The Fourth Life of Sean Donoghue by Trish Hanan (children's books read aloud .txt) 📕

comes,” he informed him and Ben nodded.
Sean headed into Jamestown two days before the delegation from the Ridge left; he wanted to meet with the committee before hand. They were meeting in the bookshop this time but switched meeting places regularly so that the Hamish who had been hearing rumors of meetings and conversations couldn’t spy on them.
“Gentlemen, I have very good news,” Sean said as he entered the room. The six looked up at him as he placed a very large leather pack on the floor.
“What is that?” John asked. Sean grinned at him.
“This is a hundred thousand gilder donation from our friend King Thunder Cloud whose only request for the committee is that you put Indian rights on the bill that you draft up to give to the Hamish when the time is right to demand your rights,” he explained. Walter gasped.
“There are one hundred thousand gilders in that pack and you’ve been carrying it around Jamestown by yourself. Are you mad?” he exclaimed. Sean patted his trusted rifle.
“I am armed, Wally, with my rifle and my Chervek sword, no one’s going to bother me,” he said with a grin and they all looked at him and nodded. There was something about the deadly gleam in those dark, green eyes that made men back off.
“Well, let’s get down to business, we have a lot to talk about today,” Henry said crisply and they all sat down at the conference desk to give their reports. Sean noticed that Neil’s hands shook a bit when he lifted his coffee cup to his lips and put it down to excitement or nerves.
“There was a memo on Major Stanley’s desk this week about a man with wagons of rifles running around Pembroke selling them for twenty gilders each,” Thomas the security man read. Everyone laughed. “The army has been called out and every wagon on the road is being searched. I’d be real careful if I were you, Sean.” Everyone looked at him. Sean shrugged.
“I’m finished selling rifles, don’t worry, I’ve still got two thousand left but selling them by wagon was a one time thing and risky, I wouldn’t risk doing it twice, the Hamish are stupid but not that stupid,” he said. They all nodded. Thomas continued.
“There was another memo on Stanley’s desk about an informant warning him about a big important meeting that was happening in Jamestown this week,” he read from his paper. Then he looked up “The Major will stop at nothing to find out where the meeting is and what it’s about gentlemen so we had better be really careful about meeting the delegates at the assigned places and getting them safely to the Church without raising any suspicion.” Henry started to say something but Neil interrupted.
“The Hamish have my son and if I don’t tell them where the meeting is they’re going to hang him and his friend Robbie for smuggling,” he blurted out and tears began to run down his face. The six men were shocked.
“My God, man, when did this happen?” Walter asked.
“What do they know about you?” John asked. Neil wiped his face.
“Don’t worry, they don’t know I’m part of this committee, I’m sure about that, its just the Hamish being typically Hamish and threatening me and the boy’s father with the same thing,” he explained. And then went on to tell the story of how his son Vaughn and his friend Robby had gotten the bright idea of going to Andalusia and buying fifty coffeemakers and a couple of barrels of coffee to sell to their friends at school. It was a dare thing really, just a harmless prank, they didn’t mean to make any coin off of the deal. All the college kids had put their coins together and the two boys had rented a wagon and gone over the border, bought the coffeemakers and come back. Only they had gotten caught and now the Hamish was going to make an example of them.
“They’re only nineteen years old, for God’s sake, it’s not like their common criminals, they’re college students,” Neil snapped and the others agreed it was unfair.
“This is exactly the thing we’re fighting against,” Henry said, slamming his fist down on the table.
“Its not going to be soon enough to help my son,” Neil said and choked back a sob. Sean leaned over and patted his hand.
“Which barrack are they holding them at?” he asked him calmly. The men looked at him with surprise. Sean shrugged.
“The Anamylian Army is about to attack the Hamish,” he said with a grin. They all smiled.
Later that night, about midnight, a drunken man was standing in front of Station Number Eight singing at the top of his lungs, holding a gallon bottle of whiskey and pissing in the street. Two soldiers were sent out to tell him to go home. He didn’t want to go home and took a swing, hitting one of them in the head with the bottle and causing injury. They arrested him on the spot and herded him into the jail.
“Sleep it off, Grandfather,” one of the soldiers spat and they threw the white haired old man into the cell. The soldier that he had hit walked in and kicked him in the ass.
“Hit me in the head with a bottle, you drunk old fool,” he snapped and they walked out laughed. Sean sat up and rubbed his bum.
“That hurt, you stupid Hamish bastard,” he said and stood up. The four men in the cell with him stared at him with amazement.
“Hey, you’re not drunk,” one of them accused. Sean looked at him and grinned.
“Fancy that,” he retorted. He looked at the other men. None of them looked young enough but he asked anyway. “Any of you lads Vaughn Farnesworth or Robbie Benson?” he asked. They all shook their heads. One of them pointed to the cell opposite them.
“I think one of them over there is named Robbie, he cries a lot,” he told Sean. Then he whispered loudly. “The Major likes him, if you know what I mean,” and he winked. Sean was appalled.
“Does this Major have a name?” he asked calmly, after all, one should know the name of the person you were going to kill before you killed them.
“Major Bronson,” another man spat.
Sean walked over to the bars and of course they were cheap cast-iron. A normal man wouldn’t have been able to bend them but he had no trouble. The men looked at him and whistled. He shushed them.
“You don’t want them coming down here now do you?” he whispered. They sat back down and were quiet. A soldier came to the top of the stairs.
“Settle down there, you don’t want me coming down there and throwing cold water on you, do you?” he yelled. The men were quiet. Sean walked over the next cell and bent the bars. The men in that cell were impressed also. Sean walked over to where two men were huddled together in the corner. One looked at him with wonder.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“Are you Vaughn Farnesworth?” Sean asked softly. The young man nodded.
“I’m Sean Donoghue and I’m a friend of your father’s and he asked me to come and see if I could get you two out of here, he doesn’t much like the thought of you hanging and I don’t either,” he explained. A man on the bench laughed.
“I don’t want to hang either, can I come with you?” he asked. Sean nodded.
“You can all come if you’re quiet but once we get outside you’re on your own,” he told them. Everyone nodded. After that it was easy. Sean just bended the bars on the small window and they lifted one another and crawled out. The Hamish was so secure in their bars that they didn’t have a guard outside. The men all made for a nearby alley and so did Sean and the two boys. Kent was waiting with horses and they rode for the outskirts of Jamestown where the others waited. Vaughn and Robbie got to hug their fathers before Lonnie and Todd took them to the Ridge where they would be safe.
“Thank you, General Donoghue,” Neil said and they all laughed with relief. Sean grinned.
“The Hamish need to build better prisons but I say let them build them in Hamish where they belong,” he spoke firmly. Henry patted his back.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he declared.
The first meeting of the Congress of the Republic of Anamylia was held in an abandoned Church on the northwestern edge of Jamestown and attended by a hundred and ten delegates from the six Territories. Even Andalusia was represented as they felt strongly that the Hamish noose was strangling the life out of the people of Anamylia. Mike and Ben were amazed to see that Sean was one of the seven men running the show.
“The mustache does make him look older,” Ben remarked as they watched Sean take his seat on the stage. Mike nodded.
Henry began the meeting with a passionate speech that fired everyone up. Then John spoke about human dignity and the injustice of slavery. Walter gave a report on finances and the gift of the Malweenah people to the New Republic. That shocked everyone and made more than a few people smile. Thomas talked about Hamish police actions and long prison sentences for light crimes, the cutting off of hands for stealing and hanging people at a whim. That fired people up again.
Neil talked about his son and Robbie being raped in jail and this outraged everyone. Then he talked about freedom of the press and how the Hamish wanted to silence and censor the Chronicle. That continued to fuel the fire.
Kent got up and talked about freedom of religion and women’s rights to choose the husband of their choice and not being forced to marry who their fathers choose for them. It was unfair to make a young girl marry an old man just because her father wanted her too. Men in the audience seemed split on that issue but they seemed to think that people should be free to worship God in whatever Church they wanted. Then it was Sean’s turn. Henry introduced him as General Sean Donoghue.
“Before I tell you gentlemen anything I have a little demonstration for you, please let us set outside for a moment,” he said and they all got up and followed his men who were standing at the door and directing them to the field out back. Henry and the others hid their grins when they saw the two cannons. The lads had shined them up real good and they gleamed in the sunlight. They were both pointed at the old minister’s house behind the Church. Sean walked over to his men and they saluted him, they all wore black jackets just like his.
“Fire cannon one,” Sean shouted. Young Sean lit the fuse.
“Firing cannon one,” he shouted. They stepped back and the cannon exploded. The men watching flinched and gasped with shock as the cannonball hit the house and demolished half of it.
“Fire cannon two,” Sean shouted. Todd lit the fuse.
“Firing cannon two,” he shouted. The men stepped back and the second cannon exploded. The rest