‘The house is strewn with twigs of all shapes and sizes.’
‘Has he discovered anything?’ If he could keep his mind on Pat it might be all right.
‘He has discovered gold under the sitting-room hearth, a body under the whatyoumaycallem in the downstairs bathroom, and two wells.’
‘Where are the wells?’ It couldn’t be so very long now. Five miles to the head of the glen and Clune.
‘One under the dining-room floor and one under the kitchen passage.’
‘I take it that you haven’t dug up the sitting-room hearth.’ The window was wide open. What was there to worry about? It wasn’t really a closed space, not a closed space at all.
‘We have not. He is very peeved about that. Said I was a once-born.’
‘Once-born?’
‘Yes. It’s his latest word. It ranks just one degree below a stinker, I understand.’
‘Where did he get the word?’ He would hang on till they got to that birch wood at the corner. Then he would ask Tommy to stop.