C H A P T E R T W E N T Y-F O U R
TH E MA T CHMA KER
I
t had been a long day but for once I didn’t mind having to do an extra call on the way home. The Roches lived high up in the Wicklow mountains, near Glendalough. I had purposely left their call until now, so that when finished, instead of heading back down the mountain, I could continue my journey out over the Sally Gap towards home. At this time of year I might even catch a glimpse of the deer that came down from the high mountains, or hear the high-pitched, lonely whistle of a rutting stag. The Roches were of a dying breed. Mrs Roche, now becoming increasingly blind, had married into the rough twenty-acre holding high up on the side of the Wicklow mountains. How she and her husband had managed to eke out a living from the rocky landscape, not only for themselves but also for their five sons, was beyond comprehension. Sitting in the crowded kitchen, drinking a cup of hot tea with them, you could get no sense of the
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