FOUR
Despite the long summer days, the late evening was turning to night, and the first stars were glittering in a cloudless sky when Constable Donald MacBane, the soldiers and their prisoner rode into the city of Armagh, already wrapping itself in darkness. The gaol was a gloomy dungeon below the courthouse, a sturdy stone and mortar building in Market Street in the centre of the city, strongly protected by a sturdy iron fence surrounding walls seven feet thick. When the party had dismounted and a groom was stabling the tired horses, Redmond was led inside. On their arrival a magistrate appeared from an inner chamber, dressed appropriately in a black patterned doublet with full black breeches, black stockings, and flat black shoes. Only his wig was white.
'Whom do we have here?' he demanded in a loud, intimidating voice.
'One Redmond O'Hanlon, Your Honour,' Constable MacBane replied. 'Of the townland of Aughantaraghan.'
'And with what is this fellow charged?'
'The theft of a horse, the property of Baronet Acheson of Cloncarney Castle, Markethill, and attempted sodomy against the Baronet's clerk, Mister Martin Grimstone.'
'Grimstone,' the magistrate repeated. 'A relation of Sir Humphrey?'
'His son, Your Honour.'
'I see.' the magistrate looked the prisoner up and down. 'Attempted sodomy is an unusual charge.'
'The intended obscenity was interrupted, Your Honour.'
'If it was interrupted, Lieutenant,' the magistrate pointed out, 'then it was not attempted but actually in medias res, so to speak. That charge might not stand up to scrutiny in court.'
'Does it matter?' the constable asked.
'It matters in some courts, Constable,' the magistrate replied sharply, not mentioning his own. He paused while he gave the constable an unspoken reprimand, his face speaking for his tongue. Then he continued: 'The theft of a horse, however, can easily be defended. He will be arraigned and tried in good time. This young man could hang for such a crime. How old are you, O'Hanlon?'
'Twenty-one years, Your Honour.'
'Old enough to know better.' The magistrate turned to MacBane. 'That will be all, Constable. You and your company may leave. No doubt you have had a long and tiring day.'
'We have. Thank you, Your Honour. Before I go I should point out that Baronet Acheson is at present in Dublin, but he is expected to return to Markethill in a few days.'
'I shall bear that in mind. Thank you.'
As the constable and soldiers filed out of the Sessions House, the magistrate shouted 'Pargeter,' in his loud voice. A gaol sergeant in a jerkin and baggy breeches, with a dagger sheathed at his side, came out from another room. 'Convey this prisoner, below, Pargeter. I suggest that you confine him in the empty cell at the end of the corridor.'
Redmond was led down a flight of stone stairs into a cold, gloomy corridor from which heavy, studded doors with peepholes gave access to cells behind. The cells here were separated by walls rather than bars. Pargeter, the turnkey, stopped at one of these doors, opened it and pushed O'Hanlon into a narrow chamber, walled in rough stone, with one barred window at the level of the ground outside. A straw-filled, hempen palliasse lay on a rush-covered earthen floor. A wooden bucket with no cover stood in a corner. It was empty but stank. The air in the cell was foetid.
'Sleep well,' said Pargeter more in sarcasm than in well-wishing. He left and locked the door.
Redmond had arrived in Armagh gaol. He might leave it again only to walk the short distance to Gallows Hill.
