The Rebels of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd

Irish performed a sword dance. For all he knew, they might be doing that. What he knew for certain was that he could get no rest.
    Perhaps, if he could distract his mind from the sounds below, he could get to sleep. He tried thinking about the journey he was to make the following day. That prospect, at least, brought him some comfort.
    Both Trinity College and Christ Church Cathedral were endowed with many lands—on which, from time to time, good leases might be obtained; and he had long been hoping to obtain one of these. But the opportunity that had now presented itself was even better.
    For of all the Protestant landlords in Ireland, none was richer, or more godly, than Richard Boyle, the great Protestant settler. Having acquired, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vast tracts of land in Munster, he was the patron of numerous livings, from which a good Protestant preacher might derive an income. “I’ve just heard there’sa living coming free any day in north Munster. And you’re just the kind of godly man that Boyle would approve of,” the Chapter Clerk had told him. “It’s a little wild there, however. The land will have to be cleared before you can grow anything. Would you mind that?”
    â€œOh no,” said Pincher. “I shouldn’t mind at all.”
    Woodlands. For centuries, the vast forests that had once covered most of the island had been a valuable source of timber. Mostly, it had been exported. Some of the greatest English cathedrals had roof beams of Irish oak. And during the huge building of Tudor England, timber had been increasingly in demand. Gradually, therefore, the forests of Ireland had yielded to the axe. Most of the best oak trees in the Dublin region had already gone, but farther south there were still plenty of fine old forests waiting to be cut down. And the harvesting of woodlands provided an instant, one-time cash crop that could make a new lease highly profitable for an investor. Sometimes entire hillsides would be stripped in a matter of months.
    â€œI shall let in light,” Pincher had declared with feeling, “where before there was darkness.”
    The track across the hills, he had been told, led past some of the finest views in all Ireland. In a couple of days, it was to be hoped, he would reach his destination spiritually refreshed. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the journey. And although he was conscious of the music outside, he might have slipped into unconsciousness once or twice before, at about midnight, he became aware that the music had finally stopped and he felt ready to sink, at last, into a deep sleep.
    Indeed, for a moment he almost supposed he was dreaming when a sudden creak made him sit up with a start, to see that the heavy oak door of the chamber was slowly opening.
    There were so many sleeping in the rooms below and the hall that they had left candles flickering all over the house so that people would not fall over each other if they moved about in the night. It was by the light of several candles, therefore, that Pincher could now see, framed in the doorway, the terrible figure who was aboutto enter his room. A wild Irishman’s dress, bare legs, a pale face with staring eyes, and a great, ugly mass of hair falling in ringlets to below his shoulders—faced with such an apparition, it was no surprise that Doctor Pincher should have convulsively clutched at the bed-clothes and opened his mouth, ready to cry out “Help” or “Murder” if the creature took another step.
    But Tadhg O’Byrne did not enter yet. He stood at the door, preferring to sway a little, cautiously, before committing himself to a further step into the unknown. He was not drunk. He might have been a little while ago, but he was rather in a state where his thoughts and actions, though carefully considered, were somewhat slow. He had tried to sleep on the floor beside the bench in the main hall upon which his wife