The Legend of the Golden Key Read online

  I grinned and shook my head. Juno’s always teasing me about that because of my red hair.

  He smiled and said, ‘Well, you’ve the hair of a travelling man and that’s a fact.’ Resuming the skinning, he asked, ‘And what have you all been doing these past few days?’

  ‘We heard the story of the legend,’ Totey told him.

  ‘From Mr Armstrong,’ explained Cowlick.

  ‘Ha-ha, the Legend of the Golden Key.’ Juno, as I said, is a permanent fixture on the Cotton Bog Road and very little goes on in the valley that he doesn’t know about. He turned and we could see there was a twinkle in his eyes.

  ‘You know,’ he bent down and confided, ‘I know the only man who has actually seen the running dead man – and lived to tell the tale!’

  We laughed and asked him who?

  ‘Shouting Sam!’

  We shook our heads, and Doubter said, ‘Sure you wouldn’t want to be minding Sam. He’s not half in it.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ said Juno. ‘But he saw something over there in the estate not so long ago. Nothing will convince him he didn’t.’

  ‘You mean he thinks he saw a ghost?’ I asked.

  Juno shrugged to indicate our guess was as good as his.

  ‘What did he say he saw?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘You’ll laugh … but he says he saw a man rise up out of one of the graves in the family cemetery and run off through the trees.’

  We weren’t quite sure whether to laugh or not. Then Cowlick asked, ‘Did he say what the man was like?’

  ‘Well, he did and he didn’t. He said he was dressed sort of like himself, whatever he means by that.’ Juno shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I should stop drinking with that man.’

  ‘Ha! That’ll be the day,’ I laughed, knowing the wild drinking bouts the two always have every time Sam passes through the valley, and on that note we took our leave.

  Cowlick could hardly contain his excitement and was all for going over to the estate to investigate. Doubter, true to form, doubted if there was a word of truth in Juno’s story and thought it would be a waste of time to bother. In any event, he reminded Cowlick, we were barred.

  To be truthful, I didn’t know what to think, and neither did Totey or Curly. In the end Cowlick convinced us there was no harm in going to the estate and having a look, so off we went. We climbed up round the quarry dump and cut across Big Hughie McIlhagga’s land, heading all the time for the belt of trees that runs around the back of it.

  It was another warm day, and as we picked our way along the ditches a nice cool breeze blew in across the corn, waving it like a sea of green and gold.

  ‘You might as well try and find a corncrake as find a grain of sense in any of Shouting Sam’s stories,’ Doubter remarked.

  ‘True,’ I said, knowing that corncrakes had disappeared from the valley since the farmers took to cutting the early meadow grass for silage. ‘Still, I’ve been thinking about this story of the grave and one thing makes me wonder.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘Well, it’s just that Sam can’t have made any reference to it in his broadcasts or it would be all over the valley.’

  ‘So what?’ asked Curly.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he did see something and got such a fright he’s scared to mention it.’

  ‘And only told Juno about it when he was drunk,’ suggested Cowlick.

  ‘If he ever told him anything at all,’ said Doubter. ‘How do you know Juno’s not just having us on? Sure he would tell a lie that would hang his own mother.’

  There was no doubt about it. Juno did have the gift of the gab and it was hard to know when he was telling the truth and when he wasn’t. Sometimes we wondered if he knew himself.

  An urgent ‘pink, pink’ brought us to a sudden stop. We knew what it was, for we had often heard it before. It was a blackbird over in the belt of trees and it was madly alarmed about something. At the same time Prince gave a warning growl and I caught him and held him back. Thinking maybe the bird had been frightened by something down in the estate, we stole up behind the nearest hedge. When we got opposite to where it was ‘pinking’ away in the trees, I slipped my other hand over Prince’s nose to keep him quiet.

  The reason for the bird’s alarm turned out to be a whitterick. My father always calls them whittericks, never stoats, and I must say I prefer it. Somehow whitterick seems a more fitting name for an animal that’s so small and fast and deadly. This one had just killed a rabbit, and some of the boys were all for letting Prince go so that he could drive it off. Not me! I wasn’t going to chance letting it get a grip on Prince’s neck. I knew if it did it would never let him go until it killed him too.

  Once I saw a whitterick jump on a long-legged heron over in the swamps at Wariff Hill. The heron screeched into flight and the whitterick hung on. Up and up they went, and big and all as the heron’s wings were, they couldn’t keep it in the air very long with that blood-thirsty little creature clinging to its neck like a leech. Finally – I remember it well – the big harmless bird fell lifeless to the ground.

  Another thing too: I knew that if we took the rabbit the whitterick would follow us for miles and I didn’t want that. To tell the truth I was afraid of it. I’ve heard that whittericks sometimes hunt in packs, even call on each other for help and attack people. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know, but we decided to give this one a wide berth.

  Once in the open field on the other side of the trees we felt a lot safer, and after some discussion we decided to go direct to the family graveyard. From there we could cut across the estate to the river, and then double back home.

  We climbed over a gap in the grey stone wall which runs around the estate and picked our way through a tangle of scrub ash and rhododendron bushes. Beyond that were tall oaks and beeches, and we found it was nice and cool beneath them. It was quiet too. The only sounds were the cooing of wood pigeons and the cawing of crows high above us. There were few leaves on the ground and we were able to move along with hardly a rustle.

  As we tip-toed up to the rusty iron gates of the graveyard, we fell quiet. Thin, withered grass hung from its crumbling walls and long tangled briars grew all around the base of them. We knew one of the gates was stuck fast at the half-open position, and not knowing what to expect we went in.

  At first glance the graveyard seemed deserted. Then to our surprise we saw a man digging at a grave in a corner beneath a clump of yew trees. From the description Old Daddy Armstrong had given us, we guessed it was the grave of Sir Timothy King. But who was the man digging it up?

  Almost before we realised what was happening, Prince bounded forward with a snarl and the man whirled to face him, the spade raised above his head ready to strike.

  4. THE EMPTY TOWER

  Well, there would have been skin and hair flying if I hadn’t given a shout in the nick of time. I rushed over and ordered Prince to heel. Slowly the man lowered the spade. I could see now he was stooped, and he had the sort of jaw that made his stoop seem more pronounced. It stuck out as if his top teeth went down behind his bottom teeth instead of in front of them, if you know what I mean. But for all that he was strongly built. The sleeves of his faded blue shirt were rolled back to show powerful hairy forearms and I remember noticing the large sweat marks around his armpits as he lowered the spade.

  ‘Gee, I’m sorry, mister,’ I said, ‘but you did take us a bit by surprise.’

  He dug the spade into the freshly turned soil, leaned an elbow on the handle and regarded us.

  I pointed to the grave, and as I did so I could see by the words on the headstone that it was Sir Timothy’s. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ I ventured. ‘Why are you digging up Sir Timothy’s grave?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’ he said sharply, his eyes switching from Prince to me and from me to the boys and back. ‘I am a gardener here, or so they say.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, you’re … Marcus, aren’t you?’ I had just remembered my father pointing him out to me once. He nodded.

  ‘But why are you digging the grave?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘For the same reason I’ve been digging all the other graves – to tidy them up.’

  We followed the sweep of his hand and to our disappointment saw that all the other graves had indeed been dug over too.

  ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘what, may I ask, are you doing here?’

  ‘We were just … ah …’ We took a couple of embarrassed kicks at tufts of grass as we tried to think of excuses.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, ‘but mind how you go. I don’t want you trampling the flowers.’

  ‘You mean you’re not going to tell on us?’ asked Curly.

  ‘Now wouldn’t you say I had more to do than be carrying tales – just so long as you don’t tell anyone I said you could come in. Off with you now.’

  Not quite knowing what to make of Marcus, we pretended to head for the boundary wall, doubled back and from a distance watched him through the graveyard gates. To our disappointment he continued to tidy up Sir Timothy’s grave just as he claimed he had been doing when we had come upon him.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked the boys.

  ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that he was digging at just that grave,’ said Cowlick.

  ‘All the other graves were dug over too, just like he said,’ observed Doubter.

  ‘That could just be a cover-up,’ I said.

  ‘I know why he wouldn’t tell on us,’ said Totey. ‘He’s a convict … and convicts don’t tell.’

  ‘A convict?’ repeated Cowlick incredulously, looking to me for an explanation.

  I shrugged. ‘Could be. They say the Kings do employ some ex-convicts, all right.’

  ‘Goodness,
what a set-up!’ declared Cowlick.

  ‘It was nice of him to say he wouldn’t tell on us,’ said Totey.

  ‘That could be a cover-up, too,’ I said. ‘Look, if he has been doing something he shouldn’t be doing, he might figure the best way to keep it quiet is to say he won’t tell on us, so that we won’t tell on him.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Cowlick.

  Just then we saw Marcus sink his spade into the soft earth and hurry away from the graveyard.

  ‘Come on,’ I whispered. ‘Let’s follow him.’

  Crouching low, and taking cover every now and then behind trees and bushes, we kept Marcus in sight until he reached the avenue. When we got to it, however, he was nowhere to be seen. Totey seated himself on one of the large cannon-balls that line each side of the long winding avenue, and started poking at the sole of his Wellington boot.

  ‘What’s the matter, Totey?’ I whispered.

  ‘I think there’s a thorn in my boot.’

  ‘You choose a nice place to look for it,’ said Doubter. ‘Hurry, before someone comes.’

  ‘Okay, I think I have it.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Curly, ‘I think somebody is coming.’

  He was right. We flung ourselves back in below a big rhododendron bush and I clamped a hand over Prince’s nose. A few minutes later Mr King and Felicity rode into sight.

  Mr King is more correctly known as Mr Rochford-King, but we always refer to the family as the Kings because it’s handy and because it suits them, living in a castle and all. None of us had ever spoken to Mr King, but we often saw him riding past our houses with the hounds. He sits in the saddle well. He’s thin and straight, sort of military-like. Indeed, I always got the impression that he was in the army at one time or another, maybe as an officer. He has the sort of look on his face that tells you he’ll stand for no nonsense.

  As you can guess then, we were glad we hadn’t burst out onto the avenue and frightened the horses. It would have been bad enough to have been caught trespassing, not to mention that. However, Mr King and Felicity passed by, unaware that we were there.

  We crossed the avenue and kept going until we reached the lake. There was still no sign of Marcus, so we concluded he must have gone up the avenue. We could hear the roar of the water spilling into the Devil’s Cup, and as the water raging around the bottom of the giant stone bowl is a powerful thing to watch, we decided to have a look.

  It always makes our hearts flutter when we lean over the wall between the iron spikes to gaze into the depths of the Devil’s Cup, but this time was different somehow. This time as we watched the tons of foaming water swirling madly around the bottom before rushing underground, away forever from our sight, we couldn’t help thinking about the pretty girl of the legend and her handsome curly-headed lover. In our mind’s eye we could see them leaping hand-in-hand to their awful fate, and suddenly we felt quite dizzy and a little sick.

  Turning away from the Devil’s Cup, we cut back up through the estate, skirting the gardens and the farm buildings, and keeping a sharp lookout for anything strange. Over by the stables we saw Wilson Harper, the farm foreman, having a run-in with Simon Craig. Craig’s blood mare was shying away from him as he jerked its halter and thrashed it with a sally rod, and we were delighted to see Harper grab the rod from him and give him a good talking to. Craig, a big, raw-boned fellow, with deep-set eyes and long black hair slicked back, glared at the foreman for a minute; but it takes a stout heart to stand up to Wilson Harper and Craig slunk away pulling the horse after him. It’s nothing strange to see Craig ill-treating that horse of his. He lost his job with Big Hughie McIlhagga on the farm beyond for the very same thing. His horse is really more of racing blood than a farm horse. That’s why it’s so highly strung and called a blood mare.

  We moved on, and then a short distance behind the castle we did come across something odd – something which on investigation we found to be odder still.

  We were coming to an ancient stone tower that stands on its own among the trees, when, lo and behold, we saw the strangest figure walking up and down beneath the Gallows Tree. He was a man of about sixty, with a drooping white moustache, and he was dressed in the most peculiar clothes. His hat was the sort Sherlock Holmes used to wear – a deerstalker I think they call it – and his trousers were those funny-looking tweedy plus fours that are tucked in below the knee. Yet it was the way he was acting that was really odd.

  There he was, walking up and down, and one minute he was looking at the giant, ivy-covered trees, and the next he was looking at the ground. He had some sort of book in his hands, and now and then he would look at it and run a finger over some line he was reading. If it hadn’t been for that outfit he was wearing, we might easily have taken him for one of those preachers we sometimes see on street corners up in Belfast or at the Lammas Fair in Ballycastle; preachers who put the fear of God into us with sermons about hellfire and damnation unless we repent. But if he was preaching he was completely unaware of his audience. Suddenly he whipped the book behind his back and, with a quick look around to see if anyone else was about, made a beeline for the stone tower.

  A minute or two later, a man wearing thigh-length waders and carrying a double-barrelled shotgun appeared. It was Mr Moxley, the new gamekeeper. We held our breath – and Prince. Luckily he didn’t spot us, and when he had gone we settled down to wait for the strange figure to reappear from the tower.

  Half an hour passed and still there was no sign of him. Finally, we elected Cowlick to steal up and have a quick look through one of the window slits to see what he was doing, for we were sure he was up to something. I’d have gone too, but my red hair is easily seen, and anyway I had to hold Prince.

  Off went Cowlick, using the trees for cover, until he was at one of the window slits. He peeped in and then he did a most surprising thing. He went round to the doorway, took a quick look inside and waved to us to join him. Thinking something was wrong, we ran over to him and looked inside. The tower was empty!

  We were baffled. The strange figure had gone into the tower. We saw him enter, and we didn’t see him leave. Yet we could see for ourselves that there was nothing in it now, apart from an assortment of gardening tools. There was no doubt about it, there was something very odd here. We all agreed on that as we headed for the boundary wall. That was when we walked straight into the gamekeeper’s son, Dan. We were so busy talking about what had happened that we didn’t see him until we nearly bumped into him. He’s a big fat fellow with a surly scowl on his podgy cheeks, and he held a half-eaten apple in one of his hands.

  ‘Well, well,’ he sneered, ‘what have we here – one, two, three, four, five trespassers, and a dog. Poaching!’

  ‘Who says we’re poaching?’ demanded Cowlick.

  ‘So you’re the ringleader …’

  ‘I’m the leader,’ said I, stepping forward, ‘and don’t you forget it.’ You have to talk tough like that when you’re the leader. I was shaking in my boots, for Dan’s a huge fellow, but naturally I couldn’t show it.

  However, he wasn’t unduly impressed. He took a big loud bite of the apple and, with his mouth half full, said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t forget it. I know who you are. My father’s the new gamekeeper here and I’m going to tell him about this. Now we know who overturned the headstones in the graveyard.’

  I looked at the boys, and they looked at me. Fortunately they kept their thoughts to themselves. I turned to Moxley. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, your father can’t do a thing unless he catches us.’

  ‘Well, I’ve caught you,’ he said, and stepped forward to take hold of me.

  It’s funny how some people take a dog for granted. It’s a big mistake too, as Dan Moxley found out the minute he reached for me. Prince didn’t move. He didn’t even open his mouth. But the hair went up on the back of his neck, and his top lip curled to show his teeth, and he gave a snarl that made Moxley snatch back his hand in double-quick time.

  ‘Keep that brute under control,’ he warned, but he should have known better than to point at Prince at a time like that. The collie took one step forward and those gleaming white fangs gave one snap. Moxley immediately pulled back his hand, dropping the apple as he did so, and backed up against a tree. ‘Call that brute off,’ he cried, ‘or it’ll be the worse for you.’