‘Very funny,’ said Jamesie sourly as they climbed back onto the caravan. ‘By the looks of him he doesn’t wear out many pairs of boots.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Róisín, ‘we’ll think of something else.’
They were all very disappointed that the garda hadn’t taken them seriously, and after getting some bread in a local shop they headed back to the Corrib. On the way they met several big lorries carrying all the colourful props of the carnival Big Jim had told them about. As the convoy passed, they caught a tantalising glimpse of wooden horses, swingboats and even a wooden arch bearing the rather grand title of Titania’s Palace. However, the excitement they felt lasted no longer than the time it took the lorries to pass, for their minds were now preoccupied with the more serious matter of finding their Uncle Pakie.
‘We’ll just have to look for that van,’ said Róisín.
‘But where?’ wondered Cowlick. ‘It could be a million miles away by now.’
‘And as you said yourself,’ Tapser reminded her, ‘we don’t really know what colour to look for. What do you think, Jamesie?’
‘Well, a lot of them use vans like that. But we should be able to recognise the caravan. I suppose it’s worth a try. Giddyup there, Nuadha.’
Several hours later, however, even Róisín had to admit they were wasting their time. They had searched a number of roads and villages, including The Neale and Cross, and were now on the Headford road.
Jamesie pulled into a lay-by. ‘If we keep going, we’ll end up in Galway, and that’s no use.’
‘Why, do they not have travellers in Galway?’ asked Rachel.
‘Oh they have all right,’ smiled Jamesie, ‘but it’s too far, and anyway, it’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’ So saying, he turned Nuadha around and headed back towards Cong.
‘Pakie’s riddles are the only clues we have now,’ said Tapser.
Róisín nodded. ‘Unless we can figure out what the two men were talking about last night.’
‘Don’t forget the island,’ Cowlick reminded them. ‘We still have to go there.’
‘So we will,’ said Jamesie. ‘But first I want to show you Pakie’s place.’
Nuadha nosed her way through a maze of twisting lanes until they came to a quiet little inlet. On the left among the trees was a grey, slated house.
‘That’s it there,’ said Jamesie, and as they looked at the house they could see that it had an unlived-in appearance, a neglected look, typical of a man who lived on his own and spent most of his time out of doors.
There was a boathouse at the end of the inlet and two boats lay tilted on their side on the muddy slipway. Jamesie checked one of them, saying, ‘We can use this one, it’s ours. That one’s Pakie’s.’ He found a set of oars stacked inside the boathouse and told them, ‘I could use the outboard engine, but the oars will be quieter – just in case there is something going on out there.’
‘Will we camp here then?’ asked Cowlick.
Jamesie looked out across the water. ‘No. See that second island? That’s Illaun na Shee. We can be seen from there. I think it would be better if we went back to that little clearing we passed and made camp there.’
The sun was high now and the grasshoppers were chirping contentedly in the high grass. Away above them in a Scots pine tree a magpie chattered its annoyance at their presence. Having turned Nuadha loose to graze, they built a fire and made themselves a fry. A short time later they climbed into the boat and Jamesie rowed them out onto the Corrib. The lake, they could see, was almost deserted. Only two or three other boats could be seen in the distance, and Jamesie said they were parties of anglers from Ashford Castle or Ryan’s Hotel.
Much of the shoreline, like the islands, was heavily wooded, and here and there a castle or a house rose up from its hiding place in the trees. They could also see big white pillars up towards Cong, which Jamesie told them had been for the guidance of steamers in years gone by. On one of these pillars cormorants perched, wings outspread as if drying them after diving for fish.
As soon as the boat grounded on the stony shore of Illaun na Shee, they all jumped out and pulled it further out of the water so that it wouldn’t float off. Jamesie gave it an extra pull to make sure it was secure, and led the way up through the trees and bushes.
‘Do you often come here?’ Rachel asked him.
‘Not this island,’ he replied. ‘When we’re out for a day’s fishing with tourists we usually go to Inchagoill. It’s the largest island on the lake. We give them a picnic there and show them the old church and the gravestones, including the Stone of Lugna.’
‘The what?’ asked Cowlick.
‘The Stone of Lugna. Lugna was St Patrick’s navigator, or so Uncle Pakie says. He was also Patrick’s nephew, the son of his sister.’
‘And is he really buried there?’ asked Rachel.
Jamesie nodded. ‘So they say. You see, St Patrick founded the church there. Tradition has it that during his stay on the island, Lugna died, and was buried beside the church. His headstone is shaped like a ship’s rudder and the writing on it is said to be the oldest Christian inscription in Europe.’
‘This is a very historical place then,’ said Róisín.
They were approaching a small hillock on which grew a single hawthorn bush, and before Jamesie could answer he spotted something which made him stop and exclaim, ‘Look. Look at that.’
There, for all to see, was a circle of freshly trampled grass around the hillock.
Tapser shrugged. ‘Could have been cattle.’
‘There are no cattle on this island,’ Jamesie told him.
‘Goats then,’ suggested Cowlick.
Jamesie shook his head. ‘The island’s deserted, or it’s supposed to be. No, there’s only one thing it can be. That’s a fairy thorn. The little people must have been dancing around it last night!’
* * *
Tapser sat with his back against the trunk of the Scots pine tree and looked out towards the lake. The sun still had a long way to go before it set. Small birds were singing and jackdaws were calling out to each other down at Pakie’s house. Beyond the trees he caught a glimpse of a swallow catching a butterfly in mid-flight, but his mind was on that strange circle on Illaun na Shee.
‘It could have been anything,’ he said.
‘I told you there’s nothing on it,’ Jamesie told him. ‘Nothing else that could have made it.’
‘It could have been rabbits,’ Rachel suggested.
Jamesie shook his head. ‘Anyway, you heard what the men said at the travellers’ camp last night about the little people and the fairy queen.’
‘Maybe they meant something else when they said they would take him to the fairy queen,’ said Róisín.
‘Like what?’ asked Jamesie.
‘Well they could have been referring to a boat or something.’
‘You mean a boat called the Fairy Queen?’ asked Cowlick.
‘Why not? It’s the sort of name you might see on a biggish boat, like a steamer or something.’
‘Sure there are no boats like that on the Corrib now,’ Jamesie pointed out.
‘Still,’ said Cowlick. ‘I think Róisín’s right. Just because everything seems to point one way doesn’t mean we should close our eyes to another.’
‘Now that you mention it,’ said Tapser, ‘I thought I heard the sound of a boat’s engine last night, just before I went to sleep. I’m sure Prince heard it too.’
‘I didn’t hear anything, except you three talking,’ said Rachel. ‘You kept me awake for ages.’
Cowlick and Róisín indicated that they hadn’t heard anything either, and Jamesie said, ‘Nor I. Even if you did it could have been a car or lorry on the far side of the lake. Sound carries a long way on the water.’
They were silent for a few minutes, then Jamesie said, ‘As a matter of fact there was a steamer on the Corrib once called the Fairy Queen.’
‘There you are,’ said Róisín.
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p; ‘But I’m telling you, that was a long time ago.’ Jamesie looked out across the water. ‘There were a lot of steamers on the lake, especially in the nineteenth century. I often hear Pakie and my father talking about them. Some of them were paddle steamers, like the Lady Eglinton. She was the largest. Then there was the Enterprise, and the Lioness. They carried cargo between here and Galway. The last one was the St Patrick. My father says she was here until 1914.’
‘What did they say about the Fairy Queen?’ asked Cowlick.
Jamesie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just that she was very popular. She used to run a lot of excursions. I heard them saying she would collect people from Galway on Sundays and take them on trips around the lake. There was music and dancing on board, and they had a great time. There were excursions for children too. They said that on summer evenings you could hear their voices coming across the water as they made their way among the islands. But I told you, that was years ago. The men at the campfire couldn’t have been referring to her.’
‘I’m not saying they were,’ said Róisín stubbornly. ‘But it does show that they could have been talking about a boat, any boat.’
‘That’s right,’ said Tapser. ‘And if they were talking about a boat, then they must have meant something else when they talked about the little people.’
‘What else could they have meant?’ said Jamesie. ‘And what else could have made that fairy ring over on the island?’
The others could see that Tapser was getting tired of all this fairy talk. ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ he said, ‘and that’s to go over there tonight and see for ourselves.’
‘Right,’ Jamesie replied, ‘you’re on.’
‘Now hold on a minute,’ Rachel protested. ‘I’m not going over there in the middle of the night.’
Cowlick sniggered in a teasing sort of way, but Róisín shushed him, saying, ‘You won’t be so brave yourself when the time comes.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Jamesie, ‘if it’s protection from the little people you want, I know what to do.’
Tapser raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Jamesie, you really are the limit.’
Jamesie, however, ignored him and busied himself with the wooden box containing tools, nails and various other knick-knacks that was kept in the caravan in case Nuadha happened to throw a shoe.
It was a long evening. Several times they went down to the edge of the trees and looked across at the island. If there was anything strange going on there, they saw no indication of it. The only signs of life on the lake were two boats taking visitors back to Cong after a day’s fishing, swallows sweeping low over the surface in search of insects, and coots flittering about in the reeds by the water’s edge.
Eventually the sun went down and the moon came up. Quietly Jamesie pushed out the boat, slipped in past Róisín and Rachel and took up the oars. The moonlight sparkled on the dark ripples of the lake, but somehow it only made the water seem dark and mysterious, and Tapser, who was sitting up front with Cowlick and Prince, whispered, ‘Are you sure you know your way around the lake at night?’
Jamesie pulled strongly and silently on the oars. ‘I’m used to taking people out duck shooting in the evenings, so this is nothing new to me. Don’t worry, I know the lake like the back of my hand.’
The night had turned chilly. Jamesie pulled his collar up around his neck and the others snuggled down into their coats and hugged the side of the boat. Soon the first island slipped past them, and up ahead they could see the dark blob they knew to be Illaun na Shee. The creaking of the boat’s timbers and the gentle splashing of the oars seemed to be very loud now. Jamesie rested the oars for a moment and warned, ‘No talking until we put ashore. Remember what I said. Sounds carry a long way on the water.’
‘Shush, listen,’ said Tapser. Prince had pricked up his ears and alerted him to a sound.
‘What is it?’ whispered Róisín.
‘Voices,’ answered Tapser.
‘Children’s voices,’ Cowlick told her.
‘Martin said it was an enchanted island, remember?’ said Jamesie.
‘It’s just like that story you were telling us,’ whispered Róisín. ‘Children’s voices from the Fairy Queen.’
‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Rachel.
‘Here,’ said Jamesie, reaching into his pocket. ‘Put these on. As I said before, if it’s the little people you’re worried about, they’ll keep you safe.’
‘What is it?’ asked Rachel, taking hers.
‘It’s a necklace made from a horseshoe nail.’
‘And what good is that?’ asked Róisín.
‘That’s the way people used to protect their children in the olden days,’ Jamesie told them. ‘Just put them on and be quiet.’
Knowing they were in no position to argue, they all slipped the necklaces over their heads and said nothing. The sounds of the children’s voices had died away now and there was silence. Jamesie pulled on the oars again and they strained their eyes to try to pierce the darkness of the island. All they could see was its black outline etched starkly against the brightness of the moon.
A few minutes later they were in under the shadow of the island. Jamesie brought in his oars and they glided to a halt in a muddy inlet. Trying not to make any noise, they helped him tie the mooring rope to a large stone, and hunkered down.
‘We’re just around the corner from where we were earlier today,’ Jamesie informed them. ‘Try and keep Prince quiet, and stay close to me.’
None of them needed a second bidding. They held on tightly to each other and Tapser brought up the rear with Prince.
‘I’m glad you brought Prince,’ whispered Rachel.
‘So am I,’ replied Tapser.
‘Shush,’ warned Jamesie. ‘If they hear you it’ll spoil everything.’
Jamesie knew the island well and even in the darkness was able to take them unerringly over the rocks and through the bushes. Suddenly he stopped and said, ‘Listen.’
They paused. For a moment all they could hear was the sound of their breathing after the exertion of the climb. Then they heard it. It was the voices again. Happy voices. The voices of children playing.
Following Jamesie nearer to the sounds, the others took the horseshoe nails out of the open necks of their shirts and fingered them as if their lives depended on them. This was no time, they thought, to be doubting the existence of fairies or whether necklaces of horseshoe nails would keep them out of their clutches. If there was any possibility of Jamesie being right, it was better to be on the safe side!
They were coming closer to the sound of the voices now, and while Tapser was glad he had brought Prince along he was worried that he might not be able to hold him back, for he felt the collie tensing under his hand.
In a moment they were at the edge of the clearing, and they were hardly able to believe what they saw. There, only a short distance in front of them, several small figures were dancing around the hillock in a fairy ring.
‘And look,’ whispered Jamesie, nudging the others. ‘Up there.’
‘What is it?’ asked Tapser, holding the quivering collie firmly with both hands.
‘A banshee,’ choked Jamesie.
Sure enough, sitting in the moonlight beside the fairy thorn was an old woman. She had a dark shawl around her head, and even in the light of the moon they could see she was small and wizened.
At that moment, Prince squirmed free and rushed forward barking. ‘Prince,’ shouted Tapser. ‘Prince, come back.’ But it was too late. By the time he had brought Prince under control again, they had gone.
An eerie silence fell on the clearing. ‘Come on,’ whispered Tapser. ‘Let’s follow them.’
‘Better not,’ cautioned Jamesie. ‘They say that if you go into a fairy ring you’ll never find your way out again.’
‘Oh do be quiet, Jamesie,’ said Róisín sharply. ‘Didn’t you see they were just ordinary children?’
Edging forward, they could see that the children an
d the old woman must have made their way down a steep slope to the shore.
‘If they’re real children, what are they doing out here at this time of night?’ asked Jamesie as they lay down and scanned the shore. ‘Unless …’
‘Unless what?’ asked Cowlick.
‘Unless the poachers are using this island.’
‘That’s it,’ exclaimed Tapser. ‘They belong to the poachers.’
‘And here they come now,’ warned Cowlick.
In the light of the moon they could see the dark figures of several men running along the lake shore towards them. Some had sticks in their hands and judging from the flash of metal others had more dangerous weapons.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Róisín.
As they got up to go, Jamesie gasped, ‘It’s their nets. We’ve been lying on their nets.’
‘You’re right,’ said Tapser. ‘Gather round, all of you, and give me a hand.’
The poachers were coming up the slope now, gasping and cursing and brandishing their weapons.
‘Now!’ shouted Tapser, and with one accord they swung the heap of netting out and over the figures scrambling up the slope. Pausing only long enough to see the poachers fall backwards and tumble down the slope in a tangle of their own nets, they turned and raced back across the clearing. For a moment Prince stood at the top of the slope barking, then turned and followed them.
On reaching the boat they stopped and listened. There were no sounds of pursuit, but they shoved off and rowed out onto the lake. Slowly the dark blob of Illaun na Shee fell away behind them, and for what seemed like a long time the clamour of angry voices could be heard following them across the darkened water.
5. FOXES AND WITCHES
‘Hallo, hallo, hallo,’ came a voice from the clearing.
The boys jumped up and opened the flap of their tent to find Martin parking his bicycle against the Scots pine tree. They rubbed their eyes and Jamesie said, ‘Boy, are we glad to see you.’
‘Well you don’t look like it,’ said Martin taking off his bicycle clips. ‘You look as if you’ve been up all night.’
‘We have,’ Tapser told him. ‘Or a good bit of it. We ran into the poachers last night.’
The Legend of the Corrib King Page 4
