"Sneak up on the door," repeated Casey, grinding his teeth, "and batter it down-"

The door opened again.

The lord, a shadow, peered out at them, and the soft, patient, frail old voice inquired, "I say, what are you doing out there?"

"Well, it's this way, Your Lordship-" began Casey, and stopped, paling.

"We come," blurted Murphy, "we come ... to burn the place!"

His Lordship stood for a moment looking out at the men, watching the snow, his hand on the doork.n.o.b. He shut his eyes for a moment, thought, conquered a tic in both eyelids after a silent struggle, and then said, "Hmm. Well, in that case, you had best come in."

The men said that was fine, great, good enough, and started off, when Casey cried, "Wait!" Then, to the old man in the doorway: "We'll come in when we are good and ready."

"Very well," said the old man. "I shall leave the door ajar, and when you have decided the time, enter. I shall be in the library."

Leaving the door a half-inch open, the old man started away, when Timulty cried out, "When we are ready! Jesus, G.o.d, when will we ever be readier? Out of the way, Casey!"

And they all ran up on the porch.

Hearing this, His Lordship turned to look at them with his bland and not-unfriendly face, the face of an old hound who has seen many foxes killed and just as many escape, who has run well and now, in late years, paced himself down to a soft, shuffling walk.

Sc.r.a.pe your feet, please, gentlemen."

"Sc.r.a.ped they are." And everyone carefully got the snow and mud off his shoes.

"This way," said His Lordship, going off, his clear, pale eyes set in lines and bags and creases from too many years of drinking brandy, his cheeks bright as cherry wine. "I will get you all a drink, and we shall see what we can do about your . . . how did you put it? Burning the place?"

"You're sweet reason itself," admitted Timulty, following as Lord Kilgotten led them into the library, where he poured whiskey all around.

"Gentlemen." He let his bones sink into a wing-backed chair. "Drink."

"We decline," said Casey.

"Decline?" gasped everyone, the drinks almost in their hands.

"This is a sober thing we are doing and we must be sober for it," said Casey, flinching from their gaze.

"Who do we listen to?" asked Riordan. "His Lordship or Casey?"

For answer, all the men downed their drinks and fell to coughing and gasping. Courage showed immediately in a red color through their faces, which they turned so that Casey could see the difference. Casey drank his, to catch up.

Meanwhile, the old man sipped his whiskey, and something about his calm and easy way of drinking put them far out in Dublin Bay and sank them again. Until Casey said, "Your Honor, you've heard of the Troubles? I mean, not just the Kaiser's war going on across the sea, but our own very great Troubles and the Rebellion that has reached even this far, to our town, our pub, and now your place?"

"An alarming amount of evidence convinces me this is an unhappy time," said His Lordship. "I suppose what must be must be. I know you all. You have worked for me. I think I have paid you rather well on occasion."

"There's no doubt of that, Your Lordship." Casey took a step forward. "It's just 'the old order changeth,' and we have heard of the great houses out near Tara and the great manors beyond Killashandra going up in flames to celebrate freedom and-"

"Whose freedom?" asked the old man mildly. "Mine? From the burden of caring for this house, which my wife and I rattle around in like dice in a cup, or ... Well, get on. When would you like to burn the place?"

"If it isn't too much trouble, sir," said Timulty, "now." The old man seemed to sink deeper into his chair. "Oh, dear," he said.

"Of course," said Nolan quickly, "if it's inconvenient, we could come back later-''

"Later! What kind of talk is thatl" asked Casey. "I'm terribly sorry," said the old man. "Please allow me to explain. Lady Kilgotten is asleep now, we have guests coming to take us into Dublin for the opening of a play by Synge-" "That's a d.a.m.n fine writer," said Riordan. "Saw one of his plays a year ago," said Nolan, "and-" "Stand off!" said Casey.

The men stood back. His Lordship went on with his frail moth voice: "We have a dinner planned back here at midnight for ten people. I don't suppose . . . you could give us until tomorrow night to get ready?" "No," said Casey.

"Burning," said Timulty, "is one thing, but tickets is another. I mean, the theater is there, and a dire waste not to see the play, and all that food set up, it might as well be eaten. And all the guests coming. It would be hard to notify them ahead."

"Exactly what I was thinking," said His Lordship.

"Yes, I know!" shouted Casey, shutting his eyes, running his hands over his cheeks and jaw and mouth and clenching his fists and turning around in frustration. "But you don't put off burnings, you don't reschedule them like tea parties, dammit, you do them!"

"You do if you remember to bring the matches," said Riordan under his breath.

Casey whirled and looked as if he might hit Riordan, but the impact of the truth slowed him down.

"On top of which," said Nolan, "the Missus above is a fine lady and needs a last night of entertainment and rest."

"Very kind of you." His Lordship refilled the man's gla.s.s.

"Let's take a vote," said Nolan "h.e.l.l." Casey scowled around. "I see the vote counted already. Tomorrow night will do, dammit."

"Bless you," said old Lord Kilgotten. "There will be cold cuts laid out in the kitchen, you might check in there first; you shall probably be hungry, for it will be heavy work. Shall we say eight o'clock tomorrow night? By then I shall have Lady Kilgotten safely to a hotel in Dublin. I should not want her knowing until later that her home no longer exists."

"G.o.d, you're a Christian," muttered Riordan.

"Well, let us not brood on it," said the old man. "I consider it past already, and I never think of the past. Gentlemen."

He arose. And like a blind old sheepherder-saint, he wandered out into the hall, with the flock straying and ambling and softly colliding after.

Half down the hall, almost to the door, Lord Kilgotten saw something from the corner of his blear eye and stopped. He turned back and stood brooding before a large portrait of an Italian n.o.bleman.

The more he looked, the more his eyes began to tic and his mouth to work over a nameless thing.

Finally Nolan said, "Your Lordship, what is it?"

"I was just thinking," said the lord at last. "You love Ireland, do you not?"

My G.o.d, yes! said everyone. Need he ask?

"Even as do I," said the old man gently. "And do you love all that is in it, in the land, in her heritage?"

That too, said all, went without saying!

"I worry, then," said the lord, "about things like this. This portrait is by Van Dyck. It is very old and very fine and very important and very expensive. It is, gentlemen, a National Art Treasure."

"Is that what it is!" said everyone, more or less, and crowded around for a sight.

"Ah, G.o.d, it's fine work," said Timulty.

"The flesh itself," said Nolan.

"Notice," said Riordan, "the way his little eyes seem to follow you?"

Uncanny, everyone said.

And they were about to move on, when His Lordship said, "Do you realize this Treasure, which does not truly belong to me, nor you, but to all the people as precious heritage, this picture will be lost forever tomorrow night?"

Everyone gasped. They had not realized.

"G.o.d save us," said Timulty, "we can't have that!"

"We'll move it out of the house first," said Riordan.

"Hold on!" cried Casey.

"Thank you," said His Lordship, "but where would you put it? Out in the weather it would soon be torn to shreds by wind, dampened by rain, flaked by hail. No, no, perhaps it is best it burns quickly-"

"None of that!" said Timulty. "I'll take it home myself."

"And when the great strife is over," said His Lordship, "you will then deliver into the hands of the new government this precious gift of Art and Beauty from the past?"

"Er . . . every single one of those things, I'll do," said Timulty.

But Casey was eyeing the immense canvas, and said, "How much does the monster weigh?"

"I would imagine," said the old man faintly, "seventy to one hundred pounds, within that range."

"Then how in h.e.l.l do we get it to Timulty's house?" asked Casey. "Me and Brannahan will carry the d.a.m.n treasure," said Timulty, "and if need be, Nolan, you lend a hand." "Posterity will thank you," said His Lordship.

They moved on along the hall, and again His Lordship stopped, before yet two more paintings.

"These are two nudes-"

They are that! said everyone.

"By Renoir," finished the old man.

"That's the French gent who made them?" asked Rooney. "If you'll excuse the expression?"

It looks French, all right, said everyone.

And a lot of ribs received a lot of knocking elbows.

"These are worth several thousand pounds," said the old man.

"You'll get no argument from me," said Nolan, putting out his finger, which was slapped down by Casey.

"I-'' said Blinky Watts, whose fish eyes swam about continuously in tears behind his thick gla.s.ses. "I would like to volunteer a home for the two French ladies. I thought I might tuck those two Art Treasures one under each arm and hoist them to the wee cot."

"Accepted," said the lord with grat.i.tude.

Along the hall they came to a vast landscape with all sorts of monster beast-men cavorting about, treading fruit and squeezing summer-melon women. Everyone craned forward to read the bra.s.s plate under it: Twilight of the G.o.ds.

"Twilight, h.e.l.l," said Rooney. "It looks more like the start of a great afternoon!"

"I believe," said the gentle old man, "there is irony intended in both t.i.tle and subject. Note the glowering sky, the hideous figures hidden in the clouds. The G.o.ds are unaware, in the midst of their baccha.n.a.l, that Doom is about to descend."

"I do not see," said Blinky Watts, "the Church or any of her girly priests up in them clouds."

"It was a different kind of Doom in them days," said Nolan. "Everyone knows that."

"Me and Tuohy," said Flannery, "will carry the demon G.o.ds to my place. Right, Tuohy?"

"Right!"

And so it went now along the hall, the squad pausing here or there as on a grand tour of a museum, and each in turn volunteering to scurry home through the snowfall night with a Degas or a Rambrandt sketch or a large oil by one of the Dutch masters, until they came to a rather grisly oil of a man, hung in a dim alcove.

"Portrait of myself," muttered the old man, "done by Her Ladyship. Leave it there, please."

"You mean," gasped Nolan, "you want it to go up in the Conflagration?"

"Now, this next picture ..." said the old man, moving on.

And finally the tour was at an end.

"Of course," said His Lordship, "if you really want to be saving, there are a dozen exquisite Ming vases in the house-"

"As good as collected," said Nolan.

"A Persian carpet on the landing-"

"We will roll it and deliver it to the Dublin Museum."

"And that exquisite chandelier in the main dining room."

"It shall be hidden away until the Troubles are over," sighed Casey, tired already.

"Well, then," said the old man, shaking each hand as he pa.s.sed. "Perhaps you might start now, don't you imagine? I mean, you do indeed have a largish job preserving the National Treasures, Think I shall nap five minutes now before dressing."

And the old man wandered off upstairs.

Leaving the men stunned and isolated in a mob in the hall below, watching him go away out of sight.

"Casey," said Blinky Watts, "has it crossed your small mind, if you'd remembered to bring the matches there would be no such long night of work as this ahead?"

"Jesus, where's your taste for the a.s.s-thetics?" cried Riordan.