Death on the Holy Mountain

12

Dennis Ormonde was delighted to see his pilgrims return. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said, ushering them into his dining room. He was accompanied by a young police inspector from Westport. There was an enormous spread of cold food laid out in front of them. ‘Thought you would be famished after all that climbing,’ he went on, ‘didn’t know what time you’d be back. There’s cold chicken and salmon and a pheasant pie and cold potatoes and all kinds of stuff. And there’s beer and lemonade and wine for the thirsty.’ Johnny Fitzgerald advanced rapidly towards the drinks department and downed a glass of all three in quick succession, beginning with the lemonade and advancing through the beer to the Ormonde Chablis.

‘God, there were a lot of people out there today,’ Ormonde continued. ‘I took a little walk round about ten o’clock. There’s even a pilgrim with a bloody great motor car parked not a hundred yards from my front gates. I saw one of the locals patting the bonnet affectionately and telling his friends: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”’

Through mouthfuls of cold chicken and potato salad Powerscourt outlined his theory about hunting and fishing lodges.

‘By God, that’s clever, Powerscourt. Must be worth the ascent if it puts your brain into that sort of working order. They’d be perfect places to hide people, miles from anywhere, well equipped, bit of fishing if you get bored. Hold on . . .’ He paused for a moment. ‘My grandfather had a list of all the lodges round here, don’t suppose any new ones have been built in the last fifty years. It’s in the library somewhere, I’ll go and fetch it.’

Powerscourt asked the Inspector, whose name was Ronan O’Brien, if there was any further news on the name of the body found at the summit, and was told that there was so much confusion caused by the pilgrimage and the vast numbers of people that normal police work was virtually suspended for the time being.

‘Here we are,’ said Ormonde cheerfully, returning with a map which had a number of lodges marked on it, stretching as far north as Ballina and south into Connemara.

‘Is there a lodge belonging to the Butlers anywhere in that list?’ Powerscourt asked.

‘Not on here,’ said Ormonde, ‘but I believe there is one on the borders of Galway and Mayo, miles from anywhere. Bloody huge, the place is. Why do you ask, Powerscourt?’

‘With your permission, Ormonde, Johnny and I would like to take a look at that one.’

‘Is there something,’ asked Ormonde, staring closely at Powerscourt, ‘that you’re not telling us? Some information you have about the Butlers?’

‘Coming from you, my friend,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I don’t think any charges of holding back information carry much weight, seeing you have not yet shown me the blackmail letter.’

‘Of course you and Johnny can inspect the place. The Inspector here and his men will look after the rest.’

Powerscourt took a long draught of his lemonade. ‘This is, of course, premature,’ he said, pushing his plate back, ‘but I think we should consider exactly what anybody, policeman or ourselves, should do if they find the two Ormonde ladies and their captors. This is especially important for you, Ormonde. It’s your wife and her sister we are talking about here.’

‘I’m not quite sure what you mean.’ Dennis Ormonde looked puzzled.

‘It’ll be like a siege, for a start, and very few sieges end up with no casualties in my experience. Suppose you find signs of life in one of those places, smoke coming out of a chimney, a horse tied up round the back, somebody going in and out of the house. Do you go up and ring the front door bell? I think not. You might be shot or hauled inside to join the hostages. Another one in the bag.’

Dennis Ormonde looked thoughtful.

‘Suppose then’ – Lady Lucy wondered if her husband was about to start ticking off his points in the palm of his hand – ‘you decide on a frontal assault. One person rings the door bell and tries to shoot his way in, another one breaks a window and comes at the thieves the other way. There’s nothing to say they won’t shoot the two ladies the minute they hear the sound of gunfire. You could try launching some kind of attack in the night time but they’re perilous ventures, those night attacks, you can’t see who you’re shooting at and you can’t see the person shooting at you either.’

‘Dear me,’ said Ormonde.

‘Then there’s the problem of messages,’ Powerscourt went on remorselessly, ‘not just the messages we might want to send back, but the messages going into the house. There are three days left as from today until the deadline expires, as you well know, Ormonde. Somebody’s going to want to send messages to the people holding the women. If we’re doing our job properly we can spot the messenger before he arrives and intercept any message. But then how do we deliver it, assuming the real messenger is our prisoner? Or do we send a false message, saying Ormonde has paid up, the mission is accomplished, let the ladies go? And then what? If I were them and that happened, I’d leave the house with the ladies inside, lock every door in the place and take away the key. That would give my escape a head start.’

Dennis Ormonde looked confused. Lady Lucy remembered her own time as a hostage, incarcerated in a suite of rooms on the top floor of a Brighton hotel some years before at the time of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Francis had used a cunning combination of smoke and fire to effect her rescue on that occasion but she did not think he could use that device again.

The policeman had been looking at Ormonde’s map. ‘If I could make a suggestion, gentlemen,’ he began hesitantly, not accustomed to this sort of company, ‘there are two other lodges on the way to the Butler one. It would be a great help if you could look them over on your way.’

‘Of course,’ said Powerscourt.

‘And one more thing, if I may,’ the Inspector went on. ‘I’d like to send a couple of cavalrymen with you. We’ve got a detachment of them just now from the garrison in Castlebar. You may need people to send your own messages and so on.’

‘Thank you, Inspector, that would be most helpful.’

‘Were you involved in sieges in your time in the military, Powerscourt?’ Dennis Ormonde seemed to attach great importance to Powerscourt’s time in uniform.

‘We both were,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘and damned messy things they are too.’

‘Well,’ said Ormonde, refilling Johnny’s glass, ‘you’ll just have to use your discretion. I trust you to bring them back if you find them.’

Later that evening Powerscourt and Lady Lucy took a walk in the garden. Swallows were flying in formation round the terrace. A couple of sailing boats could be seen out in the bay.

‘You will be careful, Francis, promise me,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘I’ll be thinking of you all the time you’re away.’ Lady Lucy had never told her husband about the knot of anxiety that twisted its way round her stomach when he was off on a dangerous mission, a knot that sometimes seemed to her to grow into the size of a tennis ball.

‘Of course I will,’ said Powerscourt, putting his arm around her waist. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ he went on, although he suspected she did worry about him all the time.

‘Tell me, my love, why did you ask if there was a Butler lodge? Do you have suspicions about the people in the Butler house?’

‘It’s a hunch, Lucy, that’s all. Sometimes I think the key to the whole affair is in Butler’s Court, if only I could put my finger on it. But it’s nothing more definite than that. I wish to God it was.’

Early the next morning the four horsemen, not of the Apocalypse but of the rescue mission, set out from Ormonde House. Lady Lucy was there to wave them off. Powerscourt and Fitzgerald both had rifles and binoculars and an enormous supply of the Ormonde House cook’s finest chicken sandwiches along with some cheese and fruit. The two cavalrymen, Jones and Bradshaw from the County of Norfolk, looked as if they were equipped to survive out of doors for days at a time. Just ten minutes after they left Inspector Harkness rode up to the front door of Ormonde House. He left a large envelope addressed to Lord Francis Powerscourt. The rescue party made good time in the bright sunshine along the road to Louisburg, Croagh Patrick behind them looking especially friendly this morning, the sea and the islands on their right. In Louisburg, a miserable-looking place, Powerscourt thought, they turned left and took the road towards Leenane across the mountains. This was desolate country, barren hills all around them, not a single soul to be seen, the only sign of life the occasional sheep that wandered across the road and stared at the four riders as if they had no right to be there. Powerscourt reached into his breast pocket and pulled out grandfather Ormonde’s map.

‘For God’s sake, Francis, will you give the thing here,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, holding out his hand. ‘We want to find the bloody place this year, don’t we? If you’re in charge of the map, we’ll end up going round in circles like these sheep here.’

Powerscourt handed it over. ‘According to this,’ said Johnny doubtfully, ‘there’s a wood with a little river going through it about a mile or so up the road. Inishturk House, the first of these places, is in the middle of that. Quite how we find a wood in this empty space I don’t know, but that’s what the man says.’

On their left now they could see that the ground had been cut open to reveal black sections where turf had recently been cut. Turf, Powerscourt remembered, the free fuel of the poor, used to heat their homes and cook their food, always taking a long time to dry out before it would burn properly. He remembered an aunt of his who had refused to have it in the house on the grounds that it was tainted with Catholicism, only good for the poor Papists of the west, not the respectable Protestants of Dublin who had the sense to burn proper English coal in their fires. After five minutes or so they came upon the wood, a sad affair now, the trees diseased or stunted, battalions of crows nesting in the upper branches. The little river was behind the house, gurgling its way towards the Atlantic. An overgrown path, heavy with brambles, led off to their right.

‘The house must be down there, Francis,’ said Johnny, folding up his map. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I think we stop and listen for a moment or two. If we don’t hear any noises, you and I will go and have a look.’

The two cavalrymen stayed on guard at the entrance. Powerscourt and Fitzgerald tiptoed very slowly down the little track. Their feet seemed to be making a vast amount of noise. The brambles scratched their clothes. After a hundred yards Johnny tapped Powerscourt on the arm. Just visible ahead was the roof of a fairly large house. One or two of the slates seemed to have come off and one of the gutters was hanging down the side of the upper wall. Fifty yards further and the whole thing came into view. Powerscourt could just make out the words Inishturk House on a faded sign to the left of the front door. He made gestures with his hands to indicate that he was going to go round the left of the building and Johnny should take the right. He passed what had once been a tennis court or croquet lawn, a lopsided net full of holes still in place in the centre, but with only one post still standing. All the windows on the ground floor were enclosed by shutters that had once been white and were now a grubby grey. On the floor above there were curtains with holes in them. Towards the back of the house he came across a window that stood clear with no shutters. Spiders had been having a competition on the inside to see who could produce the most webs to stretch across the panes. He rubbed at the glass to get a better view. All he could see was a large dresser, looking in pretty good shape, he thought, and a stove where the cooking surfaces were thick with dust. At the back he met Johnny Fitzgerald, trying to rub the dirt off his hands.

‘What the devil do you think you two are doing, creeping round this house like a couple of burglars!’ An old man with a dog and a shotgun in his hands was addressing them from the front of an outhouse about thirty feet away. Powerscourt and Johnny both reached instantly for their right-hand pockets and then stopped. Was the old man the guard, the sentry for the people holding the hostages? Were they in the stables rather than the house? Was there another building further back where the captives lay?

‘We might ask the same of you,’ said Powerscourt pleasantly. ‘Just what are you doing wandering round the place with a gun in your hands?’

‘I’m no burglar,’ said the old man, ‘not like you two, though quite what you’d find to steal here I don’t know. I’m the caretaker here, they pay me a little to keep an eye on the place.’

‘Well, we work for Dennis Ormonde back at Ormonde House,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’re trying to find his wife. She’s been kidnapped. All the empty houses round here are being inspected.’

‘I heard about the missing wife, and that’s a fact,’ said the old man. ‘Come to think of it now, you don’t look very much like burglars.’

‘Have you seen any strangers about the place,’ asked Johnny, ‘some people with a couple of women in tow?’

The old man spat neatly between his feet. ‘Couple of women, did you say? Single woman would be a bloody miracle round here. Something went wrong with the breeding business in these parts. Males everywhere. Hardly any women. I think it’s the peat in the water myself. One woman would be a bonus. Two would be a gift from God. No, I haven’t seen anything suspicious at all now.’

Powerscourt wondered if he was telling the truth. The party could still be hidden round the back somewhere. ‘We’ll be on our way then, Mr . . .?’ said Powerscourt.

‘O’Connell’s my name. Daniel O’Connell,’ the old man replied. ‘Named after the Liberator, you see.’

‘Splendid, Mr O’Connell,’ said Powerscourt, handing over five shillings as a mark of good faith and loyalty to the memory of the Liberator.

‘Tell me this, Mr O’Connell,’ said Johnny, ‘are there any pubs round here at all?’

‘Pubs? Pubs?’ The old man laughed and spat on the ground once more. ‘There’s no more chance of finding a pub in this district than there is of finding a woman. Less, I should say. You’ll have to go back to Louisburg or further on to Leenane to find a bloody pub and that’s a fact.’ The old man inspected Johnny carefully. ‘I could sell you a bottle of home-made, if you follow me, for a half a crown, so I could.’

Johnny handed over the money. The old man disappeared into his shed and brought back an innocent-looking dark brown bottle that might once have contained beer. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I’ve always found that if you drink enough of the bloody stuff you forget about the women altogether.’

The next house was a couple of miles further down the road. The sun had gone in and dark clouds were coming in from the sea, threatening rain later in the day. They were climbing deeper into the hills, the great empty wastes rolling across on either side of them. Johnny announced that Masons Lodge was just off the road and proposed that they should ride past it and then double back for an inspection. Rain was just beginning to fall as Powerscourt and Fitzgerald set off back down the road with Jones the cavalryman bringing up the rear. Bradshaw was in charge of the horses.

Masons Lodge was in much better repair than the previous one. Every tile was in place on the roof and the pale grey shutters on the ground floor looked as if they had been painted last year. This time Powerscourt and Fitzgerald checked the outbuildings first, stabling for four or five horses, a carriage house, and a large barn half filled with turf. Then they watched the house for ten minutes. Nobody came out to greet them. No old man with a dog and a gun tottered forth from any of the outbuildings. Powerscourt motioned his little band forward. He was trying to think what he would do if he was holding the two women. One person on permanent sentry duty watching the road. Once you see four people go past you go into emergency routine. Close all the shutters. Pull the curtains upstairs. Tell the women they will be shot if they speak a word. Put out the fires if there are any. Was that what had happened here? He checked the rubbish bins. They were empty. You’d need to be really careful to carry your rubbish to some outhouse, he thought. Still he wasn’t sure.

Johnny Fitzgerald had found a window whose latch had not been fastened. He began to draw a venomous-looking instrument from a pocket in his jacket. Powerscourt shook his head. If they were wrong, a hand coming through a window could be a death sentence. Always in his mind’s eye he included Lucy among the captives. He motioned to Johnny to be still for five minutes. They watched the house as if their lives depended on it. A couple of rooks came and settled on the roof. Then Powerscourt signalled to Johnny to watch his back. He walked very slowly up to one of the windows on the ground floor. The shutter was sealed tight. Then he tried another one. Sealed tight again. The third one had a shutter whose bolt was broken so it did not fit as tightly as it should to the window. Through a small sliver of light Powerscourt peered into the room. It was empty. He thought he could make out dust sheets spread over the furniture to keep it in good condition while the owners were away. He continued his tour and found that once again the kitchen window was in the clear. There was no sign of any living soul inside. Were they all upstairs? He glanced up and wondered if he could find a ladder in one of the stables. Then he made up his mind.

‘Don’t think there’s anybody here, Johnny. Let’s go.’

‘Christ, Francis, your voice made me jump then, coming after we’d been quiet for so long.’

As a final thought Powerscourt strode up to the front door and rang the bell. They could hear it echoing round the empty house. As they set off again down the road, Johnny Fitzgerald munched on one of his chicken sandwiches and gave a further bulletin from his map. ‘The road’s going to go between the Sheffry Hills on our left, boys, and some mountains that seem to be called Mweelrea on our right. Bloody odd name, Mweelrea, might be a form of low life in one of Dickens’s novels, forever skulking in the dark by the docks and the East End. I expect it means something in Irish, though God knows what.’

‘Please, sir,’ said Bradshaw, the trooper from Norfolk, ‘it means bald hill with the smooth top, sir. In Irish, sir.’

‘How the devil do you know that?’ asked Johnny. ‘Did they teach you Irish in your primary school in the Fens?’

‘No, sir. I like climbing mountains, sir. I’ve got a book about them in the west of Ireland, sir. That’s how I know what it means.’

‘You should have been with us on Sunday,’ said Johnny, whose memories of the climb were mixed. ‘You could have gone to the top of bloody Croagh Patrick in your bare feet if you’d wanted to. Bloody mountain.’

‘I was on patrol, sir, or I would have done it.’ Powerscourt thought they were absurdly young, these cavalrymen, Bradshaw very slim and wiry, Jones a more solid citizen with wavy brown hair.

‘Anyway,’ Johnny referred back to his map, ‘after a couple of miles more of this barren stuff we come to a lake sitting between the hills. On the far side of that there’s a little river and a very long drive leading down to Butler Lodge. Or so the map says, and grandfather Ormonde hasn’t let us down yet.’

The rain stopped and the sun came out again. Looking behind him from a spur in the road Powerscourt could see Croagh Patrick in the distance. It must dominate the view of over half of County Mayo, he thought, popping into sight sometimes when you least expected it.

Now the road was twisting along the side of the lake. Small ripples crossed the surface of the water. On their left the hills were bathed in sunlight, the green and brown of the land as desolate as any they had passed that day. On the far side of the lake the hills were in shadow, dark, almost black. There was a sudden burst of noise. A lone horseman, riding very fast and going the other way, crashed through the middle of their party. When he saw them the young man tried to increase speed and put a hand over his face. Within a minute he was gone, racing away in the direction of Louisburg.

‘Do you think that might have been a messenger, Francis?’ said Johnny. ‘Some news being sent back to enemy headquarters? I don’t think he was very pleased to see us, mind you. He didn’t have the air about him of a man who was going to stop and pass the time of day.’

‘Damn!’ said Powerscourt. ‘Don’t you see, Johnny, that we’re a kind of message? Four men, two of them cavalry troopers, out on this road at this time. You don’t have to be Daniel O’Connell to work out that we are probably looking for the women. That young man will send a message back to where he came from when he can after he’s delivered his first one. There’s a party of four on the road, lads, and they’re coming this way.’

‘Let’s get a move on,’ said Johnny, ‘we can’t have far to go now.’

At one point the mountains on either side seemed to meet in the distance. It seemed impossible for the little road to pass through. There simply wouldn’t be room. Then the perspective changed and a narrow slit opened up for the four horsemen.

Johnny consulted his map again. They were surrounded by tall trees now. ‘In a hundred yards or so,’ he said very quietly, ‘there should be a drive or a road to the right. That leads to Butler Lodge.’

They had passed the end of the lake now. As they trotted up to the turning to the right Powerscourt motioned them forwards. After a couple of hundred yards they found a track on the left. After another hundred yards they came to a little clearing in the wood, great piles of logs all around them.

‘I think we should make this our base for now,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We can’t see the road but a man stationed halfway down could. Bradshaw, young man, how good is your eyesight?’

‘It’s good, sir,’ said the young man. ‘They test us for it before we enter the regiment. My captain lent me a telescope, sir, just for this expedition. He said it might be more useful to me than it would be to him on patrol round the streets of Westport.’

‘Excellent,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do you think you could climb further up this hill or mountain or whatever it is and see if you could catch a sight of this house for us?’

‘Of course,’ the young man replied and began digging about in his luggage for the telescope. He slung it round his neck and disappeared into the trees.

‘Jones,’ said Powerscourt, ‘two things. Can you get back on your horse and ride down into Leenane? Book us four rooms in the Leenane Hotel. I think Dennis Ormonde may have sent word ahead of us. When you get back here I want you to go down the path until you can see the main road. In an ideal world you might be able to make your way through the trees to find a position where you can see the entrance too. Just watch what goes in and comes out, if anything.’

‘What do I do if see anybody coming out, sir? Do I arrest them?’

‘No, no, not yet,’ said Powerscourt hastily, ‘just keep watch for now. Johnny and I are going to see if we can get a sight of the place. We’ve got binoculars but the person with the best view is going to be young Bradshaw up the hill.’

Powerscourt and Fitzgerald made their way back down to the road and turned left away from the entrance. After a hundred yards or so the trees thinned out and they saw another lake in front of them. ‘Look, Francis,’ said Johnny, pulling his friend off the road. ‘That lodge must be very near the edge of this damned lake. If we follow the reeds in the water to the end of the lake and round to the other side we should be able to get a sight of the place. We might have to go right round through one hundred and eighty degrees but it would be worth it, surely.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Powerscourt.

It was just after five o’clock in the afternoon. There were about four hours of daylight left. The cross-country journey round the lake was not difficult. Occasionally the ground turned soft and boggy and the mud level crept slowly up their trousers. Powerscourt kept glancing back over his shoulder to check whether he could see Butler Lodge. If he could see it, somebody in Butler Lodge could see him. But most of the time all he could spot was the lake and the mountains behind it. Now they were further away he was struck by the steep rise of the mountain behind the house. It seemed to shoot up out of the lake at an angle of about sixty degrees. Then they came to another wood and Johnny Fitzgerald pulled out his glasses. He inched his way to a gap between the trees.

‘Not yet, Francis,’ he whispered, ‘can’t be far to go now.’

After another hundred yards he looked again. He motioned to Powerscourt to pull out his binoculars. The two men lay on the ground fiddling with their apertures. Through them, across the lake they could see the side of what must be Butler Lodge. It was a handsome Georgian building, well-proportioned, looking, Powerscourt thought, about the size of a decent hotel. There were great windows looking out over a well-kept lawn down to the lake. Behind it the mountains shot up towards the sky. And, coming in a regular flow from two of the chimneys, smoke was rising to mingle with the pure air of Connemara.

Cathal Rafferty spent three afternoons in a row watching the Head Gardener’s Cottage. He didn’t think Protestants would change their routines for the pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick. Nobody came. Nobody went. He wondered if the two young people were going earlier, or maybe later. He thought of playing truant from school one afternoon so he could begin his vigil around lunchtime, but decided that another beating from Brother Riordan and another summons for his parents to attend the school was too high a price to pay. One part of Father O’Donovan Brady’s instructions he had successfully carried out. Through a cousin in the town who worked part time in the kitchens up at Butler’s Court he had learned that the young man was called Johnpeter Kilross and that he was single, and the young woman was Alice Bracken, married, with her husband away in India or some other foreign part. Cathal felt the Father would be pleased with him. He did not know what appealed to the priest about this kind of information. He supposed he was curious, like himself. For young Cathal had been thinking a lot about what he had seen through the bedroom window. He couldn’t make any sense of it. Why were they taking all their clothes off unless they were going to have a bath – he knew that the gentry went in for baths – and he hadn’t seen any sign of one of those things.

So here he sat, in the last lesson of the Monday after Reek Sunday, listening to Brother Riordan droning on about the rivers of Ireland. Quite what use it would be to anybody, acquiring knowledge of these waterways, Cathal had no idea. The bloody man was sticking a great map all over the blackboard now with these damned rivers marked on it. The Shannon, the wretched fellow was saying, pointing halfway down his map. Were they even now setting off for the Head Gardener’s Cottage, ready for the fray? The Liffey, running into Dublin, serving Ireland’s greatest city, Brother Riordan blathered on. Perhaps they were in the cottage already? Perhaps they were beginning to take their clothes off and he, Cathal, was not there to see it. The Lagan, which flows into the sea at Belfast Lough – did the man never stop talking, even for a minute? – and nourishes many of the great industries of that northern city. And now? Here Cathal’s imagination failed him. Only reality would do, and reality was half an hour or more away when the last bell of the day would be rung and the boys would be free to leave.

Then Father Riordan did a terrible thing, quite against all the rules in Cathal’s view. He took down his map, told his class to take out their exercise books, draw a map of Ireland in outline and fill in the routes of the three rivers they had been discussing. Not so, Cathal thought. You, Brother Riordan may have been discussing these rivers. We, the boys, have not. It was a low trick asking people to fill in a map of Ireland when they mightn’t have been paying full attention. The Brother should have said at the start that the class would have to do an exercise. Then they would have tried to pay attention. Desperate glances were exchanged all around the room. Anybody whose map was deemed unsatisfactory, Brother Riordan declaimed from his desk, would have to stay behind after school.

Cathal opened his exercise book. Page after page contained harsh comments from Brother Riordan. ‘Poor,’ ‘Very poor,’ ‘Why were you not paying attention in class? See me after school.’ Cathal often felt that his progress through the place was marked out by the critical remarks in his exercise book and the lashings of the strap. It wasn’t fair. He opened a new page and began to draw what he thought was an outline map of Ireland. It wasn’t too bad, except that the south-western section, which should have been filled with the long inlets of Kerry and Dingle, had turned out completely round. And the north was square, completely square like the top of a biscuit box. The Shannon, on Cathal’s page, began life at the top of the square and flowed into the sea south of Belfast. The Liffey entered the Atlantic Ocean north of Galway and the Lagan was a pathetic dribble which seemed to begin at Wicklow and terminate at Waterford. Cathal looked at his map. There was, he felt, something not quite right about it. And here was Brother Riordan, strap in hand, coming to inspect his work as most of the class filed out. The Christian Brother looked carefully at the map. His finger ran experimentally down his strap. His face turned red. ‘Get out!’ he shouted at Cathal. ‘Get out of my sight! You’re so stupid it’s a waste of time trying to teach you! Get out now!’ Cathal needed no second invitation. Before the Brother had finished his tirade he was out of the door and heading at full speed for the demesne.

When he reached the Head Gardener’s Cottage he tiptoed round the front to look for any signs of life. All seemed quiet. Then he went on the detour that brought him behind the hedge close to the bedroom window. He thought he could hear sounds coming from inside. There was a gap in the curtain once again. Very slowly, so as not to draw attention to himself by a sudden movement, he rose to his full height and peeped in the window. Nobody had any clothes on. The pair of them were as naked as the day they were born. The man seemed to be lying on top of the girl and jolly uncomfortable it looked too. Cathal dropped down slowly behind his hedge. He thought the young man might have been looking out of the window. He ran back to Butler’s Cross as fast as he could. After all, he reflected as he went, he had a good start. Anybody trying to follow him would have to put their clothes on first. Surely, he said to himself, this has to be worth another five shillings from Father O’Donovan Brady. Maybe even ten.