His hens came. His white nanny goat, langled as she was, came over the walls on her knees. Finally came his dog. But the dog only came for food. Always he returned to his old house to wait for his master. Lights would go on, and lights would go off. Catholic relations trooped through the rooms like grave robbers. At midnight the dog would whine till all hours. He startled the geese who began honking and screeching. Cocks were crowing the night through. Reilly tore away with his claws at Matti Bonner’s kitchen door. “Let me in!” he yelled, “Let me in!” Then the seagulls chasing seed in the fields began barking like dogs. Reilly turned cross. The night was full of barking, followed by long mournful whining, till it felt as if only an animal could really mourn a human’s passing.

If the girls went near the house during the day Reilly would turn on them, though he knew them both. He was cross, possessed, his spine drawn back like a bow. Yet when he came across to the Adams’ he would immediately roll on his back for them, baring his loins and smiling. By night the dog became the curse of the village. The girls would call him from their window. “Reilly,” they’d call. He’d stop a minute then carry on whining. The geese would screech. All manner of birds would wake. The night air filled with disturbance.

The girls would lie in Sara’s bed listening to the dog and wondering at the nerve of a man who could hang himself opposite the two churches. They wondered how he felt as he walked to make his protest. The Protestant boys in the village said that when a man hangs himself his cock stands. They said that Matti Bonner, the Taig, had his trousers open at the flies the day he died facing the Catholic chapel.

That was what Sara wanted to know. Was it true? Had Catherine seen his mickey standing? Catherine said she thought she had seen something white like his belly. She could not be sure. But in time she came to believe she had. Yes, it was a stiff white cock. Not a married, fatherly cock, nestling quiet and brown on her father, but something foreign, something even independent of Matti Bonner. His cock took on a life of its own. In the dark she’d see it, the male penis that only stood when a man was hanged. First she’d see his face scowling and then his frail white member hanging, not standing, but childlike. Then, as the rope stiffened, so did his penis.

“Could you see any hair? He had red hair,” said Sara seriously.