Читать книгу Below the Salt - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 17

Both of the cousins were on the impatient order. At three o’clock that afternoon Patrick O’Rawn said to his American relation, “The men with the strong backs will be here in half an hour.” The American’s eyes lighted up with pleasure. “You’re one after my own heart, Patrick,” he said. “You’ve got a bit of a go-devil inside you. Instead of sitting around and talking about doing a thing, you pitch right in and do it.”

Three men arrived, each with his own shovel and pick. They were led at once to the summit of the hill and here Richard stood for several minutes studying the lay of the land. His eyes were full of a strange introspection as they studied directions, particularly when they rested on a stand of trees, behind which lay the domain of the now extinct Tostigans. Finally he nodded his head.

“Here,” he said, touching a spot on the ground with the tip of his cane. “Start at this point and dig your line due west. I don’t believe you’ll have to go down far.”

Whatever the reasons he had for saying that the remains of the foundations of the first Castle O’Rawn would be found where he indicated, it was soon apparent that he was right. In ten minutes the pick of one of the husky trio encountered a block of solid stone.

“Here we be, sor,” said the one who had made the find. “Man McCluskey, it’s as solid as the hills at Knocktopher, sor!”

“Go easy, Tim Murphy.” The American was on friendly terms already with the working crew. “Clear the ground on each side.”

Patrick O’Rawn’s eyes, as he watched, changed from skepticism to a reluctant conviction. “That’s early masonry,” he commented. A few minutes later he was certain that it was Norman work. When the earth had been cleared away for a considerable distance on each side of the ancient masonry, he capitulated completely. Here, he said, was where Richard of Rawen had first built. What other explanation could there be?

The elderly American stepped off distances and drew lines on the surface for the digging crew to follow. At the northwesterly angle he inscribed a circle which corresponded accurately (as a later measurement demonstrated) with the line of the newer tower. When the picks of the workmen reached this point, they encountered the wide circular foundation of the original tower. At this juncture Patrick O’Rawn drew his cousin to one side.

“Richard, what is all this?” he demanded. “You’ve picked like a magician with a wand the exact spot where the tower was raised. Are you a modern Merlin? Is the first Richard standing at your shoulder and whispering in your ear?”

“Castle O’Rawn,” said the American, “was included in a book of ancient Irish homes. I studied it most carefully. There was a plan drawn to scale. I happen to remember all the details.”

The deep Irish blue of Patrick O’Rawn’s eyes still held a measure of doubt. “You’re holding something back,” he charged. “That article did not say that the first castle was built on this hill. It assumed that it had always stood on the present site.”

“It seems,” was the reply, “that the writer of the article was not fully informed. Or he didn’t use common sense.”

By five o’clock the squad with the sturdy backs had cleared all of one side and the angle where the tower had stood.

“Enough for today,” said the owner of the property. “Be back tomorrow morning at eight sharp. And stop at the kitchen for a drop of tay on your way home.”

“Perhaps, Patrick,” suggested Richard, “you’ll allow me to anticipate the pay settlement with a bit on account now. I haven’t heard any jingling in their pockets.”

“By all the saints in hivin, that manner of talk is music to the ears!” cried one of the trio.

“Is American money any good here?” asked the visitor, drawing out a handful of loose bills.

“As good,” was the reply, “as sweet little bits of gold chipped off the Blessed Gates. And, I’m thinkin’, a little bit more on the handy side. They’ll recognize it at the pub where I fear my weary feet will come to an unwillin’ halt through sheer fatigue, sor.”

“Your weary feet had better take you straight home,” said the owner of the castle sharply, “because you and your friends must be here at eight tomorrow without fail, Johnny O’Keefe.”

When the money had been distributed and the three had departed with unanimous briskness and no hint of fatigue, the two elderly men turned in the direction of the present home of the O’Rawns. Any sense of pique which the owner had felt over the revelations brought about by his guest had vanished. He was filled with enthusiasm over the results of the digging.

“Richard,” he said, “I’m going to write a report of all this. It will make a capital article and I’m sure it will sell to a better publication and get me a larger price than the piece I’ve been laboring away at so long. I’ve been doing something on the character of Richard III and taking a few bits of skin off that lady who tried to whitewash him. I was getting doubtful of it. But this will be of interest to everyone. We must have plans drawn to scale and take some photographs.”

“A capital idea, Patrick.”

“But,” declared the host with an accusing frown, “I’m going to find it hard to make your role in this sound believable. I won’t be able to fob the readers off with anything as flimsy as this explanation you’re giving me. They’ll believe you’ve found some secret documents. Or that you were transplanted back to the days when the castle was built; like that fellow in the Mark Twain book.”

“The story of the Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur’s Court? Be easy in your mind, Patrick. All this will put a bit of mystery into your article. There will be letters sent in about it. That’s what editors like, I understand. Articles which bring in plenty of letters.” He was silent for a moment. “Patrick, your niece is like a very lovely princess.”

“I sometimes call her that,” with a smile. “Whenever she gets hoity-toity or begins ordering everyone around. Which is an almost daily occurrence.”

“Who was her mother?”

“My brother Connie took up land in New Zealand and he married a girl out there. I never saw her but Connie sent me a picture. She was small and dark. The child was sent home to me when her parents died, five years ago. Richard, you could have knocked me over with one puff when I set eyes on the child. I said to myself, ‘Holy Mother and all the blessed saints, is this a fairy queen in human guise?’ ”

“We can be sure of one thing. She’s a throwback to some lovely lady of Castle O’Rawn of many centuries ago.”

The Irishman agreed. “Nearly a thousand years, I think, Richard. She may have been the mistress of the castle when it stood back there on the crest of the hill.”

“I keep wondering what will happen to her, this very unusual child. What does life hold for her?”

“She’ll marry soon, I’m afraid. In course of time she’ll become matronly and the gold in her hair will become brown. I don’t want to be here to see that day.”

“This princess of ours,” said the visitor, “has no more of common clay in her than a sculptor could hold on the point of a trowel. She’ll be lovely to the day of her death.”