Sentence The Fourhundredandtwentieth 

Lolly lowered her head and spoke softly: “I am filled with shame, for letting all those Man do things to me, and deserve your disapproval, for not fighting them, for permitting them to use me,” and she began to sob, “I am whore, I am whore,” and Tammy reached out her hand and took one of Lolly's and gave it a squeeze: “no, darling, you are a little girl who lost her Mamma and whose Pappa despaired and was deceived by those evil men, they are the ones we disapprove of, they are the ones we despise, but you are safe from them now, here with Father Boisel and Greta, where they can never reach you,” but Tavish interjected: “we must be circumspect, Tammy, my dear, for in fact it may be wrong to say Lolly is safe, there are still predators, members of MacFarlane's Ring, both at Melrose Abbey and in Edinburgh, and while her 21st Century foxes have been left behind, I am anxious that they may yet target people we love and care for; MacFarlane himself, and the original Doubleday seem to have escaped from The Cavern and are united with the other Doubleday and yet more members of The Ring – I knew Ranulph Ochan'toshan, not well, and only as an artist and a fine photographer. but it seems he has another accomplice in the Police – this one called 'Knickers' - and we are the only ones outside The Ring who know; I was too confident that I had finished off those snakes in the stables, and now find that they have walked out of that Cavern and just picked up where they left off: talk about the Resurrection!” and he snorted, “I feel as if we're in the middle of a

time-loop, stuck in the Past, with foreknowledge of the Future, but no way of stopping it,” and he stopped suddenly, turned to Father Boisel, and said, “please forgive us Father for our lack of manners, it is unforgivable to speak between ourselves with no acknowledgement of your presence, and over the head of this poor girl, who has been abominable used and abused in our Time; she has shown great courage and fortitude, and we need to involve her in our plans, whatever they may be and wherever they may lead, for she is both a victim and a witness, and she probably knows more than she remembers, though to remember such horrors is distressing in itself, but we need to think carefully about how to proceed – to rush into action may cause more difficulties than they need, there is a saying from: 'softly, softly catchee monkey,' and we might benefit from it as a guiding principle, to creep up on our prey rather than breenge in like a bull in a china shop,” and then he realised that Father Boisel had acquired the glazed expression of one who has not the faintest idea what Tavish was talking about; he slammed his hands down on the table, and looked at the others – Lolly, the abused Romanian girl, Tammy, his daughter, Bernie, her lover, and Father Boisel, the Priest; “we can't do nothing, we need to be able to expose them and Griiiiind them into the dust” he growled, a long drawn out onomatopoeia which made the others uncomfortable; Lolly began to ululate, sobs and

wails racking her body, but as Bernie comforted her, Tavish stood and exclaimed: “forget the newspeak – 'we can't do nothing!' - but we can do something, we've been purblind after our experiences in and after The Cavern, feeling adrift in a strange land, but this is Our Land: Scotland, it's only that the clock has been wound back, which gives us a Mission: to avenge ourselves on the brutes in that infernal Ring of Gold, to destroy them and change the future, or rather, to shape it, this is probably the only chance for 'after' to undo 'before' and our knowledge of what right now is the unknown Future, can help us!” he stretched out his hand, “are we together?” he asked, and one by one the others, including Lolly and Father Boisel, joined the handclasp and cried, “YES!"