The First Paragraph

Henry Clarke and James Sheridan stood on the deck of the good ship Belfast on May Day of 1771, watching the coast of Ireland recede over the horizon. Henry was four and twenty years of age, and James two years his senior. At six foot tall, Henry, or Harry as he was called at home, was considered a stout and brawny man, which appearance belied his bookish nature, for his love of reading had set him down a path of education upon which few of his peers had tread. While Jamie was by no means unschooled, he preferred to work with his hands, and his six foot three inch frame gave him the advantage over Harry in all things physical or athletic. Harry and Jamie had been raised together on a prosperous farm in the region of northeastern Ireland known as Ulster Plantation. Their fathers had grown up together, as had their fathers before them, within the rarified intimacy of master and servant, each devoted to the other and largely oblivious to the rigorous constraints of their respective social status, or in the case of the Sheridans, the lack thereof. Each generation of Clarkes and Sheridans had worked the Clarke lands side by side, sharing in privations and abundance alike. Harry and Jamie had grown up constant companions to each other in all things: play, chores, and school. Each well knew the value of hard physical labor, but Harry had determined from a young age to attend school as often as the seasonal demands of farm life had allowed. It was Harry's love of learning which separated them. While Jamie remained behind, Harry was sent to high school in the nearby city of Newry, at the age of fifteen where he remained until he completed the course of study, at age nineteen. Then his father put him to the study of medicine, which course was completed by the time he reached his present age.