"Guinness Black Protestant Porter, the very same," echoed Doyle with satisfaction. "Though there's plenty that drink it without being Protestant, I may say."

The contemplation of the excellent brew brought the conversation to a momentary pause, and Georgiana used it to put her question.

"I wonder, Mr. Franklin, whether in Philadelphia you ever heard of some of my family. My uncle there was a man named Samuel Law."

She was almost ashamed of it, but in the nearly thirty years she'd been married, she had quite lost contact with her father's family. After the rift between her father and his brother John, the Ulster and Dublin branches of the family had never had any contact with each other. Her father had kept up a written correspondence with Samuel, and then his widow in Philadelphia, but she had never known much about this, and been too busy with her own family to pay much attention. So the truth was that she knew nothing about her cousins there, assuming that they still existed. "If I wanted to send a letter, I wouldn't even know who to write to," she confessed.

"But I remember Samuel Law the merchant very well," Franklin told her brightly. "And I know that he had brothers in Belfast and Dublin, for he told me so himself. They are an excellent family."

And he proceeded to give her a most encouraging account of the family-lawyers, doctors, worthy merchants, with good houses and some excellent farms in the region. "Judge Edward Law would be considered the head of the family at present, I should say."

"How I wish I could see them," she exclaimed. "How I should like Hercules to meet them also."

At this last idea, Franklin looked a little doubtful. But he gladly made a suggestion.

"I shall be sending a packet of letters to Philadelphia in a day or two, Lady Mountwalsh. If you care to write a letter to the judge, and give it to me, I can promise that it will be delivered to him in person."

It was an offer she accepted at once.

And when the party ended later that evening, and the guest of honour was escorted out, she agreed with all the rest of the family that it had been a great success.

The meeting of the Aldermen of Skinners Alley was well attended. More than forty cheerful fellows gathered in the upstairs meeting room of the city inn. As usual, the company was mixed. There was a wig-maker, two apothecaries, sundry other craftsmen and merchants, half a dozen lawyers, the operator of the Dublin-to-Belfast stagecoach, some clerks from the castle, a couple of army officers, numerous gentlemen, and a sprinkling of aristocrats, including young Hercules.

It was a convivial gathering. The Aldermen had been meeting like this each month for over eighty years, ever since the Battle of the Boyne. The business was light. A few new members were proposed and seconded, the sole qualification being that the applicant was a good fellow-and a Protestant, of course. News was exchanged. Hercules soon made the acquaintance of John MacGowan, who turned out to be a pleasant enough man, tallish, about thirty, with a receding hairline and a humorous caste of mind. Within an hour the business, which included collecting the sixpenny subscription that would pay for tonight's supper, was completed and the real object of the evening could begin.

The feast: everything was done to form. In the centre of the long table stood the hallowed bust of King William, the Protestant liberator. Down the middle of the table were numerous jugs: blue jugs for rum punch, white jugs for whisky punch, pewter jugs for porter- Guinness Black Protestant Porter, of course. As the members sat down and began to eat, a great platter of sheeps trotters was brought in, a reminder of how Catholic King James ran away from Dublin as King Billie approached. The talk was jolly. Only when the main meal was done could the profound business of the evening begin.

That deep business began with the entire company singing "God Save the King." After which the master of ceremonies, duly elected and given the office of Lord Mayor, solemnly rose and announced: "Gentlemen, I give you the Orange Toast." And then, to as near as you can get to a hush when forty jolly fellows have already eaten and drunk a good deal together, he intoned the following awe-inspiring invocation: "The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William not forgetting Oliver Cromwell, who assisted in redeeming us from popery, slavery, arbitrary power, brass-money, and wooden shoes. May we never lack a Williamite to kick the arse of a Jacobite! And a fig for the Bishop of Cork Bishop of Cork! And he that won't drink this, whether he be priest, bishop, deacon, bellows-blower, gravedigger, or any other of the fraternity of the clergy, may a north wind blow him to the south, and a west wind blow him to the east! May he have a dark night, a lee shore, a rank storm, and a leaky vessel to carry him over the River Styx! May the dog Cerberus make a meal of his rump, and Pluto a snuff box of his skull; and may the devil jump down his throat with a red-hot harrow, with every pin tear out a gut, and blow him with a clean carcass to hell! Amen! Amen!"

The language of the toast said it all. Part Shakespearean English, part seventeenth-century sermon: it was Protestant, antipapist, half-pagan, triumphalist. It was serious, yet not to be taken too seriously-so long as the freedom-loving Protestants were comfortably in control, of course. It was Ascendancy Dublin.

"Amen!" they all cried. "Nine times nine!"

And now, for those with the head for it, the serious drinking of the evening could begin.

It was some way into this latter process that John MacGowan committed his indiscretion.

Hercules had his own way of dealing with long evenings of drinking. Firstly, he was blessed with a head like a rock. If he had to, he could outlast most men in a drinking session. Secondly, it was easy for him to keep a cool head, because he was secretly bored-as he always was when no useful business was being conducted. But thirdly, he had become practised at drinking less than he appeared to. In convivial company with his friends, therefore, he was less of a companion and more a cold observer than they usually realised.

During the meal, he had been sitting across the table and a few places down from John MacGowan, and had the opportunity to observe the grocer from time to time. At first, MacGowan had spent most of his time listening and smiling, perhaps a little uncertain of himself as a newcomer to the company. Hercules had noticed a few beads of sweat on the balding front of his head, and wondered whether they came from the heat or from nervousness. Gradually, however, he appeared to gain confidence. He started to chat, even to tell a joke or two, and these being well received by his neighbours, he perceptibly relaxed. He drank more; his face began to glow. From time to time, when not engaged in conversation, he looked down at the table and laughed to himself-though whether because he was a little drunk or enjoying some private joke concerning the proceedings, it was impossible to tell. When the elderly man on MacGowan's left, having drunk his fill, quietly departed, Hercules walked round the table and took his place beside the grocer.

MacGowan greeted him with a nod, though Hercules wasn't sure if the grocer remembered who he was. After a moment or two, he said to him casually: "You're in the grocery trade, I think you said. Family business?"

"Indeed it is. Several generations now."

"You won't mind my saying, I hope, but MacGowan being a Catholic name, I should think the family might have been a little put out, with you being a Protestant, I mean."

MacGowan gave him a cautious glance, but Hercules smiled and returned a look of great sincerity.

"In fact," the grocer replied with a slow nod, "it must be said that it was a Protestant who saved my family. A remarkable woman, old Mrs. Doyle: but for her, my grandfather would have been ruined, instead of which he died a very prosperous man. The business is split between us now, but it's thanks to her that we have it." And he fell silent for a few moments. Hercules noticed that, as he cogitated, MacGowan half closed his left eye, while his right opened very large as he stared at the table.

Hercules took a blue jug and poured punch for them both.

"Let's drink to her," he said.

MacGowan grew quite friendly after this. He cracked a few jokes, at which Hercules laughed companionably, and poured him more punch. The grocer's face was growing quite red and there was a slight slur in his speech, but he kept going very gamely, with Hercules encouraging him in a friendly manner at his side.

"I wonder," Hercules ventured at last, "whether you ever came to know a Doctor Terence Walsh."

"Doctor Walsh?" The grocer's face lit up with pleasure. "Indeed I do. That's a very fine old man."

"I quite agree. I have the honour to be a kinsman of his myself."

"Ah, indeed?" From the slight look of confusion on MacGowan's flushed face, it was clear to Hercules that the grocer had rather forgotten who he was.

"You'll know his son, my cousin Patrick, then?"

"I do. I do." MacGowan was looking a little fuddled, but delighted.

"He told me all about your being here tonight." Hercules gave him a grin and a wink.

"He did?"

"He's my cousin. A very good fellow."

MacGowan gave him a confidential look.

"He told you about the bet?"

Hercules nodded.

"I wasn't clear if the bet was made with himself, though," he said.

"No, it wasn't. That was with two other fellows. But he came to hear of it. You don't think he'll tell anyone else, do you?"

"Never."

"He's a capital fellow."

"He is indeed." He dropped his voice. "For a Catholic to get in here like this . . . into the Orange Aldermen themselves. What a thing to do. How much will you get?"

"Two guineas for getting in at all. Two more if I'm undetected. Then another two if I can do it next month as well." He grinned. "So I've two guineas already."

Hercules laughed. Then he got up, walked round the table to the lord mayor, and told him that they had been infiltrated.

The next few minutes were interesting. There was no precedent for such a thing, and so while they held him on the bench, and delivered a few kicks and blows to his body to pass the time, the company had to come to a decision-which, as the lord mayor pointed out, might set a precedent-as to what to do with the Catholic grocer who had dared to violate the sanctity of the proceedings and witness their secret counsels in this manner. Some of those present were very angry indeed and argued that, since there was, unfortunately, no law which could sent him to the gallows where he clearly belonged, they should at least, as decent citizens, beat him within an inch of his life. Others, their judgement perhaps clouded by drink, argued that since it was done for a bet, the punishment for the fellow's crime, heinous though it was, might be somewhat mitigated. Hercules himself, having performed his proper service by exposing the crime, took no part in these discussions. In the end, the moderate council of the lord mayor prevailed, and they only dragged him over to the window and threw him out.

The drop onto the cobbled street was hardly more than a dozen feet, but MacGowan did not fall as well as he should have, and the landlord informed them later that he had broken a leg. But not badly: the surgeon had set it well enough. So that was the end of the matter.

At least, for the rest of the Aldermen. But not for Hercules. There was one other matter to be attended to.

The next day he went to see his cousin Patrick and asked to speak with him privately. The conversation did not take long.

"You knew about John MacGowan cheating his way into the Aldermen. But you didn't tell me."

"It was difficult. I'd given my word. The thing was only a foolish wager."

"You lied to me."

"Not exactly. I said nothing, really. I hear the poor fellow was hurt."

"You can make all the Catholic equivocations you please, but you lied."

"I resent that."

"Resent it all you like, you damned papist."

Patrick shrugged contemptuously.

"If we have to meet at family gatherings," Hercules continued coldly, "I shall be polite. I shall not offend Grandfather. But stay away from me. I never wish to see your face again."

And so it was, unknown to Fortunatus, that the friendship between the two branches of the Walsh family, planned by his father and cherished for eighty years, came to an end.

For Georgiana, the years that followed Ben Franklin's visit were busy ones.

She was delighted some months after writing to Philadelphia to receive a courteous letter back from Judge Edward Law. From the tone of his letter, she had the impression that the judge was rather tickled to have a relation with such a fine-sounding title. Not only did he give her news of her American cousins, but kindly included a family tree. He also gave her an interesting account of the mood in the American colonies, which indicated that, in his opinion, the disputes between the colonists and the English government would not easily be resolved.

A year later, when news reached Ireland of the Boston colonists' destruction of a valuable cargo of tea, another letter from the judge arrived.

Here in Philadelphia, the governor avoided a similar conflict by persuading the captain to take his cargo of tea back to England. But now that such a challenge has been made to London, I fear that legal retaliation will follow. And resorting to law, alas, can only make this conflict worse. I have written also to our cousins in Belfast.

This last sentence, she supposed, might be a gentle hint to her that, having gone to the trouble of reestablishing relations with the family in distant Philadelphia, it might be a kindness to do the same for her relations in nearby Belfast. In this case, she knew that her uncle John had had a son named Daniel, so she knew whom to write to. And indeed, if she asked herself why she had never done so, she had to confess that it was probably a fear that her Belfast relations, who were not at such a safe distance as the ones in Philadelphia, might embarrass her in some way. Having decided that this was small-minded, and having made sure that her kindly husband had no objection, she wrote a letter. But she received no reply.

The following year, old Fortunatus lost his wife, and Georgiana made a point of going round several times a week to keep the old man company. She would often find his brother Terence there, and it was heartwarming to see the two brothers sitting so contentedly together. Though he complained of nothing more than a stiff leg, it sometimes seemed to Georgiana that Doctor Walsh was not entirely well himself. Occasionally, he looked gaunt and tired. But he was obviously content to sit chatting with his brother all afternoon. And if she didn't find Terence, then she'd often encounter his son Patrick there instead. "It's good of the boy to come," Fortunatus would say, "when he has better things to do." Yet she had no doubt that Patrick enjoyed the old man's company.

Though his father had suggested he follow in the medical profession, Patrick had chosen the wine trade instead, and was working hard at it. The more she saw of Patrick, the better she liked him. He was clever, humorous, and kind. And he was not without ambition. "I hope to make my fortune if I can," he told her frankly. And when she asked if there was anything else he desired: "I could never change my faith, but if it were ever possible for a Catholic to do so, then I should like to enter Parliament."

Though that still seemed a far-off hope, Georgiana was glad that there were now some small, but encouraging developments for the Catholics of Ireland. The Pope had opened the door. Some years ago, after two centuries of opposition to England's heretic monarchs, the Pope had compromised, and King George III was now recognised by the Vatican as the legitimate sovereign of Britain. That made things easier. "And with all this trouble in the American colony," her husband told her, "the government wants to keep every section of the community as happy as possible." In Ireland, Catholics were excluded from every office, because the Oath of Allegiance was worded in such Protestant terms that no Catholic could possibly take it. "So we're going to try to find a way round it," her husband explained. The Protestant Bishop of Derry, working with some of the Catholic hierarchy, devised a new oath. Not all the Catholic bishops liked it, but others urged their flocks to take it. This might, after all, open the way to further things."

"Will you take it?" Georgiana asked Patrick.

"I shall, at once," he declared. And old Fortunatus was equally enthusiastic.

"This is what the family always stood for back in my father's and my grandfather's day: loyalty to their faith and loyalty to the king," he reminded them. "I still pray," he confessed to her after one of Patrick's visits, "that you may live to see the two branches of the family-Hercules and Patrick-both in the Parliament together."

Hercules would also go to see his grandfather from time to time, of course, but Georgiana noticed that if he came and found Patrick there, one or other of them would soon make a polite excuse and leave. Once, she asked Patrick if there was anything amiss between him and her son, but he dodged the question, replying: "We both love Uncle Fortunatus, you know." When she asked Hercules the same thing, he answered briefly: "He has his life; I have mine." And he refused to say anything more. So she did not pursue the matter. But I like him anyway, she thought, whether you do or not.

Her project to marry Hercules to the Fitzgerald girl had miserably failed. The girl herself, according to Eliza, found Hercules cold. His own assessment was blunt and final.

"She has too many opinions of her own, Mother, to be of any interest to me."

Georgiana sighed. No mother wants to think poorly of her son. She would continue to try.

Early in 1775, her husband had taken her to London for a month. It had been a most successful visit. They had gone to the Houses of Parliament, heard Pitt, Fox, and Burke, the greatest orators of the day, watched Lord North, the Prime Minister, apparently half asleep in the House of Lords. "Actually," a knowing friend informed them, "Lord North is a much cleverer fellow than he looks, but he holds the position more from a sense of duty than because he likes it." They also spoke to numerous politicians. In the course of this, Georgiana had gained a clearer insight into the mentality of the London government concerning the Catholics in Ireland. "The fact is, Lady Mountwalsh," a cynical government supporter informed her with a smile, "this new loyalty oath has been a deucedly good thing. On the one hand, the Catholic bishops don't agree with each other about it. So that splits the Catholics and lessens the chance of them giving us any trouble. But at the same time, it's encouraging Catholic recruits into the army. You see," he explained, "for years now, about one in twenty of the troops in the British army have been Irish. They were all supposed to take the Oath of Allegiance, of course, but if they were Catholic, we just forgot about it. Now, however, with their priests encouraging them to take the new oath, we're recruiting two or three times as many. If this trouble in the colonies turns into armed conflict-and we're damnably short of troops-we can send these Irish off to fight in America." He laughed. "So I'm all for Catholics at present, my lady."

She had been around politicians for decades and was no stranger to political calculation, but when she thought of old Fortunatus and of young Patrick's honest loyalty, and the hundreds of Catholic Irish she knew, she felt a sense of sadness and disgust at the Englishman's shallow calculation.

The real purpose of their visit, however, was for pleasure. She had seen the latest London fashions, bought some fine silks and shoes, while George had acquired three Italian paintings in the sale rooms. But perhaps most delightful of all was the night they went to the theatre to see the new romantic comedy that had just taken London by storm.

As well it might: for The Rivals The Rivals, with its almost dreamlike plot, its lively characters like Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Sir Anthony Absolute, and the novel-reading Lydia Languish-not to mention the ineffable Mrs. Malaprop, who always uses the wrong word-was obviously destined to become a classic of the stage. Even Garrick, the great actor manager, had already declared it a masterpiece. And to think that the author was still only twenty-three!

Having roared with laughter and warmly applauded, it gave Lord and Lady Mountwalsh particular pleasure to go backstage afterwards to congratulate the handsome playwright himself, none other than young Richard, Tom Sheridan's son.

"You know how happy my father will be that the grandson of his old friend, the great Doctor Sheridan, should have succeeded so brilliantly here in London," George said warmly. "And will you forgive me if I say that some of your language is so delicious, so brilliant, that it could only have come from an Irishman."

Both these sentiments seemed to give young Sheridan enormous pleasure.

"I remember your father, when I was a boy in Dublin," he cried.

"You may have known our son Hercules, when he was here in London," Georgiana added.

"Ah yes," said Sheridan.

The spring passed quietly for Georgiana. Then came news from America that fighting had begun near Boston. Soon afterwards, she received another letter from Judge Edward Law in Philadelphia.

After some hesitation, I am now inclined to what we here call the Patriot cause. My estimation is that about one fifth of our people are patriots, favouring a complete separation from Britain; two fifths are loyal to the crown, though they want reform; and another two fifths are undecided, uninterested, or afraid to commit to anything. The slave-owners in the south fear anything that might lead to a slave revolt.

I know that our cousins in Ulster, like most of the Presbyterians there, entirely favour the patriot cause and would be glad to see America-and Ireland-independent from England. I wonder if you are for us or against us?

After reading the letter carefully, she thought it better not to reply just yet. When her husband asked her if it contained anything of interest, she answered, "Not really, George," and later locked it in her bureau.

A year later, the American Declaration of Independence had gone ringing round the world, four thousand troops had been despatched from Ireland to quell the colony, and news had come that dear old Mr. Franklin had gone to France to get military aid from Britain's oldest enemy. It was just as well, she supposed, that she had never replied.

In that same extraordinary year, a more mundane event came to occupy her attention closer to home.

Hercules had found a wife. The girl's parents, who owned a good estate in County Meath, had brought her to Dublin to find a husband, and there Hercules had wooed her and won her heart. Not that-given that she had come there expressly for that purpose and he was the heir to Lord Mountwalsh-this was a task requiring more than common sense. But he had done it, and she was exactly what he wanted.

Nobody could object to Kitty. She wasn't the kind of beauty that everyone remarked upon, but she looked very well at his side. She had the same upbringing and outlook as scores of other girls of her class, and being still only eighteen, she clearly looked to Hercules for guidance. Once, when Georgiana asked her what she thought of the American colony's actions, she looked at once to Hercules, who answered firmly for her: "They are rebels, and they'll pay for their treason."

"Even old Benjamin Franklin?" she'd pursued.

"Franklin?" Kitty seemed uncertain who he was.