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

like to be a bird. Ryan insisted on bringing Chris along, he carried him everywhere, he couldn’t part with him, but Sean let him, he knew how hard it was to lose someone after so long and promised if the ship went down, he would grab the jar and rescue Chris along with them.
As soon as they landed in Tibor and unloaded the ship, Captain Gaston turned around and sailed directly to Bismol. Sean and the two brothers headed directly to the Giovanni factory. The brothers didn’t even want to speak with him until he put an emerald in an envelope and handed it to the secretary.
“Give this to Mr. Giovanni and tell him that Sean Donoghue would like to speak to him whenever he has the chance,” Sean said and took a seat. The secretary sighed and with a pout, he turned around and walked into the office. Ryan and Danny sat next to Sean and smiled.
A few minutes later the secretary came out of the office and glared at Sean.
“Mr. Giovanni will see you now,” he said very politely and escorted the three men into the office. Two tall, slender gentlemen were sitting in the office, one behind a desk and one on the side of it. The one on the side stood up and started to introduce himself. Sean held up his hand.
“I really think things would be better if we didn’t share our names,” he suggested calmly. Both sets of brothers looked confused. The Giovannis recovered first.
“That would be fine, Mister whatever your name is, you sent a rather intriguing note,” the one behind the desk said and poured the emerald out of the envelope onto the desk. Both brothers looked at it with lust in their eyes. It was then Sean knew he had them in the palm of his hands. Sean nodded.
“I heard through a friend that you gentlemen had an interest in Topangan emeralds and what a coincidence, I happen to have quite a few Topangan emeralds looking for a new home,” he informed them. They both licked their lips.
“What are you looking for in exchange for those emeralds?” the taller man asked.
“I have heard a rumor that you have five thousand rifles in your warehouse ready to be delivered to His Majesty King William the fifth of Hamish. It would be a pity if perhaps tonight at midnight, say, your guards on the warehouse were called to the factory for an important meeting and other guards replaced them. And the guards that replaced them mysteriously vanished overnight with the rifles, that would be a pity wouldn’t it and of course not your fault,” he explained in a soft voice and then tossed a leather pouch onto the desk top.
Both Giovannis who had begun to frown at his story now eagerly opened the pouch. Thirty nine brilliant emeralds sparkled onto the desk top. They began to count them and Sean could have sworn he saw drool.
“How many are you willing to part with for the rifles?” the short fat one asked. Sean shrugged.
“Take as many as you wish, I have plenty,” he told them. They looked at one another and began splitting them up. Danny and Ryan watched them with amazement as they carefully examined each stone and put them into little piles. Finally the tall one sighed.
“We can’t decide; can we have them all?” he asked with a sly grin. Sean thought about it.
“Will you throw in gunpowder and extra bullets, presses and shell cases?” he asked. They both quickly nodded. Sean nodded. The tall one shook his hand.
“We’ll have everything delivered to the warehouse right away. Have your men in uniforms with swords so they look authentic, it won’t be our fault if they screw it up and you get caught,” he informed him and Sean nodded. They turned around and started to walk out. Sean paused at door.
“Tell your men to expect Mr. Benson, and in case you gentlemen decide to cross me remember, I have over two thousand emeralds and I plan to come back often so this can be the beginning of a long friendship or the end of your very short lives,” he said with a gleam in his dark, green eyes that made them both very nervous. They both nodded and look at one another when he left.
“Did he say he had two thousand emeralds? Maurice Giovanni asked his brother Tyrone who nodded.
“Well, he has forty less now,” he remarked and he looked at his twenty and wondered how he was going to hide them from his wife and mistress.
The left the factory and went to a uniform shop and bought fifty all black uniforms. Then they went back to the ship and put fifty sailors in them. Not everyone had black boots so they put black polish on the ones that didn’t and pulled everyone’s hair back into ponytails with black string
When they got to Giovanni’s warehouse, it was a very large one and the men on guard duty didn’t like the fact that they were being pulled off and replaced by strangers. They stared at Sean and his men with suspicion.
“There’s something fishy about this whole thing if you ask me, Mr. Benson,” the head guard Captain Giles told him and stuck his finger in Sean’s chest. Sean just shrugged.
“You’ve got your orders from Mr. Giovanni himself, Captain Giles, please take your men and leave,” he ordered him in a firm tone and the man had no choice but to go. Sean posted lookouts and in no time at all had wagons loaded up and heading for the docks and the Mermaid. Luckily the warehouse was close to the docks so it didn’t take long to unload it. By four in the morning it was emptied and the sailors were aboard the ship and she was heading back to Tibor.
“A very clever plan and well executed, Sean,” Pierre congratulated him and patted him on the back.
“I couldn’t have done it without your men, they were very handed fellows,” Sean insisted on giving praise where it was warranted.
“You paid them nicely for their efforts,” Pierre continued and Ryan and Danny laughed.
“Will you two gentlemen quit, you’re going to make us lose our dinner, you’re so sweet patting one another on the back,” Ryan teased them. Now it was Sean and Pierre’s turn to laugh.
“Okay, okay, we’re just in a good mood, it’s not every day you get to steal the five thousand rifles you’ve just over-paid for,” Sean informed them and now everyone laughed.
When they reached Tibor the three Ridge men went shopping some more. They figured they might as well rent the Mermaid and fill her entire hold with provisions, since they had half the hold filled with rifles. They might as well make the trip count. So they went shopping for coffee, tea, cloth, spices and Sean found a new invention called the sewing machine that was a complete marvel.
“My goodness, what will these clever Ennish think up next?” Ryan exclaimed as he watched a woman demonstrate sewing on the little machine. It had a floor pedal that she stepped on with her foot that caused the arm of the machine to move up and down causing the needle to move and a thing called a shuttle that moved the material and ran it through and it actually sewed just like a person, only faster. The man who had designed it showed them how it ran on two threads, one on a spool on top and one in a thing called a bobbin that was underneath the shuttle. It was amazing.
“How many of these sewing machines do you have that I can buy?” Sean asked him. The man shrugged.
“I have five hundred in my warehouse but I can only sell you fifty, that’s all I’m selling at a time to one person,” he said pompously. Sean put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Let’s go into your office and talk about this for a minute, lad,” he said and winked at his two companions. Danny and Ryan looked at one another and grinned. In the office the man took one look at the Topangan emeralds and gasped. Danny and Ryan looked at one another and grinned some more. Later that afternoon Sean loaded five hundred sewing machines aboard the Mermaid.
“Ah, Granddad, I do love it when you take those beauties out and wave them in front of people’s faces,” Danny told his Granddad. Sean put his arm around him and hugged him.
“Ah, lad, greed can be a handy thing can’t it,” he said and they laughed.
With the sewing machines the hold was packed and the ship ready to leave. They loaded on the last of the supplies and passengers and set sail for Anamylia. The Ridge men were ready to go home. It had been an exciting journey but they were ready to return to O’Brien’s Ridge and their families. Danny had a lot of stories to tell his grandchildren.
“Provided of course that we don’t get sunk by a whale and we get there,” he said with a twinkle in his dark, green eyes. Ryan slapped his arm.
“Don’t you be putting a curse on this ship,” he told him. “I’ll throw you overboard to the sharks, old man.” Sean laughed at them.
“You can tell you two are brothers the way you fuss at one another,” he teased them. They both turned to glare at him. He laughed again and took them on deck to watch the shoreline disappear.
The return trip was pretty much like the trip to Ennis. Danny got bored very quickly.
“I don’t see the excitement in being a sailor, every day is the same as the day before it,” he complained as they walked on deck. Sean grinned.
“So is farming, you plant, then you weed and water and then you harvest,” he informed him. “Then the next year you do it all over again.” Danny grinned.
“But at least on the Ridge, there’s more to look at and do, you can go hunting or fishing, or up to Jefferies for a cold beer or walking in the forest,” he said. Then he looked around him and frowned. “Here there’s nothing to look at but the damned ocean, nothing but blue skies and blue water, it’s boring.” A sailor walking past heard him and stopped to grin.
“Yeah, ain’t it beautiful, the sky and the water, so blue today, it’s going to be clear sailing today, not a cloud in the sky and the winds nice and crisp. We’re going to make good time today, yes Sir, it’s going to be a real beautiful day today,” he chortled and laughing kept walking. Sean laughed and put his arm around his grandson.
“See, it’s just what you like that counts,” he said. “You like living on the Ridge and farming and that sailor loves being on this ship and sailing.” Ryan grinned and nodded. Danny shrugged.
“I guess it takes all kinds of people to make the world what it is,” he said and nodded.
Instead of landing at Jamestown or Portsmyth where the Hamish would board the ship and demand their unjust taxes, Captain Gaston anchored near the mouth of the Champion River and Sean and the sailors took the goods up the river to his caves in long