Suddenly we heard a plop nearby, but nothing came of it. Probably a water rat slipping off somewhere, we thought. A few minutes later we were startled by a rustle in the undergrowth behind us, but it didn’t come to anything either.

  We began to get restless. Doubter whispered that we were wasting our time. I shushed him and told him to have patience. We fixed our eyes on the water again, and that was when we saw them. First one streak in the pool, then another. We nudged each other and held our breath. Two or three dark shapes ran up the flat rocks on the far side. Faster than our eyes could follow, they were in the water again, swimming round and round the pool, turning over and under like playful seals. Probably a bitch otter and two young, we thought.

  We didn’t get the chance to have a better look at them. Almost before we knew it, they were gone. At the same time we became aware of something we hadn’t noticed before, something which nearly struck us dead with fright. There, gliding around the fairy fort on Wariff Hill, was a ghostly white light. Too terrified to speak, we could only watch. Then the thing seemed to move slowly down the hill towards us.

  Well, we had heard too much from Old Daddy Armstrong not to know what it was.

  ‘The phantom!’ I choked, finding my voice at last.

  That was all that was said. With one accord we turned and fled. I don’t know how we did it, but we covered the ground back to the road a lot quicker than we ever did in daylight. Expecting the phantom to be on us with every step and stumble we took, we shoved each other up through the hedge and didn’t stop until we were in our beds with the blinds down and the lights on.

  * * *

  Things like that always seem different in the clear light of day. When we met next morning we all felt a bit foolish and a lot braver. We chided each other about who had run the fastest, and laughed at each other to try and make it appear we hadn’t been as scared as we really were. Before long we were assuring each other that there weren’t any such things as phantoms or ghosts, and that if we went up to Wariff Hill now, in the daylight, we’d probably find a simple explanation for the whole thing.

  Half-believing that, we set off, taking good care this time to bring Prince.

  Wariff Hill is a strange place at the best of times. It’s covered with wild rambling nut trees and surrounded by swamps, except for one high field that juts out like a giant finger towards the castle. You can’t approach it by that field, as more often than not Big Hughie’s bull is grazing there, so you have to go through the swamps to get to it. Sometimes, without warning, a heavy mist comes down on the swamps in a most ghostly fashion and curls around the hill like a giant smoke ring. The shrubbery, clinging to the slopes as if cloaking them in some strange secret, adds to the eerie atmosphere of the place. The only bare patch is the fort on top, for all the world like the home of the fairies, guarded by a tangled mass of tripping briars and branches and sagging swamps ready to swallow anyone foolish enough to be deceived by their rich coat of dark green grass.

  Wariff Hill is the haunt of owls, badgers, foxes and goodness knows what. Yet it’s as quiet as a tomb. It’s an uneasy quiet, and you can never help feeling that it’s just temporary, and that it will only last until unseen eyes see you depart. Maybe, then, you’ll understand why we seldom, if ever, venture there, even for hazelnuts, and why now, in spite of our brave talk, we kept close together as we headed for it.

  Soon the cultivated fields were behind us, and we were going down a stony slope to a meadow containing two old dams that had been used for steeping flax in the days when farmers in the valley grew flax for the linen mills. To the left of the meadow, on a rise, we could see the crumbling outline of what was once a farmstead, and beyond it Wariff Hill.

  A rusty iron gate lay tilted at the entrance to a short laneway that led up to the house. We climbed over it and without a word wended our way through the nettles and other weeds. The laneway was now a tunnel of overgrown weeds and it was gloomy in there. Nothing moved except the tiny midges that flitted about our heads, irritating our ears and faces. If there were birds in the trees they were keeping quiet, and the leaves were too thick for us to see them. We half expected to hear a flock of wood pigeons flapping out of the ash trees or see a blackbird go screeching down along the hedge, but everything was quiet.

  The farmyard was the most overgrown place we had ever seen. What had once been hedges were now huge masses of sprawling bushes and trees. Nettles as big as ourselves grew in great clumps everywhere, and the smell of their stinging leaves filled the air. The roofs of most of the buildings had fallen in, and where bits of rotten thatch still clung to the crumbling stone walls, more nettles stretched high.

  We couldn’t but wonder who had once lived and worked there, and why they had left. For my part, I could imagine an elderly woman with grey hair tied back in a bun, sitting at a turf fire in the dark kitchen, and in the yard an aged farmer with a drooping grey moustache, working at something he had lost interest in many years before. How, I wondered, had the farm come to be empty? After all, the couple must have had some family. Then I looked on past the house towards Wariff Hill. Somehow the hill, the swamps and the ruins seemed to be part of the same silent desolation.

  There was a strange, frightening atmosphere about the place, an eerie feeling we couldn’t fathom. Perhaps it was the unnatural silence, a deathly silence, and yet a silence which seemed to be alive with the spirit of the past. It was almost as if, somehow, the people who in times gone by had lived and died there were forever watching over this long-forsaken place. We stared around us for a moment, then hurried on.

  The farmyard opened onto a meadow covered with white, sweet-scented clover. At the end of the meadow we could see Big Hughie’s bull in the one field that runs up to the hill. There was no access to the hill that way, so we entered the soft, evil-smelling swamps. Knowing that one wrong step could mean disaster, we had to be extra careful and light-footed. Even so, we hadn’t gone very far when Totey stepped in up to one of his knees. However, he was lucky. He didn’t even lose his shoe.

  We were making good progress when a harsh scream somewhere up ahead brought us to a sudden halt. We couldn’t have been more surprised if the swamps had opened up and swallowed us. Back we stepped, trampling on each other as we did so. Cowering down, we peered through the reeds and long grass. We could see nothing. We were trembling with fright, but we had to move as the swamp water was beginning to creep up around our feet. Then we saw it. It was only an owl! We laughed, and as the bird flapped its big brown wings and glided out of sight, we pushed on and crossed onto the firm, whin-covered ground at the foot of the hill.

  We rested for a moment on the fringe before starting the climb, to give Totey a chance to wring out his wet sock and clean his shoe. Doubter reached up, seized a branch and plucked a handful of hazelnuts to test them. They were still milk-white and tasteless. We moved on.

  The hill is so completely covered with nut trees that it’s almost dark in the maze of twisting avenues beneath. Wild rose and honeysuckle entwine themselves through many of the trees, weaving them tight. You would think a place like that, quiet and dark, would be a perfect sanctuary for birds, but there wasn’t a movement or a sound, except for the occasional crack of a twig or the swish of a branch as we made our way deeper onto the hill.

  Suddenly a ghostly sound froze us in our tracks once more. We listened. There it was again. The others were beginning to back down the path, and I knew they would break into a run at any moment.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ I whispered, ‘it’s only a fox.’

  With the thought of the phantom fresh in our minds we were on edge. Luckily I remembered I had heard the noise once before when I was out hunting with my father. It was only the hiccup of a vixen calling her cubs to safety.

  Prince knew what it was too, and it was all I could do to keep him from going after them. Normally I would have let him go, but I wanted him with us up at the fort, just in case.

  Soon we emerged into the daylight of the open space at the top and cautiously scanned the fort. There was nothing unusual, as far as we could see. Plucking up our courage, we picked our way through the bracken and the briars until we had made our way right around it. There was still no sign of anything out of the ordinary, so we climbed to the top. Shading our eyes from the sun, we viewed the countryside. We could see for miles around – the valley stretching away into a haze of blue, and the castle rather closer than we had imagined.

  ‘What were forts used for in olden days anyway?’ asked Curly, not expecting an answer from anyone in particular.

  ‘Castles,’ said Cowlick.

  ‘Castles?’ I said. ‘Sure they’re only big mounds of earth.’

  Cowlick nodded. ‘That’s all they are now, but I read a book about them once. According to it, the Normans made them hundreds of years ago and built wooden castles or forts around the top of them. Of course that part of them has all gone now, but the mounds are still called forts.’

  There was silence as we pictured Normans with swords and shields defending their forts against waves of Irish warriors.

  Doubter brought us back to earth when he shrugged and said, ‘I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Understand what?’ I asked him.

  ‘The phantom. I mean, there’s nothing to show that anybody or anything has ever been up here.’

  He was wrong. At that precise moment, whatever look I gave, I spotted something glittering in the sunlight in a web of withered ferns at the foot of the mound.

  ‘Look!’ I cried. ‘Over there!’

  Quickly we slithered down to investigate.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Totey as I reached into the ferns.

  ‘Some sort of coin,’ I said. ‘It’s partly wrapped in paper.’

  I spread the paper out in the palm of my hand to reveal a glittering golden spade guinea.

  ‘It’s from Felicity’s bracelet,’ gasped Curly.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s the same all right, but it can’t be. There’s no hole in it for the chain.’

  ‘Then it’s …’ Doubter stopped. ‘But it can’t be!’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘It’s part of the lost treasure. It has to be.’

  ‘What does it say on the paper?’ asked Cowlick.

  I slipped it from under the coin and read out the words that were scribbled on it …

  ‘The man is dead

  But life allows

  He’ll run forever

  Beneath the boughs

  And in his path

  There lies the key

  To wealth, happiness,

  A bride-to-be …’

  As I finished reading it, the others whispered with one voice, ‘The Legend of the Golden Key!’

  I nodded. All of a sudden Wariff Hill had become even quieter than before.

  7. THE STRANGEST THING

  When we got home, and I must confess we didn’t dally after picking up the coin, we decided it was time we sat down and had another good talk about things.

  ‘One thing for sure,’ I said to the boys, ‘there’s something very peculiar going on.’

  They nodded.

  ‘Do you think that guinea is really from the treasure?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘I don’t know where else it could have come from,’ I said. ‘It’s the exact same as the one on the bracelet. Then again, if somebody has found the treasure why would they take one guinea, wrap it in the legend, and leave it up at the fairy fort?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Totey, ‘the phantom left it there – as a sort of token.’

  Not wanting to admit to ourselves that such a thing was even possible, we ignored him.

  ‘I'll tell you what,’ suggested Cowlick. ‘Let’s recap, the way the detectives do on the telly, and see if we can make any sense of it.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now where will we start?’

  ‘With the legend,’ replied Curly. ‘Where else?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘the legend. Nobody’s ever been able to solve the riddle of it, and so over the years nobody’s been able to find the treasure. We know from Old Daddy Armstrong that Mr King and Felicity want to get married, but that he’s nearly broke and they’d give anything to find the treasure. So he makes her a present of the only known link with it, apart from the legend – the bracelet. Now, the bracelet has always been a lucky charm for all the women who wore it, and the Kings hoped that by being worn again it would bring them luck in their search for the lost treasure. But they’ve had no luck. The bracelet has disappeared in circumstances which make us wonder whether it has really been lost.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Curly, ‘Felicity just can’t remember where she lost it, or when, and is scared to tell Mr King – in case he thinks she’s very careless and maybe even breaks off their engagement.’

  ‘And maybe her father was looking for it the day we saw him acting funny in the estate,’ said Totey.

  ‘More likely he was looking for the treasure!’ said Cowlick.

  ‘But why should he be so secretive about it?’ argued Doubter. ‘After all, he is the manager of the estate and can do what he likes. I see no reason in the world why he should go around dodging people as if he was a trespasser.’

  ‘Well, I see no reason why he should go around dressed like Sherlock Holmes,’ I said, ‘but he does.’

  ‘And the way he disappeared,’ said Totey.

  Curly nodded. ‘I wonder how he got out of the tower without us seeing him?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Do you think he might be afraid of some of the ex-convicts going after the treasure too?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘If they’re not already after it,’ I said. ‘You saw Marcus yourself at Sir Timothy’s grave.’

  ‘What do you think Shouting Sam saw at the grave?’ asked Totey.

  ‘More to the point,’ I said, ‘what did we see gliding around the fairy fort?’ I weighed the guinea in my hand. ‘And how did this spade guinea come to be there?’

  ‘You know,’ said Curly, ‘it’s a funny thing, that …’

  ‘What is?’ I asked him.

  ‘The way we found it. I mean, according to Old Daddy Armstrong the guinea on the bracelet was found when Sir Timothy’s men saw it glittering on the wall, and the phantom appears on the lake during a full moon and everything.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, it’s funny we should see the second guinea glittering on Wariff Hill after we saw the phantom there … and during a full moon too.’

  ‘That’s just a coincidence,’ I told him. ‘It must be.’

  ‘Still, it’s odd isn’t it?’ said Totey.

  Doubter agreed. ‘The whole thing’s odd. How come it was up at the fairy fort of all places that we saw the phantom and found the coin?’

  ‘I can think of one reason,’ said Cowlick. ‘Old Daddy Armstrong said that’s where the two lovers first met. So what could be more natural – or unnatural if you like – than that she should come back to haunt it?’

  Doubter wasn’t convinced. ‘Maybe so, but what about the spade guinea? How did it get there?’

  ‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ I said. ‘Now I don’t believe in ghosts …’

  ‘Haw, haw, haw,’ mocked the others in a loud chorus.

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said, ‘maybe there are such things as ghosts, but I agree with Doubter. I never heard of a ghost that leaves golden guineas around or scribbles riddles on pieces of paper and wraps them around coins.’

  ‘Maybe it was the running dead man,’ suggested Totey.

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ I said.

  ‘What then?’ asked Curly.

  ‘I don’t know – but who’s game to find out?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘See if the phantom appears at the same time tonight. And if it does – lie in wait for it up on the hill at the same time tomorrow night.’

  After a bit of humming and hawing, the others agreed that that was the only way to get to the bottom of the affair and said they were game, which was just as well, because I wouldn’t go up to Wariff Hill on my own in the daytime, let alone at night.

  That evening we slipped out again, and from the alder trees kept watch on the fairy fort. Sure enough, about the same time, we saw the strange ghostly light floating around the fort, just the way it had done the night before. Even though we were expecting it, it was all we could do not to run again and next day our nerves were on edge at the very thought of going in under the hazels in the dark. Still, we didn’t want each other to see that we were scared, so we all said we’d go.

  Once more we all slipped away under cover of darkness. It was a cloudy night, and now and then when the clouds covered the moon it was very dark. We decided that as this would make a walk across the fields difficult and dangerous – and it’s a good distance to Wariff Hill – we would go up around by the Cotton Bog Road instead. From there we could cut in by the edge of the bog and the swamps and go up by the only approach field, as Big Hughie always takes the bull in at night. So off we set, keeping close together and close by Prince.

  A country road can be long and lonely when it’s dark and there’s not another sinner on it, and we were scared. It wasn’t so bad with Prince by our side. He’d take care of anyone who would try and lay a hand on us. What did scare us more than we cared to admit was what we couldn’t see. I had brought a torch with me, but the light it gave only made the dark seem darker. As it was, the shadows were dark and deep along the hedgerows and behind them, and they seemed to be full of all sorts of unnatural rustlings and whisperings. So much so, that before we knew it we were casting sly glances from one side to the other, then behind and then to the side again and in all the directions in between, in case something might be creeping up on us. Just what we were afraid might be creeping up on us we didn’t really know, but we couldn’t help thinking about the phantom and the running dead man and some of the other scary stories we had heard from Old Daddy Armstrong.

  We remembered the story of the man who had been out drinking and playing cards to all hours, and what had happened to him on the way home. It was when he was passing the graveyard that he saw it – a black pig running along the top of the wall. Maybe Old Daddy Armstrong didn’t say so in so many words, but there was no doubting what it was the man saw. It was the devil in pig’s form.