Kevin Cassidy The Cassidy Chronicles

By Lindsay Johannsen

When the elderly recluse Ebenezer Gower died he left his run down Sherbert Valley farm in north Queensland and all his worldly wealth to the Parish of the Upper Sherbert, his idea being that a small agricultural high school be established there for the boys of the area. The most valuable part of the bequest was a parcel of coarse gold concentrate, gold that looked as if it had come from the Sherbert Valley. But the Sherbert Valley alluvials had been worked out in the eighteen nineties ... and this was reef gold.
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A lighthearted look at life and other extracurricular activities at a small bush high school in north Queensland during the mid nineteen-fifties. Forget Adrian Mole and the Boy Wizard. Forget Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. This is a true-blue Aussie kid describing real Aussie adventures ... and only exaggerating slightly.
But this is no children’s book. This is a good honest Aussie yarn for anyone from eleven to eleventy. I mean check out the solid gold reviews.
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“Ay. She’sa not too bad, I reckon.” (Pietro Spinelli, Anakie Gemfields, Qld.)

“This towering um...'work', is erm...” (Ron Bruise, The Birdsville Times Literary Supplement.)

“Gracious luvvey, it cheered me up no end it did.” (Marge Trundle, rooms cleaned and general domestic duties. No Sundays.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lindsay Johannsen
• Release date: Sep 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310129902

Lindsay Johannsen

There's not a lot to tell really, though on reflection, looking back on it through the lens of one’s recollections and memories, the whole business seems more akin to an extended Huckleberry Finn adventure, but set in the vastness of Central Australia. Born, raised and schooled in Alice Springs; taken from the leafy glades of learning mid-way through Year-eight to work at my father's remote little copper mine; later employed for some years driving his cattle-hauling road trains – him having pioneered road trains and the cattle hauling business (see "Kurt Johannsen: A Son of the Red Centre"). Married in the fullness of time; built a bush homestead on the northern edge of the Simpson Desert and raised a family there, all while running a small tungsten mining business and provisioning the hundred or so Aboriginal people local to the area who adopted us. Sold our mine and homestead a few years after the kids had flown the coop, acquired a forty foot (12m) touring coach, converted it into a big steel-wheel mobeel Palaise-de-passion motor home and took to the roads of this great land of Oz - in the main visiting our offspring (most of whom had moved to coastal regions), our grandchildren generally and a couple of great grandies, plus various friends and associates from years gone by. So these days all I have to do is keep the missus happy – my Bride my Precious Lamb and Flower of the Early Mid Morning. 'Anywhere you wish, my darling,' I tell her. 'You just say the word and we'll be on our way.' So it's free as the breeze, we are now, out and about having wild and exciting adventures and being amazingly cool generally. Best job I ever had.

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KEVIN CASSIDY

THE CASSIDY CHRONICLES

Published by Lindsay Johannsen at Smashwords

Copyright L A Johannsen 2014

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes.

This Free E-book is copyright, though until such time as I choose to amend this notice I am happy for you to reproduce, copy or distribute it amongst your friends and /or enemies to your heart’s content and by whatever means you have at your disposal, provided it is done for non-commercial purposes and the story remains complete and in its original form. My preference, however, is for you to recommend that others should download it from Smashwords for themselves, so enriching my life with a warm glow of satisfaction in lieu of monetary reward.

Thank you.

National Library Of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:

Author: Johannsen, Lindsay Andrew

Title: KEVIN CASSIDY – The Cassidy Chronicles

Cover art and design bungled by the author.

Mundanity Filter (final setting): 1400 microbleems.

Also published at Smashwords by the same author:

The novel McCullock’s Gold and short stories.

To order the paperback version of McCullock’s Gold or contact the author please visit

www.vividpublishing.com.au/lajohannsen

Dedicated to the memory of our lost son,

whose spirit lives on in these stories.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Adolescent Tarzan and The Fish On The Jetty

Chapter 6 Hell’s Deepest Pit and The Apprentice Self-Reliants

Chapter 9 Gun Riders and The Showdown At Short Gully Creek

Chapter 12 The Legend of The Late Run To Lannercost

Chapter 13 Speech Night and The Spirit Of The Muse

Chapter 17 A New Kid And An Old Bomb and The King Of Ingham

Chapter 18 Westward Ho and All Tickets Please

Chapter 21 The Starship Project and The Burning Pants.

Chapter 26 Solomon’s Gems and The Regular Customer

Chapter 28 The Princess In The Pumpkin Vine and The Boy With The Cross-Legged Gait

Chapter 32 The Four-Gallon Tins and The Chief Inspector

Chapter 38 The Reluctant Sportsman and No. 27 The Sabre Jet

Chapter 39 The Power Of Prayer and Blitz Tracks In The Bush

Chapter 43 The Heart Of A Draught Horse and The Sheltered Life

Chapter 46 Much Food For Thought and The Gates To The Land Of Boyhood

KEVIN CASSIDY

THE CASSIDY CHRONICLES

CHAPTER 1.

The Adolescent Tarzan; and The Fish On The Jetty

When Hiram and Shirley Cassidy decided to move from Brisbane to the Sherbert Valley in North Queensland to work on a new sugar cane project I couldn’t believe my luck. The idea of living deep in the jungle like some sort of adolescent Tarzan, swinging from tree to tree and wrestling giant crocodiles and pythons to the death (theirs) was everything I had ever dreamt about. But let me explain.

The year was 1954, I was thirteen and a half years old and Hiram and Shirley were my loving parents. Like many a Brisbane family of the time, we lived in an average-comfortable old Queenslander on an average-plus gradient street in an average-minus older suburb. Thus far I’d had no cause for complaint, as Mum and Dad had filled my years with all the love and attention an only-child rightfully expects and deserves.

But there was a problem. This seemingly idyllic state of affairs was all so predictable. Day simply followed day, with each of them seeming just a dreary repeat of the previous several million. And I was a boy with a thirst for adventure! So where were the challenges? Where was the excitement?!!

Even mowing the lawns and raking the leaves or doing extra periods of anxiety for the school exams were welcome distractions from what I could only see as this soul-destroying monotony.

My Dad worked in the Tramways Department workshops and had done so his entire working life. On leaving school he’d started with them as an apprentice fitter and over the subsequent twenty-three years had gradually risen to the exalted position of (all bow) … Senior Fitter.

He was content in his work, though. If nothing else, Tramways employment lent a wonderful sense of security and order to our affairs, and that plus my mother’s careful budgeting kept our lives free of any economic stresses.

Yet out in the great universe of the Brisbane Metropolitan Tramways Authority directives were being issued and plans set in motion which would very soon change all of this.

For Mum and me it began one evening as the three of us were sitting in the lounge-room after dinner, listening to the radio. Since my thirteenth birthday I’d been invited to take part in family discussions, my parents now proudly regarding me (despite what seemed considerable evidence to the contrary) as a responsible young adult at the point of entering high school.

My father had put on his Serious-Family-Talk face, I’d noticed, and was carefully setting his pipe – two of the little routines which always preceded these matters.

Dad always thought through and rehearsed in his mind what he wanted to discuss, but on this occasion he seemed unsure of how to proceed.

…I, er, think you should know, Shirley, he mumbled hesitantly, "...and er, Kevin, of course ... that um —

"—Now look, dear. All sorts of things are being talked about down at the tram yards, you know, and erm…

"Of course it’s mostly just talk and none of it should affect my job … for the time being, at least. But the way things seem to be going ... in the long term, that is ... it looks like... Well it’s possible my chances of being kept on are not very good.

—But you mustn’t worry about it, dear, he added hurriedly. As I said, it’s not going to have any affect on... Well not immediately, anyway. I’m just letting you know so we’ll have plenty of time to plan for the future.

Mum seemed a bit dazed by all this. She wandered out to the kitchen and had a quiet weep as she washed and dried the dishes, while Dad pretended he’d heard a disturbance in the yard and went outside to investigate. I just sat there in our old brown lounge-chair, staring at the worn patch in the lino and trying to comprehend what he’d told us.

I had no real idea of what losing his job might mean for us. He’d been with the tramways my whole life, after all. I’d known nothing else. My father was the Brisbane Tramways.

And my certainty was absolute. In beavering away at his great turning-machine I saw him as being responsible for the wellbeing and efficient operation of every cable, track, switch and tramcar in the city, along with the co-ordination and management of the entire system.

Gees, I kept thinking, how could they give him the sack? He was their mainstay; how could the trams run without him?

That night, as Mum and Dad talked softly in the dark, I went from awake and listening to asleep and dreaming in a seamless transition. In my dream I was looking at a huge impressionist painting. Our whole neighbourhood was there – people, houses, washing on clotheslines in well kept gardens – and all were wondrously arranged and permanently fixed.

There is the house where the Cassidys live and there are the Cassidys. Here are the school buildings and over there you can see children running in the playground. The sun is shining and there’s a storm on the distant hills.

It never comes closer.

While I’m standing there a tram conductor arrives. He swings the painting away from the wall as if it were a huge door. I try to see what lies beyond it but the conductor says: Just wait your turn, son. You’ll find out soon enough. Then he slips through and pulls it shut.

I wait for a moment then swing it out myself. Behind the painting is just blank wall.

...Silly, really.

Time went by and very little changed. Dad still went to work, the tramways kept running and the world kept going around. The only difference was that for the first time in our lives my father began browsing through the Positions Vacant pages in the paper of an evening. Sometimes he’d read the ads aloud to himself while absent-mindedly puffing on his pipe.

Hmm... he’d mutter. ‘Senior clump-press operator required. At least two years experience on Wurtzburg servo-pneumatic controls’. Pshh, what a dead end job.

(Pause, shake the paper, focus on the small print.)

"…Mmm. ‘A position exists for a maintenance engineer with a long established toggle-cam volute reconditioning company. The successful applicant will have fifth-year certification in quantum mechanics and his own car’.

"—Five years!

…Here’s one that’ll do, Shirl! ‘Sandwich cutter required at busy city milk-bar. Must be experienced. Apply with references to the manager, ninety-eight Queen Street’. That would certainly be a change.

Then one day I noticed my Dad was no longer bothering with the jobs part of the paper. Shortly after this he came home from the tram yards with a dog-eared and grubby-looking manual for the old Ford, and from then his spare time was spent in the back shed, tinkering with the car.

Sometimes of a weekend I’d be conscripted, my job mostly being to clean the pitch-like coating from the strange mechanical objects he’d produced from underneath. Next came the object’s dismantling, followed by a wear-inspection of its various parts (often better described as its destruction and a where inspection for its various parts). After being checked, reconditioned or renewed, the item would be reinstalled.

On other occasions I was required to fetch and hold spanners. The problem was I could never come to terms with the different sizes.

No, son, Dad would say patiently. That’s a Whitworth spanner. I need a nine-sixteenths SAE spanner.

I’m not sure how I was supposed to judge which spanner my Dad actually wanted, as he seemed totally oblivious to the fact that most of the information inscribed on them during manufacture had long since disappeared. They had, after all, been purchased during his apprenticeship, second or third hand.

Initially Mum and Dad withheld from me their plans of selling up and moving to North Queensland, as finding a high school that suited their requirements was taking longer than expected. Then, after a time, they discovered that a small boarding college for secondary boys existed in the upper reaches of the Sherbert Valley, in the Ingham hinterland’s Parish of the Upper Sherbert.

The school occupied an old farming and grazing property that was situated near the far end of the developed agricultural land. Gower Abbey College it was called and, while its main purpose was to provide boys from the valley with an agriculturally-orientated secondary education, enrolments from farther afield were accepted whenever possible.

The buildings there included the presbytery and parish chapel, Junior and Senior classrooms, a dormitory, a workshop and a number of other structures.

Sugar cane was grown on the river flats, a modest herd of cattle ran on the larger undeveloped back end of the property, and pigs, poultry and milking cows were kept for the school’s own needs.

Overseeing the whole affair was a strong-minded down-to-earth parish priest called Father O’Long, ably assisted by a certain Brother SanSistez. Lay teachers taught one herd; a manager managed the other.

Generally speaking Mum and Dad found the school ideal, though its location and distance from our new home and Dad’s workplace was an inconvenience that would require my being enrolled there as a boarder. They were well aware of my ambitions and my grandiose sense of adventure, however, and knew that I would happily approve of these arrangements. Contact was made, negotiations entered into and a place for me was found, with their darling son only being told of the arrangements once everything had been settled.

And it was wonderful to contemplate. At my suburban Brisbane primary school I’d been just another skinny undistinguished Grade Seven kid, the only one in our class without a cross your heart and spit your death forever even to the bitter end oath-sworn ally. I was also the only boy on our team not to have scored a single try during the whole of the year. More regrettably, though – on a personal note – I was one of the many Grade-seven boys who’d never won the heart of the fair (to be fair) Francine Grout.

Francine’s father owned the local milk-bar, and certain uncharitable and certainly unchivalrous boys suggested this comprised a goodly portion of Francine’s charm. I mostly remained aloof from such talk; these were essentially those rough fellows whose suits had also failed to find favour – and quickly received abrasions and a black-eye on the one occasion I did not so remain.

Back in the hurly-burly of the schoolyard I was transformed at once from this anonymous nobody to one who bathed in the manifest envy of all. But it was now the last week of the school year and little time remained to enjoy the attention brought about by my coming adventures.

Francine, on the other hand, now seemed to regard me with regal favour. She was standing beyond the rowdy circle of my classmates and quietly smiling at me, turning my composure to jelly while I tried to appear as Jungle Jim incarnate.

Gees, Kev! I read in the Reader’s Digest that the Sherbert River’s full of giant crocodiles! (…R.D. being, for us, the ultimate authority on everything).

"Yeah, Kev! But they’re nothin’! It’s the cassowaries that’ll getcha! They got claws like a razor! They can rush out of the bush and rip out your guts with one kick! —before you even see ‘em!"

"Oh yeah? What about the taipans! When one of them bites you y’ve only got thirty seconds and you’re dead!"

Yeah! They reckon they’re the world’s most deadliest snake! They’re even more deadlier than a golden cobra!

I know! They reckon they can run faster’n a man, too!

Garn, Jacko! Snakes can’t run!

Kev knows what I mean, don’tcha, Kev! They reckon the cane grass is full of ‘em an’ they always chase you in pairs!

Throughout all of this Francine continued watching me with open admiration. It was a total reversal of her previous attitude and had my insides flopping around like a fish on a jetty.

My classmates assumed this studied self composure was simply me being heroically calm in the face of imminent death, though with Francine looking on the discussion raging around me on my chances of surviving more than a few weeks seemed less real than the previous night’s dreams – which, as I recall, featured a number of steamy and complicated scenes involving one’s self and Francine.

Regrettably, though, it was all too late. Only three days remained to bask in the glory of her blossoming affection before our undying love would be tragically terminated by my departure to the Darkest North.

But then I realised; it was the age-old story:

A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do.

* * *

2. Northward Ho; and The Stolen Petrol

The floors were scrubbed, the walls and windows cleaned, lawns mowed and paths swept. Papers were signed, notice boards removed ... and the house was sold. In the driveway our car stood ready to roll, loaded almost to bursting point with everything it could carry. The rest of our things were going by train.

After a flurry of final goodbye hugs and tears we pulled out of the driveway, a chorus of shouted good-luck wishes seeing us on our way. At the main road junction the lights went green, a tram went past and our back tyre went flat.

Ah well, said Dad, pushing it idly with the toe of his boot, I suppose it’s best to get the crook bits over and done with early on.

Apart from this the trip was uneventful. At Mackay we towed an old farmer the last twelve kilometres into town because he’d unexpectedly run out of petrol.

That jolly MickMahon feller frum across the gully must’ve swiped it I reckon, he informed us in a slow all the time in the world fashion.

The portly old fellow handed Dad a ragged piece of rope he’d produced from the back of his ancient buckboard. …Shouldn’t have left it parked down the bottom paddick all night, I suppose. Well, I dunno... A man’s just a fooool to himself. The trouble is you can’t trust no one any more these days.

He watched Dad make the connection between the two vehicles, then eased himself up behind the wooden steering wheel. Don’t you go drivin’ too fast, he said as we headed for our own car. "The ol’ girl’s only used t’doin’ about twenty miles an hour.

—An’ don’t go pullin’ up too quick, neither! he shouted as Dad took up the slack. She ain’t got much in the way uv brakes y’ know.

We towed him as far as a little house on the outskirts of town where he said his brother-in-law lived. Our own fuel needed replenishing by this time, so the next thing we had to do was find a cafe and a garage.

Thanks f’your help, he said as we went to drive away. I reckon I’ll be right now. I’ll git a bit of petrol from Sam here and git about me business.

After lunch we found a garage. As the proprietor refuelled the car he told Dad about road conditions farther north. Then he said: "I don’t suppose you ran into old Paddy McMahon down the road by any chance? He generally comes to town about this time of the month. The cunning old fox always pretends he’s run out of petrol and waits on the side of the road for some passing traveller to shout him half a gallon or give him a tow. What he hasn’t worked out yet is how to get a tow back the other way. He can’t very well say he needs a tow out from town because he’s had his petrol pinched."

He looked back at us from the petrol bowser. The expressions on our faces told him everything.

But Hiram, my mother said after a moment of awkward silence. He seemed such an earnest old man.

Well, you could hardly ask to have a look in his petrol tank, dear, said Dad.

Wouldn’t matter if you had, replied the garage proprietor. Paddy’s got an answer for that. Then, adopting McMahon’s slow and distinctive style of speech, he said, Well stone the crows. She must’ve got a vapour-lock an’ been staaarvin’ fer fuel.

* * *

3. Hopeless Farm; and The Belt-Driven Lathe

We arrived at Ingham on a Sunday afternoon during the fury of an intense tropical storm – after the most boring journey ever undertaken by a son and heir determined to remain near the bosom of his family. Lightning and thunder came in a continuous barrage as wind thrashed the trees and buffeted the car. And so awash were we that the windscreen wipers were utterly useless, their efforts obliterated by the torrent.

This was the heaviest downpour I had ever experienced and from my little cubby-hole in the back seat it almost seemed as if we were driving under water.

Dad crept along the main street in the downpour, looking for somewhere he could ask directions. Being Sunday the shops were shut, of course, so there wasn’t much traffic. After a while we stumbled on the Police Station. Dad found a park nearby, then jumped from the car and sprinted to the shelter of the building.

He needn’t have bothered. He was drenched before closing his door.

As he disappeared into the building the deluge abruptly ceased, the hammering from the iron-roofed buildings diminishing as the storm moved away to the mountains. Soon he arrived back with the local sergeant. In the extreme humidity the sarge looked as wet as my father.

Follow this street straight back through town, he said in a voice that would have graced a gravel truck. Keep going until you come to the end of the bitumen. Go on a couple of miles from there and turn right. You’ll see the sign.

HOPELESS FARM, it read.

Closer up I saw it had originally been OPEL’S FARM but someone had carefully changed it. The alterations looked almost as old as the initial lettering and for those in the valley it had long since been adopted as the property’s name.

We bumped along the track indicated for about four kilometres, canefields on one side and undeveloped land on the other, and soon came to a group of buildings. Among them were machinery sheds and a workshop, two houses of indeterminate age (one somewhat older than the other), a couple of smaller ancillary buildings and what appeared to be a workers’ accommodation block.

Towering over the whole establishment were five of the biggest trees I had ever seen. Leopard trees, Dad said, but I couldn’t see any leopards.

Behind the buildings a moderate sized creek flowed along a deep ‘V’ shaped gully that meandered across the valley to the Sherbert River. A road cut into its steep-sided bank led down to a pumping station situated above a small lagoon.

The Opel land had been purchased by the company owning the undeveloped area to the east, we subsequently learned. Their plan was to amalgamate the two properties, with Hopeless Farm becoming the operations base from which to expand and develop this larger sugar cane project.

We were to occupy the older of the two residential buildings, a comfortable open-style weatherboard house set above ground-level on a concrete floor. It had recently been painted, both inside and out, and new floor tiles, cupboards and overhead fans had been installed. Louvered windows all round and a large breezeway through the middle provided ventilation.

The company had taken on my father as an all-round mechanic/fitter, with responsibility for maintenance and repairs to the vehicles and farming machinery. It wasn’t long before he’d become their general handyman as well though, fixing as necessary taps and light switches, septic tanks and drains, etc,. He also took on the building maintenance and helped with clearing and levelling the new cane fields whenever an extra hand was needed.

Dad certainly must have enjoyed it; he went to work each morning with a spring in his step and a look of utter contentment on his face. I had never seen him in such a relaxed frame of mind.

One Sunday afternoon he decided to clean the accumulated dunnage from the little workshop building’s side room. Apparently, over time, it had become a sort-of hold-all storage shed. Amongst the things he discovered there were some old machine tools, in particular, a light mechanical hacksaw, an ancient pedestal drill and – buried against the back wall – a small belt-driven lathe.

You wouldn’t read about it, Shirl! he said to Mum, his eyes warm with wonderment and memories. It’s the same as the one I began my apprenticeship on.

* * *

4. Mrs Finnegan’s Scones; and The Lazarus Tree

Shortly before the beginning of the school year my parents and I drove up the valley to Gower Abbey College, the idea being to meet Father O’Long and to have a look over the establishment there. At the presbytery we were greeted by a robust, motherly-looking middle-aged woman who invited us inside. She was a warm friendly-looking person with an engaging manner and was genuinely pleased to see us.

We’ve been expecting you, she said as she ushered us into the dining-room. I’m Mrs Finnegan, Father O’Long’s housekeeper. We introduced ourselves and were invited to sit down and join in the afternoon tea she was preparing.

Father wouldn’t be long, Mrs Finnegan explained. He’d be back as soon as he and Brother SanSistez had finished digging out the tractor from where it was bogged in the new paddock. She then excused herself and hurried off to the kitchen.

Is there anything I can do to help? asked Mum, who followed Mrs Finnegan rather than sitting at the table. From that direction came the pleasant odour of a wood fire and things baking.

They soon returned, arms laden with trays of crockery and refreshments which were arranged about the table. Quickly the air became saturated with the derangingly tantalising aroma of Mrs Finnegan’s freshly baked scones.

I subsequently learned that for just one of these every boy in the school was prepared to squander his immortal soul. None could have been enslaved more surely and more willingly, however, than I.

"Don’t stare like that, Kevin! hissed my Mother sharply, as she tried to snap me out of my trance. And close your mouth!"

Her admonition didn’t register at any conscious level, though. I just sat there at the table salivating like Pavlov’s Dog.

Mrs Finnegan sized up the situation in an instant. Let’s not wait for the others, she said magnanimously, sliding three large scones onto my plate. She then put the jam and cream within easy reach – more quickly even than I could have done myself (with any decorum, that is).

Just then came the sound of voices from the outside laundry, the thud of gum-boots being discarded and water splashing. It was the tractor-retrieval party cleaning up before coming inside.

There were three as it happened, all in ragged shirts and shorts. Except for their hands and faces and where their boots had been they were well splattered with mud. Even so, their condition was not enough to conceal which of them was the priest.

He was the tallest of the trio and the grubbiest by far; a well built man with rugged features, dark hair and eyes and a natural air of authority. What caught me by surprise, though, was the force of his persona. Almost tangible it was, a presence in the air about him which hinted at strength of character and purpose, warm-hearted humour and the gentlest whiff of larrikinism. And so real was this aura that it could not only penetrate the insensitive hide of a thirteen and a half year old boy, but it could do so whilst that boy was completely focused on dispatching the offerings of Paradise in anticipation of another helping.

We have prevailed, Mrs Finnegan! he exclaimed from the rear as they entered the room. "Once more have the forces of darkness and mud been smited by the spades of the righteous! ...Yea! And the unshakeable spirit of Mr Cross’ four wheel drive Blitz-truck.

I’m Father O’Long, he continued, only slightly less loudly (as if there had been some doubt), …and these two gentlemen are Brother SanSistez … and Mr Angus Cross, our friend and neighbour. You must be the Cassidys. Welcome to Gower Abbey.

Dad shook hands with the men; Mum and I stood up as he introduced us.

Do please sit down, Mrs Cassidy. I’m delighted to meet you. And please forgive us any similarity we have to ditch-diggers but that is precisely what we’ve been doing.

He turned to me. So you’re young Kevin, he boomed, shaking my hand firmly as he sized me up. At the same time Mrs Finnegan took the opportunity to slide some more scones onto my plate. Well, Master Kevin, he continued warmly, I’m sure you’re going to like it here and I’m certain we’ll get along.

Suddenly he became grim and confidential. But there is something you’d best appreciate from the outset, my boy, he added, leaning closer to my ear. "Mrs - Finnegan’s - scones - are mine by Divine Right, and if you try charming one more from her before I’ve had my rightful share, then I shall see to it that no scone of hers will ever pass your lips again."

You leave him alone! scolded Mrs Finnegan. I made them especially for master Kevin. —You have as many as you like, young man.

But it was no contest really. By the time I’d finished the second three the remainder had vanished under the combined assault of Father O’Long, his helpers and my Mum and Dad.

Gower Abbey College was established, Father explained, following a bequest of property by one Ebenezer Josia Gower in the late nineteen-thirties – a reclusive and eccentric sort of fellow by all accounts and semi-illiterate.

Apparently, in his barely decipherable Last Willing Testerment, he’d observed that, being largely uneducated save for the great School of Life, he’d realised the need for an appropriate sort of high school in the valley, so that parents of the area whose sons had completed primary school would have the option of continuing their education locally.

And so, as a good Protestant and with no living relatives to contest his intentions, Gower bequeathed his estate to the minions of the Pope, they being the only ones interested in starting a small agricultural college in the (then) undeveloped upper end of the Sherbert Valley.

An intimation was also made in the Will that there was plenty more, but that he was sure the bequest as found would build even an abbey, should they so wish. In the event his "plenty more" comment was found somewhat curious, and this, over time, became the basis of an enduring riddle.

A renovations and construction project was commenced on the property, with the local wags quickly dubbing the new chapel building Gower’s Abbey. Over time this became widely accepted and with it came some de-facto respectability. The founding Fathers were hesitant about the idea at first but, as the official opening drew nigh, they accepted it as a fait accompli, but insisted instead that "Gower Abbey" – without the possessive – was the best way to acknowledge old Ben’s fine bequest.

Interestingly, much of the legacy’s value came in the form of washed gold concentrate, something which surprised greatly the learned legal and reverend gentlemen who opened the stout little wooden boxes to which they’d been directed – and all else who came to learn of it.

For a start they were marked Geo. Worthington’s Finest Quality Lead Shot, the least likely looking of a number of similar but more true-to-label containers found at the bottom of a rough wooden chest adjacent to Gower’s gun cabinet.

Among those fortunate enough to view the boxes’ contents that day were a couple of Sherbert Valley old-timers. Each recognised something special in the gold’s nature, a largely forgotten attribute which identified any that came from the Sherbert Valley.

It was this: gold from the Sherbert Valley was paler than most, courtesy of its high silver content – an attribute distinguishing it clearly from the bullion of other mines. But no gold had come from the Sherbert Valley after the last mine closed in eighteen ninety-eight. And yet this – plainly – was Sherbert Valley gold.

Of far more import, however, was something else the two had noticed, something of far greater consequence, something loaded with implication. And each kept this nugget of knowledge to himself, for it had the potential to lend its holder great advantage.

What the two had seen was this: Gower’s gold was exclusively reef gold. Yet the Sherbert field had never produced any reef gold. It had all been alluvial, won from the placer deposits under the Sherbert River’s old flood plain.

As for the Sherbert River itself… Well, these days it flows at a lower level and keeps mostly to the southern