Free A Girl Called Eilinora by Nadine Dorries Page B

their flocks died before their eyes, and then they too, fell.
    Owen had arrived from England to find his estate barely surviving in the midst of a disaster.
    This morning he persuaded a hesitant Shevlin, a cautious man from the mountains, to set out at first light. ‘I cannot write a report for the Crown and Government if I haven’t seen what is happening with my own eyes, Shevlin. We can do it in a day if we set out early.’
    Shevlin reluctantly agreed. It was not a journey he either wanted to or thought they should make.
    Although the Ballyford houses remained occupied and fires still burnt with stock-piles of the turf they had gathered and stored over the years, Owen couldn’t help wondering if enough had been done in his absence to help his tenants. The cottages appeared unkempt and the people malnourished. Even though he had not collected rent and had provided bread, it had clearly been almost impossible for his tenants to keep body and soul together.
    The further away from the estate they rode, the worse the desolation. They rode past people so thin that they were little more than walking dead. Men who would normally have raised their hands in greeting, now stepped out into the road to grab at his foot as he went past. Shevlin had insisted they take the dogs, in case they were set upon. To Owen this seemed unbelievable in a country where women always came out of their cottages to hand him food and drink to sustain him on his journey. He knew most of them by name. Only Shevlin was aware that many of the women who had greeted him with oatcakes and water, were dead.
    Fortunately, few babies had been born during the famine. Women who weighed little more than children themselves would have been unable to nurse an infant and in her mercy, Mother Nature spared them.
    *
    Owen had become impatient waiting for Shevlin to tell him what it was they had found on the road. He loosened the reins and kicked Aghy on so he could take a closer look at the bundle. The smell that wafted across from the fields made him want to vomit onto the road. He pulled up his scarf with one hand and tightened the cravat across his mouth.
    ‘Stay there, I’m coming to look for myself,’ he shouted in a voice muffled by the scarf. When he had reached Shevlin, he added, ‘Here, take the reins, I’m going to take a closer look, the horse has the devil in him today, be careful.’
    ‘There is nothing to see, we’re wasting our time. Look at that rain coming our way,’ said Shevlin.
    Owen could have sworn he saw a movement from the shape on the verge. Now he was sure he heard a groan. Bending down, he pulled away the rags to reveal the face of a young woman. The skin clung to her cheekbones. She could have been sixty, but vestiges of youth and beauty remained evident beneath her tallow skin. Owen had quickly become used to boys much younger than himself, who now looked like old men.
    This girl was barely alive. Owen lifted his head and studied the small cottage set back from the road.
    ‘Is this where she is from?’ he asked Shevlin.
    Shevlin shook his head slowly in response but gave no reply.
    ‘I’m going in to take a look,’ Owen said as he sprung to his feet.
    ‘Are you mad? It’s dark in there.’ Shevlin looked alarmed. ‘The shutters are closed. She could have the fever, it could be inside the cottage waiting for us. They say it’s in the air and you can only be free of it during the daylight. They say it lives in the dark and the night air. You’d be putting yourself and all of us in danger.’
    Ignoring him, Owen pushed the wooden door further open and looked inside. He could see four people, maybe more. They were dead, lying on pallets made of straw. One, who had obviously gone first, had shining white bones escaping through the papery, rotting skin. Others, in a lesser state of decay, had departed since. The cottage was filled with a swarm of midges, feeding off the fleshy leftovers of death.
    Owen heard the horses’ hooves