the bare joists of the roof, two dormer windows, empty crates along the sides, and a pallet on a rough frame. "'Tis grand, so it is. Thank you."

"There's a pot under the bed. Here is a candle for ye. You can get water in the kitchen," she said nodding at the pitcher on an upended crate serving as a washstand.

"Ta." After two weeks of sleeping on the ground under the bridge, Declan was quite content to have a bed at all, no matter how humble. The room was cold, but once under the quilt, he was sound asleep within minutes.

The following morning, he set out from Murphy's establishment with a plan. The tavern's clientele last night had for the most part been dock laborers --- the River Liffey was just a stone's throw away --- inspiring in him an idea. He was determined to go to England to hunt down Blaylock. To accomplish this mission, he would need to again accumulate funds, and it seemed a step closer to be situated near the docks. Perhaps he might, when at last set to go, stow away aboard a ship bound to England and save the cost of passage.

Among the squawking seagulls, stench of the foul water, and bustle of activity round the docked ships at City Quay, Declan found his way to the foreman's office, where a perfunctory questioning and assessment of his form yielded an immediate offer of employment. Declan nodded at the wage --- with no expenses for bed and board, 'twas a decent sum. Wary of his family name somehow reaching his quarry's ears and forewarning him --- would the name even mean anything to Blaylock all these years later? --- he gave the name Declan Delaney to the foreman.

He was put to work that morning as a lumper, joining a crew of a dozen other men --- rolling barrels and carrying crates up boarding planks onto outbound ships, and discharging similar cargo from newly arrived vessels. His was one of three like crews, each directed by a ganger man.

Daily he walked from Murphy's to the dock and back, heartsick at the misery he witnessed about him on the streets. Weary souls trudging to and from their various bleak jobs...other folks without jobs --- ragged, sick, and begging for alms. Hungry children being shooed off by harassed shopkeepers.

He saw beggar children with deformed limbs...when he had lived on the streets himself, he had been terrified of this horror: kidnapped children whose arms or legs had been deliberately broken to enhance the take of coins from pitying passersby.

He saw yards piled with shit up to the windowsills. He saw a house with a missing outer wall...still inhabited, the wretched lives in the sloped-floored rooms open to view by all upon the street.

As the sun set and men left work, another population made an appearance --- various women who, by a subtle immodesty of garb or touch of paint upon their cheek, were obliged to advertise their profession. Declan's heart ached for these poor lasses whom fate had forced into such circumstances --- from fresh game pullets new to the business, to bunters who haunted the doorways --- thin of limb, dirty faced, and with sores on their skin.

And all this activity was smothered in the stink of excrement overflowing from the open drains in the streets, putrefying offal from the slaughterhouses, acrid coal smoke, and eye-stinging haze coming from the smokestacks of the breweries and distilleries --- a mix of vapors so fiendish that it appeared to Declan to effect upon those accustomed to breathing it a narcotic insensibility to the pervasive degradation of the human spirit in the city...perhaps fortuitously so.

As Declan worked at the docks, he began to take note of the patterns of water traffic to and from England. Having no other intelligence to guide his quest, his present plan was to first make his way to London once he had sufficient funds. Shortly after taking up employment at the docks, he ventured to make further inquiries among his fellow lumpers.

Each of the three work crews was permitted a half hour for the mid-day meal, on a staggered schedule so that the work could continue. The men would sit upon crates on the wharf as they ate, their backs to the river --- as Declan quickly learnt.

"Nay, don't sit so," a lad named Owen Kelly had instructed him his first day when he sat down facing the river. "Face the streets."

"Why?"

"The press-gangs," Owen and Martin O'Connor had replied in unison, shifting to make room for him on a crate.

"The press-gangs? What are they, then?"

"Groups of the Crown's military recruiters --- at any time they might sweep in and 'encourage' us to enlist in the Royal navy." Owen's smile was bitter.

"'Tis a crime to resist," Martin had warned. "Keep yer eyes open and pray to escape."

Now cognizant, Declan daily found a seat facing the dreary prospect of Dublin as he ate the remnants of the previous day's meals that Mrs. Murphy wrapped for him. "Have any of you been to London?" he asked his fellow crew members one day.

"I have," a man said.

"What's it like?"

"Like Dublin, but even worse, being filled with Englishmen."

There were several chuckles.

"How would one go about finding someone there if ye only had a name?"

"Who are ye looking to find?"

"Oh, a distant relation. Are there city directories and such?"

The man shrugged. "I expect so."

"Are ye meaning to go to London?" Owen asked him later after work. Sharing lodgings with ten other lads at a boarding house near the Murphys' tavern, Owen and Martin oft walked with Declan from the docks in the evening. They were Dublin lads from the City Quay neighborhood, a few years older than himself.

"Sure, I'm taking a holiday and mean to pay a visit to King George," he jested. His eyes followed a red-haired lass walking in front of them till she turned, and he saw 'twas not Aoife.

"Ye fancy a carrot pate, do ye?" Martin teased, nudging him.

Declan glanced quickly at him, then shrugged.

"I like a redhead meself...or brown hair...or golden." Martin eyed a young woman walking towards them, then sharply inhaled, shaking his arms out. "Christ, I need a shag something fierce, so I do!" he announced. "Let's find ourselves some tail."

"Aye," Owen agreed, grinning and taking the lead into an alley.

Declan shook his head and started to speak, but Martin interjected. "Don't worry if yer short on coin --- we'll find some three penny uprights. 'Tis all we usually can afford ourselves."

To Declan's puzzled expression, Owen chuckled, "Ye must be a country lad."

"'Twill be fine --- we'll find ye a redhead," Martin promised.

Before he could extricate himself, the trio turned into an even narrower alley and at once happened upon a pair of wagtails engrossed in conversation with each other. The lasses turned towards the potential customers. They were young, but their thin, plain faces looked the worse for wear under their lip and cheek paint. Martin waved towards one, "See, a redhead. You can go after me if ye don't mind a buttered bun."

Declan noticed further down in the shadowed alley a couple fucking up against the side of a building as Owen and Martin dug in their pockets for coins. Immediately upon receiving payment, the two lasses backed up against the adjacent building, a couple of yards apart, and without ceremony hoisted their dingy skirts whilst the lads stepped before them, unbuttoned, and prepared to ride.

Declan turned away, saying, "I'll see ye lads on the morrow." Walking back to the tavern --- fully enlightened as to the meaning of the term 'three penny uprights' --- he was morose at the bleak truth of life in the slums: the intimacies of sexual congress --- that magical, transporting diversion of his daydreams --- reduced to a shameless, grunting transaction on the streets for anyone to see.

By necessity, Declan could not dwell upon this sad vision, and continued to work steadfastly towards his purpose. Quickly he accustomed himself to the new routine, working at the docks during the day and in the tavern at night.

For the first couple of weeks after arriving in Dublin, he scanned the Murphys' daily newspaper for any tidings on Burrows' and Fitzgibbons' deaths, but he found no news of Kilmaedan town.

He met the other inhabitants of the Murphy house. The Murphys occupied the second floor along with Sophie, Kate, and Mr. Murphy's elderly uncle, a frail, nigh deaf man whom Declan saw only at meals in the kitchen. Soon he learnt that the two barmaids had a like agreement of bed and board in exchange for work, and he readily perceived the advantages of the arrangement for the tavern. Indeed, the lasses were clearly quite popular among the patrons.

But they were more than pretty gigglemugs to lure in the custom --- during the day they also served as housemaids, assisting Mrs. Murphy with cooking and cleaning, for the establishment was also a boarding house, with the third floor occupied by a dozen lodgers, three men per room. Among their ranks were clerks who worked at the Custom House, foremen and clerks at shipyards, and various understrappers for warehouses, the harbor maintenance fleet, and the harbor master --- all men whose slightly elevated occupations allowed them to share a small room with no more than two others.

He took particular note of one of the lodger's jobs, that of Mr. O'Toole who was a typesetter at a printing press. Declan took this as a sign to bolster his resolve in avenging the Muldowney family.

The men were all agreeable enough chaps --- the more garrulous among them discussing the news of the day with Mr. Murphy over meals as Mr. O'Toole read from a newspaper.

From the chatter of Sophie and Kate, Declan soon learnt a bit more of the Murphys' circumstances. The lot of them --- the Murphys and the two lasses, were Dubliners. The Murphys had twin sons, one of whom had been executed for his role in a violent street riot several years ago, the other of whom had been transported to Van Diemen's Land. They also had two grown daughters who were both married and living in Dublin.

The lad whose vacated position at the tavern Declan had taken had been named Daniel. He had lodged elsewhere, and his reporting to the tavern for work had recently grown unreliable --- culminating at last with his announcement of his intent to join the Militia. This had transpired the day before Declan arrived in Dublin.

*****

Over the course of his first week or so at the Murphys' tavern, Declan soon noticed that the maids Sophie and Kate seemed to delight in making sport of him...mimicking his accent, teasing him that he had used the wrong mug for a particular libation, brushing their skirts against his leg when he was seated at the kitchen table. His initial assumption was that they were mocking him for being what they considered a country nick-ninny.

Even when they began leaning over the bar on their elbows to tell him drink orders, thereby granting him a nigh unrestricted view of the jiggling hillocks of their bubbies, he ascribed it to an accident of their gowns or merely further teasing of a lad they took to be a virgin. With the passing days, their coy looks from under long lashes and helpless requests for his aid retrieving items from high shelves gradually raised the possibility in his mind that they were flirting with him.