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

hill next to Sean’s.
The Ennish retaliated the following year with the crystal powered ship that could make the journey across the ocean in three short months and suddenly sailing ships were a thing of the past and big steel ships were common place.
The Cherveks, not wanting to be left out of the transportation race developed the train, a big steel car with seats that held many people at one time and ran on steel tracks. It would transport people and goods long distances from town to town and the transportation race was on. Every country trying to out-do the next. The poor Hamish couldn’t keep up; all they could do was mine the purple crystals necessary to run the machines everyone else was inventing.


Meanwhile back in the little town of Sweetwater in Hamish the peasants were not happy. The Count, another Sir William Marley, a demented bastard was starving them as usual. There were potatoes, squash and cabbage in the fields but they all knew he was planning on selling most of them after he took enough to feed his family and his soldiers for the winter and it just wasn’t fair. There were over two thousand peasants in the village and not enough food in the swamps and forest to feed them all. And to add to their misery, poor little Jimmy Murphy, only nine years old had been caught stealing green leaves from the Count’s precious Peanja trees because his poor mother was sick.
They all gathered in the Village Square the next afternoon when the Count’s men dragged poor little Jimmy out and the wagon with the blood-stained stone was wheeled out. An angry murmur rose through the crowd, more than one man carried his small but very sharp axe. The Count and his family sat on their raised dais and looked at the peasants and grinned, although his wife appeared to be bored by the whole affair. A woman in the crowd noticed this.
“Lady Gloria looks bored doesn’t she?” she whispered to her friend who nodded.
“She was going to be fitted for a new dress today to wear to the Humphrey’s ball, she’s probably trying to decide what color it will be,” the friend sneered and everyone who heard it hated the Lady.
“Look at little Richard, the bastard is smiling because poor Jimmy is going to lose his hand,” a man muttered and they all got angry.
“Stealing leaves shouldn’t be a crime, there’s millions of leaves, the Count’s doing it just because he likes to,” someone else shouted. And they all got even angrier.
“He’ll cut off my son’s hand over my dead body,” Sean Murphy spat and clutched his axe in his hand. His friend Ryan Murray stood beside him.
“I’ll be with you, Sean,” he declared and several men behind them nodded. They were sick of it. It was one thing to cut off a man’s hand, but to cut the hand off of a nine-year old lad, that was too far. The Count stood up and began his speech. Sean interrupted him.
“When are you going to start giving us food to eat, Count Marley?” he shouted. The Count frowned. What did that have to do with stealing and cutting off hands? The crowd murmured.
“Why should I give you food, you can grow your own food,” he yelled at them. This seemed to make them angry.
“When can we do this when you’ve got us working fourteen hours a day in your fields?” another man shouted. The Count shrugged.
“I don’t really care when you do it, your time is your own,” he told them and they all gasped with shock.
“We have no time you cruel bastard you work us to death and now you’re starving us to death, have you no mercy?” a different man came forward and shouted. Lady Gloria laughed and they all turned to glare at her. She frowned and looked at her nails. The Count laughed.
“Why is it every time you’re sick or starving, it’s my fault? Can’t you people take any responsibility for yourselves?” he sneered at them. Sean stepped forward.
“Because it is your fault, you sick fuck,” he yelled at him. “You’re the one who works us to death, who denies us green leaves when we get sick and sells us crap in your store. You’re the cause of all the misery in this village. Sweetwater would be a really nice place to live if it weren’t for you and your whole demented family,” he declared. The Count laughed.
“Sweetwater is my town and don’t you forget it. You’re all my peasants and I can do with you what I will,” he snapped. Then he turned to his soldiers. “Take that one’s hand for stealing my precious leaves and take his father’s tongue for calling me a sick fuck,” he ordered. Then he turned around and faced the crowd.
“You’ll all learn a lesson from this, I’ll get you respect or you’ll lose your tongues,” Count Marley said, quite pleased with himself.
But as the soldiers approached Sean Murphy they were surprised to find the man didn’t yell or scream or try to run away like they expected him to. And his friends next to him didn’t back up either. When the soldiers were close enough, the men rushed them and before they knew it the four soldiers were dead, killed by the small axes the men were allowed to carry. Sean grabbed a sword from one of the soldiers and raced to the wagon.
“Get away from my son, you bastard!” he yelled and surprised the soldier did just that. The crowd rushed forward and the dais was overrun with them. They chopped the Count, his bored wife, the odious Richard and two daughters to pieces as well as the soldiers who didn’t have the sense to run away. The overseer Jeffrey locked himself in the castle with the house servants and they left him alone. Instead they turned to the fields and took every potato, squash and cabbage and kept it for themselves.
When the oldest son Henry who was called Harry returned from Lennox two weeks later, everyone had calmed down. Jeffrey told him his parents and siblings had left for the city and the boy who was seventeen and in college seemed relieved.
“That’s good, my father does yell a lot doesn’t he and things seem pretty quiet when he’s gone. Not that I don’t love him but I do like the quiet,” Harry said with a big sigh and took a book into the living room to read. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
A week later it was time to reorder merchandise for the Count’s store and since the Count hadn’t returned from the city yet, the chore was left up to Sir Harry. He took one look at the cheap prices and gasped.
“Surely this can’t be right for coffee, Jeffrey, I bought coffee in Lennox and it costs more than this,” he informed the bailiff with a frown. Jeffrey nodded.
“Your father gets really cheap coffee for the village, Sire, it usually comes with bugs in it,” he explained and Harry made a face.
“Maybe we should get better coffee this time and not tell Father,” Harry suggested. “Maybe he won’t even notice.” He looked at Jeffrey with hope in his eyes. Jeffrey could have told him that if the Count had been alive, he would have surely noticed, he noticed everything. But since he was dead, well, he couldn’t notice anything, anymore.
“I don’t’ think he’ll notice if we get better coffee or tea, My Lord,” he told the young man who grinned.
The villagers were quite pleased when the new coffee and tea came and there were no bugs in it and it was quite good. Jeffrey told them about Count Harry ordering the good stuff for them.
“He’s not a bit like his father is he?” someone commented and they all agreed.
The next week Harry had another suggested.
“Jeffrey,” he called the bailiff in.
“Yes, My Lord,” he said and bowed which caused Harry to laugh.
“I guess since my Father is away I am the Count but it seems funny to here you call me that,” he teased him. Jeffrey smiled.
“You wanted something, Sire?” he asked him. Harry nodded.
“Since Father and Mother are still gone and that stupid Richard isn’t here to rat me out, I want you to tell all the villagers to hurry up and run to the grove and pick as many green leaves as they can,” he ordered and grinned. “Hell, pick them all, it’s almost fall and they’ll fall off the trees soon enough.” Jeffrey grinned and practically ran out of the great hall. The people were going to love this one.
And they did, especially little Jimmy Murphy who picked three big bags worth.
“Count Harry is a nice man,” he remarked to his dad who smiled at him high in the tree he had gotten caught in.
Then Harry had another idea and called for Jeffrey.
“I don’t suppose my father will miss a few heads of cattle do you, Jeffrey?” he asked with a sly grin. Jeffrey shook his head.
“I don’t imagine he would, Sire,” he replied.
Twenty head of cattle were driven to the village where they were butchered and the meat divided amongst the people so that they would have enough meat to last the winter. They were also informed that they could hunt deer if they wanted to as the deer population was too many.
“You are a very generous man,” Jeffrey said to Harry at dinner. Harry shrugged.
“I don’t like to see people going hungry,” he told him. “I know my parents don’t care and a lot of people don’t care. I have seen a lot of it in the capital, starving people on the streets, it’s very sad and if something isn’t done about it very soon, there is going to be a tragedy.” Jeffrey nodded.
When the first snows came and his family still hadn’t returned Harry decided that they must have decided to winter in Lennox and he was much relieved.
“Mother does like going to the plays during the winter and there’s all those parties,” he told Jeffrey who nodded. Then Harry added, “There’s no need for the men to shovel the road, I’ve always thought that was silly. Who shovels a road? I don’t want to ride in the cold, I’d much rather stay inside and read.” Jeffrey nodded and went to tell the villagers who were much relieved.
When Argue Fever broke out in January Harry was appalled when the Village Council informed him.
“What can I do to help?” he asked them. They looked surprised at his question.
“A tea made from the bark of the Peanja tree will cure Argue Fever,” Ian Richards told him. Harry nodded and told his Captain to get them some immediately. The Village Council was stunned. Every year the fever struck the village and they came to the castle to beg for bark and every year the Count laughed and refused them. This was the first time they had been successful.
“Thank you so much, Your Grace,” they said and bowed. Harry waved them away.
“If you need anything else, just come back and ask, anything I can do for my people before Father comes back, I will,” he informed them.
“Lucky