The House was once turned into a hospital for the wounded English soldiers after the Battle of Flodden, which the English won.

The House was a Mass centre at the times of the Catholic Persecution. Outside the armoury, there is a chalice in a glass case dating from Elizabethan times. It has been sold to a museum, but the museum allows the family to keep it at the House during Sir Martin’s lifetime. Mamie has been inside the priest hole, where the priests were hidden when the House was searched for priests; they would sometimes stay there several days. The hole is a large space behind a panel that comes out of the wall, up among the attics. You can stand in the priest hole and look up at the beams, where, in those days, food was always stored in case of emergency.

The workmen are mending the roof.

“Did you see the priest hole?” Mamie feels talkative.

“What’s that?”

“A place where the priests used to hide, up in the roof. It’s historic. Haven’t you seen it?”

“No, but I seen plenty dry rot up there in that roof.”

The gates are closed. The man gets out to open them; then he drives off again.

Is it possible that one of the dogs is lost? Mamie is confused. There must have been five. I found the lost one, tied to the tree. But then she sees herself again counting them outside Hamilton’s door. One, two, three, four. Only four. No, no, no, it’s not real. Hamilton has taken the dogs. It’s for him to count.

The workman says, “Do you like the Beatles?”

“Oh, yes, they’re great. Do you like them?”

“So-so. I’d like just one day’s earnings that the Beatles get. Just one day. I could retire on it.”

Sister Monica has said that there is no harm in the Beatles, and then Mamie felt indignant because it showed Sister Monica did not properly appreciate them. She ought to lump them together with things like whisky, smoking, and sex; the Beatles are quite good enough to be forbidden.