Free Away by Jane Urquhart Page A

metal out of the earth, he told his brother, scientists in the unhappy countries should be trying to invent ways to get more of it
in
.
    Granville was busily writing down facts, and being so occupied was not nearly as happy as his brother.
“Solenisis,”
he wrote doggedly, “or shell of a razor fish. Sometimes seen burrowing in sand but known to possess the ability occasionally to move rapidly through water by opening and shutting its valves. Water enters through the inhalant orifice and exits through the efferent orifice.”
    “Tellina solidula,”
he wrote next.
    The brothers sat in leather chairs with their backs to a cabinet filled with similar and very dirty hundred-year-old puffins’ eggs. As this strange bird (sometimes called the sea parrot) laid its eggs at the bottom of a muddy burrow bored into a cliff, it had been impossible for Henry Austin Sedgewick the First to lay his hands on a pristine specimen. Subsequent attempts to remove the grime had been to no avail, and now they stood, row upon row of them, covered with a thin veneer of hundred-year-old mud, the least dusted collection on the property. On the bottom shelf, to the left, was a small gathering of black, leather-like cases, known to protect the eggs of a certain variety of shark and called “mermaid’s purses” by the peasantry. Near them, mounted on a silver stand, was a shark’s tooth which was said to have facilitated the teething of Osbert and Granville themselves and whose presence in the house was a result of a bit of folklore collected by their father.
    “Stories are getting grim at firesides these days,” said Granville abruptly, turning his attention away from the task at hand.
    The sunlight that moved through the dusty bubbled glass of the large arched window on the other side of the room chose this moment to expose the extent of wear on the northern side of the Persian carpet. Two and a half hundred years of Sedgewicks had trod there, carrying their prized specimens to the cases that lined the walls.
    “Political talk?” enquired Osbert. “Uprisings?”
    “Not exactly,” said Granville. “Tinkers, travelling people are bringing tales of incredible hardships in the West.”
    “Terrible hardships in the West,” agreed Osbert. “Always have been. Some of them are without windows and, as a result, without views. Sublime scenery though. Do you remember ourpuffin hunts with Father in Donegal? We must go back … perhaps next year. This shell needs just a suggestion of red ochre.”
    “Yes, but now they say that there’s not enough to eat.”
    “Never have had enough to eat,” said Osbert. “Subsist on potatoes, for God’s sake.” He scrubbed, almost with annoyance, at the ochre. “Remarkable root, however,” he added, “in that one
can
subsist upon it.
Solanum tuberosum
. Who brought it from Peru – Raleigh or Drake? Thought they were truffles, didn’t he … or they?”
    “Raleigh never visited Peru.”
    “Are you certain?”
    “Quite.”
    “Well then … must have been Drake.”
    “They’re saying,” Granville persisted, “that there is something wrong with the potatoes.”
    “Insects, I expect. Filia beetles undoubtedly. Tiny things but rather wonderful when examined microscopically. The adult is about one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch long. I drew them once, I think … can’t remember.”
    “They say the leaves turn black and there’s a sweet, rotten smell,” said Granville, “and the potatoes decompose before you can get them out of the ground. James Flanaghan told me that last year’s harvest, in the West, was partly ruined but that this year’s is non-existent.”
    “Is Flanaghan the one who told you that remarkable story about that robber … what was he called?”
    “Black Dan O’Reilly.”
    “Oh yes … and wasn’t there something about gold … something about a hand?”
    “Black Dan O’Reilly’s quest for the golden hand. He was the one that began by stealing