Though Fortunatus watched a little anxiously, Garret did not seem to take offence at this banter or the shrewd perception that lay behind it. He merely inclined his head silently, which seemed to satisfy Sheridan.

As they went back to the house, Garret and Sheridan went side by side, talking quietly now, while Fortunatus walked beside the Dean.

Swift had remained half smiling but taciturn during most of this performance. As they strolled, Walsh engaged him in conversation.

"I've admired Sheridan for so many years," he remarked. "He seems to me the best sort of clergyman-and he has the finest school in Ireland. I send my son to him. His school plays are famous. But I never realised until today what a passion for the theatre he has. He'd make a fine actor."

"True." Swift gave a wry smile. "The pulpit and the theatre, Walsh, are never far apart."

"It's clear he loves Quilca. I never saw a man so obviously delight in his house."

"So do I, Walsh. 'Tis a pity," Swift raised his voice just enough to carry, "that the place is falling down. Last time I was here, there was a crack in the wall of my room that let in such a draught I had to stuff it with my coat. The roof leaks abominably, too."

"I heard that," called out Sheridan. "There is nothing wrong with the roof."

"You wouldn't notice if it was off," retorted Swift.

"Occasionally," the Irishman replied airily, "it flies away like a bird to visit an uncle in Cork, but it always returns. It only complains," he added with a certain emphasis, "if swifts nest beneath it."

"Ha."

"Besides, you've been perfectly dry."

"It has not been raining."

Entering the house, Sheridan led them to a large, long room. The shutters were nearly closed, so that the room was in deep shadow, but Fortunatus could see the central fireplace, in front of which stood a large upholstered bench, a pair of tattered wing chairs, and a small table covered with papers. At the far end of the room, against the wall, stood a refectory table, doubtless taken from some monastery in Tudor times; and it was only when he noticed young Garret staring at it that Walsh realised, with a start, that it was occupied by what appeared to be a long, thin corpse, as though laid out for a wake. Sheridan glanced at it.

"That's O'Toole," he remarked. And he opened one of the shutters. Then, turning to Swift and indicating the papers, "Come, Jonathan," he said, "let us resume. Perhaps our friends can help us."

Earlier, it seemed, the two men had been busy with a composition that the Dean was preparing-not a sermon or a religious tract, they learned, but a literary composition. Walsh had explained to Garret that, before taking up his position in Ireland, Swift had already made a reputation for himself in London as an editor and writer of powerful poems and satires. "He's a close friend of the great poet Alexander Pope, you know," he had told him. Swift liked to write up at Quilca, Fortunatus knew, because he found his friend Sheridan's fanciful flights of language and imagination a useful foil to his own mordant irony. And the work upon which he was engaged was a strange one indeed.

It seemed to be a satire on the popular travel books-a curious tale of a man named Gulliver, who would make a series of voyages to imaginary lands-one island inhabited by tiny folk, another by giants, yet another ruled by rational horses; he even had a series of sketches about a visit to a flying island.

"We were choosing names for some of the curious places and creatures encountered in these travels," Sheridan explained. "For names are important. We already have, for instance, Lilliput as the island where the little people dwell; and our rational horses are called Houyhnhnms-doesn't that sound just like a horse's neigh? But come, Jonathan, set us some more challenges."

Encouraged by his friend's enthusiasm, Swift obligingly read out a few passages, and the company set their minds to work.

"We should ransack every corner of our imaginations," Sheridan declared. "Words from English and French, Latin or Greek, onomatopoeia, even Irish. Did you know that Dean Swift has some Gaelic, Garret? He does not speak it so well as you or I, but he has studied our native tongue, to his credit."

The flying island Walsh and Swift thought should be Laputa. They also prevailed when, for the loutish creatures who annoy the rational horses, they chose the name of Yahoo. Sheridan, however, came into his own when a name was required for the small, mouse-like creatures that the Yahoos like to eat."

"The Latin for mouse is mus mus, and the Irish word is luc luc. Therefore, I propose that these unfortunate little fellows be called luhimuhs luhimuhs. Can't you just see the poor things?"

Swift was delighted with this. But the most ingenious choice was made a little while later.

"There is a land which Gulliver visits," he explained, "where all those who wish to be received by the king must not only, in an oriental fashion, prostrate themselves, but must crawl towards him as he sits upon his throne, licking the dirt from the floor as they do so. What are we to call that?"

This was followed by a profound silence. Walsh knitted his brows; Sheridan gazed into space, lost in thought. Finally, Garret Smith spoke.

"The Irish for slave-and any man who does such a thing is a slave-is triall triall, and the Irish for evil and dirt is droch droch and and drib drib. So you could call it Trildrogdrib."

They all looked at each other. It was brilliant.

Then, at the far end of the room, a sudden chuckle came from the table by the wall, and the corpse sat up. "Excellent!" said the corpse.

"By God," cried Sheridan, "you've woken O'Toole."

When Sheridan had told Garret that he was in the very heart and soul of ancient Ireland, he had not entirely misspoken. It was a genial party that sat down to eat that evening. The talk, admittedly, was carried on mainly in English, but if O'Toole, for instance, quoted some Irish verses, Sheridan would like as not join in, with Dean Swift and Walsh nodding approval; and for a few minutes thereafter, the conversation of the whole table might transfer into Gaelic, during which the two women who had appeared with the meal from the kitchen would like as not join in. Only Tidy, who had been deputed to act as butler, would remain silent, as he himself had never wished to speak the Irish language and could never understand why the Dean troubled to do so. He also managed to give Garret a few contemptuous looks, which clearly conveyed his opinion that the young man should be waiting at the table, not sitting at it-and which nobody noticed except Garret himself.

The centre of attention was O'Toole.

Fortunatus had not encountered Art O'Toole before. The man was quite young, still in his early thirties. A fair, rangy fellow, eyes like pools of blue water, a long, thin face with a wide mouth and high, protruding cheekbones: in Walsh's imagination, he took shape as a fair-haired violin. During much of the year, he lived with his family up in the Wicklow Mountains, but in the summer and early autumn he would take to the roads, as the poet bards of Ireland had done since ancient times, and be welcomed with respect wherever he went. Usually, in modest farms and hamlets, he would perform his art for the native Irish, who could only provide him with food and shelter for the night-and he surely only did what he did for the love of the thing. Sometimes at such ceili ceili gatherings, he would sing, tapping his foot to the rhythm while a fiddler or two accompanied him. Or often he would tell stories from the old Irish folk tales. But best of all, if he was in the mood, accompanying himself on a small harp he carried with him, he would quietly sing verses of his own composition. gatherings, he would sing, tapping his foot to the rhythm while a fiddler or two accompanied him. Or often he would tell stories from the old Irish folk tales. But best of all, if he was in the mood, accompanying himself on a small harp he carried with him, he would quietly sing verses of his own composition.

There were a number of poets of this kind on the island. The greatest of them was Turlough Carolan, a poet musician who had been blind from his birth. "Blind as mighty Homer," Sheridan had once described him to Fortunatus, "and with the most phenomenal memory I have ever encountered. As for his verses, as one who is familiar with all the classical Greeks, I should rank some of them with Pindar himself." Carolan lived in the region and had been to Quilca several times. O'Toole was his junior by twenty years, but in the opinion of many, might one day be his equal.

During the meal, the poet talked sparingly, reserving himself for his performance afterwards; but when he did speak, it was in a pleasant, easy manner, and it was clear to Fortunatus that, as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish poetry, he was well acquainted with classical literature and even some recent English authors. He drank a little aqua vitae. "I offer you wine, Art," Sheridan said, "but I know you prefer usquebaugh."

"I do," confessed the poet, "for I find that if I drink wine, my brain becomes clouded, whereas the water of life has little effect upon me, except somewhat to sharpen the faculties."

"That," Sheridan responded happily, "is exactly what claret does for me."

O'Toole spoke to Swift with a marked respect, and to Walsh in a courteous manner, saying that he had heard much good of his brother Terence. He also spoke a few words to young Garret, who only replied in monosyllables, and Walsh supposed that the young man might be shy. But at one point, he did address the poet directly.

"What part of Wicklow do you come from?" he asked.

"From up in the hills. On the road to Glendalough. Rathconan is the name of the place."

"Would you know the Brennans there?"

A faint cloud seemed to pass across O'Toole's face.

"There is a family of that name there." He looked at Garret carefully. "Have you a connection with Rathconan?"

Garret stared at him.

"You could say so."

"Ah." O'Toole nodded thoughtfully. "The green eyes. That would explain it." But he made no further comment.

When the meal was done, he moved to a chair apart and took up his harp.

"First," he announced, "some music."

First he played a short jig, then a soft old Irish tune, so that Fortunatus assumed this was a prelude to an Irish tale. But then, to his surprise, O'Toole suddenly began to play a lively Italian piece which, to his even greater astonishment, he recognised as an adaptation of a violin concerto by Vivaldi. Seeing his amazement, Swift leant over to him.

"I have heard blind Carolan make an Italian composition of his own in just the same style," he whispered. "Your Irish musicians could be the equal of any in Europe."

Having proved a point, O'Toole skilfully returned to some Irish airs, and after three or four of these, he paused, while Sheridan brought him some usquebaugh. By this time, the women from the kitchen had also come back into the room, together with the boy from the stable and the men from the farm, so the whole household was present. "Now," the poet said quietly, "a tale or two." And sometimes singing, sometimes reciting, he wove the magical tales of old Ireland, of Cuchulainn, and Finn Mac Cumhaill, of ancient kings, and saints, and mysterious happenings. Most of the time he spoke in Irish, but once or twice in English, and always with the greatest ease. Apart from the occasional sip of his drink, he did not pause for over an hour.

"You will be celebrated, Art, long after we are forgotten," said Sheridan warmly when he paused at last. For several minutes, the company drank quietly, the conversation little more than a murmur. Then O'Toole ran his fingers lightly over his harp again. "A composition," he announced, "of my own. I call it, 'The River Boyne.'"

For if the Irish Catholic cause had been utterly lost at the Battle of the Boyne, it had certainly not been forgotten. How could it be, when Protestant landlords occupied all the stolen Catholic land, and the law added insult to injury every day of a Catholic's life? Small wonder, then, that the poets sang haunting, mournful songs to the Ireland that was lost, conjured visions of Ireland restored to its ancient glory, and dreamed dreams of the day when that should be. Above all, however, it was the sadness, the tender yearning for the Jacobite cause, that the harpers like Carolan expressed. And it was just such a lovely lament-for the bloodshed by the magical River Boyne, for the loss of Limerick, and the Wild Geese long since fled-that Art O'Toole sang now.

And it touched them all, Irish and English alike. Fortunatus looked around him and saw the serving women with tears in their eyes; Swift, silent but clearly moved; Sheridan, eyes half closed, half smiling, like an angel; even Tidy seemed thoughtful, aware, perhaps, of the beauty of the music. But it was Garret Smith's face that Walsh's eyes rested upon.

The transformation was remarkable. Gone was the self-absorbed, sulky look that he had mostly worn before. His face had relaxed; he was gazing at the poet with shining eyes, his mouth half open, rapt.

Whatever the young man's faults, thought Fortunatus, young Garret had genius: there was no question. He really belongs at Trinity, he thought, and Terence and I could send him there if only he weren't a Catholic. But as a Catholic he can't go, nor enter the learned professions for which nature so obviously intended him. Instead, he must be a frustrated and discontented grocer's apprentice. He shook his head at the terrible waste of it all. He thought of the conversation he'd had with the worthy priest and wondered what Garret's feelings might be for the servant girl, illiterate no doubt, that he'd been busy seducing. At this very moment, very possibly, the poor girl was being taken back to her family up in the Wicklow Mountains. To the very place, it now turned out, where O'Toole himself lived. What strange coincidences. Was there some hidden meaning here? What did it all mean?

Nobody rose early the next day. In the middle of the morning, Fortunatus came down to find Garret sitting on a bench outside, reading Macbeth, Macbeth, and eating an oatcake. Sheridan and Swift were talking quietly down by the water. and eating an oatcake. Sheridan and Swift were talking quietly down by the water.

At noon, O'Toole appeared, took a little light refreshment, and said that he must be on his way as he had ten miles to walk to the village where he was next expected. Sheridan and he had a brief talk together at which, Fortunatus had no doubt, a guinea or two had been bestowed. Then all the party said their farewells and gave the thanks that the poet rightly took as his due. Garret murmured something to him in Irish, which Walsh did not catch, and the poet answered with a calm nod. Then, with a long, loping stride, he was gone.

They were not to dine until late in the afternoon. Sheridan and Swift clearly wished to continue their conversation alone, so when Garret had finished his reading, Walsh took him off for a short walk. He tried to draw the young man out about his reactions to O'Toole the night before. Garret said little, but it seemed to Fortunatus that there was a suppressed excitement in his manner, as though he had made some secret discovery or made a great decision. What that might be, however, Walsh could not guess.

It was later, during the meal, when Fortunatus brought up the other matter that had been on his mind.

"I need your advice," he told Swift and Sheridan.

"And why is that?" his host asked amiably.

"To avoid eviction," Walsh replied with a laugh. And he told them about the visit from his cousin Barbara Doyle, and her fury over Mr. Wood's copper coins. "I haven't the least idea," he confessed, "how to satisfy her."

"From all accounts," remarked Sheridan, "there will be protests in the Dublin Parliament from every side."

"Which the government in England will ignore," said Swift bluntly. "For I have it upon excellent authority that they mean to do nothing at all."

"Yet surely," said Fortunatus, "after the scandal of the South Sea Bubble, the London men will know that their reputation is at a low ebb. You'd think they'd be anxious to avoid any financial transaction that looks improper."

The great crash, three years ago, of the entire London financial market, in a staggering series of overblown expectations and bogus stock offerings, had left the reputation of the City of London and the British government in tatters. Walsh could only be glad that his own savings, and those of most of his friends, had been safely in Ireland. There was hardly a town in England where someone hadn't been ruined.

"You underestimate the arrogance of the English," Dean Swift replied grimly. "The government believes that the complaints from Ireland are due to political faction. They suppose that those who raise objections do so only because they are friends of members of the opposition party in the English Parliament."

"That is absurd."

"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it."

"I wish, Dean," said Fortunatus fervently, "that you would use your satiric pen in this cause. Even an anonymous pamphlet would be a far more powerful weapon than any poor speech I could make." The Dean's satires in the past had been published anonymously- though no one ever doubted who'd written them.

The Dean and Sheridan glanced at each other. Swift seemed to hesitate.

"Were I to consider such a thing," he said guardedly, "it could only be after the Dublin Parliament has debated the issue and had a response from London. For me to write, even anonymously, must be a last resort. As Dean of Saint Patrick's, I may speak out on a moral question, but not a political one."

Fortunatus nodded.

"If it should come to that, however," he smiled, "you must let me tell my cousin Margaret it was only thanks to my prompting that you did so. If I can take the credit, I may keep a roof over my head."

"Very well. As you wish," Swift answered. "Yet the truth is, Fortunatus, that I not only share your view about this business; my indignation surpasses your own." He frowned, before continuing with some heat: "For this man to flood Ireland with his debased coinage, I find the most insupportable villainy and insolence. Then, when we complain, Wood and his hirelings represent it as disloyalty. It is infamous. Yet it is believed. And the reason for it," he continued angrily, "I must acknowledge as an Englishman, is that while the English have a contempt for most nations, they reserve an especial contempt for Ireland."

Walsh was quite taken aback at the sudden anger of this outburst from the taciturn Dean, but Sheridan smiled affectionately.

"There, Jonathan, you are a wise and circumspect fellow, yet your passion for truth and justice will suddenly come out and make you quite as reckless as I am."

"Ireland's wool trade is ruined," Swift went on, "she is vilely treated at every turn, and it is done with impunity. Let me say, Walsh, what I think the Dublin Parliament should do. It should forbid English goods to enter Ireland. Perhaps then the English Parliament, and these operators like Wood, might learn to mend their ways."

"That is strong medicine," Fortunatus said.

"A necessary cure for a national reproach. But even this would be just a little bleeding, Walsh, a temporary cure. For the underlying cause is this. Ireland will be mistreated so long as its Parliament is subservient to that of London. We elect men as our representatives, yet their decisions are set at naught. London has not the moral or constitutional right to legislate for Ireland."

"A radical doctrine."

"Hardly so. It has been said in the Dublin Parliament for more than twenty years." Indeed, leading Irish politicians of the previous generation like Molyneux had advanced just such a case. But Walsh was still surprised to hear it coming from the Dean of Saint Patrick's. "Let me make clear," Swift said emphatically, "it is my opinion that all government without the consent of the governed is the very essence of slavery."

And it was now that young Garret Smith suddenly burst into the conversation.

The truth was that, for some time now, the other men had forgotten him. He had been sitting on Swift's right but had not said a word, and while he was talking to Walsh and Sheridan, the Dean had had his back to him.

"Welcome," he cried quite loudly, "to the Jacobite cause."

The Dean turned sharply. Fortunatus stared at him. The young man's face was flushed. He wasn't drunk, but he'd evidently been drinking quietly by himself all through the meal. His eyes were shining. Was there genuine excitement, bitter irony, or outright mockery in his tone? It was impossible to say. But whatever it was, there was more of it to come.

"The Catholics of Ireland will bless you." He laughed a little wildly.

And Fortunatus felt the blood drain from his face.

The boy didn't understand what he had said. That was evident. But it was too late now. Dean Swift was turning upon him, and his face was black with fury.

"I am not, Sir, a Jacobite," he thundered.

For, strangely, it was not the suggestion of Catholic sympathies that was so damaging to the Protestant Dean of Saint Patrick's: it was calling him a Jacobite.

How could Garret understand? In the complex world of English politics, a man like Swift had to be careful. Though his sympathies had originally been with the Whigs, who had supported the new Protestant settlement after throwing out Catholic King James, Swift as a literary man had found friends and patrons who belonged to the Tory party. So in the minds of the Whigs, who were in power now, Swift was in the Tory camp. And since some of those Tories had formerly been supporters of King James, there was always the suspicion that any Tory might secretly desire the return of the hated Stuart royal house. Any Tory whom they desired to destroy, therefore, they'd try to expose as a Jacobite-a traitor to King George and the Protestant order. Guilt by association.

Hadn't the Jacobite cause died when the Stuart Pretender had so utterly failed to make any headway back in 1715? You couldn't be sure. King George and his family were hardly popular. In the cockpit of Westminster and the great country houses where rich English lords wove their political webs, intrigue was always in the air. Every man had enemies, even the faraway Dean of Saint Patrick's, and there had been whispers from them that Swift was a Jacobite.

Did it matter? Oh, indeed it did. You could complain about Wood's copper coins, you could argue that Ireland should be ruled from Dublin, you could even mock the government in a satire, and probably get away with it because, in the political world, that was considered fair game. But if they could prove you a Jacobite, that was treasonable, and they could bring you down like a pack of hounds upon a fox. It didn't take much, either. A careless word in print, a sermon that could be misinterpreted, even an unwise choice of text, and your position in the church or university, your chances of preferment, the very bread upon your table, could be gone. These niceties were well understood by Walsh and Sheridan, but obviously not by young Garret. Under no circumstances could Swift allow himself to be labelled as a Jacobite.

"But you are!" cried Garret Smith cheerfully. "And if Ireland is to be ruled with the consent of the governed, then you'll have Catholics sitting in Parliament, too."

Swift glowered at him, then turned a furious look upon Walsh, as though to say, "You brought him here."

The trouble was, thought Fortunatus, that the boy was actually right. When Swift spoke of the governed, Walsh knew very well that he meant the members of the Protestant Church of Ireland. Swift entirely believed in the need for the Ascendancy, and for the exclusion of Catholics and Dissenters alike. But the man's innate passion for justice was leading him farther than he himself realised. That's it, thought Fortunatus: he's a good man, at war with himself, who doesn't entirely know it. Perhaps that was the wellspring of his strange satire, of his love for stern classical order and Irish exuberance all together.

"You are impertinent, young man, you are ignorant, and you are wrong," Swift shouted in a rage. "The Jacobites are traitors, and as for the Catholic religion, Sir, I must tell you very plainly that I abominate it. I abominate it utterly." And he rose from the table and strode from the room.