The Journeyman Tailor Read Online Free PDF Page A

story that the child loved best, the story that had no ending.
    "They called him Shane. He was from the family of the Donnellys, and they had a small castle at what was then called Ballydonnelly that had been built beside the Torrent river, where there was a ford. People could cross the ford, wade across the river, at that place, so it was right for a castle. Shane was one of the young men of the family of the Donnellys. His father was Patrick Modardha, a funny name because it means that he was called Patrick the Gloomy. It is 350 years ago that this all started. They were the Catholic people, they owned the land, and the English set themselves to drive them off that land just because they were Catholics and to put their own people, thugs and scum, onto that land . . .
    "Patrick led his men in the attack on the castle of Lord Charlemont at Moy. They sacked the castle, drove the English away. That was when Patrick was a young man, and before Shane was born. The years passed, and for a while the Donnellys at Ballydonnelly Castle were left to themselves. Shane was born. He grew up to be a fine young man, good to his neighbours, kind to the family's tenants. Even when he was small he had learned to ride a horse and to shoot and to hunt so that he could live off the land on the Altmore mountain. When he was just twenty years old, the English came again. The Englishmen were led by Sir Toby Caulfield, who was a harsh man. The English came with overwhelming force and they killed Patrick Modardha, and they captured the castle at Ballydonnelly. Shane fought as long as he was able and then slipped away and climbed high up onto the Altmore mountain. From there he could see the burning and pillaging and thieving of the English soldiers and the 'gallowglasses' who were paid to fight for them. On that first evening, as he saw far below him the climbing smoke from the Donnelly home and their cattle barns, Shane swore to himself that he would take his revenge of the English for what they had done. At first he joined the rapparee band of Redmond O'H
    anion of Armagh, who was called Terror of the Fews, and then when Redmond had been killed, he formed his own band of free men. He lived wild on the mountain with them. All his teeth fell out, and he was known as Shane Bearnagh, which is Shane Gap-tooth. In all of the band he was the most powerful man, and it was said of him that his toothless gums could bite through a thin plate of iron as if it were gingerbread. The band of Shane Bearnagh became the most famous group of resistance fighters in the whole of Ireland. Down in the valley, Ballydonnelly was now renamed Castlecaulfield and Sir Toby Caulfield lived in Shane's castle, and had taken all the land that had belonged to Shane's family . . .
    "The revenge of Shane Bearnagh was on the mountain, but the fear of him spread far and wide. Some of the Englishmen, cowards, paid Shane Bearnagh with money and beef and bread, in the hope that he would leave them alone. He lived in the caves of the mountain, and close to the main coach road that ran between Dungannon and Omagh was where he was happiest. At the very summit of the mountain was a heap of rocks that is to this day called Shane Bearnagh's sentry box . . .
    "His friends in Dungannon would light fires when the coaches left under cover of darkness from Dungannon to make the run to Omagh.
    They thought the night would help them, but they were wrong. Shane could see down to Dungannon, and the fires that were lit for him, and he and his men would stop the coaches and take back from the Englishmen what had been stolen from the Irish people. The English feared him more than any fighter in all of the island. They built a barracks on the mountainside, near to the top, and garrisoned it with their soldiers, and the barracks and the soldiers were there only to chase and hunt Shane Bearnagh. They hunted him and they chased him, because he was the bravest free man in all Ireland . . ."

    "Did they catch him,