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if it was even open. I shrugged and sat back. I supposed I’d know the answer when we got there. It was a fine crisp morning. The countryside was painted in browns and golds, and the leaves fell from trees as we passed, drifting like feathers down to earth. I turned around and looked back at Slieve Gullion. My lovely mountain was shedding her bracken cloak, and here and there patches of scarred granite, like gray wrinkled skin, were exposed amid the mossy grass.
    We turned off onto a road that ran around Newry, so I knew we were not going to the bank. The road narrowed to a winding, country road overgrown on both sides by trees and bushes.
    At length we turned in through an open iron gate and up an avenue with trees lining either side of it. As we came out into a clearing, I saw a huge stone manor house. The main house was three stories high with a low wing on either end. It looked like a great stone bird sitting there with its wings outstretched. But the arched windows made me shiver. I felt eyes watching me. Ghosts, maybe.
    Ma stopped the cart and stepped down, straightening her coat and hat. Without a word she marched toward the house, sighing and clucking her tongue as she looked at the weed-filled flower beds spanning the front of the house. She went up the three stone steps, Frankie and me following at a distance, and raised and lowered the heavy iron knocker on the front door. Ma waited and then knocked again, with more force.
    All was quiet except for the rustling of leaves against the grimy windows and the sound of our own breathing. At last the door creaked open and we heard grunting and coughing from behind it. Staring at us was an old man in a hunting jacket that had seen better days. He was stout, with a florid face, grizzly gray whiskers, and small brown eyes. He looked at us with disgust, as if we were some kind of vermin that had arrived at his doorstep.
    “Hello, Father,” Ma said, her voice quiet but firm.
    The old man stared at her, and recognition dawned slowly on his face. But even so, the contempt remained.
    “I suppose you want to come in,” he said at last, standing back and opening the door wider. He turned on his heel and was swallowed up in the cavernous darkness of the hallway.
    Ma followed him, and Frankie and I crept along behind her. I jumped as the old grandfather clock in the hall chimed. The place smelled of the damp and of boiled dinner and brandy. We followed him into a big study with heavy furnishings and thick velvet curtains that let in hardly any light. He sat down in an armchair, picked up a glass from a side table, and began to drink. Two old dogs lay motionless at his feet. He waved his hand at Ma to find a seat. Frankie and I may as well have been invisible. We sat on an old sofa.
    “What do you want?” he growled. “If you’re looking for dinner, it’s the cook’s day off. Would you like a drink?”
    Ma shook her head. “I have not come for hospitality, Father,” she said.
    “And what have you come for?” he said. Then he turned to Frankie and me and studied us for a long time. “The girl is an O’Neill brat by the look of her,” he grunted, “and the other one, well, who knows who he takes after? Not the Fitzwilliams, at any rate. I hear you have one more at home, and another in the oven, I see!”
    “I’m a proud O’Neill,” I declared, “and so is my brother!” I don’t know where I got the courage to speak up, but I was determined to protect Frankie’s pride at that minute. The truth of the matter was that the old man was half-right. Frankie did not look much like the O’Neills, but God help him, he was the spit of the old man in front of us.
    “This is Frank and Eileen,” Ma said, her voice unusually high, “and I also have another daughter at home.”
    “Catholics!” he snarled.
    He reached for the decanter and poured himself another drink. Frankie glared at him, his fists thrust in his pockets. I put my hand gently on his arm, but he shrugged