"You can't take her in there, Father!" the foreman said, shocked. Father Ralph lifted his eyes heavenward. "If you'll only tell me how we can get her away from here without the entire Gilly police force arresting us for molesting a child, I'll gladly go! But her brother volunteered and she's not about to leave her brother without a fight that will make your chaps look like amateurs!"

The foreman shrugged. "Well, Father, I can't argue with you, can I? In you go, but keep her out of the way, for-ah-pity's sake. No, no, Father, put your money back in your pocket; Jimmy wouldn't like it."

The tent seemed full of men and boys, milling around a central ring; Father Ralph found a place at the back of the crowd against the canvas wall, hanging on to Meggie for dear life. The air was foggy from tobacco smoke and redolent with sawdust they had thrown down to absorb the mud. Frank, gloves already on his hands, was the first challenger of the day.

Though it was unusual, it was not unknown for a man out of the crowd to last the distance against one of the professional boxers. Admittedly they weren't the best in the world, but they did include some of the best in Australia. Put up against a flyweight because of his size, Frank knocked him out with the third punch he threw, and offered to fight someone else. By the time, he was on his third professional the word had got around, and the tent was so jammed they could not fit another eager spectator inside. He had hardly been touched by a glove, the few blows he had taken only provoking his ever-smoldering rage. He was wild-eyed, almost spitting in passion, each of his opponents wearing Paddy's face, the yells and cheers of the crowd throbbing in his head like a vast single voice chanting Go! Go! Go! Oh, how he had ached for the chance to fight, denied him since coming to Drogheda! For to fight was the only way he knew of ridding himself of anger and pain, and as he landed the felling punch he thought the great dull voice in his ears changed its song, to Kill! Kill! Kill! Then they put him with one of the real champions, a lightweight under orders to keep Frank at a distance and find out if he could box as well as he could punch. Jimmy Sharman's eyes were shining. He was always on the lookout for champions, and these little country shows had yielded several. The lightweight did as he was told, hard-pressed in spite of his superior reach, while Frank, so possessed by his hunger to kill that dancing, elusive figure he saw nothing else, went after him. He learned with every clinch and flurry of blows.