He nodded and there was a calm certainty in his voice. ‘It’ll work all right.’
‘And then what?”
Til go home,’ he said. ‘Back to Kerry and that farm I was telling you about.’
‘And a good woman?’
He touched her gently on the face. ‘I’m twenty years too old for you, have you considered that?’
‘You’ve been in prison a long time,’ she said, and a small devil looked out of her eye at him. ‘Working that off should keep me going for quite a time.’
Laughter erupted from his throat and he reached across, tugging at her hair. ‘The most dangerous remark you ever made in your life, my girl.’
She held on to his hand, her laughter matching his, and then it faded and she turned her face and kissed his palm. He went round the table in two quick steps, the bench going over with a clatter and pulled her into his arms. There were tears on her face and her whole body was trembling. He held her at arm’s length and raised
her chin with one hand.
‘This is one hell of a place to be putting a question like this to you, but did anyone ever ask you to marry him before?’
He could not have stilled her more completely with a slap across the face. She stared at him in incredulous wonder, eyes wide and staring and then she stumbled into his arms, her head against his chest.
When she looked up, her eyes were shining. ‘Nothing matters now. Nothing.’
‘I know, Hannah. I know.’
There \vas the rattle of stones on the hillside above the little plateau, she pulled away from him quickly and wiped her eyes. She turned to the table and started to unpack the sandwiches as Brendan appeared in the doorway.
He came forward shyly and Rogan patted him on the shoulder. ‘Sit down, son, we’ve been waiting for you.’
Brendan took the sandwich Hannah offered him, bit into it and sighed with pleasure. The strange thing was that when he spoke there was no trace of a stammer at all. ‘I wish this day could go on for ever, Mr. Rogan. Do you ever feel like that?’
Rogan looked across at Hannah, knowing what she must be thinking and shook his head. ‘Nothing lasts for ever, son, that’s one of the things we all have to learn.’
Hannah’s eyes clouded for a moment, her face became a blank mask again. Rogan sighed, got to his feet and moved to the door. The rain was falling harder than ever and he looked out at it morosely. Whichever way you looked at it, life was neither a beginning nor an ending, but a constant state that covered every action a man had taken, good or bad, during his entire existence.
He was involved with this girl just as he was involved with Colum O’More and Harry Morgan, because every single thing he had done in his life had led him to this point. There was no point in regretting anything. Subtract any part of the whole and it no longer existed,
which was an interesting thought. He sighed heavily and went back inside.
In the late afternoon as the shadows drifted in across the mountains they moved down the track towards the farm. As they rounded the shoulder of die hill, the shooting brake was turning through the gate into the yard. The two men got out, Fletcher went straight inside, but Morgan stood waiting for them.
‘A hell of a day for a walk on the mountain,’ he said, the characteristic sardonic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘Any trouble?’ Rogan said.
Morgan shook his head. He moved to the rear of the brake, opened the door and lifted a rug to disclose four mailbags neatly folded and a couple of brown paper parcels containing the uniforms.
Tour was all you could get?’
Morgan nodded. ‘He had these in stock, so to speak. He could have got us more this evening, but I decided you wouldn’t want us to hang around.’
Hannah and Brendan had gone into the house and the two men stood there alone in the heavy rain. ‘That’s it then,’ Rogan said. ‘All we can do now is wait.’