Toward the Sea of Freedom Read Online Free PDF

marry, Michael. Even if it doesn’t suit my father. If there’s no other way, then Father O’Brien will have a word with him. Or don’t you want to marry me, Michael?” Kathleen choked out her last sentence.
    Remorsefully, he came back to her and took her in his arms with his accustomed tenderness. “For heaven’s sake, Kathleen, of course I want to marry you! I want nothing more. And I want the baby. It’s just, it’s just, so soon.” Michael sighed, then squared himself. “Listen, Kathleen, give me two or three weeks, aye? You take good care of yourself, and by then, I’ll arrange something. I’ll get the money for America, Kathleen. I don’t want to approach the cross here on hands and knees and be dragged in front of the priest, like a poor sinner. I don’t want them talking about you—not yet anyway. Later, of course, when we send them money from America or visit them with you wearing silk dresses and a velvet hat.” He laughed. “Yes, I’d like that. We’ll ride in a coach with two horses through this impoverished backwater and laugh down at Trevallion, or we’ll buy the whole wheat harvest off his damned lord and give it to the people.”
    Kathleen could not help but laugh along with him. “Oh, that would suit you fine, Michael Drury. You’re a show-off. But it’ll be enough for me if old O’Rearke drives us to church in his donkey cart and I come out as Mrs. Drury.”
    Michael kissed her. “I can’t promise you this particular church or donkey, dearest. But we’ll find a church where we can join in union with pride and dignity.” He straightened his posture, seeming to grow several inches.
    “I, Michael Drury, am going to be a father. An exalted feeling. And I already know it will be a son. A handsome boy with my hair and your eyes.” His own eyes now shone as joyfully as Kathleen had hoped they would when she sensed she was pregnant.
    “And if it is a girl? You won’t like your child at all then?”
    Michael spun her around, laughing. “If it’s a girl, we’ll have to become rich even faster. So we can build a tower to lock her in. For a daughter of yours will be so lovely that a glance at her will lame a man and make him her slave.”
    Hand in hand, they walked across the fields along the river, dreaming of their new life. Kathleen did not want to think about how Michael would raise the money for the journey and wedding. She only knew she trusted him. She wanted to—had to—trust him.

Chapter 3
    In the middle of December, when the water of the Vartry River had frozen at the banks and the famine in Ireland was at its peak, three sacks of barley and rye disappeared from Trevallion’s barn. The grain for Lord Wetherby’s horses was kept there. He owned three powerful hunting horses that needed to eat more than the mules and donkeys did.
    Ralph Trevallion did not notice the theft at first—only when the animals’ feed sack was empty did he go into the barn to retrieve fresh supplies and take stock. Then, however, his rage knew no bounds. The steward galloped into the village, upbraiding the tenants. Enthroned on the back of the largest hunting horse, he glared down upon the men and women.
    “I will not rest until I’ve found the thief!” he spat. “That man will be driven from house and home, and his no-good family with him. And you all’ll help me! Aye, don’t look at me like that; you’ll do as I say. I’ll be accepting information starting today, and you have a week to deliver the thief to me. If you don’t find him, you’ll all go. Don’t even think I couldn’t answer for it to His Lordship. A pack the likes of you roams the streets by the dozen. With a flick of the wrist, I could fill the houses again—and just with men, you hear. No families whose brats we also have to feed.”
    Everyone looked at the ground, afraid. Trevallion was right. Lord Wetherby did not care who worked his fields. The streets of Wicklow were full of men fleeing the famine. Their