‘Follow me now, and never breathe a word of where I’m taking you.’
‘Where are you taking me.’
‘Out by the tunnel.’
‘How can you get to the tunnel.’
‘Ah now haven’t I tolt you I’d get you out. It is how the priests got in and out of the house long ago. Quiet now, that ould eegit Crooks will be coming drunk out of his bedroom and falling on his head. Now watch where you’re going over these bottles I put here on the stairs.’
‘You could hurt someone.’
‘It’s only to know if Crooks was following me. He’d only get a little tumble and knock on the skull. Sure there are carpets over the timber. And wood never did any harm cracking your head. It’s stone and cement you might feel if you wasn’t used to it.’
Touching the wall, following the way behind Foxy. His stale smell of dogs and stables. Go tiptoeing down past the great window, the moon silver against the leaves and bark of the birch trees. The unhappy moan of a cow out somewhere missing its calf. Through the swing door from the main hall where the grandfather clock chimes half past the hour and down the stair to the basement. At the corridor’s far end the night’s white white light through the arched panes of the transom. And only feet away the bedroom door of Catherine the cook. Whose gnarled hands still toiled over her cauldrons from dawn till all the household were asleep. And she lies loudly snoring.
‘Listen to the noise of that ould bitch. In here behind me now. Don’t make a sound.’
The cold clammy air of the pig curing room with its shelves and slabs of slate. The heavy clank of a stone as Foxy digging in with all his fingers, prised it up from the floor. Climbing down into the darkness. The earthy damp musty chill air. And Foxy crouched grunting as he pulled on a ring to drag the stone slab thumping closed over their heads.
‘No one can hear us now. And never breathe a word. This goes out now to the big tunnel back of the house. And not another soul knows.’
‘The smell is not nice.’
‘It takes some pipes. And they do be leaking betimes.’
‘And you must stop making your unpleasant comments on members of the household.’
‘What harm is that to pass a few ould remarks when I’m taking you out to the best lesson you’ll get in your life. Sure and that old Catherine owns a forty acre farm and has it stocked with sheep and pigs and is stacking up pound notes in the bank. And how do you know she’s not stealing.’
‘Our cook is honest.’
‘It’s none of me business but let me tell you they’re robbing the place blind.’
‘Do you steal.’
‘Ah only ould bits and pieces now and again. But I’m honest in general. I only lie not to get a beating. But when I’m telling the truth they think I’m lying because I’m such a liar. So it’s all the same. They love giving a beating. But I don’t feel a thing.’
Through the blackness, crouched hobbling forth, and hands touching in the cold mud along the dank low corridor. Water drips on the back of the neck from the roof of the tunnel. A scurrying and scrabbling.
‘What’s that Foxy.’
‘Ah them’s only a few ould rats.’
‘I don’t like rats.’
‘Sure they’ll do you no harm if you give them a swipe of your hand in the gob. It’s only the very big ones that can kill cats, that’ll jump for your throat and chew open your vein and take the blood out of you.’
‘I want to go back.’
‘Ah sure there’s only a dozen or so of them in the tunnel. Sure they’ve only managed twice to take a bite out of me and each time I gave them a wallop with me boot that made manure of their guts. It’s not more than a few yards now and we’ll be in the tunnel to the stable yard. Mind these slippery steps.’
The great shadowy arch of the farm tunnel as Foxy pulls Darcy Dancer out behind him. And pushes back the stone and lifts another stone. Turf mould spread over the cobbles. The air sweet smelling with hay where clumps of it had fallen from the carts hauling it in from the fields. Down more stone steps and now along another underground passage wide enough for two men to walk abreast and tall enough that you had to reach to touch the vaulted ceiling.
‘Mind now the big rats be worst here, kick out if you feel something putting teeth into you.’
‘I don’t like this.’
‘It’s not far now.’
In a black mustiness they emerged. Foxy lighting a match. A strange fear. In the chill stillness of death. A room of cob-webbed coffins stacked on stone shelves. Their rusted handles and copper nails stained green. On the oak and elm, brass plates engraved with names. Of Darcys and Thormonds. Bertha, Elizabeth, Esekiel and his own name, Reginald. On the top corbels were smaller coffins near the big ones. And the tiniest one of all. To whom death came at ten months of age. With the same christian name as his eldest sister. Beatrice Blossom Thormond.
‘All your mother’s lot back till Kingdom come. They’ll put you in here too when your time comes.’
‘They will not.’
‘Ah they will. There be jewels on them in the coffins. That’s why they are put here secret the way they are behind them big bars and locked with the size of them locks.’
‘How do you know there are jewels.’
‘I’ve heard tell.’
‘Did you try to look.’
‘I’m not going to go touching in them skulls and bones. But there are others I hear talk of who’d like to get in here.’
‘Who are they.’
‘Ah I’m not saying now. But they be grave robbers from beyond the other side of the lakes.’
The headstones of the cemetery looming. A breeze rustling the ivy leaves. They stepped out under the massive tangle of vines roofing over the ruins of the ancient chapel. Foxy’s breathing heavy as he tugged lifted and nudged with knees and shoulder the heavy grey slab back into place. And reaching under a moss covered rock, he pulled forth a bottle of whiskey. Squatting, he planted his elbows across his thighs and tipped the pale spirit up to his lips.
‘Only you’re too young I’d give you some whiskey. Now like I said never tell anyone this secret way. Nobody else knows it but meself, the Gaffer and maybe that fool Crooks. I have a good mind sometimes to scare the wits out of that big old eegit Sexton when he comes here simpering to the graveyard and I jump out at him like the holy ghost and send him blessing himself for miles running across the countryside.’
‘You must not do that to poor Sexton. He is not well in his mind.’
‘Sure haven’t I just said he’s an eegit. Bursting into the new housekeeper five times a day with a bunch of flowers. Don’t I know he’s not well in his mind. Isn’t he there up on the altar every Sunday with his grey hair slapped back wavy on his skull and it looking black as coal.’
‘And why shouldn’t Sexton’s hair be black.’
‘Because it’s as grey as your pony is white. Doesn’t he go to the ould can of motor oil in the stable and take a drop. And then brush down a bit of the soot from the stove that keeps the mares warm when they’re foaling. He mixes the filthy ould soot with the dirty ould motor oil till he gets a thick paste. Then he rubs it well in into his skull and plasters the hair back with the iron comb they do be using in the stable on the horses.’