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+Project Gutenberg's All on the Irish Shore, by E. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: All on the Irish Shore
+       Irish Sketches
+
+Author: E. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+Illustrator: E. Somerville
+
+Release Date: September 27, 2005 [EBook #16766]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H." _A Grand Filly._]
+
+
+
+
+All on the Irish Shore
+
+Irish Sketches
+
+By
+
+E.OE. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+Authors of
+
+"Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," "The Real Charlotte" "The Silver
+Fox," "A Patrick's Day Hunt" etc., etc.
+
+With Illustrations by E.OE. Somerville
+
+
+_SECOND IMPRESSION_
+
+
+Longmans, Green, and Co.
+
+39 Paternoster Row, London
+
+New York and Bombay
+
+1903
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE TINKER'S DOG
+
+FANNY FITZ'S GAMBLE
+
+THE CONNEMARA MARE
+
+A GRAND FILLY
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE
+
+HIGH TEA AT MCKEOWN'S
+
+THE BAGMAN'S PONY
+
+AN IRISH PROBLEM
+
+THE DANE'S BREECHIN'
+
+"MATCHBOX"
+
+"AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON FAIR"
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+"ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H."
+
+"A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF CAUTION,
+AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH"
+
+"MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN' OUT FOR A COB"
+
+ROBERT'S AUNT
+
+THE BLOOD-HEALER
+
+"THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID"
+
+SWEENY
+
+"MUSHA! MUSHA!"
+
+"CROPPY"
+
+A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING
+
+
+
+
+THE TINKER'S DOG
+
+
+"Can't you head 'em off, Patsey? Run, you fool! _run_, can't you?"
+
+Sounds followed that suggested the intemperate use of Mr. Freddy
+Alexander's pocket-handkerchief, but that were, in effect, produced by
+his struggle with a brand new hunting-horn. To this demonstration about
+as much attention was paid by the nine couple of buccaneers whom he was
+now exercising for the first time as might have been expected, and it
+was brought to abrupt conclusion by the sudden charge of two of them
+from the rear. Being coupled, they mowed his legs from under him as
+irresistibly as chain shot and being puppies, and of an imbecile
+friendliness they remained to lick his face and generally make merry
+over him as he struggled to his feet.
+
+By this time the leaders of the pack were well away up a ploughed field,
+over a fence and into a furze brake, from which their rejoicing yelps
+streamed back on the damp breeze. The Master of the Craffroe Hounds
+picked himself up, and sprinted up the hill after the Whip and Kennel
+Huntsman--a composite official recently promoted from the stable
+yard--in a way that showed that his failure in horn-blowing was not the
+fault of his lungs. His feet were held by the heavy soil, he tripped in
+the muddy ridges; none the less he and Patsey plunged together over the
+stony rampart of the field in time to see Negress and Lily springing
+through the furze in kangaroo leaps, while they uttered long squeals of
+ecstasy. The rest of the pack, with a confidence gained in many a
+successful riot, got to them as promptly as if six Whips were behind
+them, and the whole faction plunged into a little wood on the top of
+what was evidently a burning scent.
+
+"Was it a fox, Patsey?" said the Master excitedly.
+
+"I dunno, Master Freddy: it might be 'twas a hare," returned Patsey,
+taking in a hurried reef in the strap that was responsible for the
+support of his trousers.
+
+Freddy was small and light, and four short years before had been a
+renowned hare in his school paper-chases: he went through the wood at a
+pace that gave Patsey and the puppies all they could do to keep with
+him, and dropped into a road just in time to see the pack streaming up a
+narrow lane near the end of the wood. At this point they were reinforced
+by a yellow dachshund who, with wildly flapping ears, and at that
+caricature of a gallop peculiar to his kind, joined himself to the
+hunters.
+
+"Glory be to Mercy!" exclaimed Patsey, "the misthress's dog!"
+
+Almost simultaneously the pack precipitated themselves into a ruined
+cabin at the end of the lane; instantly from within arose an uproar of
+sounds--crashes of an ironmongery sort, yells of dogs, raucous human
+curses; then the ruin exuded hounds, hens and turkeys at every one of
+the gaps in its walls, and there issued from what had been the doorway a
+tall man with a red beard, armed with a large frying-pan, with which he
+rained blows on the fleeing Craffroe Pack. It must be admitted that the
+speed with which these abandoned their prey, whatever it was, suggested
+a very intimate acquaintance with the wrath of cooks and the perils of
+resistance.
+
+Before their lawful custodians had recovered from this spectacle, a tall
+lady in black was suddenly merged in the _mêlée_, alternately calling
+loudly and incongruously for "Bismarck," and blowing shrill blasts on a
+whistle.
+
+"If the tinker laves a sthroke of the pan on the misthress's dog, the
+Lord help him!" said Patsey, starting in pursuit of Lily, who, with tail
+tucked in and a wounded hind leg buckled up, was removing herself
+swiftly from the scene of action.
+
+Mrs. Alexander shoved her way into the cabin, through a filthy group of
+gabbling male and female tinkers, and found herself involved in a wreck
+of branches and ragged tarpaulin that had once formed a kind of tent,
+but was now strewn on the floor by the incursion and excursion of the
+chase. Earthquake throes were convulsing the tarpaulin; a tinker woman,
+full of zeal, dashed at it and flung it back, revealing, amongst other
+_débris_, an old wooden bedstead heaped with rags. On either side of one
+of its legs protruded the passion-fraught faces of the coupled
+hound-puppies, who, still linked together, had passed through the period
+of unavailing struggle into a state of paralysed insanity of terror.
+Muffled squeals and tinny crashes told that conflict was still raging
+beneath the bed; the tinker women screamed abuse and complaint; and
+suddenly the dachshund's long yellow nose, streaming with blood, worked
+its way out of the folds. His mistress snatched at his collar and
+dragged him forth, and at his heels followed an infuriated tom cat,
+which, with its tail as thick as a muff, went like a streak through the
+confusion, and was lost in the dark ruin of the chimney.
+
+Mrs. Alexander stayed for no explanations: she extricated herself from
+the tinker party, and, filled with a righteous wrath, went forth to look
+for her son. From a plantation three fields away came the asphyxiated
+bleats of the horn and the desolate bawls of Patsey Crimmeen. Mrs.
+Alexander decided that it was better for the present to leave the
+_personnel_ of the Craffroe Hunt to their own devices.
+
+It was but three days before these occurrences that Mr. Freddy Alexander
+had stood on the platform of the Craffroe Station, with a throbbing
+heart, and a very dirty paper in his hand containing a list of eighteen
+names, that ranged alphabetically from "Batchellor" to "Warior." At his
+elbow stood a small man with a large moustache, and the thinnest legs
+that were ever buttoned into gaiters, who was assuring him that to no
+other man in Ireland would he have sold those hounds at such a price; a
+statement that was probably unimpeachable.
+
+"The only reason I'm parting them is I'm giving up me drag, and selling
+me stock, and going into partnership with a veterinary surgeon in Rugby.
+You've some of the best blood in Ireland in those hounds."
+
+"Is it blood?" chimed in an old man who was standing, slightly drunk, at
+Mr. Alexander's other elbow. "The most of them hounds is by the Kerry
+Rapparee, and he was the last of the old Moynalty Baygles. Black dogs
+they were, with red eyes! Every one o' them as big as a yearling calf,
+and they'd hunt anything that'd roar before them!" He steadied himself
+on the new Master's arm. "I have them gethered in the ladies'
+waiting-room, sir, the way ye'll have no throuble. 'Twould be as good
+for ye to lave the muzzles on them till ye'll be through the town."
+
+Freddy Alexander cannot to this hour decide what was the worst incident
+of that homeward journey; on the whole, perhaps, the most serious was
+the escape of Governess, who subsequently ravaged the country for two
+days, and was at length captured in the act of killing Mrs. Alexander's
+white Leghorn cock. For a young gentleman whose experience of hounds
+consisted in having learned at Cambridge to some slight and painful
+extent that if he rode too near them he got sworn at, the purchaser of
+the Kerry Rapparee's descendants had undertaken no mean task.
+
+On the morning following on the first run of the Craffroe Hounds, Mrs.
+Alexander was sitting at her escritoire, making up her weekly accounts
+and entering in her poultry-book the untimely demise of the Leghorn
+cock. She was a lady of secret enthusiasms which sheltered themselves
+behind habits of the most business-like severity. Her books were models
+of order, and as she neatly inscribed the Leghorn cock's epitaph,
+"Killed by hounds," she could not repress the compensating thought that
+she had never seen Freddy's dark eyes and olive complexion look so well
+as when he had tried on his new pink coat.
+
+At this point she heard a step on the gravel outside; Bismarck uttered a
+bloodhound bay and got under the sofa. It was a sunny morning in late
+October, and the French window was open; outside it, ragged as a Russian
+poodle and nearly as black, stood the tinker who had the day before
+wielded the frying-pan with such effect.
+
+"Me lady," began the tinker, "I ax yer ladyship's pardon, but me little
+dog is dead."
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Alexander, fixing a gaze of clear grey rectitude upon
+him.
+
+"Me lady," continued the tinker, reverentially but firmly, "'twas afther
+he was run by thim dogs yestherday, and 'twas your ladyship's dog that
+finished him. He tore the throat out of him under the bed!" He pointed
+an accusing forefinger at Bismarck, whose lambent eyes of terror glowed
+from beneath the valance of the sofa.
+
+"Nonsense! I saw your dog; he was twice my dog's size," said Bismarck's
+mistress decidedly, not, however, without a remembrance of the blood on
+Bismarck's nose. She adored courage, and had always cherished a belief
+that Bismarck's sharklike jaws implied the possession of latent
+ferocity.
+
+"Ah, but he was very wake, ma'am, afther he bein' hunted," urged the
+tinker. "I never slep' a wink the whole night, but keepin' sups o' milk
+to him and all sorts. Ah, ma'am, ye wouldn't like to be lookin' at him!"
+
+The tinker was a very good-looking young man, almost apostolic in type,
+with a golden red aureole of hair and beard and candid blue eyes. These
+latter filled with tears as their owner continued:--
+
+"He was like a brother for me; sure he follied me from home. 'Twas he
+was dam wise! Sure at home all me mother'd say to him was, "Where's the
+ducks, Captain?" an' he wouldn't lave wather nor bog-hole round the
+counthry but he'd have them walked and the ducks gethered. The pigs
+could be in their choice place, wherever they'd be he'd go around them.
+If ye'd tell him to put back the childhren from the fire, he'd ketch
+them by the sleeve and dhrag them."
+
+The requiem ceased, and the tinker looked grievingly into his hat.
+
+"What is your name?" asked Mrs. Alexander sternly. "How long is it since
+you left home?"
+
+Had the tinker been as well acquainted with her as he was afterwards
+destined to become, he would have been aware that when she was most
+judicial she was frequently least certain of what her verdict was going
+to be.
+
+"Me name's Willy Fennessy, me lady," replied the tinker, "an' I'm goin'
+the roads no more than three months. Indeed, me lady, I think the time
+too long that I'm with these blagyard thravellers. All the friends I
+have was poor Captain, and he's gone from me."
+
+"Go round to the kitchen," said Mrs. Alexander.
+
+The results of Willy Fennessy's going round to the kitchen were
+far-reaching. Its most immediate consequences were that (1) he mended
+the ventilator of the kitchen range; (2) he skinned a brace of rabbits
+for Miss Barnet, the cook; (3) he arranged to come next day and repair
+the clandestine devastations of the maids among the china.
+
+He was pronounced to be a very agreeable young man.
+
+Before luncheon (of which meal he partook in the kitchen) he had been
+consulted by Patsey Crimmeen about the chimney of the kennel boiler, had
+single-handed reduced it to submission, and had, in addition, boiled the
+meal for the hounds with a knowledge of proportion and an untiring
+devotion to the use of the potstick which produced "stirabout" of a
+smoothness and excellence that Miss Barnet herself might have been proud
+of.
+
+"You know, mother," said Freddy that evening, "you do want another chap
+in the garden badly."
+
+"Well it's not so much the garden," said Mrs. Alexander with alacrity,
+"but I think he might be very useful to you, dear, and it's such a
+great matter his being a teetotaler, and he seems so fond of animals. I
+really feel we ought to try and make up to him somehow for the loss of
+his dog; though, indeed, a more deplorable object than that poor mangy
+dog I never saw!"
+
+"All right: we'll put him in the back lodge, and we'll give him Bizzy as
+a watch dog. Won't we, Bizzy?" replied Freddy, dragging the somnolent
+Bismarck from out of the heart of the hearthrug, and accepting without
+repugnance the comprehensive lick that enveloped his chin.
+
+From which it may be gathered that Mrs. Alexander and her son had
+fallen, like their household, under the fatal spell of the fascinating
+tinker.
+
+At about the time that this conversation was taking place, Mr. Fennessy,
+having spent an evening of valedictory carouse with his tribe in the
+ruined cottage, was walking, somewhat unsteadily, towards the wood,
+dragging after him by a rope a large dog. He did not notice that he was
+being followed by a barefooted woman, but the dog did, and, being an
+intelligent dog, was in some degree reassured. In the wood the tinker
+spent some time in selecting a tree with a projecting branch suitable to
+his purpose, and having found one he proceeded to hang the dog. Even in
+his cups Mr. Fennessy made sentiment subservient to common sense.
+
+It is hardly too much to say that in a week the tinker had taken up a
+position in the Craffroe household only comparable to that of Ygdrasil,
+who in Norse mythology forms the ultimate support of all things. Save
+for the incessant demands upon his skill in the matter of solder and
+stitches, his recent tinkerhood was politely ignored, or treated as an
+escapade excusable in a youth of spirit. Had not his father owned a farm
+and seven cows in the county Limerick, and had not he himself three
+times returned the price of his ticket to America to a circle of adoring
+and wealthy relatives in Boston? His position in the kitchen and yard
+became speedily assured. Under his _régime_ the hounds were valeted as
+they had never been before. Lily herself (newly washed, with "blue" in
+the water) was scarcely more white than the concrete floor of the kennel
+yard, and the puppies, Ruby and Remus, who had unaccountably developed a
+virulent form of mange, were immediately taken in hand by the
+all-accomplished tinker, and anointed with a mixture whose very
+noisomeness was to Patsey Crimmeen a sufficient guarantee of its
+efficacy, and was impressive even to the Master, fresh from much anxious
+study of veterinary lore.
+
+"He's the best man we've got!" said Freddy proudly to a dubious uncle,
+"there isn't a mortal thing he can't put his hand to."
+
+"Or lay his hands on," suggested the dubious uncle. "May I ask if his
+colleagues are still within a mile of the place?"
+
+"Oh, he hates the very sight of 'em!" said Freddy hastily, "cuts 'em
+dead whenever he sees 'em."
+
+"It's no use your crabbing him, George," broke in Mrs. Alexander, "we
+won't give him up to you! Wait till you see how he has mended the lock
+of the hall door!"
+
+"I should recommend you to buy a new one at once," said Sir George Ker,
+in a way that was singularly exasperating to the paragon's proprietors.
+
+Mrs. Alexander was, or so her friends said, somewhat given to vaunting
+herself of her paragons, under which heading, it may be admitted,
+practically all her household were included. She was, indeed, one of
+those persons who may or may not be heroes to their valets, but whose
+valets are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore,
+excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the
+very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the housemaid
+and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively demand an
+audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to such
+occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless. They
+were unhappy: one said she wouldn't get her appetite, and that her
+mother was sick; the other said she wouldn't get her sleep in it, and
+there was things--sob--going on--sob.
+
+Mrs. Alexander concluded the interview abruptly, and descended to the
+kitchen to interview her queen paragon, Barnet, on the crisis.
+
+Miss Barnet was a stout and comely English lady, of that liberal forty
+that frankly admits itself in advertisements to be twenty-eight. It was
+understood that she had only accepted office in Ireland because, in the
+first place, the butler to whom she had long been affianced had married
+another, and because, in the second place, she had a brother buried in
+Belfast. She was, perhaps, the one person in the world whose opinion
+about poultry Mrs. Alexander ranked higher than her own. She now allowed
+a restrained acidity to mingle with her dignity of manner, scarcely more
+than the calculated lemon essence in her faultless castle puddings, but
+enough to indicate that she, too, had grievances. _She_ didn't know why
+they were leaving. She had heard some talk about a fairy or something,
+but she didn't hold with such nonsense.
+
+"Gerrls is very frightful!" broke in an unexpected voice; "owld
+standards like meself maybe wouldn't feel it!"
+
+A large basket of linen had suddenly blocked the scullery door, and
+from beneath it a little woman, like an Australian aborigine, delivered
+herself of this dark saying.
+
+"What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffen?" demanded Mrs. Alexander,
+turning in vexed bewilderment to her laundress, "what does all this
+mean?"
+
+"The Lord save us, ma'am, there's some says it means a death in the
+house!" replied Mrs. Griffen with unabated cheerfulness, "an' indeed
+'twas no blame for the little gerrls to be frightened an' they meetin'
+it in the passages--"
+
+"Meeting _what_?" interrupted her mistress. Mrs. Griffen was an old and
+privileged retainer, but there were limits even for Mrs. Griffen.
+
+"Sure, ma'am, there's no one knows what was in it," returned Mrs.
+Griffen, "but whatever it was they heard it goin' on before them always
+in the panthry passage, an' it walkin' as sthrong as a man. It whipped
+away up the stairs, and they seen the big snout snorting out at them
+through the banisters, and a bare back on it the same as a pig; and the
+two cheeks on it as white as yer own, and away with it! And with that
+Mary Anne got a wakeness, and only for Willy Fennessy bein' in the
+kitchen an' ketching a hold of her, she'd have cracked her head on the
+range, the crayture!"
+
+Here Barnet smiled with ineffable contempt.
+
+"What I'm tellin' them is," continued Mrs. Griffen, warming with her
+subject, "maybe that thing was a pairson that's dead, an' might be owin'
+a pound to another one, or has something that way on his soul, an' it's
+in the want o' some one that'll ax it what's throublin' it. The like o'
+thim couldn't spake till ye'll spake to thim first. But, sure, gerrls
+has no courage--"
+
+Barnet's smile was again one of wintry superiority.
+
+"Willy Fennessy and Patsey Crimmeen was afther seein' it too last
+night," went on Mrs. Griffen, "an' poor Willy was as much frightened! He
+said surely 'twas a ghost. On the back avenue it was, an' one minute
+'twas as big as an ass, an' another minute it'd be no bigger than a
+bonnive--"
+
+"Oh, the Lord save us!" wailed the kitchen-maid irrepressibly from the
+scullery.
+
+"I shall speak to Fennessy myself about this," said Mrs. Alexander,
+making for the door with concentrated purpose, "and in the meantime I
+wish to hear no more of this rubbish."
+
+"I'm sure Fennessy wishes to hear no more of it," said Barnet acridly to
+Mrs. Griffen, when Mrs. Alexander had passed swiftly out of hearing,
+"after the way those girls have been worryin' on at him about it all the
+morning. Such a set out!"
+
+Mrs. Griffen groaned in a polite and general way, and behind Barnet's
+back put her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and winked at the
+kitchen-maid.
+
+Mrs. Alexander found her conversation with Willy Fennessy less
+satisfactory than usual. He could not give any definite account of what
+he and Patsey had seen: maybe they'd seen nothing at all; maybe--as an
+obvious impromptu--it was the calf of the Kerry cow; whatever was in it,
+it was little he'd mind it, and, in easy dismissal of the subject, would
+the misthress be against his building a bit of a coal-shed at the back
+of the lodge while she was away?
+
+That evening a new terror was added to the situation. Jimmy the
+boot-boy, on his return from taking the letters to the evening post,
+fled in panic into the kitchen, and having complied with the etiquette
+invariable in such cases by having "a wakeness," he described to a
+deeply sympathetic audience how he had seen something that was like a
+woman in the avenue, and he had called to it and it returned him no
+answer, and how he had then asked it three times in the name o' God what
+was it, and it soaked away into the trees from him, and then there came
+something rushing in on him and grunting at him to bite him, and he was
+full sure it was the Fairy Pig from Lough Clure.
+
+Day by day the legend grew, thickened by tales of lights that had been
+seen moving mysteriously in the woods of Craffroe. Even the hounds were
+subpoenaed as witnesses; Patsey Crimmeen's mother stating that for three
+nights after Patsey had seen that Thing they were singing and screeching
+to each other all night.
+
+Had Mrs. Crimmeen used the verb scratch instead of screech she would
+have been nearer the mark. The puppies, Ruby and Remus, had, after the
+manner of the young, human and canine, not failed to distribute their
+malady among their elders, and the pack, straitly coupled, went for
+dismal constitutionals, and the kennels reeked to heaven of remedies,
+and Freddy's new hunter, Mayboy, from shortness of work, smashed the
+partition of the loose box and kicked his neighbour, Mrs. Alexander's
+cob, in the knee.
+
+"The worst of it is," said Freddy confidentially to his ally and
+adviser, the junior subaltern of the detachment at Enniscar, who had
+come over to see the hounds, "that I'm afraid Patsey Crimmeen--the boy
+whom I'm training to whip to me, you know"--(as a matter of fact, the
+Whip was a year older than the Master)--"is beginning to drink a bit.
+When I came down here before breakfast this mornin'"--when Freddy was
+feeling more acutely than usual his position as an M.F.H., he cut his
+g's and talked slightly through his nose, even, on occasion, going so
+far as to omit the aspirate in talking of his hounds--"there wasn't a
+sign of him--kennel door not open or anything. I let the poor brutes out
+into the run. I tell you, what with the paraffin and the carbolic and
+everything the kennel was pretty high--"
+
+"It's pretty thick now," said his friend, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"Well, I went into the boiler-house," continued Freddy impressively,
+"and there he was, asleep on the floor, with his beastly head on my
+kennel coat, and one leg in the feeding trough!"
+
+Mr. Taylour made a suitable ejaculation.
+
+"I jolly soon kicked him on to his legs," went on Freddy, "not that they
+were much use to him--he must have been on the booze all night. After
+that I went on to the stable yard, and if you'll believe me, the two
+chaps there had never turned up at all--at half-past eight, mind
+you!--and there was Fennessy doing up the horses. He said he believed
+that there'd been a wake down at Enniscar last night. I thought it was
+rather decent of him doing their work for them."
+
+"You'll sack 'em, I suppose?" remarked Mr. Taylour, with martial
+severity.
+
+"Oh well, I don't know," said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see.
+Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like
+a red rag to a bull to her."
+
+Taking this peculiarity of Mrs. Alexander into consideration, it was
+perhaps as well that she left Craffroe a few days afterwards to stay
+with her brother. The evening before she left both the Fairy Pig and the
+Ghost Woman were seen again on the avenue, this time by the coachman,
+who came into the kitchen considerably the worse for liquor and
+announced the fact, and that night the household duties were performed
+by the maids in pairs, and even, when possible, in trios.
+
+As Mrs. Alexander said at dinner to Sir George, on the evening of her
+arrival, she was thankful to have abandoned the office of Ghostly
+Comforter to her domestics. Only for Barnet she couldn't have left poor
+Freddy to the mercy of that pack of fools; in fact, even with Barnet to
+look after them, it was impossible to tell what imbecility they were not
+capable of.
+
+"Well, if you like," said Sir George, "I might run you over there on the
+motor car some day to see how they're all getting on. If Freddy is going
+to hunt on Friday, we might go on to Craffroe after seeing the fun."
+
+The topic of Barnet was here shelved in favour of automobiles. Mrs.
+Alexander's brother was also a person of enthusiasms.
+
+But what were these enthusiasms compared to the deep-seated ecstasy of
+Freddy Alexander as in his new pink coat he rode down the main street
+of Enniscar, Patsey in equal splendour bringing up the rear, unspeakably
+conscious of the jibes of his relatives and friends. There was a select
+field, consisting of Mr. Taylour, four farmers, some young ladies on
+bicycles, and about two dozen young men and boys on foot, who, in order
+to be prepared for all contingencies, had provided themselves with five
+dogs, two horns, and a ferret. It is, after all, impossible to please
+everybody, and from the cyclists' and foot people's point of view the
+weather left nothing to be desired. The sun shone like a glistering
+shield in the light blue November sky, the roads were like iron, the
+wind, what there was of it, like steel. There was a line of white on the
+northerly side of the fences, that yielded grudgingly and inch by inch
+before the march of the pale sunshine: the new pack could hardly have
+had a more unfavourable day for their _début_.
+
+The new Master was, however, wholly undaunted by such crumples in the
+rose-leaf. He was riding Mayboy, a big trustworthy horse, whose love of
+jumping had survived a month of incessant and arbitrary schooling, and
+he left the road as soon as was decently possible, and made a line
+across country for the covert that involved as much jumping as could
+reasonably be hoped for in half a mile. At the second fence Patsey
+Crimmeen's black mare put her nose in the air and swung round; Patsey's
+hands seemed to be at their worst this morning, and what their worst
+felt like the black mare alone knew. Mr. Taylour, as Deputy Whip,
+waltzed erratically round the nine couple on a very flippant polo pony;
+and the four farmers, who had wisely adhered to the road, reached the
+covert sufficiently in advance of the hunt to frustrate Lily's project
+of running sheep in a neighbouring field.
+
+The covert was a large, circular enclosure, crammed to the very top of
+its girdling bank with furze-bushes, bracken, low hazel, and stunted
+Scotch firs. Its primary idea was woodcock, its second rabbits; beaters
+were in the habit of getting through it somehow, but a ride feasible for
+fox hunters had never so much as occurred to it. Into this, with
+practical assistance from the country boys, the deeply reluctant hounds
+were pitched and flogged; Freddy very nervously uplifted his voice in
+falsetto encouragement, feeling much as if he were starting the solo of
+an anthem; and Mr. Taylour and Patsey, the latter having made it up with
+the black mare, galloped away with professional ardour to watch
+different sides of the covert. This, during the next hour, they had
+ample opportunities for doing. After the first outburst of joy from the
+hounds on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after
+the retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion
+discovery that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the
+far-away prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy
+Alexander. He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering
+whoops the invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth
+huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, filled with that
+horrid conviction which assails the lonely watcher, that the hounds have
+slipped away at the far side, he put spurs to Mayboy, and cantered down
+the long flank of the covert to find some one or something. Nothing had
+happened on the north side, at all events, for there was the faithful
+Taylour, pirouetting on his hill-top in the eye of the wind. Two fields
+more (in one of which he caught his first sight of any of the hounds, in
+the shape of Ruby, carefully rolling on a dead crow), and then, under
+the lee of a high bank, he came upon Patsey Crimmeen, the farmers, and
+the country boys, absorbed in the contemplation of a fight between
+Tiger, the butcher's brindled cur, and Watty, the kennel terrier.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Alexander dispersed this entertainment showed
+that he was already equipped with one important qualification of a
+Master of Hounds--a temper laid on like gas, ready to blaze at a
+moment's notice. He pitched himself off his horse and scrambled over the
+bank into the covert in search of his hounds. He pushed his way through
+briars and furze-bushes, and suddenly, near the middle of the wood, he
+caught sight of them. They were in a small group, they were very quiet
+and very busy. As a matter of fact they were engaged in eating a dead
+sheep.
+
+After this episode, there ensued a long and disconsolate period of
+wandering from one bleak hillside to another, at the bidding of various
+informants, in search of apocryphal foxes, slaughterers of flocks of
+equally apocryphal geese and turkeys--such a day as is discreetly
+ignored in all hunting annals, and, like the easterly wind that is its
+parent, is neither good for man nor beast.
+
+By half-past three hope had died, even in the sanguine bosoms of the
+Master and Mr. Taylour. Two of the farmers had disappeared, and the lady
+bicyclists, with faces lavender blue from waiting at various windy cross
+roads, had long since fled away to lunch. Two of the hounds were
+limping; all, judging by their expressions, were on the verge of tears.
+Patsey's black mare had lost two shoes; Mr. Taylour's pony had ceased to
+pull, and was too dispirited even to try to kick the hounds, and the
+country boys had dwindled to four. There had come a time when Mr.
+Taylour had sunk so low as to suggest that a drag should be run with
+the assistance of the ferret's bag, a scheme only frustrated by the
+regrettable fact that the ferret and its owner had gone home.
+
+"Well we had a nice bit of schooling, anyhow, and, it's been a real
+educational day for the hounds," said Freddy, turning in his saddle to
+look at the fires of the frosty sunset. "I'm glad they had it. I think
+we're in for a go of hard weather. I don't know what I should have done
+only for you, old chap. Patsey's gone all to pieces: it's my belief he's
+been on the drink this whole week, and where he gets it--"
+
+"Hullo! Hold hard!" interrupted Mr. Taylour. "What's Governor after?"
+
+They were riding along a grass-grown farm road outside the Craffroe
+demesne; the grey wall made a sharp bend to the right, and just at the
+corner Governor had begun to gallop, with his nose to the ground and his
+stern up. The rest of the pack joined him in an instant, and all swung
+round the corner and were lost to sight.
+
+"It's a fox!" exclaimed Freddy, snatching up his reins; "they always
+cross into the demesne just here!"
+
+By the time he and Mr. Taylour were round the corner the hounds had
+checked fifty yards ahead, and were eagerly hunting to and fro for the
+lost scent, and a little further down the old road they saw a woman
+running away from them.
+
+"Hi, ma'am!" bellowed Freddy, "did you see the fox?"
+
+The woman made no answer.
+
+"Did you see the fox?" reiterated Freddy in still more stentorian tones.
+"Can't you answer me?"
+
+The woman continued to run without even looking behind her.
+
+The laughter of Mr. Taylour added fuel to the fire of Freddy's wrath: he
+put the spurs into Mayboy, dashed after the woman, pulled his horse
+across the road in front of her, and shouted his question point-blank at
+her, coupled with a warm inquiry as to whether she had a tongue in her
+head.
+
+The woman jumped backwards as if she were shot, staring in horror at
+Freddy's furious little face, then touched her mouth and ears and began
+to jabber inarticulately and talk on her fingers.
+
+The laughter of Mr. Taylour was again plainly audible.
+
+"Sure that's a dummy woman, sir," explained the butcher's nephew,
+hurrying up. "I think she's one of them tinkers that's outside the
+town." Then with a long screech, "Look! Look over! Tiger, have it!
+Hulla, hulla, hulla!"
+
+Tiger was already over the wall and into the demesne, neck and neck with
+Fly, the smith's half-bred greyhound; and in the wake of these champions
+clambered the Craffroe Pack, with strangled yelps of ardour, striving
+and squealing and fighting horribly in the endeavour to scramble up the
+tall smooth face of the wall.
+
+"The gate! The gate further on!" yelled Freddy, thundering down the
+turfy road, with the earth flying up in lumps from his horse's hoofs.
+
+Mr. Taylour's pony gave two most uncomfortable bucks and ran away; even
+Patsey Crimmeen and the black mare shared an unequal thrill of
+enthusiasm, as the latter, wholly out of hand, bucketed after the pony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon was very cold, a fact thoroughly realised by Mrs.
+Alexander, on the front seat of Sir George's motor-car, in spite of
+enveloping furs, and of Bismarck, curled like a fried whiting, in her
+lap. The grey road rushed smoothly backwards under the broad tyres;
+golden and green plover whistled in the quiet fields, starlings and huge
+missel thrushes burst from the wayside trees as the "Bollée," uttering
+that hungry whine that indicates the desire of such creatures to devour
+space, tore past. Mrs. Alexander wondered if birds' beaks felt as cold
+as her nose after they had been cleaving the air for an afternoon; at
+all events, she reflected, they had not the consolation of tea to look
+forward to. Barnet was sure to have some of her best hot cakes ready
+for Freddy when he came home from hunting. Mrs. Alexander and Sir
+George had been scouring the roads since a very early lunch in search of
+the hounds, and her mind reposed on the thought of the hot cakes.
+
+The front lodge gates stood wide open, the motor-car curved its flight
+and skimmed through. Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three
+policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and wormlike
+thing.
+
+"Janet," called out Sir George, "you've been caught making potheen!
+They've got the worm of a still there."
+
+"They're only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I'm
+delighted they've found it!" screamed back Mrs. Alexander.
+
+The "Bollée" was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of
+the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers. There was no response.
+
+"Better go round to the kitchen," suggested her brother. "You'll find
+they're talking too hard to hear the bell."
+
+His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the
+hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.
+
+"I can't find a creature anywhere," she said, "either upstairs or
+down--I can't understand Barnet leaving the house empty--"
+
+"Listen!" interrupted Sir George, "isn't that the hounds?"
+
+They listened.
+
+"They're hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!"
+
+The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the
+twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling
+clamour of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods. The
+motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out of the
+rhododendron-bush burst a spectral black-and-white dog, with floating
+fringes of ragged wool and hideous bald patches on its back.
+
+"Fennessy's dog!" ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in her seat.
+
+Probably Bismarck never enjoyed anything in his life as much as the all
+too brief moment in which, leaning from his mistress's lap in the prow
+of the flying "Bollée," he barked hysterically in the wake of the
+piebald dog, who, in all its dolorous career had never before had the
+awful experience of being chased by a motor-car. It darted in at the
+open door of the lodge; the pursuers pulled up outside. There were
+paraffin lamps in the windows, the open door was garlanded with
+evergreens; from it proceeded loud and hilarious voices and the jerky
+strains of a concertina. Mrs. Alexander, with all, her most cherished
+convictions toppling on their pedestals, stood in the open doorway and
+stared, unable to believe the testimony of her own eyes. Was that the
+immaculate Barnet seated at the head of a crowded table, in her--Mrs.
+Alexander's--very best bonnet and velvet cape, with a glass of steaming
+potheen punch in her hand, and Willy Fennessy's arm round her waist?
+
+The glass sank from the paragon's lips, the arm of Mr. Fennessy fell
+from her waist; the circle of servants, tinkers, and country people
+vainly tried to efface themselves behind each other.
+
+"Barnet!" said Mrs. Alexander in an awful voice, and even in that moment
+she appreciated with an added pang the feathery beauty of a slice of
+Barnet's sponge-cake in the grimy fist of a tinker.
+
+"Mrs. Fennessy, m'm, if you please," replied Barnet, with a dignity
+that, considering the bonnet and cape, was highly creditable to her
+strength of character.
+
+At this point a hand dragged Mrs. Alexander backwards from the doorway,
+a barefooted woman hustled past her into the house, slammed the door in
+her face, and Mrs. Alexander found herself in the middle of the hounds.
+
+"We'd give you the brush, Mrs. Alexander," said Mr. Taylour, as he
+flogged solidly all round him in the dusk, "but as the other lady seems
+to have gone to ground with the fox I suppose she'll take it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Fennessy paid out of her own ample savings the fines inflicted upon
+her husband for potheen-making and selling drink in the Craffroe gate
+lodge without a licence, and she shortly afterwards took him to America.
+
+Mrs. Alexander's friends professed themselves as being not in the least
+surprised to hear that she had installed the afflicted Miss Fennessy
+(sister to the late occupant) and her scarcely less afflicted companion,
+the Fairy Pig, in her back lodge. Miss Fennessy, being deaf and dumb, is
+not perhaps a paragon lodge-keeper, but having, like her brother, been
+brought up in a work-house kitchen, she has taught Patsey Crimmeen how
+to boil stirabout _à merveille_.
+
+
+
+
+FANNY FITZ'S GAMBLE
+
+
+"Where's Fanny Fitz?" said Captain Spicer to his wife.
+
+They were leaning over the sea-wall in front of a little fishing hotel
+in Connemara, idling away the interval usually vouchsafed by the Irish
+car-driver between the hour at which he is ordered to be ready and that
+at which he appears. It was a misty morning in early June, the time of
+all times for Connemara, did the tourist only know it. The mountains
+towered green and grey above the palely shining sea in which they stood;
+the air was full of the sound of streams and the scent of wild flowers;
+the thin mist had in it something of the dazzle of the sunlight that was
+close behind it. Little Mrs. Spicer pulled down her veil: even after a
+fortnight's fly-fishing she still retained some regard for her
+complexion.
+
+"She says she can't come," she responded; "she has letters to write or
+something--and this is our last day!"
+
+Mrs. Spicer evidently found the fact provoking.
+
+"On this information the favourite receded 33 to 1," remarked Captain
+Spicer. "I think you may as well chuck it, my dear."
+
+"I should like to beat them both!" said his wife, flinging a pebble into
+the rising tide that was very softly mouthing the seaweedy rocks below
+them.
+
+"Well, here's Rupert; you can begin on him."
+
+"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" said Rupert's sister
+vindictively. "A great teasing, squabbling baby! Oh, how I hate fools!
+and they are _both_ fools!--Oh, there you are, Rupert," a well-simulated
+blandness invading her voice; "and what's Fanny Fitz doing?"
+
+"She's trying to do a Mayo man over a horse-deal," replied Mr. Rupert
+Gunning.
+
+"A horse-deal!" repeated Mrs. Spicer incredulously. "Fanny buying a
+horse! Oh, impossible!"
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Mr. Gunning, "she's trying pretty
+hard. I gave her my opinion--"
+
+"I'll take my oath you did," observed Captain Spicer.
+
+"--And as she didn't seem to want it, I came away," continued Mr.
+Gunning imperturbably. "Be calm, Maudie; it takes two days and two
+nights to buy a horse in these parts; you'll be home in plenty of time
+to interfere, and here's the car. Don't waste the morning."
+
+[Illustration: "A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY,
+PARTLY OF CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH."]
+
+"I never know if you're speaking the truth or no," complained Mrs.
+Spicer; nevertheless, she scrambled on to the car without delay. She and
+her brother had at least one point in common--the fanatic enthusiasm of
+the angler.
+
+In the meantime, Miss Fanny Fitzroy's negotiations were proceeding in
+the hotel yard. Fanny herself was standing in a stable doorway, with her
+hands in the pockets of her bicycle skirt. She had no hat on, and the
+mild breeze blew her hair about; it was light brown, with a brightness
+in it; her eyes also were light brown, with gleams in them like the
+shallow places in a Connemara trout stream. At this moment they were
+scanning with approval, tempered by anxiety, the muddy legs of a lean
+and lengthy grey filly, who was fearfully returning her gaze from
+between the strands of a touzled forelock. The owner of the filly, a
+small man, with a face like a serious elderly monkey, stood at her head
+in a silence that was the outcome partly of stupidity, partly of
+caution, and partly of lack of English speech. The conduct of the matter
+was in the hands of a friend, a tall young man with a black beard,
+nimble of tongue and gesture, profuse in courtesies.
+
+"Well, indeed, yes, your ladyship," he was saying glibly, "the breed of
+horses is greatly improving in these parts, and them hackney horses--"
+
+"Oh," interrupted Miss Fitzroy hastily, "I won't have her if she's a
+hackney."
+
+The eyes of the owner sought those of the friend in a gaze that clearly
+indicated the question.
+
+"What'll ye say to her now?"
+
+The position of the vendors was becoming a little complicated. They had
+come over through the mountains, from the borders of Mayo, to sell the
+filly to the hotel-keeper for posting, and were primed to the lips with
+the tale of her hackney lineage. The hotel-keeper had unconditionally
+refused to trade, and here, when a heaven-sent alternative was delivered
+into their hands, they found themselves hampered by the coils of a
+cast-off lie. No shade, however, of hesitancy appeared on the open
+countenance of the friend. He approached Miss Fitzroy with a mincing
+step, a deprecating wave of the hand, and a deeply respectful ogle. He
+was going to adopt the desperate resource of telling the truth, but to
+tell the truth profitably was a part that required rather more playing
+than any other.
+
+"Well, your honour's ladyship," he began, with a glance at the hotel
+ostler, who was standing near cleaning a bit in industrious and
+sarcastic silence, "it is a fact, no doubt, that I mentioned here this
+morning that this young mare was of the Government hackney stock. But,
+according as I understand from this poor man that owns her, he bought
+her in a small fair over the Tuam side, and the man that sold her could
+take his oath she was by the Grey Dawn--sure you'd know it out of her
+colour."
+
+"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Miss Fitzroy, bending her straight
+brows in righteous severity.
+
+"Well, that's true indeed, your ladyship; but, after all--I declare a
+man couldn't hardly live without he'd tell a lie sometimes!"
+
+Fanny Fitz stooped, rather hurriedly, and entered upon a renewed
+examination of the filly's legs. Even Rupert Gunning, after his brief
+and unsympathetic survey, had said she had good legs; in fact, he had
+only been able to crab her for the length of her back, and he, as Fanny
+Fitz reflected with a heat that took no heed of metaphor, was the
+greatest crabber that ever croaked.
+
+"What are you asking for her?" she demanded with a sudden access of
+decision.
+
+There was a pause. The owner of the filly and his friend withdrew a step
+or two and conferred together in Irish at lightning speed. The filly
+held up her head and regarded her surroundings with guileless
+wonderment. Fanny Fitz made a mental dive into her bankbook, and arrived
+at the varied conclusions that she was £30 to the good, that on that sum
+she had to weather out the summer and autumn, besides pacifying various
+cormorants (thus she designated her long-suffering tradespeople), and
+that every one had told her that if she only kept her eyes open in
+Connemara she might be able to buy something cheap and make a pot of
+money on it.
+
+"This poor honest man," said the friend, returning to the charge, "says
+he couldn't part her without he'd get twenty-eight pounds for her; and,
+thank God, it's little your ladyship would think of giving that!"
+
+Fanny Fitz's face fell.
+
+"Twenty-eight pounds!" she echoed. "Oh, that's ridiculous!"
+
+The friend turned to the owner, and, with a majestic wave of the hand,
+signalled to him to retire. The owner, without a change of expression,
+coiled up the rope halter and started slowly and implacably for the
+gate; the friend took off his hat with wounded dignity. Every gesture
+implied that the whole transaction was buried in an irrevocable past.
+
+Fanny Fitz's eyes followed the party as they silently left the yard, the
+filly stalking dutifully with a long and springy step beside her master.
+It was a moment full of bitterness, and of a quite irrational
+indignation against Rupert Gunning.
+
+"I beg your pardon, miss," said the ostler, at her elbow, "would ye be
+willing to give twenty pounds for the mare, and he to give back a pound
+luck-penny?"
+
+"I would!" said the impulsive Fanny Fitz, after the manner of her
+nation.
+
+When the fishing party returned that afternoon Miss Fitzroy met them at
+the hall door.
+
+"Well, my dear," she said airily to Mrs. Spicer, "what sort of sport
+have you had? I've enjoyed myself immensely. I've bought a horse!"
+
+Mrs. Spicer sat, paralysed, on the seat of the outside car, disregarding
+her brother's outstretched hands.
+
+"Fanny!" she exclaimed, in tones fraught with knowledge of her friend's
+resources and liabilities.
+
+"Yes, I have!" went on Fanny Fitz, undaunted. "Mr. Gunning saw her. He
+said she was a long-backed brute. Didn't you, Mr. Gunning?"
+
+Rupert Gunning lifted his small sister bodily off the car. He was a tall
+sallow man, with a big nose and a small, much-bitten, fair moustache.
+
+"Yes, I believe I did," he said shortly.
+
+Mrs. Spicer's blue eyes grew round with consternation.
+
+"Then you really have bought the thing!" she cried. "Oh, Fanny, you
+idiot! And what on earth are you going to do with it?"
+
+"It can sleep on the foot of my bed to-night," returned Fanny Fitz, "and
+I'll ride it into Galway to-morrow! Mr. Gunning, you can ride half-way
+if you like!"
+
+But Mr. Gunning had already gone into the hotel with his rod and fishing
+basket. He had a gift, that he rarely lost a chance of exercising, of
+provoking Fanny Fitz to wrath, and the fact that he now declined her
+challenge may or may not be accounted for by the gloom consequent upon
+an empty fishing basket.
+
+Next morning the various hangers-on in the hotel yard were provided with
+occupation and entertainment of the most satiating description. Fanny
+Fitz's new purchase was being despatched to the nearest railway station,
+some fourteen miles off. It had been arranged that the ostler was to
+drive her there in one of the hotel cars, which should then return with
+a horse that was coming from Galway for the hotel owner; nothing could
+have fitted in better. Unfortunately the only part of the arrangement
+that refused to fit in was the filly. Even while Fanny Fitz was
+finishing her toilet, high-pitched howls of objurgation were rising,
+alarmingly, from the stable-yard, and on reaching the scene of action
+she was confronted by the spectacle of the ostler being hurtled across
+the yard by the filly, to whose head he was clinging, while two helpers
+upheld the shafts of the outside car from which she had fled. All were
+shouting directions and warnings at the tops of their voices, the hotel
+dog was barking, the filly alone was silent, but her opinions were
+unmistakable.
+
+A waiter in shirt-sleeves was leaning comfortably out of a window,
+watching the fray and offering airy suggestion and comment.
+
+"It's what I'm telling them, miss," he said easily, including Fanny Fitz
+in the conversation; "if they get that one into Recess to-night it'll
+not be under a side-car."
+
+"But the man I bought her from," said Fanny Fitz, lamentably addressing
+the company, "told me that he drove his mother to chapel with her last
+Sunday."
+
+"Musha then, may the divil sweep hell with him and burn the broom
+afther!" panted the ostler in bitter wrath, as he slewed the filly to a
+standstill. "I wish himself and his mother was behind her when I went
+putting the crupper on her! B'leeve me, they'd drop their chat!"
+
+"Sure I knew that young Geogheghan back in Westport," remarked the
+waiter, "and all the good there is about him was a little handy talk.
+Take the harness off her, Mick, and throw a saddle on her. It's little
+I'd think meself of canthering her into Recess!"
+
+"How handy ye are yerself with your talk!" retorted the ostler; "it's
+canthering round the table ye'll be doing, and it's what'll suit ye
+betther!"
+
+Fanny Fitz began to laugh. "He might ride the saddle of mutton!" she
+said, with a levity that, under the circumstances, did her credit.
+"You'd better take the harness off, and you'll have to get her to Recess
+for me somehow."
+
+The ostler took no notice of this suggestion; he was repeating to
+himself: "Ride the saddle o' mutton! By dam, I never heard the like o'
+that! Ride the saddle o' mutton--!" He suddenly gave a yell of laughing,
+and in the next moment the startled filly dragged the reins from his
+hand with a tremendous plunge, and in half a dozen bounds was out of the
+yard gate and clattering down the road.
+
+There was an instant of petrifaction. "Diddlety--iddlety--idlety!"
+chanted the waiter with far-away sweetness.
+
+Fanny Fitz and the ostler were outside the gate simultaneously: the
+filly was already rounding the first turn of the road; two strides more,
+and she was gone as though she had never been, and "Oh, my nineteen
+pounds!" thought poor Fanny Fitz.
+
+As the ostler was wont to say in subsequent repetitions of the story:
+"Thanks be to God, the reins was rotten!" But for this it is highly
+probable that Miss Fitzroy's speculation would have collapsed abruptly
+with broken knees, possibly with a broken neck. Having galloped into
+them in the course of the first hundred yards, they fell from her as
+the green withes fell from Samson, one long streamer alone remaining to
+lash her flanks as she fled. Some five miles from the hotel she met a
+wedding, and therewith leaped the bog-drain by the side of the road and
+"took to the mountains," as the bridegroom poetically described it to
+Fanny Fitz, who, with the ostler, was pursuing the fugitive on an
+outside car.
+
+"If that's the way," said the ostler, "ye mightn't get her again before
+the winther."
+
+Fanny Fitz left the matter, together with a further instalment of the
+thirty pounds, in the hands of the sergeant of police, and went home,
+and, improbable as it may appear, in the course of something less than
+ten days she received an invoice from the local railway station,
+Enniscar, briefly stating: "1 horse arrd. Please remove."
+
+Many people, most of her friends indeed, were quite unaware that Fanny
+Fitz possessed a home. Beyond the fact that it supplied her with a
+permanent address, and a place at which she was able periodically to
+deposit consignments of half-worn-out clothes, Fanny herself was not
+prone to rate the privilege very highly. Possibly, two very elderly
+maiden step-aunts are discouraging to the homing instinct; the fact
+remained that as long as the youngest Miss Fitzroy possessed the
+where-withal to tip a housemaid she was but rarely seen within the
+decorous precincts of Craffroe Lodge.
+
+Let it not for a moment be imagined that the Connemara filly was to
+become a member of this household. Even Fanny Fitz, with all her
+optimism, knew better than to expect that William O'Loughlin, who
+divided his attentions between the ancient cob and the garden, and ruled
+the elder Misses Fitzroy with a rod of iron, would undertake the
+education of anything more skittish than early potatoes. It was to the
+stable, or rather cow-house, of one Johnny Connolly, that the new
+purchase was ultimately conveyed, and it was thither that Fanny Fitz,
+with apples in one pocket and sugar in the other, conducted her ally,
+Mr. Freddy Alexander, the master of the Craffroe Hounds. Fanny Fitz's
+friendship with Freddy was one of long standing, and was soundly based
+on the fact that when she had been eighteen he had been fourteen; and
+though it may be admitted that this is a discrepancy that somewhat fades
+with time, even Freddy's mother acquitted Fanny Fitz of any ulterior
+motive; and Freddy was an only son.
+
+"She was very rejected last night afther she coming in," said Johnny
+Connolly, manipulating as he spoke the length of rusty chain and bit of
+stick that fastened the door. "I think it was lonesome she was on the
+thrain."
+
+Fanny Fitz and Mr. Alexander peered into the dark and vasty interior of
+the cow-house; from a remote corner they heard a heavy breath and the
+jingle of a training bit, but they saw nothing.
+
+"I have the cavesson and all on her ready for ye, and I was thinking
+we'd take her south into Mr. Gunning's land. His finces is very good,"
+continued Johnny, going cautiously in; "wait till I pull her out."
+
+Johnny Connolly was a horse trainer who did a little farming, or a
+farmer who did a little horse training, and his management of young
+horses followed no known rules, and indeed knew none, but it was
+generally successful. He fed them by rule of thumb; he herded them in
+hustling, squabbling parties in pitch-dark sheds; he ploughed them at
+eighteen months; he beat them with a stick like dogs when they
+transgressed, and like dogs they loved him. He had what gardeners call
+"a lucky hand" with them, and they throve with him, and he had,
+moreover, that gift of winning their wayward hearts that comes neither
+by cultivation nor by knowledge, but is innate and unconscious. Already,
+after two days, he and the Connemara filly understood each other; she
+sniffed distantly and with profound suspicion at Fanny and her
+offerings, and entirely declined to permit Mr. Alexander to estimate her
+height on the questionable assumption that the point of his chin
+represented 15'2, but she allowed Johnny to tighten or slacken every
+buckle in her new and unfamiliar costume without protest.
+
+"I think she'll make a ripping good mare," said the enthusiastic Freddy,
+as he and Fanny Fitz followed her out of the yard; "I don't care what
+Rupert Gunning says, she's any amount of quality, and I bet you'll do
+well over her."
+
+"She'll make a real nice fashionable mare," remarked Johnny, opening the
+gate of a field and leading the filly in, "and she's a sweet galloper,
+but she's very frightful in herself. Faith, I thought she'd run up the
+wall from me the first time I went to feed her! Ah ha! none o' yer
+thricks!" as the filly, becoming enjoyably aware of the large space of
+grass round her, let fling a kick of malevolent exuberance at the two
+fox-terriers who were trotting decorously in her rear.
+
+It was soon found that, in the matter of "stone gaps," the A B C of
+Irish jumping, Connemara had taught the grey filly all there was to
+learn.
+
+"Begor, Miss Fanny, she's as crabbed as a mule!" said her teacher
+approvingly. "D'ye mind the way she soaks the hind legs up into her!
+We'll give her a bank now."
+
+At the bank, however, the trouble began. Despite the ministrations of
+Mr. Alexander and a long whip, despite the precept and example of Mr.
+Connolly, who performed prodigies of activity in running his pupil in at
+the bank and leaping on to it himself the filly time after time either
+ran her chest against it or swerved from it at the last instant with a
+vigour that plucked her preceptor from off it and scattered Fanny Fitz
+and the fox-terriers like leaves before the wind. These latter were
+divided between sycophantic and shrieking indignation with the filly for
+declining to jump, and a most wary attention to the sphere of influence
+of the whip. They were a mother and daughter, as conceited, as craven,
+and as wholly attractive as only the judiciously spoiled ladies of their
+race can be. Their hearts were divided between Fanny Fitz and the cook,
+the rest of them appertained to the Misses Harriet and Rachael Fitzroy,
+whom they regarded with toleration tinged with boredom.
+
+"I tell ye now, Masther Freddy, 'tis no good for us to be goin' on
+sourin' the mare this way. 'Tis what the fince is too steep for her.
+Maybe she never seen the like in that backwards counthry she came from.
+We'll give her the bank below with the ditch in front of it. 'Tisn't
+very big at all, and she'll be bound to lep with the sup of wather
+that's in it."
+
+Thus Johnny Connolly, wiping a very heated brow.
+
+The bank below was a broad and solid structure well padded with grass
+and bracken, and it had a sufficiently obvious ditch, of some three feet
+wide, on the nearer side. The grand effort was duly prepared for. The
+bank was solemnly exhibited to the filly; the dogs, who had with
+unerring instinct seated themselves on its most jumpable portion, were
+scattered with one threat of the whip to the horizon. Fanny tore away
+the last bit of bracken that might prove a discouragement, and Johnny
+issued his final order.
+
+"Come inside me with the whip, sir, and give her one good belt at the
+last."
+
+No one knows exactly how it happened. There was a rush, a scramble, a
+backward sliding, a great deal of shouting, and the Connemara filly was
+couched in the narrow ditch at right angles to the fence, with the water
+oozing up through the weeds round her, like a wild duck on its nest; and
+at this moment Mr. Rupert Gunning appeared suddenly on the top of the
+bank and inspected the scene with an amusement that he made little
+attempt to conceal.
+
+It took half an hour, and ropes, and a number of Rupert Gunning's
+haymakers, to get Fanny Fitz's speculation on to its legs again, and Mr.
+Gunning's comments during the process successfully sapped Fanny Fitz's
+control of her usually equable temper, "He's a beast!" she said
+wrathfully to Freddy, as the party moved soberly homewards in the
+burning June afternoon, with the horseflies clustering round them, and
+the smell of new-mown grass wafting to them from where, a field or two
+away, came the rattle of Rupert Gunning's mowing-machine. "A crabbing
+beast! It was just like my luck that he should come up at that moment
+and have the supreme joy of seeing Gamble--" Gamble was the filly's
+rarely-used name--"wallowing in the ditch! That's the second time he's
+scored off me. I _pity_ poor little Maudie Spicer for having such a
+brother!"
+
+In spite of this discouraging _début_, the filly's education went on and
+prospered. She marched discreetly along the roads in long reins; she
+champed detested mouthfuls of rusty mouthing bit in the process
+described by Johnny Connolly as "getting her neck broke"; she trotted
+for treadmill half-hours in the lunge; and during and in spite of all
+these penances, she fattened up and thickened out until that great
+authority, Mr. Alexander, pronounced it would be a sin not to send her
+up to the Dublin Horse Show, as she was just the mare to catch an
+English dealer's eye.
+
+"But sure ye wouldn't sell her, miss?" said her faithful nurse, "and
+Masther Freddy afther starting the hounds and all!"
+
+Fanny Fitz scratched the filly softly under the jawbone, and thought of
+the document in her pocket--long, and blue, and inscribed with the too
+familiar notice in red ink: "An early settlement will oblige".
+
+"I must, Johnny," she said, "worse luck!"
+
+"Well, indeed, that's too bad, miss," said Johnny comprehendingly.
+"There was a mare I had one time, and I sold her before I went to
+America. God knows, afther she went from me, whenever I'd look at her
+winkers hanging on the wall I'd have to cry. I never seen a sight of her
+till three years afther that, afther I coming home. I was coming out o'
+the fair at Enniscar, an' I was talking to a man an' we coming down
+Dangan Hill, and what was in it but herself coming up in a cart! "An' I
+didn't look at her, good nor bad, nor know her, but sorra bit but she
+knew me talking, an' she turned in to me with the cart! Ho, ho, ho!'
+says she, and she stuck her nose into me like she'd be kissing me. Be
+dam, but I had to cry. An' the world wouldn't stir her out o' that till
+I'd lead her on meself. As for cow nor dog nor any other thing, there's
+nothing would rise your heart like a horse!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was early in July, a hot and sunny morning, and Fanny Fitz, seated on
+the flawless grassplot in front of Craffroe Lodge hall-door, was engaged
+in washing the dogs. The mother, who had been the first victim, was
+morosely licking herself, shuddering effectively, and coldly ignoring
+her oppressor's apologies. The daughter, trembling in every limb, was
+standing knee-deep in the bath; one paw, placed on its rim, was ready
+for flight if flight became practicable; her tail, rigid with anguish
+would have hummed like a violin-string if it were touched. Fanny, with
+her shirt-sleeves rolled up to her elbows, scrubbed in the soap. A
+clipped fuchsia hedge, the pride of William O'Loughlin's heart, screened
+the little lawn and garden from the high road.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Fanny," said a voice over the hedge.
+
+Fanny Fitz raised a flushed face and wiped a fleck of Naldyre off her
+nose with her arm.
+
+"I've just been looking at your mare," went on the voice.
+
+"Well, I hope you liked her!" said Fanny Fitz defiantly, for the voice
+was the voice of Rupert Gunning, and there was that in it that in this
+connection acted on Miss Fitzroy as a slogan.
+
+"Well, 'like' is a strong word, you know!" said Mr. Gunning, moving on
+and standing with his arms on the top of the white gate and meeting
+Fanny's glance with provoking eyes. Then, as an after-thought, "Do you
+think you give her enough to eat?"
+
+"She gets a feed of oats every Sunday, and strong tea and thistles
+through the week," replied Fanny Fitz in furious sarcasm.
+
+"Yes, that's what she looks like," said Rupert Gunning thoughtfully.
+"Connolly tells me you want to send her to the show--Barnum's, I
+suppose--as the skeleton dude?"
+
+"I believe you want to buy her yourself," retorted Fanny, with a vicious
+dab of the soap in the daughter's eye.
+
+"Yes, she's just about up to my weight, isn't she? By-the-bye, you
+haven't had her backed yet, I believe?"
+
+"I'm going to try her to-day!" said Fanny with sudden resolve.
+
+"Ride her yourself!" said Mr. Gunning, his eyebrows going up into the
+roots of his hair.
+
+"Yes!" said Fanny, with calm as icy as a sudden burst of struggles on
+the part of the daughter would admit of.
+
+Rupert Gunning hesitated; then he said, "Well, she ought to carry a
+side-saddle well. Decent shoulders, and a nice long--" Perhaps he caught
+Fanny Fitz's eye; at all events, he left the commendation unfinished,
+and went on, "I should like to look in and see the performance, if I
+may? I suppose you wouldn't let me try her first? No?"
+
+He walked on.
+
+"Puppy, _will_ you stay quiet!" said Fanny Fitz very crossly. She even
+slapped the daughter's soap-sud muffled person, for no reason that the
+daughter could see.
+
+"Begorra, miss, I dunno," said Johnny Connolly dubiously when the
+suggestion that the filly should be ridden there and then was made to
+him a few minutes later; "wouldn't ye wait till I put her a few turns
+under the cart, or maybe threw a sack o' oats on her back?"
+
+But Fanny would brook no delay. Her saddle was in the harness-room:
+William O'Loughlin could help to put it on; she would try the filly at
+once.
+
+Miss Fitzroy's riding was of the sort that makes up in pluck what it
+wants in knowledge. She stuck on by sheer force of character; that she
+sat fairly straight, and let a horse's head alone were gifts of
+Providence of which she was wholly unconscious. Riding, in her opinion,
+was just getting on to a saddle and staying there, and making the thing
+under it go as fast as possible. She had always ridden other people's
+horses, and had ridden them so straight, and looked so pretty,
+that--other people in this connection being usually men--such trifles as
+riding out a hard run minus both fore shoes, or watering her mount
+generously during a check, were endured with a forbearance not frequent
+in horse owners. Hunting people, however, do not generally mount their
+friends, no matter how attractive, on young and valuable horses. Fanny
+Fitz's riding had been matured on well-seasoned screws, and she sallied
+forth to the subjugation of the Connemara filly with a self-confidence
+formed on experience only of the old, and the kind, and the cunning.
+
+The filly trembled and sidled away from the garden-seat up to which
+Johnny Connolly had manoeuvred her. Johnny's supreme familiarity with
+young horses had brought him to the same point of recklessness that
+Fanny had arrived at from the opposite extreme, but some lingering
+remnant of prudence had induced him to put on the cavesson headstall,
+with the long rope attached to it, over the filly's bridle. The latter
+bore with surprising nerve Fanny's depositing of herself in the saddle.
+
+"I'll keep a holt o' the rope, Miss Fanny," said Johnny, assiduously
+fondling his pupil; "it might be she'd be strange in herself for the
+first offer. I'll lead her on a small piece. Come on, gerr'l! Come on
+now!"
+
+The pupil, thus adjured, made a hesitating movement, and Fanny settled
+herself down into the saddle. It was the shifting of the weight that
+seemed to bring home to the grey filly the true facts of the case, and
+with the discovery she shot straight up into the air as if she had been
+fired from a mortar. The rope whistled through Johnny Connolly's
+fingers, and the point of the filly's shoulder laid him out on the
+ground with the precision of a prize-fighter.
+
+"I felt, my dear," as Fanny Fitz remarked in a letter to a friend, "as
+if I were in something between an earthquake and a bad dream and a
+churn. I just _clamped_ my legs round the crutches, and she whirled the
+rest of me round her like the lash of a whip. In one of her flights she
+nearly went in at the hall door, and I was aware of William O'Loughlin's
+snow-white face somewhere behind the geraniums in the porch. I think I
+was clean out of the saddle then. I remember looking up at my knees, and
+my left foot was nearly on the ground. Then she gave another flourish,
+and swung me up on top again. I was hanging on to the reins hard; in
+fact, I think they must have pulled me back on to the saddle, as I
+_know_ at one time I was sitting in a bunch on the stirrup! Then I heard
+most heart-rending yells from the poor old Aunts: 'Oh, the begonias! O
+Fanny, get off the grass!' and then, suddenly, the filly and I were
+perfectly still, and the house and the trees were spinning round me,
+black, edged with green and yellow dazzles. Then I discovered that some
+one had got hold of the cavesson rope and had hauled us in, as if we
+were salmon; Johnny had grabbed me by the left leg, and was trying to
+drag me off the filly's back; William O'Loughlin had broken two pots of
+geraniums, and was praying loudly among the fragments; and Aunt Harriet
+and Aunt Rachel, who don't to this hour realise that anything unusual
+had happened, were reproachfully collecting the trampled remnants of the
+begonias."
+
+It was, perhaps unworthy on Fanny Fitz's part to conceal the painful
+fact that it was that distinguished fisherman, Mr. Rupert Gunning, who
+had landed her and the Connemara filly. Freddy Alexander, however, heard
+the story in its integrity, and commented on it with his usual candour.
+"I don't know which was the bigger fool, you or Johnny," he said; "I
+think you ought to be jolly grateful to old Rupert!"
+
+"Well, I'm not!" returned Fanny Fitz.
+
+After this episode the training of the filly proceeded with more system
+and with entire success. Her nerves having been steadied by an hour in
+the lunge with a sack of oats strapped, Mazeppa-like, on to her back,
+she was mounted without difficulty, and was thereafter ridden daily. By
+the time Fanny's muscles and joints had recovered from their first
+attempt at rough-riding, the filly was taking her place as a reasonable
+member of society, and her nerves, which had been as much _en évidence_
+as her bones, were, like the latter, finding their proper level, and
+becoming clothed with tranquillity and fat. The Dublin Horse Show drew
+near, and, abetted by Mr. Alexander, Fanny Fitz filled the entry forms
+and drew the necessary cheque, and then fell back in her chair and gazed
+at the attentive dogs with fateful eyes.
+
+"Dogs!" she said, "if I don't sell the filly I am done for!"
+
+The mother scratched languidly behind her ear till she yawned musically,
+but said nothing. The daughter, who was an enthusiast, gave a sudden
+bound on to Miss Fitzroy's lap, and thus it was that the cheque was
+countersigned with two blots and a paw mark.
+
+None the less, the bank honoured it, being a kind bank, and not desirous
+to emphasise too abruptly the fact that Fanny Fitz was overdrawn.
+
+In spite of, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of this fact, it would
+have been hard to find a smarter and more prosperous-looking young woman
+than the owner of No. 548, as she signed her name at the season-ticket
+turnstile and entered the wide soft aisles of the cathedral of horses at
+Ballsbridge. It was the first day of the show, and in token of Fanny
+Fitz's enthusiasm be it recorded, it was little more than 9.30 A.M.
+Fanny knew the show well, but hitherto only in its more worldly and
+social aspects. Never before had she been of the elect who have a horse
+"up," and as she hurried along, attended by Captain Spicer, at whose
+house she was staying, and Mr. Alexander, she felt magnificently
+conscious of the importance of the position.
+
+The filly had preceded her from Craffroe by a couple of days, under the
+charge of Patsey Crimmeen, lent by Freddy for the occasion.
+
+"I don't expect a prize, you know," Fanny had said loftily to Mr.
+Gunning, "but she has improved so tremendously, every one says she ought
+to be an easy mare to sell."
+
+The sun came filtering through the high roof down on to the long rows of
+stalls, striking electric sparks out of the stirrup-irons and bits, and
+adding a fresh gloss to the polish that the grooms were giving to their
+charges. The judging had begun in several of the rings, and every now
+and then a glittering exemplification of all that horse and groom could
+be would come with soft thunder up the tan behind Fanny and her squires.
+
+"We've come up through the heavy weights," said Captain Spicer; "the
+twelve-stone horses will look like rats--" He stopped.
+
+They had arrived at the section in which figured "No. 548. Miss F.
+Fitzroy's 'Gamble,' grey mare; 4 years, by Grey Dawn," and opposite
+them was stall No. 548. In it stood the Connemara filly, or rather
+something that might have been her astral body. A more spectral,
+deplorable object could hardly be imagined. Her hind quarters had fallen
+in, her hips were standing out; her ribs were like the bars of a grate;
+her head, hung low before her, was turned so that one frightened eye
+scanned the passers-by, and she propped her fragile form against the
+partition of her stall, as though she were too weak to stand up.
+
+To say that Fanny Fitz's face fell is to put it mildly. As she described
+it to Mrs. Spicer, it fell till it was about an inch wide and five miles
+long. Captain Spicer was speechless. Freddy alone was equal to demanding
+of Patsey Crimmeen what had happened to the mare.
+
+"Begor, Masther Freddy, it's a wonder she's alive at all!" replied
+Patsey, who was now perceived to be looking but little better than the
+filly. "She was middlin' quiet in the thrain, though she went to lep out
+o' the box with the first screech the engine give, but I quietened her
+some way, and it wasn't till we got into the sthreets here that she went
+mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three
+times! 'Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o' thim
+alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin'
+on the rope the way ye'd swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, them
+was the ecstasies!"
+
+Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of
+his audience.
+
+"An' as for her food," he resumed, "she didn't use a bit, hay, nor oats,
+nor bran, bad nor good, since she left Johnny Connolly's. No, nor drink.
+The divil dang the bit she put in her mouth for two days, first and
+last. Why wouldn't she eat is it, miss? From the fright sure! She'll do
+nothing, only standing that way, and bushtin' out sweatin', and watching
+out all the time the way I wouldn't lave her. I declare to God I'm
+heart-scalded with her!"
+
+At this harrowing juncture came the order to No. 548 to go forth to Ring
+3 to be judged, and further details were reserved. But Fanny Fitz had
+heard enough.
+
+"Captain Spicer," she said, as the party paced in deepest depression
+towards Ring 3, "if I hadn't on a new veil I should cry!"
+
+"Well, I haven't," replied Captain Spicer; "shall I do it for you? Upon
+my soul, I think the occasion demands it!"
+
+"I just want to know one thing," continued Miss Fitzroy. "When does your
+brother-in-law arrive?"
+
+"Not till to-night."
+
+"That's the only nice thing I've heard to-day," sighed Fanny Fitz.
+
+The judging went no better for the grey filly than might have been
+expected, even though she cheered up a little in the ring, and found
+herself equal to an invalidish but well-aimed kick at a
+fellow-competitor. She was ushered forth with the second batch of the
+rejected, her spirits sank to their former level, and Fanny's
+accompanied them.
+
+Perhaps the most trying feature of the affair was the reproving sympathy
+of her friends, a sympathy that was apt to break down into almost
+irrepressible laughter at the sight of the broken-down skeleton of whose
+prowess poor Fanny Fitz had so incautiously boasted.
+
+"Y' know, my dear child," said one elderly M.F.H., "you had no business
+to send up an animal without the condition of a wire fence to the Dublin
+Show. Look at my horses! Fat as butter, every one of 'em!"
+
+"So was mine, but it all melted away in the train," protested Fanny Fitz
+in vain. Those of her friends who had only seen the mare in the
+catalogue sent dealers to buy her, and those who had seen her in the
+flesh--or what was left of it--sent amateurs; but all, dealers and the
+greenest of amateurs alike, entirely declined to think of buying her.
+
+The weather was perfect; every one declared there never was a better
+show, and Fanny Fitz, in her newest and least-paid-for clothes, looked
+brilliantly successful, and declared to Mr. Rupert Gunning that nothing
+made a show so interesting as having something up for it. She even
+encouraged him to his accustomed jibes at her Connemara speculation, and
+personally conducted him to stall No. 548, and made merry over its
+melancholy occupant in a way that scandalised Patsey, and convinced Mrs.
+Spicer that Fanny's pocket was even harder hit than she had feared.
+
+On the second day, however, things looked a little more hopeful.
+
+"She ate her grub last night and this morning middlin' well, miss," said
+Patsey, "and"--here he looked round stealthily and began to
+whisper--"when I had her in the ring, exercisin', this morning, there
+was one that called me in to the rails; like a dealer he was. 'Hi! grey
+mare!' says he. I went in. 'What's your price?' says he. 'Sixty guineas,
+sir,' says I. 'Begin at the shillings and leave out the pounds!' says
+he. He went away then, but I think he's not done with me."
+
+"I'm sure the ring is our best chance, Patsey," said Fanny, her voice
+thrilling with the ardour of conspiracy and of reawakened hope. "She
+doesn't look so thin when she's moving. I'll go and stand by the rails,
+and I'll call you in now and then just to make people look at her!"
+
+"Sure I had Masther Freddy doing that to me yestherday," said Patsey;
+but hope dies hard in an Irishman, and he saddled up with all speed.
+
+For two long burning hours did the Connemara filly circle in Ring 3, and
+during all that time not once did her owner's ears hear the longed-for
+summons, "Hi! grey mare!" It seemed to her that every other horse in the
+ring was called in to the rails, "and she doesn't look so very thin
+to-day!" said Fanny indignantly to Captain Spicer, who, with Mr.
+Gunning, had come to take her away for lunch.
+
+"Oh, you'll see, you'll sell her on the last day; she's getting fitter
+every minute," responded Captain Spicer. "What would you take for her?"
+
+"I'm asking sixty," said Fanny dubiously. "What would _you_ take for
+her, Mr. Gunning--on the last day, you know?"
+
+"I'd take a ticket for her," said Rupert Gunning, "back to Craffroe--if
+you haven't a return."
+
+The second and third days crawled by unmarked by any incident of cheer,
+but on the morning of the fourth, when Fanny arrived at the stall, she
+found that Patsey had already gone out to exercise. She hurried to the
+ring and signalled to him to come to her.
+
+"There's a fella' afther her, miss!" said Patsey, bending very low and
+whispering at close and tobacco-scented range. "He came last night to
+buy her; a jock he was, from the Curragh, and he said for me to be in
+the ring this morning. He's not come yet. He had a straw hat on him."
+
+Fanny sat down under the trees and waited for the jockey in the straw
+hat. All around were preoccupied knots of bargainers, of owners making
+their final arrangements, of would-be-buyers hurrying from ring to ring
+in search of the paragon that they had now so little time to find. But
+the man from the Curragh came not. Fanny sent the mare in, and sat on
+under the trees, sunk in depression. It seemed to her she was the only
+person in the show who had nothing to do, who was not clinking handfuls
+of money, or smoothing out banknotes, or folding up cheques and
+interring them in fat and greasy pocket-books. She had never known this
+aspect of the Horse Show before, and--so much is in the point of
+view--it seemed to her sordid and detestable. Prize-winners with their
+coloured rosettes were swaggering about everywhere. Every horse in the
+show seemed to have got a prize except hers, thought Fanny. And not a
+man in a straw hat came near Ring 3.
+
+She went home to lunch, dead tired. The others were going to see the
+polo in the park.
+
+"I must go back and sell the mare," said Fanny valiantly, "or else take
+that ticket to Craffroe, Mr. Gunning!"
+
+"Well, we'll come down and pick you up there after the first match, you
+poor, miserable thing," said Mrs. Spicer, "and I hope you'll find that
+beast of a horse dead when you get there! You look half dead yourself!"
+
+How sick Fanny was of signing her name at that turnstile! The pen was
+more atrocious every time. How tired her feet were! How sick she was of
+the whole thing, and how incredibly big a fool she had been! She was
+almost too tired to know what she was doing, and she had actually walked
+past stall No. 548 without noticing it, when she heard Patsey's voice
+calling her.
+
+"Miss Fanny! Miss Fanny! I have her sold! The mare's sold, miss! See
+here! I have the money in me pocket!"
+
+The colour flooded Fanny Fitz's face. She stared at Patsey with eyes
+that more than ever suggested the Connemara trout-stream with the sun
+playing in it; so bright were they, so changing, and so wet. So at least
+thought a man, much addicted to fishing, who was regarding the scene
+from a little way off.
+
+"He was a dealer, miss," went on Patsey; "a Dublin fella'. Sixty-three
+sovereigns I asked him, and he offered me fifty-five, and a man that was
+there said we should shplit the differ, and in the latther end he gave
+me the sixty pounds. He wasn't very stiff at all. I'm thinking he wasn't
+buying for himself."
+
+The man who had noticed Fanny Fitz's eyes moved away unostentatiously.
+He had seen in them as much as he wanted; for that time at least.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONNEMARA MARE
+
+PART I
+
+
+The grey mare who had been one of the last, if not the very last, of the
+sales at the Dublin Horse Show, was not at all happy in her mind.
+
+Still less so was the dealer's under-strapper, to whom fell the task of
+escorting her through the streets of Dublin. Her late owner's groom had
+assured him that she would "folly him out of his hand, and that whatever
+she'd see she wouldn't care for it nor ask to look at it!"
+
+It cannot be denied, however, that when an electric tram swept past her
+like a terrace under weigh, closely followed by a cart laden with a
+clanking and horrific reaping-machine, she showed that she possessed
+powers of observation. The incident passed off with credit to the
+under-strapper, but when an animal has to be played like a salmon down
+the length of Lower Mount Street, and when it barn-dances obliquely
+along the north side of Merrion Square, the worst may be looked for in
+Nassau Street.
+
+And it was indeed in Nassau Street, and, moreover, in full view of the
+bow window of Kildare Street Club, that the cup of the under-strapper's
+misfortunes brimmed over. To be sure he could not know that the new
+owner of the grey mare was in that window; it was enough for him that a
+quiescent and unsuspected piano-organ broke with three majestic chords
+into Mascagni's "Intermezzo" at his very ear, and that, without any
+apparent interval of time, he was surmounting a heap composed of a
+newspaper boy, a sandwich man, and a hospital nurse, while his hands
+held nothing save a red-hot memory of where the rope had been. The
+smashing of glass and the clatter of hoofs on the pavement filled in
+what space was left in his mind for other impressions.
+
+"She's into the hat shop!" said Mr. Rupert Gunning to himself in the
+window of the club, recognising his recent purchase and the full measure
+of the calamity in one and the same moment.
+
+He also recognised in its perfection the fact, already suspected by him,
+that he had been a fool.
+
+Upheld by this soothing reflection he went out into the street, where
+awaited him the privileges of proprietorship. These began with the
+despatching of the mare, badly cut, and apparently lame on every leg, in
+charge of the remains of the under-strapper, to her destination. They
+continued with the consolation of the hospital nurse, and embraced in
+varying pecuniary degrees the compensation of the sandwich man, the
+newspaper boy, and the proprietor of the hat shop. During all this time
+he enjoyed the unfaltering attention of a fair-sized crowd, liberal in
+comment, prolific of imbecile suggestion. And all these things were only
+the beginning of the trouble.
+
+Mr. Gunning proceeded to his room and to the packing of his portmanteau
+for that evening's mail-boat to Holyhead in a mood of considerable
+sourness. It may be conceded to him that circumstances had been of a
+souring character. He had bought Miss Fanny Fitzroy's grey mare at the
+Horse Show for reasons of an undeniably sentimental sort. Therefore,
+having no good cause to show for the purchase, he had made it secretly,
+the sum of sixty pounds, for an animal that he had consistently crabbed,
+amounting in the eyes of the world in general to a rather advanced
+love-token, if not a formal declaration. He had planned no future for
+the grey mare, but he had cherished a trembling hope that some day he
+might be in a position to restore her to her late owner without
+considering the expression in any eyes save those which, a couple of
+hours ago, had recalled to him the play of lights in a Connemara trout
+stream.
+
+Now, it appeared, this pleasing vision must go the way of many others.
+
+The August sunlight illumined Mr. Gunning's folly, and his bulging
+portmanteau, packed as brutally as only a man in a passion can pack;
+when he reached the hall, it also with equal inappropriateness
+irradiated the short figure and seedy tidiness of the dealer who had
+been his confederate in the purchase of the mare.
+
+"What did the vet say, Brennan?" said Mr. Gunning, with the brevity of
+ill humour.
+
+Mr. Brennan paused before replying, a pause laden with the promise of
+evil tidings. His short silvery hair glistened respectably in the
+sunshine: he had preserved unblemished from some earlier phase of his
+career the air of a family coachman out of place. It veiled, though it
+could not conceal, the dissolute twinkle in his eye as he replied:--
+
+"He said sir, if it wasn't that she was something out of condition, he'd
+recommend you to send her out to the lions at the Zoo!"
+
+The specimen of veterinary humour had hardly the success that had been
+hoped for it. Rupert Gunning's face was so remarkably void of
+appreciation that Mr. Brennan abruptly relapsed into gloom.
+
+"He said he'd only be wasting his time with her, sir; he might as well
+go stitch a bog-hole as them wounds the window gave her; the tendon of
+the near fore is the same as in two halves with it, let alone the
+shoulder, that's worse again with her pitching out on the point of it."
+
+"Was that all he had to say?" demanded the mare's owner.
+
+"Well, beyond those remarks he passed about the Zoo, I should say it
+was, sir," admitted Mr. Brennan.
+
+There was another pause, during which Rupert asked himself what the
+devil he was to do with the mare, and Mr. Brennan, thoroughly aware that
+he was doing so, decorously thumbed the brim of his hat.
+
+"Maybe we might let her get the night, sir," he said, after a respectful
+interval, "and you might see her yourself in the morning--"
+
+"I don't want to see her. I know well enough what she looks like,"
+interrupted his client irritably. "Anyhow, I'm crossing to England
+to-night, and I don't choose to miss the boat for the fun of looking at
+an unfortunate brute that's cut half to pieces!"
+
+Mr. Brennan cleared his throat. "If you were thinking to leave her in my
+stables, sir," he said firmly, "I'd sooner be quit of her. I've only a
+small place, and I'd lose too much time with her if I had to keep her
+the way she is. She might be on my hands three months and die at the end
+of it."
+
+The clock here struck the quarter, at which Mr. Gunning ought to start
+for his train at Westland Row.
+
+"You see, sir--" recommenced Brennan. It was precisely at this point
+that Mr. Gunning lost his temper.
+
+"I suppose you can find time to shoot her," he said, with a very red
+face. "Kindly do so to-night!"
+
+Mr. Brennan's arid countenance revealed no emotion. He was accustomed to
+understanding his clients a trifle better than they understood
+themselves, and inscrutable though Mr. Gunning's original motive in
+buying the mare had been, he had during this interview yielded to
+treatment and followed a prepared path.
+
+That night, in the domestic circle, he went so far as to lay the matter
+before Mrs. Brennan.
+
+"He picked out a mare that was as poor as a raven--though she's a good
+enough stamp if she was in condition--and tells me to buy her. 'What
+price will I give, sir?' says I. 'Ye'll give what they're askin',' says
+he, 'and that's sixty sovereigns!' I'm thirty years buying horses, and
+such a disgrace was never put on me, to be made a fool of before all
+Dublin! Going giving the first price for a mare that wasn't value for
+the half of it! Well; he sees the mare then, cut into garters below in
+Nassau Street. Devil a hair he cares! Nor never came down to the stable
+to put an eye on her! 'Shoot her!' says he, leppin' up on a car.
+'Westland Row!' says he to the fella'. 'Drive like blazes!' and away
+with him! Well, no matter; I earned my money easy, an' I got the mare
+cheap!"
+
+Mrs. Brennan added another spoonful of brown sugar to the porter that
+she was mulling in a sauce-pan on the range.
+
+"Didn't ye say it was a young lady that owned the mare, James?" she
+asked in a colourless voice.
+
+"Well, you're the devil, Mary!" replied Mr. Brennan in sincere
+admiration.
+
+The mail-boat was as crowded as is usual on the last night of the Horse
+Show week. Overhead flowed the smoke river from the funnels, behind
+flowed the foam river of wake; the Hill of Howth receded apace into the
+west, and its lighthouse glowed like a planet in the twilight. Men with
+cigars, aggressively fit and dinner-full, strode the deck in couples,
+and thrashed out the Horse Show and Leopardstown to their uttermost
+husks.
+
+Rupert Gunning was also, but with excessive reluctance, discussing the
+Horse Show. As he had given himself a good deal of trouble in order to
+cross on this particular evening, and as any one who was even slightly
+acquainted with Miss Fitzroy must have been aware that she would decline
+to talk of anything else, sympathy for him is not altogether deserved.
+The boat swung softly in a trance of speed, and Miss Fitzroy, better
+known to a large circle of intimates as Fanny Fitz, tried to think the
+motion was pleasant. She had made a good many migrations to England, by
+various routes and classes. There had indeed been times of stress when
+she had crossed unostentatiously, third class, trusting that luck and a
+thick veil might save her from her friends, but the day after she had
+sold a horse for sixty pounds was not the day for a daughter of Ireland
+to study economics. The breeze brought warm and subtle wafts from the
+machinery; it also blew wisps of hair into Fanny Fitz's eyes and over
+her nose, in a manner much revered in fiction, but in real life usually
+unbecoming and always exasperating. She leaned back on the bench and
+wondered whether the satisfaction of crowing over Mr. Gunning
+compensated her for abandoning the tranquil security of the ladies'
+cabin.
+
+Mr. Gunning, though less contradictious than his wont, was certainly one
+of the most deliberately unsympathetic men she knew. None the less he
+was a man, and some one to talk to, both points in his favour, and she
+stayed on.
+
+"I just missed meeting the man who bought my mare," she said, recurring
+to the subject for the fourth time; "apparently _he_ didn't think her 'a
+leggy, long-backed brute,' as other people did, or said they did!"
+
+"Did many people say it?" asked Mr. Gunning, beginning to make a
+cigarette.
+
+"Oh, no one whose opinion signified!" retorted Fanny Fitz, with a glance
+from her charming, changeful eyes that suggested that she did not always
+mean quite what she said. "I believe the dealer bought her for a
+Leicestershire man. What she really wants is a big country where she can
+extend herself."
+
+Mr. Gunning reflected that by this time the grey mare had extended
+herself once for all in Brennan's back-yard: he had done nothing to be
+ashamed of, but he felt abjectly guilty.
+
+"If I go with Maudie to Connemara again next year," continued Fanny, "I
+must look out for another. You'll come too, I hope? A little opposition
+is such a help in making up one's mind! I don't know what I should have
+done without you at Leenane last June!"
+
+Perhaps it was the vision of early summer that the words called up;
+perhaps it was the smile, half-seen in the semi-dark, that curved her
+provoking lips; perhaps it was compunction for his share in the tragedy
+of the Connemara mare; but possibly without any of these explanations
+Rupert would have done as he did, which was to place his hand on Fanny
+Fitz's as it lay on the bench beside him.
+
+She was so amazed that for a moment she wildly thought he had mistaken
+it in the darkness for his tobacco pouch. Then, jumping with a shock to
+the conclusion that even the unsympathetic Mr. Gunning shared most men's
+views about not wasting an opportunity, she removed her hand with a
+jerk.
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon!" said Rupert pusillanimously. Miss Fitzroy fell
+back again on the tobacco pouch theory.
+
+At this moment the glowing end of a cigar deviated from its orbit on the
+deck and approached them.
+
+"Is that you, Gunning? I thought it was your voice," said the owner of
+the cigar.
+
+"Yes, it is," said Mr. Gunning, in a tone singularly lacking in
+encouragement. "Thought I saw you at dinner, but couldn't be sure."
+
+As a matter of fact, no one could have been more thoroughly aware than
+he of Captain Carteret's presence in the saloon.
+
+"I thought so too!" said Fanny Fitz, from the darkness, "Captain
+Carteret wouldn't look my way!"
+
+Captain Carteret gave a somewhat exaggerated start of discovery, and
+threw his cigar over the side. He had evidently come to stay.
+
+"How was it I didn't see you at the Horse Show?" he said.
+
+"The only people one ever sees there are the people one doesn't want to
+see," said Fanny, "I could meet no one except the auctioneer from
+Craffroe, and he always said the same thing. 'Fearful sultry, Miss
+Fitzroy! Have ye a purchaser yet for your animal, Miss Fitzroy? Ye have
+not! Oh, fie, fie!' It was rather funny at first, but it palled."
+
+"I was only there one day," said Captain Carteret; "I wish I'd known you
+had a horse up, I might have helped you to sell."
+
+"Thanks! I sold all right," said Fanny Fitz magnificently. "Did rather
+well too!"
+
+"Capital!" said Captain Carteret vaguely. His acquaintance with Fanny
+extended over a three-day shooting party in Kildare, and a dance given
+by the detachment of his regiment at Enniscar, for which he had come
+down from the depôt. It was not sufficient to enlighten him as to what
+it meant to her to own and sell a horse for the first time in her life.
+
+"By-the-bye, Gunning," he went on, "you seemed to be having a lively
+time in Nassau Street yesterday! My wife and I were driving in from the
+polo, and we saw you in the thick of what looked like a street row. Some
+one in the club afterwards told me it was a horse you had only just
+bought at the Show that had come to grief. I hope it wasn't much hurt?"
+
+There was a moment of silence--astonished, inquisitive silence on the
+part of Miss Fitzroy temporary cessation of the faculty of speech on
+that of Mr. Gunning. It was the moment, as he reflected afterwards, for
+a clean, decisive lie, a denial of all ownership; either that, or the
+instant flinging of Captain Carteret overboard.
+
+Unfortunately for him, he did neither; he lied partially, timorously,
+and with that clinging to the skirts of the truth that marks the novice.
+
+"Oh, she was all right," he said, his face purpling heavily in the
+kindly darkness. "What was the polo like, Carteret?"
+
+"But I had no idea that you had bought a horse!" broke in Fanny Fitz, in
+high excitement. "Why didn't you tell Maudie and me? What is it like?"
+
+"Oh, it's--she's just a cob--a grey cob--I just picked her up at the end
+of the show."
+
+"What sort of a cob? Can she jump? Are you going to ride her with
+Freddy's hounds?" continued the implacably interested Fanny.
+
+"I bought her as--as a trapper, and to do a bit of carting," replied
+Rupert, beginning suddenly to feel his powers of invention awakening;
+"she's quite a common brute. She doesn't jump."
+
+"She seems to have jumped pretty well in Nassau Street," remarked
+Captain Carteret; "as well as I could see in the crowd, she didn't
+strike me as if she'd take kindly to carting."
+
+"Well, I do think you might have told us about it!" reiterated Fanny
+Fitz. "Men are so ridiculously mysterious about buying or selling
+horses. I simply named my price and got it. _I_ see nothing to make a
+mystery about in a deal; do you, Captain Carteret?"
+
+"Well, that depends on whether you are buying or selling," replied
+Captain Carteret.
+
+But Fate, in the shape of a turning tide and a consequent roll, played
+for once into the hands of Rupert Gunning. The boat swayed slowly, but
+deeply, and a waft of steam blew across Miss Fitzroy's face. It was not
+mere steam; it had been among hot oily things, stealing and giving
+odour. Fanny Fitz was not ill, but she knew that she had her limits, and
+that conversation, save of the usual rudimentary kind with the
+stewardess, were best abandoned.
+
+Miss Fitzroy's movements during the next two and a half months need not
+be particularly recorded. They included--
+
+1. A week in London, during which the sixty pounds, or a great part of
+it, acquired by the sale of the Connemara mare, passed imperceptibly
+into items, none of which, on a strict survey of expenditure, appeared
+to exceed three shillings and nine pence.
+
+2. A month at Southsea, with Rupert Gunning's sister, Maudie Spicer,
+where she again encountered Captain Carteret, and entered aimlessly upon
+a semi-platonic and wholly unprofitable flirtation with him. During this
+epoch she wore out the remnant of her summer clothes and laid in
+substitutes; rather encouraged than otherwise by the fact that she had
+long since lost touch with the amount of her balance at the bank.
+
+3. An expiatory and age-long sojourn of three weeks with relatives at an
+Essex vicarage, mitigated only by persistent bicycling with her uncle's
+curate. The result, as might have been predicted by any one acquainted
+with Miss Fitzroy, was that the curate's affections were diverted from
+the bourne long appointed for them, namely, the eldest daughter of the
+house, and that Fanny departed in blackest disgrace, with the single
+consolation of knowing that she would never be asked to the vicarage
+again.
+
+Finally she returned, third-class, to her home in Ireland, with nothing
+to show for the expedition except a new and very smart habit, and a
+vague assurance that Captain Carteret would give her a mount now and
+then with Freddy Alexander's hounds. Captain Carteret was to be on
+detachment at Enniscar.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+Mr. William Fennessy, lately returned from America, at present publican
+in Enniscar and proprietor of a small farm on its outskirts, had taken a
+grey mare to the forge.
+
+It was now November, and the mare had been out at grass for nearly three
+months, somewhat to the detriment of her figure, but very much to her
+general advantage. Even in the south-west of Ireland it is not usual to
+keep horses out quite so late in the year, but Mr. Fennessy, having
+begun his varied career as a travelling tinker, was not the man to be
+bound by convention. He had provided the mare with the society of a
+donkey and two sheep, and with the shelter of a filthy and ruinous
+cowshed. Taking into consideration the fact that he had only paid seven
+pounds ten shillings for her, he thought this accommodation was as much
+as she was entitled to.
+
+She was now drooping and dozing in a dark corner of the forge, waiting
+her turn to be shod, while the broken spring of a car was being patched,
+as shaggy and as dirty a creature as had ever stood there.
+
+"Where did you get that one?" inquired the owner of the car of Mr.
+Fennessy, in the course of much lengthy conversation.
+
+"I got her from a cousin of my own that died down in the County
+Limerick," said Mr. Fennessy in his most agreeable manner. "'Twas
+himself bred her, and she was near deshtroyed fallin' back on a harra'
+with him. It's for postin' I have her."
+
+"She's shlack enough yet," said the carman.
+
+"Ah, wait awhile!" said Mr. Fennessy easily, "in a week's time when I'll
+have her clipped out, she'll be as clean as amber."
+
+The conversation flowed on to other themes.
+
+It was nearly dark when the carman took his departure, and the smith, a
+silent youth with sore eyes, caught hold of one of the grey mare's
+fetlocks and told her to "lift!" He examined each hoof in succession by
+the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, raked his fire together, and
+then, turning to Mr. Fennessy, remarked:--
+
+"Ye'd laugh if ye were here the day I put a slipper on this one, an' she
+afther comin' out o' the thrain--last June it was. 'Twas one Connolly
+back from Craffroe side was taking her from the station; him that
+thrained her for Miss Fitzroy. She gave him the two heels in the face."
+The glow from the fire illumined the smith's sardonic grin of
+remembrance. "She had a sandcrack in the near fore that time, and
+there's the sign of it yet."
+
+The Cinderella-like episode of the slipper had naturally not entered
+into Mr. Fennessy's calculations, but he took the unforeseen without a
+change of countenance.
+
+"Well, now," he said deliberately, "I was sayin' to meself on the road a
+while ago, if there was one this side o' the counthry would know her
+it'd be yerself."
+
+The smith took the compliment with a blink of his sore eyes.
+
+"Annyone'd be hard set to know her now," he said.
+
+There was a pause, during which a leap of sparks answered each thump of
+the hammer on the white hot iron, and Mr. Fennessy arranged his course
+of action.
+
+"Well, Larry," he said, "I'll tell ye now what no one in this counthry
+knows but meself and Patsey Crimmeen. Sure I know it's as good to tell a
+thing to the ground as to tell it to yerself!"
+
+He lowered his voice.
+
+"'Twas Mr. Gunning of Streamstown bought that one from Miss Fitzroy at
+the Dublin Show, and a hundhred pound he gave for her!"
+
+The smith mentally docked this sum by seventy pounds, but said, "By
+dam!" in polite convention.
+
+"'Twasn't a week afther that I got her for twinty-five pounds!"
+
+The smith made a further mental deduction equally justified by the
+facts; the long snore and wheeze of the bellows filled the silence, and
+the dirty walls flushed and glowed with the steady crescendo and
+diminuendo of the glow.
+
+The ex-tinker picked up the bottle with the candle. "Look at that!" he
+said, lowering the light and displaying a long transverse scar beginning
+at the mare's knee and ending in an enlarged fetlock.
+
+"I seen that," said the smith.
+
+"And look at that!" continued Mr. Fennessy, putting back the shaggy hair
+on her shoulder. A wide and shiny patch of black skin showed where the
+hatter's plate glass had flayed the shoulder. "She played the divil
+goin' through the streets, and made flitthers of herself this way, in a
+shop window. Gunning give the word to shoot her. The dealer's boy told
+Patsey Crimmeen. 'Twas Patsey was caring her at the show for Miss
+Fitzroy. Shtan' will ye!"--this to the mare, whose eyes glinted white as
+she flung away her head from the light of the candle.
+
+"Whatever fright she got she didn't forget it," said the smith.
+
+[Illustration: "MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN' OUT FOR A COB."]
+
+"I was up in Dublin meself the same time," pursued Mr. Fennessy. "Afther
+I seem' Patsey I took a sthroll down to Brennan's yard. The leg was in
+two halves, barrin' the shkin, and the showldher swoll up as big as a
+sack o' meal. I was three or four days goin' down to look at her this
+way, and I seen she wasn't as bad as what they thought. I come in one
+morning, and the boy says to me, 'The boss has three horses comin' in
+to-day, an' I dunno where'll we put this one.' I goes to Brennan, and he
+sitting down to his breakfast, and the wife with him. 'Sir,' says I,
+'for the honour of God sell me that mare!' We had hard strugglin' then.
+In the latther end the wife says, 'It's as good for ye to part her,
+James,' says she, 'and Mr. Gunning'll never know what way she went. This
+honest man'll never say where he got her.' 'I will not, ma'am,' says I.
+'I have a brother in the postin' line in Belfast, and it's for him I'm
+buyin' her.'"
+
+The, process of making nail-holes in the shoe seemed to engross the
+taciturn young smith's attention for the next minute or two.
+
+"There was a man over from Craffroe in town yesterday," he observed
+presently, "that said Mr. Gunning was lookin' out for a cob, and he'd
+fancy one that would lep."
+
+He eyed his work sedulously as he spoke.
+
+Something, it might have been the light of the candle, woke a flicker in
+Mr. Fennessy's eye. He passed his hand gently down the mare's quarter.
+
+"Supposing now that the mane was off her, and something about six inches
+of a dock took off her tail, what sort of a cob d'ye think she'd make,
+Larry?"
+
+The smith, with a sudden falsetto cackle of laughter, plunged the shoe
+into a tub of water, in which it gurgled and spluttered as if in
+appreciation of the jest.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+Dotted at intervals throughout society are the people endowed with the
+faculty for "getting up things". They are dauntless people, filled with
+the power of driving lesser and deeper reluctant spirits before them;
+remorseless to the timid, carneying to the stubborn.
+
+Of such was Mrs. Carteret, with powers matured in hill-stations in
+India, mellowed by much voyaging in P. and O. steamers. Not even an
+environment as unpromising as that of Enniscar in its winter torpor had
+power to dismay her. A public whose artistic tastes had hitherto been
+nourished upon travelling circuses, Nationalist meetings, and missionary
+magic lanterns in the Wesleyan schoolhouse, was, she argued, practically
+virgin soil, and would ecstatically respond to any form of cultivation.
+
+"I know there's not much talent to be had," she said combatively to her
+husband, "but we'll just black our faces, and call ourselves the Green
+Coons or something, and it will be all right!"
+
+"Dashed if I'll black my face again," said Captain Carteret; "I call it
+rot trying to get up anything here. There's no one to do anything."
+
+"Well, there's ourselves and little Taylour" ("little Taylour," it may
+be explained, was Captain Carteret's subaltern), "that's two banjoes and
+a bones anyhow; and Freddy Alexander, and there's your dear friend Fanny
+Fitz--she'll be home in a few days, and these two big Hamilton girls--"
+
+"Oh, Lord!" ejaculated Captain Carteret.
+
+"Oh, yes!" continued Mrs. Carteret, unheedingly, "and there's Mr.
+Gunning; he'll come if Fanny Fitz does."
+
+"He'll not be much advantage when he does come," said Captain Carteret
+spitefully.
+
+"Oh, he sings," said Mrs. Carteret, arranging her neat small fringe at
+the glass--"rather a good voice. You needn't be afraid, my dear, I'll
+arrange that the fascinating Fanny shall sit next you!"
+
+Upon this somewhat unstable basis the formation of the troupe of Green
+Coons was undertaken. Mrs. Carteret took off her coat to the work, or
+rather, to be accurate, she put on a fur-lined one, and attended a
+Nationalist meeting in the Town Hall to judge for herself how the voices
+carried. She returned rejoicing--she had sat at the back of the hall,
+and had not lost a syllable of the oratory, even during sundry heated
+episodes, discreetly summarised by the local paper as "interruption".
+The Town Hall was chartered, superficially cleansed, and in the space of
+a week the posters had gone forth.
+
+By what means it was accomplished that Rupert Gunning should attend the
+first rehearsal he did not exactly understand; he found himself enmeshed
+in a promise to meet every one else at the Town Hall with tea at the
+Carterets' afterwards. Up to this point the fact that he was to appear
+before the public with a blackened face had been diplomatically withheld
+from him, and an equal diplomacy was shown on his arrival in the
+deputing of Miss Fitzroy to break the news to him.
+
+"Mrs. Carteret says it's really awfully becoming," said Fanny,
+breathless and brilliant from assiduous practice of a hornpipe under
+Captain Carteret's tuition, "and as for trouble! We might as well make a
+virtue of necessity in this incredibly dirty place; my hands are black
+already, and I've only swept the stage!"
+
+She was standing at the edge of the platform that was to serve as the
+stage, looking down at him, and it may be taken as a sufficient guide to
+his mental condition that his abhorrence of the prospect for himself was
+swallowed up by fury at the thought of it for her.
+
+"Are you--do you mean to tell me you are going to dance _with a black
+face_?" he demanded in bitter and incongruous wrath.
+
+"No, I'm going to dance with Captain Carteret!" replied Fanny
+frivolously, "and so can you if you like!"
+
+She was maddeningly pretty as she smiled down at him, with her bright
+hair roughened, and the afterglow of the dance alight in her eyes and
+cheeks. Nevertheless, for one whirling moment, the old Adam, an Adam
+blissfully unaware of the existence of Eve, asserted himself in Rupert.
+He picked up his cap and stick without a word, and turned towards the
+door. There, however, he was confronted by Mrs. Carteret, tugging at a
+line of chairs attached to a plank, like a very small bird with a very
+large twig. To refuse the aid that she immediately demanded was
+impossible, and even before the future back row of the sixpennies had
+been towed to its moorings, he realised that hateful as it would be to
+stay and join in these distasteful revels, it would be better than going
+home and thinking about them.
+
+From this the intelligent observer may gather that absence had had its
+traditional, but by no means invariable, effect upon the heart of Mr.
+Gunning, and, had any further stimulant been needed, it had been
+supplied in the last few minutes by the aggressive and possessive manner
+of Captain Carteret.
+
+The rehearsal progressed after the manner of amateur rehearsals. The
+troupe, with the exception of Mr. Gunning, who remained wrapped in
+silence, talked irrepressibly, and quite inappropriately to their rôle
+as Green Coons. Freddy Alexander and Mr. Taylour bear-fought untiringly
+for possession of the bones and the position of Corner Man; Mrs.
+Carteret alone had a copy of the music that was to be practised, and in
+consequence, the company hung heavily over her at the piano in a
+deafening and discordant swarm. The two tall Hamiltons, hitherto
+speechless by nature and by practice, became suddenly exhilarated at
+finding themselves in the inner circle of the soldiery, and bubbled with
+impotent suggestions and reverential laughter at the witticisms of Mr.
+Taylour. Fanny Fitz and Captain Carteret finally removed themselves to a
+grimy corner behind the proscenium, and there practised, _sotto voce_,
+the song with banjo accompaniment that was to culminate in the hornpipe.
+Freddy Alexander had gone forth to purchase a pack of cards, in the
+futile hope that he could prevail upon Mrs. Carteret to allow him to
+inflict conjuring tricks upon the audience.
+
+"As if there were anything on earth that bored people as much as card
+tricks!" said that experienced lady to Rupert Gunning. "Look here,
+_would_ you mind reading over these riddles, to see which you'd like to
+have to answer. Now, here's a local one. I'll ask it--'Why am dis room
+like de Enniscar Demesne?'--and then _you'll_ say, 'Because dere am so
+many pretty little deers in it'!"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't possibly do that!" said Rupert hastily, alarmed as well
+as indignant; "I'm afraid I really must go now--"
+
+He had to pass by Fanny Fitz on his way out of the hall. There was
+something vexed and forlorn about him, and, being sympathetic, she
+perceived it, though not its cause.
+
+"You're deserting us!" she said, looking up at him.
+
+"I have an appointment," he said stiffly, his glance evading hers, and
+resting on Captain Carteret's well-clipped little black head.
+
+Some of Fanny's worst scrapes had been brought about by her incapacity
+to allow any one to part from her on bad terms, and, moreover, she liked
+Rupert Gunning. She cast about in her mind for something conciliatory to
+say to him.
+
+"When are you going to show me the cob that you bought at the Horse
+Show?"
+
+The olive branch thus confidently tendered had a somewhat withering
+reception.
+
+"The cob I bought at the Horse Show?" Mr. Gunning repeated with an
+increase of rigidity, "Oh, yes--I got rid of it."
+
+He paused; the twanging of Captain Carteret's banjo bridged the interval
+imperturbably.
+
+"Why had you to get rid of it?" asked Fanny, still sympathetic.
+
+"She was a failure!" said Rupert vindictively; "I made a fool of myself
+in buying her!"
+
+Fanny looked at him sideways from under her lashes.
+
+"And I had counted on your giving me a mount on her now and then!"
+
+Rupert forgot his wrath, forgot even the twanging banjo.
+
+"I've just got another cob," he said quickly; "she jumps very well, and
+if you'd like to hunt her next Tuesday--"
+
+"Oh, thanks awfully, but Captain Carteret has promised me a mount for
+next Tuesday!" said the perfidious Fanny.
+
+Mrs. Carteret, on her knees by a refractory footlight, watched with
+anxiety Mr. Gunning's abrupt departure from the room.
+
+"Fanny!" she said severely, "what have you been doing to that man?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" said Fanny.
+
+"If you've put him off singing I'll never forgive you!" continued Mrs.
+Carteret, advancing on her knees to the next footlight.
+
+"I tell you I've done nothing to him," said Fanny Fitz guiltily.
+
+"Give me the hammer!" said Mrs. Carteret. "Have I eyes, or have I not?"
+
+"He's awfully keen about her!" Mrs. Carteret said that evening to her
+husband. "Bad temper is one of the worst signs. Men in love are always
+cross."
+
+"Oh, he's a rotter!" said Captain Carteret conclusively.
+
+In the meantime the object of this condemnation was driving his ten
+Irish miles home, by the light of a frosty full moon. Between the shafts
+of his cart a trim-looking mare of about fifteen hands trotted lazily,
+forging, shying, and generally comporting herself in a way only possible
+to a grass-fed animal who has been in the hands of such as Mr. William
+Fennessy. The thick and dingy mane that had hung impartially on each
+side of her neck, now, together with the major portion of her voluminous
+tail, adorned the manure heap in the rear of the Fennessy public-house.
+The pallid fleece in which she had been muffled had given place to a
+polished coat of iron-grey, that looked black in the moonlight. A week
+of over-abundant oats had made her opinionated, but had not, so far,
+restored to her the fine lady nervousness that had landed her in the
+window of the hat shop.
+
+Rupert laid the whip along her fat sides with bitter disfavour. She was
+a brute in harness, he said to himself, her blemished fetlock was uglier
+than he had at first thought, and even though she had yesterday schooled
+over two miles of country like an old stager, she was too small to carry
+him, and she was not, apparently, wanted to carry any one else. Here the
+purchase received a very disagreeable cut on the neck that interrupted
+her speculations as to the nature of the shadows of telegraph-posts. To
+have bought two useless horses in four months was pretty average bad
+luck. It was also pretty bad luck to have been born a fool. Reflection
+here became merged in the shapeless and futile fumings of a man badly in
+love and preposterously jealous.
+
+Known only to the elect among entertainment promoters are the methods
+employed by Mrs. Carteret to float the company of The Green Coons. The
+fact remains that on the appointed night the chosen troupe,
+approximately word-perfect, and with spirits something chastened by
+stage fright, were assembled in the clerk's room of the Enniscar Town
+Hall, round a large basin filled horribly with a compound of burnt cork
+and water.
+
+"It's not as bad as it looks!" said Mrs. Carteret, plunging in her hands
+and heroically smearing her face with a mass of black oozy matter
+believed to be a sponge. "It's quite becoming if you do it thoroughly.
+Mind, all of you, get it well into your ears and the roots of your
+hair!"
+
+The Hamiltons, giggling wildly, submitted themselves to the
+ministrations of Freddy Alexander, and Mrs. Carteret, appallingly
+transformed into a little West Indian coolie woman, applied the sponge
+to the shrinking Fanny Fitz.
+
+"Will you do Mr. Gunning, Fanny?" she whispered into one of the ears
+that she had conscientiously blackened. "I think he'd bear it better
+from you!"
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind!" replied Fanny, with a dignity somewhat
+impaired by her ebon countenance and monstrous green turban.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Mrs. Carteret's small neat features seemed unnaturally sharpened, and
+her eyes and teeth glittered in her excitement.
+
+"For goodness' sake, take your awful little black face away, Mabel!"
+exclaimed Fanny hysterically. "It quite frightens me! I'm _very_ angry
+with Mr. Gunning! I'll tell you why some other time."
+
+"Well, don't forget you've got to say 'Buck up, Sambo!' to him after
+he's sung his song, and you may fight with him as much as you like
+afterwards," said Mrs. Carteret, hurrying off to paint glaring
+vermilion mouths upon the loudly protesting Hamiltons.
+
+During these vicissitudes, Rupert Gunning, arrayed in a green
+swallow-tailed calico coat, short white cotton trousers, and a skimpy
+nigger wig, presented a pitiful example of the humiliations which the
+allied forces of love and jealousy can bring upon the just. Fanny Fitz
+has since admitted that, in spite of the wrath that burned within her,
+the sight of Mr. Gunning morosely dabbing his long nose with the
+repulsive sponge that was shared by the troupe, almost moved her to
+compassion.
+
+A pleasing impatience was already betraying itself in cat-calls and
+stampings from the sixpenny places, and Mrs. Carteret, flitting like a
+sheep dog round her flock, arranged them in couples and drove them
+before her on to the stage, singing in chorus, with a fair assumption of
+hilarity, "As we go marching through Georgia".
+
+For Fanny Fitz the subsequent proceedings became merged in a nightmare
+of blinding heat and glare, made actual only by poignant anxiety as to
+the length of her green skirt. The hope that she might be unrecognisable
+was shattered by the yell of "More power, Miss Fanny!" that crested the
+thunderous encore evoked by her hornpipe with Captain Carteret, and the
+question of the skirt was decided by the fact that her aunts, in the
+front row, firmly perused their programmes from the beginning of her
+dance to its conclusion.
+
+The entertainment went with varying success after the manner of its
+kind. The local hits and personal allusions, toilfully compiled and
+ardently believed in, were received in damping silence, while Rupert
+Gunning's song, of the truculent order dedicated to basses, and sung by
+him with a face that would have done credit to Othello, received an
+ovation that confirmed Captain Carteret in his contempt for country
+audiences. The performance raged to its close in a "Cake Walk," to the
+inspiring strains of "Razors a-flying through the air," and the curtain
+fell on what the Enniscar _Independent_ described cryptically as "a
+_tout ensemble à la conversazione_ that was refreshingly unique".
+
+"Five minutes more and I should have had heat apoplexy!" said Mrs.
+Carteret, hurling her turban across the clerk's room, "but it all went
+splendidly! Empty that basin out of the window, somebody, and give me
+the vaseline. The last time I blacked my face it was covered with red
+spots for a week afterwards because I used soap instead of vaseline!"
+
+Rupert Gunning approached Fanny with an open note in his hand.
+
+"I've had this from your aunt," he said, handing it to her; it was
+decorated with sooty thumb marks, to which Fanny's black claw
+contributed a fresh batch as she took it, but she read it without a
+smile.
+
+It was to the effect that the heat of the room had been too much for the
+elder Misses Fitzroy, and they had therefore gone home, but as Mr.
+Gunning had to pass their gate perhaps he would be kind enough to drive
+their niece home.
+
+"Oh--" said Fanny, in tones from which dismay was by no means
+eliminated. "How stupid of Aunt Rachel!"
+
+"I'm afraid there seems no way out of it for you," said Rupert
+offendedly.
+
+A glimpse of their two wrathful black faces in the glass abruptly
+checked Fanny's desire to say something crushing. At this juncture she
+would rather have died than laughed.
+
+Burnt cork is not lightly to be removed at the first essay, and when,
+half an hour later, Fanny Fitz, with a pale and dirty face, stood under
+the dismal light of the lamp outside the Town Hall, waiting for Mr.
+Gunning's trap, she had the pleasure of hearing a woman among the
+loiterers say compassionately:--
+
+"God help her, the crayture! She looks like a servant that'd be bate out
+with work!"
+
+Mr. Gunning's new cob stood hearkening with flickering ears to the
+various commotions of the street--she understood them all perfectly
+well, but her soul being unlifted by reason of oats, she chose to resent
+them as impertinences. Having tolerated with difficulty the instalment
+of Miss Fitzroy in the trap, she started with a flourish, and pulled
+hard until clear of the town and its flaring public-houses. On the open
+road, with nothing more enlivening than the dark hills, half-seen in the
+light of the rising moon, she settled down. Rupert turned to his silent
+companion. He had become aware during the evening that something was
+wrong, and his own sense of injury was frightened into the background.
+
+"What do you think of my new buy?" he said pacifically, "she's a good
+goer, isn't she?"
+
+"Very," replied Fanny.
+
+Silence again reigned. One or two further attempts at conversation met
+with equal discouragement. The miles passed by. At length, as the mare
+slackened to walk up a long hill, Rupert said with a voice that had the
+shake of pent-up injury:--
+
+"I've been wondering what I've done to be put into Coventry like this!"
+
+"I thought you probably wouldn't care to speak to me!" was Fanny's
+astonishing reply, delivered in tones of ice.
+
+"I!" he stammered, "not care to speak to _you_! You ought to know--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I do know!" broke in Fanny, passing from the frigid to the
+torrid zone with characteristic speed, "I know what a _failure_ your
+horse-dealing at the Dublin Show was! I've heard how you bought my mare,
+and had her shot the same night, because you wouldn't take the trouble
+even to go and look at her after the poor little thing was hurt! Oh! I
+can't bear even to _think_ of it!"
+
+Rupert Gunning remained abjectly and dumfoundedly silent.
+
+"And then," continued Fanny, whirling on to the final point of her
+indictment, "you pretended to Captain Carteret and me that the horse you
+had bought was 'a common brute,' _a cob for carting_, and you said the
+other night that you had made a fool of yourself over it! I didn't know
+then all about it, but I do now. Captain Carteret heard about it from
+the dealer in Dublin. Even the dealer said it was a pity you hadn't
+given the mare a chance!"
+
+"It's all perfectly true," said Rupert, in a low voice.
+
+A soft answer, so far from turning away wrath, frequently inflames it.
+
+"Then I think there's no more to be said!" said Fanny hotly.
+
+There was silence. They had reached the top of the hill, and the grey
+mare began to trot.
+
+"Well, there's just one thing I should like to say," said Rupert
+awkwardly, his breath coming very short, "I couldn't help everything
+going wrong about the mare. It was just my bad luck. I only bought her
+to please you. They told me she couldn't get right after the accident.
+What was the good of my going to look at her? I wanted to cross in the
+boat with you. Whatever I did I did for you. I would do anything in the
+world for you--"
+
+It was at this crucial moment that there arose suddenly from the dim
+grey road in front of them a slightly greyer shadow, a shadow that
+limped amid the clanking of chains. The Connemara mare, now masquerading
+as a County Cork cob, asked for nothing better. If it were a ghost, she
+was legitimately entitled to flee from it; if, as was indeed the case,
+it was a donkey, she made a point of shying at donkeys. She realised
+that, by a singular stroke of good fortune, the reins were lying in
+loops on her back.
+
+A snort, a sideways bound, a couple of gleeful kicks on the dashboard,
+and she was away at full gallop, with one rein under her tail, and a
+pleasant open road before her.
+
+"It's all right!" said Rupert, recovering his balance by a
+hair-breadth, and feeling in his heart that it was all wrong, "the
+Craffroe Hill will stop her. Hold on to the rail."
+
+Fanny said nothing. It was, indeed, all that she could do to keep her
+seat in the trap, with which the rushing road was playing cup and ball;
+she was, besides, not one of the people who are conversational in
+emergencies. When an animal, as active and artful as the Connemara mare,
+is going at some twenty miles an hour, with one of the reins under its
+tail, endeavours to detach the rein are not much avail, and when the
+tail is still tender from recent docking, they are a good deal worse
+than useless. Having twice nearly fallen on his head, Rupert abandoned
+the attempt and prayed for the long stiff ascent of the Craffroe Hill.
+
+It came swiftly out of the grey moonlight. At its foot another road
+forked to the right; instead of facing the hill that led to home and
+stable, the mare swung into the side road, with one wheel up on the
+grass, and the cushions slipping from the seat, and Rupert, just saving
+the situation with the left rein that remained to him, said to himself
+that they were in for a bad business.
+
+For a mile they swung and clattered along it, with the wind striking and
+splitting against their faces like a cold and tearing stream of water; a
+light wavered and disappeared across the pallid fields to the left, a
+group of starveling trees on a hill slid up into the skyline behind
+them, and at last it seemed as if some touch of self-control, some
+suggestion of having had enough of the joke, was shortening the mare's
+grasping stride. The trap pitched more than ever as she came up into the
+shafts and back into her harness; she twisted suddenly to the left into
+a narrow lane, cleared the corner by an impossible fluke, and Fanny Fitz
+was hurled ignominiously on to Rupert Gunning's lap. Long briars and
+twigs struck them from either side, the trap bumped in craggy ruts and
+slashed through wide puddles, then reeled irretrievably over a heap of
+stones and tilted against the low bank to the right.
+
+Without any exact knowledge of how she got there, Fanny found herself on
+her hands and knees in a clump of bracken on top of the bank; Rupert was
+already picking himself out of rugs and other jetsam in the field below
+her, and the mare was proceeding up the lane at a disorderly trot,
+having jerked the trap on to its legs again from its reclining position.
+
+Fanny was lifted down into the lane; she told him that she was not hurt,
+but her knees shook, her hands trembled, and the arm that was round her
+tightened its clasp in silence. When a man is strongly moved by
+tenderness and anxiety and relief, he can say little to make it known;
+he need not--it is known beyond all telling by the one other person whom
+it concerns. She felt suddenly that she was safe, that his heart was
+torn for her sake, and that the tension of the last ten minutes had been
+great. It went through her with a pang, and her head swayed against his
+arm. In a moment she felt his lips on her hair, on her temple, and the
+oldest, the most familiar of all words of endearment was spoken at her
+ear. She recovered herself, but in a new world. She tried to walk on up
+the lane, but stumbled in the deep ruts and found the supporting arm
+again ready at need. She did not resist it.
+
+A shrill neigh arose in front of them. The mare had pulled up at a
+closed gate, and was apparently apostrophising some low farm buildings
+beyond it. A dog barked hysterically, the door of a cowshed burst open,
+and a man came out with a lantern.
+
+"Oh, I know now where we are!" cried Fanny wildly, "it's Johnny
+Connolly's! Oh, Johnny, Johnny Connolly, we've been run away with!"
+
+"For God's sake!" responded Johnny Connolly, standing stock still in his
+amazement, "is that Miss Fanny?"
+
+"Get hold of the mare," shouted Rupert, "or she'll jump the gate!"
+
+Johnny Connolly advanced, still calling upon his God, and the mare
+uttered a low but vehement neigh.
+
+"Ye're deshtroyed, Miss Fanny! And Mr. Gunning, the Lord save us! Ye're
+killed the two o' ye! What happened ye at all? Woa, gerr'l, woa,
+gerrlie! Ye'd say she knew me, the crayture."
+
+The mare was rubbing her dripping face and neck against the farmer's
+shoulder, with hoarse whispering snorts of recognition and pleasure. He
+held his lantern high to look at her.
+
+"Musha, why wouldn't she know me!" he roared, "sure it's yer own mare,
+Miss Fanny! 'Tis the Connemara mare I thrained for ye! And may the divil
+sweep and roast thim that has it told through all the counthry that she
+was killed!"
+
+
+
+
+A GRAND FILLY
+
+
+I am an Englishman. I say this without either truculence or
+vainglorying, rather with humility--a mere Englishman, who submits his
+Plain Tale from the Western Hills with the conviction that the Kelt who
+may read it will think him more mere than ever.
+
+I was in Yorkshire last season when what is trivially called "the cold
+snap" came upon us. I had five horses eating themselves silly all the
+time, and I am not going to speak of it. I don't consider it a subject
+to be treated lightly. It was in about the thickest of it that I heard
+from a man I know in Ireland. He is a little old horse-coping sportsman
+with a red face and iron-grey whiskers, who has kept hounds all his
+life; or, rather, he has always had hounds about, on much the same
+conditions that other men have rats. The rats are indubitably there, and
+feed themselves variously, and so do old Robert Trinder's "Rioters,"
+which is their _nom de guerre_ in the County Corkerry (the few who know
+anything of the map of Ireland may possibly identify the two counties
+buried in this cryptogram).
+
+I meet old Robert most years at the Dublin Horse Show, and every now and
+then he has sold me a pretty good horse, so when he wrote and renewed a
+standing invitation, assuring me that there was open weather, and that
+he had a grand four-year-old filly to sell, I took him at his word, and
+started at once. The journey lasted for twenty-eight hours, going hard
+all the time, and during the last three of them there were no
+foot-warmers and the cushions became like stones enveloped in mustard
+plasters. Old Trinder had not sent to the station for me, and it was
+pelting rain, so I had to drive seven miles in a thing that only exists
+south of the Limerick Junction, and is called a "jingle". A jingle is a
+square box of painted canvas with no back to it, because, as was
+luminously explained to me, you must have some way to get into it, and I
+had to sit sideways in it, with my portmanteau bucking like a
+three-year-old on the seat opposite to me. It fell out on the road twice
+going uphill. After the second fall my hair tonic slowly oozed forth
+from the seams, and added a fresh ingredient to the smells of the grimy
+cushions and the damp hay that furnished the machine. My hair tonic
+costs eight-and-sixpence a bottle.
+
+There is probably not in the United Kingdom a worse-planned entrance
+gate than Robert Trinder's. You come at it obliquely on the side of a
+crooked hill, squeeze between its low pillars with an inch to spare
+each side, and immediately drop down a yet steeper hill, which lasts for
+the best part of a quarter of a mile. The jingle went swooping and
+jerking down into the unknown, till, through the portholes on either
+side of the driver's legs, I saw Lisangle House. It had looked decidedly
+better in large red letters at the top of old Robert's notepaper than it
+did at the top of his lawn, being no more than a square yellow box of a
+house, that had been made a fool of by being promiscuously trimmed with
+battlements. Just as my jingle tilted me in backwards against the flight
+of steps, I heard through the open door a loud and piercing yell;
+following on it came the thunder of many feet, and the next instant a
+hound bolted down the steps with a large plucked turkey in its mouth.
+Close in its wake fled a brace of puppies, and behind them, variously
+armed, pursued what appeared to be the staff of Lisangle House. They
+went past me in full cry, leaving a general impression of dirty aprons,
+flying hair, and onions, and I feel sure that there were bare feet
+somewhere in it. My carman leaped from his perch and joined in the
+chase, and the whole party swept from my astonished gaze round or into a
+clump of bushes. At this juncture I was not sorry to hear Robert
+Trinder's voice greeting me as if nothing unusual were occurring.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT'S AUNT]
+
+"Upon me honour, it's the Captain! You're welcome, sir, you're welcome!
+Come in, come in, don't mind the horse at all; he'll eat the grass there
+as he's done many a time before! When the gerr'ls have old Amazon cot
+they'll bring in your things."
+
+(Perhaps I ought to mention at once that Mr. Trinder belongs to the
+class who are known in Ireland as "Half-sirs". You couldn't say he was a
+gentleman, and he himself wouldn't have tried to say so. But, as a
+matter of fact, I have seen worse imitations.)
+
+Robert was delighted to see me, and I had had a whisky-and-soda and been
+shown two or three more hound puppies before it occurred to him to
+introduce me to his aunt. I had not expected an aunt, as Robert is well
+on the heavenward side of sixty; but there she was: she made me think of
+a badly preserved Egyptian mummy with a brogue. I am always a little
+afraid of my hostess, but there was something about Robert's aunt that
+made me know I was a worm. She came down to dinner in a bonnet and black
+kid gloves--a circumstance that alone was awe-inspiring. She sat
+entrenched at the head of the table behind an enormous dish of thickly
+jacketed potatoes, and, though she scorned to speak to Robert or me, she
+kept up a sort of whispered wrangle with the parlour-maid all the time.
+The latter's red hair hung down over her shoulders--and at intervals
+over mine also--in horrible luxuriance, and recalled the leading figure
+in the pursuit of Amazon; there was, moreover, something about the heavy
+boots in which she tramped round the table that suggested that Amazon
+had sought sanctuary in the cow-house. I have done some roughing it in
+my time, and I am not over-particular, but I admit that it was rather a
+shock to meet the turkey itself again, more especially as it was the
+sole item of the _menu_. There was no doubt of its identity, as it was
+short of a leg, and half the breast had been shaved away. The aunt must
+have read my thoughts in my face. She fixed her small implacable eyes on
+mine for one quelling instant, then she looked at Robert. Her nephew was
+obviously afraid to meet her eye; he coughed uneasily, and handed a
+surreptitious potato to the puppy who was sitting under his chair.
+
+"This place is rotten with dogs," said the aunt; with which announcement
+she retired from the conversation, and fell again to the slaughter of
+the parlour-maid. I timidly ate my portion of turkey and tried not to
+think about the cow-house.
+
+It rained all night. I could hear the water hammering into something
+that rang like a gong; and each time I rolled over in the musty trough
+of my feather-bed I fractiously asked myself why the mischief they had
+left the tap running all night. Next morning the matter was explained
+when, on demanding a bath, I was told that "there wasn't but one in the
+house, and 'twas undher the rain-down. But sure ye can have it," with
+which it was dragged in full of dirty water and flakes of whitewash, and
+when I got out of it I felt as if I had been through the Bankruptcy
+Court.
+
+The day was windy and misty--a combination of weather possible only in
+Ireland--but there was no snow, and Robert Trinder, seated at breakfast
+in a purple-red hunting coat, dingy drab breeches, and woollen socks,
+assured me that it was turning out a grand morning.
+
+I distinctly liked the looks of my mount when Jerry the Whip pulled her
+out of the stable for me. She was big and brown, with hindquarters that
+looked like jumping; she was also very dirty and obviously underfed.
+None the less she was lively enough, and justified Jerry's prediction
+that "she'd be apt to shake a couple or three bucks out of herself when
+she'd see the hounds". Old Robert was on an ugly brute of a yellow
+horse, rather like a big mule, who began the day by bucking out of the
+yard gate as if he had been trained by Buffalo Bill. It was at this
+juncture that I first really respected Robert Trinder; his retention of
+his seat was so unstudied, and his command of appropriate epithets so
+complete.
+
+Jerry and the hounds awaited us on the road, the latter as mixed a party
+as I have ever come across. There were about fourteen couple in all, and
+they ranged in style from a short-legged black-and-tan harrier, who had
+undoubtedly had an uncle who was a dachshund, to a thing with a head
+like a greyhound, a snow-white body, and a feathered stern that would
+have been a credit to a setter. In between these extremes came several
+broken-haired Welshmen, some dilapidated 24-inch foxhounds, and a lot of
+pale-coloured hounds, whose general effect was that of the tablecloth on
+which we had eaten our breakfast that morning, being dirty white,
+covered with stains that looked like either tea or egg, or both.
+
+"Them's the old Irish breed," said Robert, as the yellow horse
+voluntarily stopped short to avoid stepping on one of them; "there's no
+better. That Gaylass there would take a line up Patrick Street on a fair
+day, and you'd live and die seeing her kill rats."
+
+I am bound to say I thought it more likely that I should live to see her
+and some of her relations killing sheep, judging by their manners along
+the road; but we got to Letter cross-roads at last with no more than an
+old hen and a wandering cur dog on our collective consciences. The road
+and its adjacent fences were thronged with foot people, mostly
+strapping young men and boys, in the white flannel coats and slouched
+felt hats that strike a stranger with their unusualness and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"Do you ever have a row with Land Leaguers?" I asked, noting their
+sticks, while the warnings of a sentimental Radical friend as to the
+danger of encountering an infuriated Irish peasantry suddenly assumed
+plausibility.
+
+"Land League? The dear help ye! Who'd be bothered with the Land League
+here?" said Robert, shoving the yellow horse into the crowd; "let the
+hounds through, boys, can't ye? No, Captain, but 'tis Saint November's
+Day, as they call it, a great holiday, and there isn't a ruffian in the
+country but has come out with his blagyard dog to head the fox!"
+
+A grin of guilt passed over the faces of the audience.
+
+"There's plinty foxes in the hill, Mr. Thrinder," shouted one of them;
+"Dan Murphy says there isn't a morning but he'd see six or eight o' them
+hoppin' there."
+
+"Faith, 'tis thrue for you," corroborated Dan Murphy. "If ye had thim
+gethered in a quarther of ground and dhropped a pin from th' elements,
+'twould reach one o' thim!"
+
+(As a matter of fact, I haven't a notion what Mr. Murphy meant, but that
+is what he said, so I faithfully record it.)
+
+The riders were farmers and men of Robert's own undetermined class, and
+there was hardly a horse out who was more than four years old, saving
+two or three who were nineteen. Robert pushed through them and turned up
+a bohireen--_i.e._, a narrow and incredibly badly made lane--and I
+presently heard him cheering the hounds into covert. As to that covert,
+imagine a hill that in any civilised country would be called a mountain:
+its nearer side a cliff, with just enough slope to give root-hold to
+giant furze bushes, its summit a series of rocky and boggy terraces,
+trending down at one end into a ravine, and at the other becoming merged
+in the depths of an aboriginal wood of low scrubby oak trees. It seemed
+as feasible to ride a horse over it as over the roof of York Minster. I
+hadn't the vaguest idea what to do or where to go, and I clave to Jerry
+the Whip.
+
+The hounds were scrambling like monkeys along the side of the hill; so
+were the country boys with their curs; old Trinder moved parallel with
+them along its base. Jerry galloped away to the ravine, and there
+dismounting, struggled up by zig-zag cattle paths to the comparative
+levels of the summit. I did the same, and was pretty well blown by the
+time I got to the top, as the filly scorned the zigzags, and hauled me
+up as straight as she could go over the rocks and furze bushes. A few
+other fellows had followed us, and we all pursued on along the top of
+the hill.
+
+Suddenly Jerry stopped short and held up his hand. A hound spoke below
+us, then another, and then came a halloa from Jerry that made the filly
+quiver all over. The fox had come up over the low fence that edged the
+cliff, and was running along the terrace in front of us. Old Robert
+below us--I could almost have chucked a stone on to him--gave an
+answering screech, and one by one the hounds fought their way up over
+the fence and went away on the line, throwing their tongues in a style
+that did one good to hear. Our only way ahead lay along a species of
+trench between the hill, on whose steep side we were standing, and the
+cliff fence. Jerry kicked the spurs into his good ugly little horse, and
+making him jump down into the trench, squeezed along it after the
+hounds. But the delay of waiting for them had got the filly's temper up.
+When I faced her at the trench she reared, and whirled round, and
+pranced backwards in, considering the circumstances, a highly
+discomposing way. The rest of the field crowded through the furze past
+me and down into the trench, and twice I thought the mare would land
+herself and me on top of one of them. I don't wonder she was frightened.
+I know I was. There was nothing between us and a hundred-foot drop but
+this narrow trench and a low, rotten fence, and the fool behaved as
+though she wanted to jump it all. I hope no one will ever erect an
+equestrian statue in my honour; now that I have experienced the
+sensation of ramping over nothing, I find I dislike it. I believe I
+might have been there now, but just then a couple of hounds came up, and
+before I knew what she was at, the filly had jumped down after them into
+the trench as if she had been doing it all her life. I was not long
+about picking the others up; the filly could gallop anyhow, and we
+thundered on over ground where, had I been on foot, I should have liked
+a guide and an alpenstock. At intervals we jumped things made of sharp
+stones, and slates, and mud; I don't know whether they were banks or
+walls. Sometimes the horses changed feet on them, sometimes they flew
+the whole affair, according to their individual judgment. Sometimes we
+were splashing over sedgy patches that looked and felt like buttered
+toast, sometimes floundering through stuff resembling an ill-made
+chocolate soufflé, whether intended for a ploughed field or a partially
+drained bog-hole I could not determine, and all was fenced as carefully
+as cricket-pitches. Presently the hounds took a swing to the left and
+over the edge of the hill again, and our leader Jerry turned sharp off
+after them, down a track that seemed to have been dug out of the face of
+the hill. I should have liked to get off and lead, but they did not
+give me time, and we suddenly found ourselves joined to Robert Trinder
+and his company of infantry, all going hard for the oak wood that I
+mentioned before.
+
+It was pretty to see the yellow horse jump. Nothing came amiss to him,
+and he didn't seem able to make a mistake. There was a stone stile out
+of a bohireen that stopped every one, and he changed feet on the flag on
+top and went down by the steps on the other side. No one need believe
+this unless they like, but I saw him do it. The country boys were most
+exhilarating. How they got there I don't know, but they seemed to spring
+up before us wherever we went. They cheered every jump, they pulled away
+the astounding obstacles that served as gates (such as the end of an
+iron bedstead, a broken harrow, or a couple of cartwheels), and their
+power of seeing the fox through a stone wall or a hill could only be
+equalled by the Röntgen rays. We fought our way through the oak wood,
+and out over a boggy bounds ditch into open country at last. The Rioters
+had come out of the wood on a screaming scent, and big and little were
+running together in a compact body, followed, like the tail of a kite,
+by a string of yapping country curs. The country was all grass,
+enchantingly green and springy; the jumps were big, yet not too big,
+and there were no two alike; the filly pulled hard, but not too hard,
+and she was jumping like a deer; I felt that all I had heard of Irish
+hunting had not been overstated.
+
+We had been running for half an hour when we checked at a farmhouse; the
+yellow horse had been leading the hunt all the time, making a noise like
+a steam-engine, but perfectly undefeated, and our numbers were reduced
+to five. An old woman and a girl rushed out of the yard to meet us,
+screaming like sea-gulls.
+
+"He's gone south this five minutes! I was out spreadin' clothes, and I
+seen him circling round the Kerry cow, and he as big as a man!" screamed
+the girl.
+
+"He was, the thief!" yelled the old woman. "I seen him firsht on the
+hill, cringeing behind a rock, and he hardly able to thrail the tail
+afther him!"
+
+"Run now, like a good girl, and show me where did he cross the fence,"
+said old Robert, puffing and blowing, as with a purple face he hurried
+into the yard to collect the hounds, who, like practised foragers, had
+already overrun the farmhouse, as was evidenced by an indignant and
+shrieking flight of fowls through the open door.
+
+The girl ran, snatching off her red plaid shawl as she went.
+
+"Here's the shpot now!" she called out, flinging the shawl down on the
+fence; "here's the very way just that he wint! Go south to the gap; I'll
+pull the pole out for ye--this is a cross place."
+
+The hunt gratefully accepted her good offices. She tore the monstrous
+shaft of a cart out of a place that with it was impossible, and without
+it was a boggy scramble, and as we began to gallop again, I began to
+think there was a good deal to be said in favour of the New Woman.
+
+I suppose we had had another quarter of an hour, when the mist, that had
+been hanging about all day, came down on us, and it was difficult to see
+more than a field ahead. We had got down on to lower ground, and we were
+in a sort of marshy hollow when we were confronted by the most serious
+obstacle of the day: a tall and obviously rotten bank clothed in briars,
+with sharp stones along its top, a wide ditch in front of it, and a
+disgustingly squashy take-off. Robert Trinder and the yellow horse held
+their course undaunted: the rest of the field turned as one man, and
+went for another way round--I, in my arrogance, followed the Master. The
+yellow horse rose out of the soft ground with quiet, indescribable ease,
+got a foothold on the side of the bank for his hind legs, and was away
+into the next field without pause or mistake.
+
+"Go round, Captain!" shouted Trinder; "it's a bad place!"
+
+I hardly heard him; I was already putting the filly at it for the second
+time. It took about three minutes for her to convince me that she and
+Robert were right, and I was wrong, and by that time everybody was out
+of sight, swallowed up in the mist. I tried round after the others, and
+found their footmarks up a lane and across a field; a loose stone wall
+confronted me, and I rode at it confidently; but the filly, soured by
+our recent encounter, reared and would have none of it. I tried yet
+another way round, and put her at a moderate and seemingly innocuous
+bank, at which, with the contrariety of her sex, she rushed at a
+thousand miles an hour. It looked somehow as if there might be a bit of
+a drop, but the filly had got her beastly blood up, and I have been in a
+better temper myself.
+
+She rose to the jump when she was a good six feet from it. I knew she
+would not put an iron on it, and I sat down for the drop. It came with a
+vengeance. I had a glimpse of a thatched roof below me, and the next
+instant we were on it or in it--I don't know which. It gave way with a
+crash of rafters, the mare's forelegs went in, and I was shot over her
+head, rolled over the edge of the roof, and fell on my face into a
+manure heap. A yell and a pig burst simultaneously from the door, a calf
+followed, and while I struggled up out of my oozy resting-place, I was
+aware of the filly's wild face staring from the door of the shed in
+which she so unexpectedly found herself. The broken reins trailed round
+her legs, she was panting and shivering, and blood was trickling down
+the white blaze on her nose. I got her out through the low doorway with
+a little coaxing, and for a moment hardly dared to examine as to the
+amount of damage done. She was covered with cobwebs and dirt out of the
+roof, and, as I led her forward, she went lame on one foreleg; but
+beyond this, and a good many scratches, there was nothing wrong. My own
+appearance need not here be dilated upon. I was cleaning off what they
+call in Ireland "the biggest of the filth" with a bunch of heather,
+when from a cottage a little bit down the lane in which I was standing a
+small barelegged child emerged. It saw me, uttered one desperate howl,
+and fled back into the house. I abandoned my toilet and led the mare to
+the cottage door.
+
+"Is any one in?" I said to the house at large.
+
+A fresh outburst of yells was the sole response; there was a pattering
+of bare feet, and somewhere in the smoky gloom a door slammed. It was
+clearly a case of "Not at Home" in its conventional sense. I scribbled
+Robert Trinder's name on one of my visiting cards, laid it and half a
+sovereign on a table by the door, and started to make my way home.
+
+The south of Ireland is singularly full of people. I do not believe you
+can go a quarter of a mile on any given road without meeting some one,
+and that some one is sure to be conversationally disposed and glad of
+the chance of answering questions. By dint of asking a good many, I
+eventually found myself on the high road, with five miles between me and
+Lisangle. The mare's lameness had nearly worn off, and she walked beside
+me like a dog. After all, I thought, I had had the best of the day, had
+come safely out of what might have been a nasty business, and was
+supplied with a story on which to dine out for the rest of my life. My
+only anxiety was as to whether I could hope for a bath when I got in--a
+luxury that had been hideously converted by the _locale_ of my fall into
+a necessity. I led the filly in the twilight down the dark Lisangle
+drive, feeling all the complacency of a man who knows he has gone well
+in a strange country, and was just at the turn to the yard when I came
+upon an extraordinary group. All the women of the household were there,
+gathered in a tight circle round some absorbing central fact; all were
+shrieking at the tops of their voices, and the turkey cock in the yard
+gobbled in response to each shriek.
+
+"Ma'am, ma'am!" I heard, "ye'll pull the tail off him!"
+
+"Twisht the tink-an now, Bridgie! Twisht it!"
+
+"Holy Biddy! the masther'll kill us!"
+
+What the deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the
+filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of
+the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss
+Trinder and Bridgie the parlour-maid. Both were seated on the ground
+pulling at the puppy for all they were worth; Miss Trinder had him by
+the back of his neck and his tail, while Bridgie was dragging--what
+_was_ she dragging at? Then I saw that the puppy's head was jammed in a
+narrow-necked tin milk-can, and that, as things were going, he would
+wear it, like the Man in the Iron Mask, for the rest of his life.
+
+The small, grim face of Robert's aunt was scarlet with exertion; her
+black bonnet had slipped off her head, and the thin grey hair that was
+ordinarily wound round her little skull as tightly as cotton on a reel,
+was hanging in scanty wisps from its central knot; nevertheless, she
+was, metaphorically speaking, pulling Bridgie across the line every
+time. I gave the filly to one of the audience, and took Bridgie's place
+at the "tink-an". Miss Trinder and I put our backs into it, and suddenly
+I found myself flat on mine, with the "tink-an" grasped in both hands
+above my head.
+
+A composite whoop of triumph rose from the spectators, and the filly
+rose with it. She went straight up on her hind legs, and the next
+instant she was away across the drive and into the adjoining field, and,
+considering all things, I don't blame her. We all ran after her. I led,
+and the various female retainers strung out after me like a flight of
+wild-duck, uttering cries of various encouragement and consternation.
+Miss Trinder followed, silent and indomitable, at the heel of the hunt,
+and the released puppy, who had also harked in, could be heard throwing
+his tongue in the dusky shrubbery ahead of us. It was all exasperatingly
+absurd, as things seem to have a habit of being in Ireland. I never felt
+more like a fool in my life, and the bitterest part of it was that it
+was all I could do to keep ahead of Bridgie. As for the filly, she
+waited till we got near her, and then she jumped a five-foot coped wall
+into the road, fell, picked herself up, and clattered away into
+darkness. At this point I heard Robert's horn, and sundry confused
+shouts and sounds informed me that the filly had run into the hounds.
+
+She was found next day on the farm where she was bred, fifteen miles
+away. The farmer brought her back to Lisangle. She had injured three
+hounds, upset two old women and a donkey-cart, broken a gate, and
+finally, on arriving at the place of her birth, had, according to the
+farmer, "fired the divil's pelt of a kick into her own mother's
+stomach". Moreover, she "hadn't as much sound skin on her as would bait
+a rat-trap"--I here quote Mr. Trinder--and she had fever in all her
+feet.
+
+Of course I bought her. I could hardly do less. I told Robert he might
+give her to the hounds, but he sent her over to me in a couple of months
+as good as new, and I won the regimental steeplechase cup with her last
+April.
+
+
+
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE
+
+
+Captain "Pat" Naylor, of the --th Dragoons, had the influenza. For three
+days he had lain prostrate, a sodden and aching victim to the universal
+leveller, and an intolerable nuisance to his wife. This last is perhaps
+an over-statement; Mrs. Naylor was in the habit of bearing other
+people's burdens with excellent fortitude, but she felt justly annoyed
+that Captain Pat should knock up before they had fairly settled down in
+their new quarters, and while yet three of the horses were out of sorts
+after the crossing from England.
+
+Pilot, however, was quite fit, a very tranquillising fact, and one that
+Mrs. Pat felt was due to her own good sense in summering him on her
+father's broad pastures in Meath, instead of "lugging him to Aldershot
+with the rest of the string, as Pat wanted to do," as she explained to
+Major Booth. Major Booth shed a friendly grin upon his fallen comrade,
+who lay, a deplorable object, on the horrid velvet-covered sofa peculiar
+to indifferent lodgings, and said vaguely that one of his brutes was
+right anyhow, and he was going to ride him at Carnfother the next day.
+
+"You'd better come too, Mrs. Pat," he added; "and if you'll drive me
+I'll send my chap on with the horses. It's too far to ride. It's
+fourteen Irish miles off; and fourteen Irish miles is just about the
+longest distance I know."
+
+Carnfother is a village in a remote part of the Co. Cork; it possesses a
+small hotel--in Ireland no hostelry, however abject, would demean itself
+by accepting the title of inn--a police barrack, a few minor
+public-houses, a good many dirty cottages, and an unrivalled collection
+of loafers. The stretch of salmon river that gleamed away to the distant
+heathery hills afforded the _raison d'être_ of both hotel and loafers,
+but the fishing season had not begun, and the attention of both was
+therefore undividedly bestowed on Mrs. Naylor and Major Booth. The
+former's cigarette and the somewhat Paradisaic dimensions of her apron
+skirt would indeed at any time have rivalled in interest the landing of
+a 20-lb. fish, and as she strode into the hotel the bystanders'
+ejaculatory piety would have done credit to a revival meeting.
+
+"Well, well, I'll say nothing for her but that she's quare!" said the
+old landlady, hurrying in from her hens to attend to these rarer birds
+whom fortune had sent to her net.
+
+Mrs. Pat's roan cob had attacked and defeated the fourteen Irish miles
+with superfluous zeal, and there were still several minutes before the
+hounds could be reasonably expected on the scene. The soda was bad, the
+whisky was worse. The sound of a riddle came in with the sunshine
+through the open door, and our friends strolled out into the street to
+see what was going on. In the centre of a ring of onlookers an old man
+was playing, and was, moreover, dancing to his own music, and dancing
+with serious, incongruous elegance. Round and round the circle he footed
+it, his long thin legs twinkling in absolute accord with the complicated
+jig that his long thin fingers were ripping out of the cracked and
+raucous fiddle. A very plain, stout young woman, with a heavy red face
+and discordantly golden hair, shuffled round after him in a clumsy
+pretence of dancing, and as the couple faced Mrs. Pat she saw that the
+old man was blind. Steam was rising from his domed bald head, and his
+long black hair danced on his shoulders. His face was pale and strange
+and entirely self-absorbed. Had Mrs. Pat been in the habit of
+instituting romantic parallels between the past and the present she
+might have thought of the priests of Baal who danced in probably just
+such measures round the cromlechs in the hills above Carnfother; as she
+wasn't, she remarked merely that this was all very well, but that the
+old maniac would have to clear out of that before they brought Pilot
+round, or there'd be trouble.
+
+There was trouble, but it did not arise from Pilot, but from the
+yellow-haired woman's pertinacious demands for money from Mrs. Naylor.
+She had the offensive fluency that comes of long practice in alternate
+wheedling and bullying, and although Major Booth had given her a
+shilling she continued to pester Mrs. Pat for a further largesse. But,
+as it happened, Mrs. Pat's purse was in her covert coat in the dog-cart,
+and Mrs. Pat's temper was ever within easy reach, and on being too
+closely pressed for the one she exhibited the other with a decision that
+contracted the ring of bystanders to hear the fun, and loosened the
+yellow-haired woman's language, till unfortunate Major Booth felt that
+if he could get her off the field of battle for a sovereign it would be
+cheap at the price. The old man continued to walk round and round,
+fingering a dumb tune on his fiddle that he did not bow, while the
+sunlight glistened hot and bright in his unwinking eyes; there was a
+faint smile on his lips, he heard as little as he saw; it was evident
+that he was away where "beyond these voices there is peace," in the
+fairy country that his forefathers called the Tir na'n Oge.
+
+At this juncture the note of the horn sounded very sweetly from across
+the shining ford of the river. Hounds and riders came splashing up into
+the village street, the old man and his daughter were hustled to one
+side, and Mrs. Pat's affability returned as she settled her extremely
+smart little person on Pilot's curveting back, and was instantly aware
+that there was nothing present that could touch either of them in looks
+or quality. Carnfother was at the extreme verge of the D---- Hounds'
+country; there were not more than about thirty riders out, and Mrs. Pat
+was not far wrong when she observed to Major Booth that there was not
+much class about them. Of the four or five women who were of the field,
+but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred
+laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection
+with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from
+Royal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel. So she informed
+Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by Pilot for
+conversation.
+
+"All right," responded that gentleman, "you wait until you and that
+ramping brute of yours get up among the stone walls, and you'll be jolly
+glad if she'll call a cab for you and see you taken safe home. I tell
+you what--you won't be able to see the way she goes."
+
+"Rubbish!" said Mrs. Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant
+touch of her heel, Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate
+a series of plunges and bucks as to preclude further discussion.
+
+The first covert--a small wood on the flank of a hill--was blank, and
+the hounds moved on across country to the next draw. It was a land of
+pasture, and in every fence was a deep muddy passage, through which the
+field splashed in single file with the grave stolidity of the cows by
+whom the gaps had been made. Mrs. Pat was feeling horribly bored. Her
+escort had joined himself to two of the ladies of the hunt, and though
+it was gratifying to observe that one wore a paste brooch in her tie and
+the other had an imitation cavalry bit and bridle, with a leather tassel
+hanging from her pony's throat, these things lost their savour when she
+had no one with whom to make merry over them. She had left her
+sandwiches in the dog-cart, her servant had mistaken whisky for sherry
+when he was filling her flask; the day had clouded over, and already one
+brief but furious shower had scourged the curl out of her dark fringe
+and made the reins slippery.
+
+At last, however, a nice-looking gorse covert was reached, and the
+hounds threw themselves into it with promising alacrity. Pilot steadied
+himself, and stood with pricked ears, giving an occasional snatch at his
+bit, and looking, as no one knew better than his rider, the very picture
+of a hunter, while he listened for the first note that should tell of a
+find. He had not long to wait. There came a thin little squeal from the
+middle of the covert, and a hound flung up out of the thicker gorse and
+began to run along a ridge of rock, with head down, and feathering
+stern.
+
+"They've got him, my lady," said a young farmer on a rough
+three-year-old to Mrs. Pat, as he stuffed his pipe in his pocket.
+"That's Patience; we'll have a hunt out o' this."
+
+Then came another and longer squeal as Patience plunged out of sight
+again, and then, as the glowing chorus rose from the half-seen pack, a
+whip, posted on a hillside beyond the covert, raised his cap high in the
+air, and a wild screech that set Pilot dancing from leg to leg broke
+from a country boy who was driving a harrow in the next field: "Ga--aane
+awa--ay!"
+
+Mrs. Pat forgot her annoyances. Her time had come. She would show that
+idiot Booth that Pilot was not to be insulted with impunity, and--But
+here retrospect and intention became alike merged in the present, and in
+the single resolve to get ahead and stay there. Half a dozen of Pilot's
+great reaching strides, and she was in the next field and over the low
+bank without putting an iron on it. The horse with the harrow, deserted
+by his driver, was following the hunt with the best of them, and,
+combining business with pleasure, was, as he went, harrowing the field
+with absurd energy. The Paste Brooch and the Shelburne Porter--so Mrs.
+Pat mentally distinguished them--were sailing along with a good start,
+and Major Booth was close at their heels. The light soil of the tilled
+field flew in every direction as thirty or more horses raced across it,
+and the usual retinue of foot runners raised an ecstatic yell as Mrs.
+Pat forged ahead and sent her big horse over the fence at the end of the
+field in a style that happily combined swagger with knowledge.
+
+The hounds were streaking along over a succession of pasture fields, and
+the cattle gaps which were to be found in every fence vexed the proud
+soul of Mrs. Pat. She was too good a sportswoman to school her horse
+over needless jumps when hounds were running, but it infuriated her to
+have to hustle with these outsiders for her place at a gap. So she
+complained to Major Booth, with a vehemence of adjective that, though it
+may be forgiven to her, need not be set down here.
+
+"Is _all_ the wretched country like this?" she inquired indignantly, as
+the Shelburne Porter's pony splashed ahead of her through a muddy ford,
+just beyond which the hounds had momentarily checked; "you told me to
+bring out a big-jumped horse, and I might have gone the whole hunt on a
+bicycle!"
+
+Major Booth's reply was to point to the hounds. They had cast back to
+the line that they had flashed over, and had begun to run again at
+right angles from the grassy valley down which they had come, up towards
+the heather-clad hills that lay back of Carnfother.
+
+"Say your prayers, Mrs. Pat!" he said, in what Mrs. Pat felt to be a
+gratuitously offensive manner, "and I'll ask the lady in the pretty blue
+habit to have an eye to you. This is a hill fox and he's going to make
+you and Pilot sit up!"
+
+Mrs. Pat was not in a mood to be trifled with, and I again think it
+better to omit her response to this inconvenient jesting. What she did
+was to give Pilot his head, and she presently found herself as near the
+hounds as was necessary, galloping in a line with the huntsman straight
+for a three-foot wall, lightly built of round stones. That her horse
+could refuse to jump it was a possibility that did not so much as enter
+her head; but that he did so was a fact whose stern logic could not be
+gainsaid. She had too firm a seat to be discomposed by the swinging
+plunge with which he turned from it, but her mental balance sustained a
+serious shake. That Pilot, at the head of the hunt should refuse, was a
+thing that struck at the root of her dearest beliefs. She stopped him
+and turned him at the wall again; again he refused, and at the same
+instant Major Booth and the blue habit jumped it side by side.
+
+"What did I tell you!" the former called back, with a laugh that grated
+on Mrs. Pat's ear with a truly fiendish rasp; "do you want a lead?"
+
+The incensed Mrs. Pat once more replied in forcible phraseology, as she
+drove her horse again at the wall. The average Meath horse likes stones
+just about as much as the average Co. Cork horse enjoys water, and the
+train of running men and boys were given the exquisite gratification of
+a contest between Pilot and his rider.
+
+"Howld on, miss, till I knock a few shtones for ye!" volunteered one,
+trying to interpose between Pilot and the wall.
+
+"Get out of the way!" was Mrs. Pat's response to this civility, as she
+crammed her steed at the jump again. The volunteer, amid roars of
+laughter from his friends, saved his life only by dint of undignified
+agility, as the big horse whirled round, rearing and plunging.
+
+"Isn't he the divil painted?" exclaimed another in highest admiration;
+"wait till I give him a couple of slaps of my bawneen, miss!" He dragged
+off his white flannel coat and attacked Pilot in the rear with it, while
+another of the party flung clods of mud vaguely into the battle, and
+another persistently implored the maddened Mrs. Pat to get off and let
+him lead the horse over "before she'd lose her life:" a suggestion that
+has perhaps a more thoroughly exasperating effect than any other on
+occasions such as this.
+
+By the time that Pilot had pawed down half the wall and been induced to
+buck over, or into, what remained of it, Mrs. Pat's temper was
+irretrievably gone, and she was at the heel instead of the head of the
+hunt. Thanks to this position there was bestowed on her the abhorred,
+but not to be declined, advantage of availing herself of the gaps made
+in the next couple of jumps by the other riders; but the stones they had
+kicked down were almost as agitating to Pilot's ruffled nerves as those
+that still remained in position. She found it the last straw that she
+should have to wait for the obsequious runners to tear these out of her
+way, while the galloping backs in front of her grew smaller and smaller,
+and the adulatory condolences of her assistants became more and more
+hard to endure. She literally hurled the shilling at them as she set off
+once more to try to recover her lost ground, and by sheer force of
+passion hustled Pilot over the next broken-down wall without a refusal.
+For she had now got into that stony country whereof Major Booth had
+spoken. Rough heathery fields, ribbed with rocks and sown with grey
+boulders, were all round. The broad salmon river swept sleekly through
+the valley below, among the bland green fields which were as far away
+for all practical purposes as the plains of Paradise. No one who has
+not ridden a stern chase over rough ground on a well-bred horse with his
+temper a bit out of hand will be able at all fitly to sympathise with
+the trials of Mrs. Naylor. The hunt and all that appertained to it had
+sunk out of sight over a rugged hillside, and she had nothing by which
+to steer her course save the hoof-marks in the occasional black and
+boggy intervals between the heathery knolls. No one had ever accused her
+of being short of pluck, and she pressed on her difficult way with the
+utmost gallantry; but short of temper she certainly was, and at each
+succeeding obstacle there ensued a more bitter battle between her and
+her horse. Every here and there a band of crisp upland meadow would give
+the latter a chance, but each such advantage would be squandered in the
+war dance that he indulged in at every wall.
+
+At last the summit of the interminable series of hills was gained, and
+Mrs. Pat scanned the solitudes that surrounded her with wrathful eyes.
+The hounds were lost, as completely swallowed up as ever were Korah,
+Dathan and Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest
+of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their
+course; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass,
+and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she
+set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the
+field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty
+stones, and on the further side there was a wide and boggy drain. It was
+not a nice place, and Pilot thundered down towards it at a pace that
+suited his rider's temper better than her judgment. It was evident, at
+all events, that he did not mean to refuse. Nor did he; he rose out of
+the heavy ground at the wall like a rocketing pheasant, and cleared it
+by more than twice its height; but though he jumped high he did not jump
+wide, and he landed half in and out of the drain, with his forefeet
+clawing at its greasy edge, and his hind legs deep in the black mud.
+
+Mrs. Pat scrambled out of the saddle with the speed of light, and after
+a few momentous seconds, during which it seemed horribly likely that the
+horse would relapse bodily into the drain, his and Mrs. Pat's efforts
+prevailed, and he was standing, trembling, and dripping, on the narrow
+road. She led him on for a few steps; he went sound, and for one
+delusive instant she thought he had escaped damage; then, through the
+black slime on one of his hind legs the red blood began to flow. It came
+from high up inside the off hind leg, above the hock, and it welled ever
+faster and faster, a plaited crimson stream that made his owner's heart
+sink. She dipped her handkerchief in the ditch and cleaned the cut. It
+was deep in the fleshy part of the leg, a gaping wound, inflicted by one
+of those razor slates that hide like sentient enemies in such boggy
+places. It was large enough for her to put her hand in; she held the
+edges together, and the bleeding ceased for an instant; then, as she
+released them, it began again worse than ever. Her handkerchief was as
+inadequate for any practical purpose as ladies' handkerchiefs generally
+are, but an inspiration came to her. She tore off her gloves, and in a
+few seconds the long linen hunting-scarf that had been pinned and tied
+with such skilled labour in the morning was being used as a bandage for
+the wound. But though Mrs. Pat could tie a tie with any man in the
+regiment, she failed badly as a bandager of a less ornamental character.
+The hateful stream continued to pump forth from the cut, incarnadining
+the muddy road, and in despair she took Pilot by the head and began to
+lead him down the hill towards the valley.
+
+Another gusty shower flung itself at her. It struck her bare white neck
+with whips of ice, and though she turned up the collar of her coat, the
+rain ran down under the neckband of her shirt and chilled her through
+and through. It was evident that an artery had been cut in Pilot's leg;
+the flow, from the wound never ceased; the hunting-scarf drenched with
+blood, had slipped down to the hock. It seemed to Mrs. Pat that her
+horse must bleed to death, and, tough and unemotional though she was,
+Pilot was very near her heart; tears gathered in her eyes as she led him
+slowly on through the rain and the loneliness, in the forlorn hope of
+finding help. She progressed in this lamentable manner for perhaps half
+a mile; the rain ceased, and she stopped to try once more to readjust
+the scarf, when, in the stillness that had followed the cessation of the
+rain, she heard a faint and distant sound of music. It drew nearer, a
+thin, shrill twittering, and as Mrs. Pat turned quickly from her task to
+see what this could portend, she heard a woman's voice say harshly:--
+
+"Ah, have done with that thrash of music; sure, it'll be dark night
+itself before we're in to Lismore."
+
+There was something familiar in the coarse tones. The weirdness fell
+from the wail of the music as Mrs. Pat remembered the woman who had
+bothered her for money that morning in Carnfother. She and the blind old
+man were tramping slowly up the road, seemingly as useless a couple to
+any one in Mrs. Pat's plight as could well be imagined.
+
+"How far am I from Carnfother?" she asked, as they drew near to her. "Is
+there any house near here?"
+
+"There is not," said the yellow-haired woman; "and ye're four miles from
+Carnfother yet."
+
+"I'll pay you well if you will take a message there for me--" began Mrs.
+Pat.
+
+"Are ye sure have ye yer purse in yer pocket?" interrupted the
+yellow-haired woman with a laugh that succeeded in being as nasty as she
+wished; "or will I go dancin' down to Carnfother--"
+
+"Have done, Joanna!" said the old man suddenly; "what trouble is on the
+lady? What lamed the horse?"
+
+He turned his bright blind eyes full on Mrs. Pat. They were of the
+curious green blue that is sometimes seen in the eyes of a grey collie,
+and with all Mrs. Pat's dislike and suspicion of the couple, she knew
+that he was blind.
+
+"He was cut in a ditch," she said shortly.
+
+The old man had placed his fiddle in his daughter's hands; his own hands
+were twitching and trembling.
+
+"I feel the blood flowing," he said in a very low voice, and he walked
+up to Pilot.
+
+His hands went unguided to the wound, from which the steady flow of
+blood had never ceased. With one he closed the lips of the cut, while
+with the other he crossed himself three times. His daughter watched him
+stolidly; Mrs. Pat, with a certain alarm, having, after the manner of
+her kind, explained to herself the incomprehensible with the
+all-embracing formula of madness. Yes, she thought, he was undoubtedly
+mad, and as soon as the paroxysm was past she would have another try at
+bribing the woman.
+
+The old man was muttering to himself, still holding the wound in one
+hand. Mrs. Pat could distinguish no words, but it seemed to her that he
+repeated three times what he was saying. Then he straightened himself
+and stroked Pilot's quarter with a light, pitying hand. Mrs. Pat stared.
+The bleeding had ceased. The hunting-scarf lay on the road at the
+horse's empurpled hoof. There was nothing to explain the mystery, but
+the fact remained.
+
+"He'll do now," said the blind man. "Take him on to Carnfother; but
+ye'll want to get five stitches in that to make a good job of it."
+
+"But--I don't understand--" stammered Mrs. Pat, shaken for once out of
+her self-possession by this sudden extension of her spiritual horizon.
+"What have you done? Won't it begin again?" She turned to the woman in
+her bewilderment: "Is--is he mad?"
+
+"For as mad as he is, it's him you may thank for yer horse," answered
+the yellow-haired woman. "Why, Holy Mother! did ye never hear of Kane
+the Blood-Healer?"
+
+[Illustration: THE BLOOD-HEALER.]
+
+The road round them was suddenly thronged with hounds, snuffing at
+Pilot, and pushing between Mrs. Pat and the fence. The cheerful
+familiar sound of the huntsman's voice rating them made her feel her
+feet on solid ground again. In a moment Major Booth was there, the
+Master had dismounted, the habits, loud with sympathy and excitement,
+had gathered round; a Whip was examining the cut, while he spoke to the
+yellow-haired woman.
+
+Mrs. Pat tie-less, her face splashed with mud, her bare hands stained
+with blood, told her story. It is, I think, a point in her favour that
+for a moment she forgot what her appearance must be.
+
+"The horse would have bled to death before the lady got to Carnfother,
+sir," said the Whip to the Master; "it isn't the first time I seen life
+saved by that one. Sure, didn't I see him heal a man that got his leg in
+a mowing machine, and he half-dead, with the blood spouting out of him
+like two rainbows!"
+
+This is not a fairy story. Neither need it be set lightly down as a
+curious coincidence. I know the charm that the old man said. I cannot
+give it here. It will only work successfully if taught by man to woman
+or by woman to man; nor do I pretend to say that it will work for every
+one. I believe it to be a personal and wholly incomprehensible gift, but
+that such a gift has been bestowed, and in more parts of Ireland than
+one, is a bewildering and indisputable fact.
+
+
+
+
+HIGH TEA AT McKEOWN'S
+
+
+"Papa!" said the youngest Miss Purcell, aged eleven, entering the
+drawing-room at Mount Purcell in a high state of indignation and a
+flannel dressing-gown that had descended to her in unbroken line of
+succession from her eldest sister, "isn't it my turn for the foxy mare
+to-morrow? Nora had her at Kilmacabee, and it's a rotten shame--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell here showed signs of the imminence of tears,
+and rooted in the torn pocket of the dressing-gown for the hereditary
+pocket-handkerchief that went with it.
+
+Sir Thomas paused in the act of cutting the end off a long cigar, and
+said briefly:--
+
+"Neither of you'll get her. She's going ploughing the Craughmore."
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell knew as well as her sister Nora that the
+latter had already commandeered the foxy mare, and, with the connivance
+of the cowboy, had concealed her in the cow-house; but her sense of
+tribal honour, stimulated by her sister's threatening eye, withheld her
+from opening this branch of the subject.
+
+"Well, but Johnny Mulcahy won't plough to-morrow because he's going to
+the Donovan child's funeral. Tommy Brien's just told me so, and he'll be
+drunk when he comes back, and to-morrow'll be the first day that Carnage
+and Trumpeter are going out--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell paused, and uttered a loud sob.
+
+"My darling baby," remonstrated Lady Purcell from behind a reading-lamp,
+"you really ought not to run about the stable-yard at this hour of the
+night, or, indeed, at any other time!"
+
+"Baby's always bothering to come out hunting," remarked an elder sister,
+"and you know yourself, mamma, that the last time she came was when she
+stole the postman's pony, and he had to run all the way to Drinagh, and
+you said yourself she was to be kept in the next day for a punishment."
+
+"How ready you are with your punishments! What is it to you if she goes
+out or no?" demanded Sir Thomas, whose temper was always within easy
+reach.
+
+"She can have the cob, Tom," interposed stout and sympathetic Lady
+Purcell, on whom the tears of her youngest born were having their wonted
+effect, "I'll take the donkey chaise if I go out."
+
+"The cob is it?" responded Sir Thomas, in the stalwart brogue in which
+he usually expressed himself. "The cob has a leg on him as big as your
+own since the last day one of them had him out!" The master of the
+house looked round with exceeding disfavour on his eight good-looking
+daughters. "However, I suppose it's as good to be hanged for a sheep as
+a lamb, and if you don't want him--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell swiftly returned her handkerchief to her
+pocket, and left the room before any change of opinion was possible.
+
+Mount Purcell was one of those households that deserve to be subsidised
+by any country neighbourhood in consideration of their unfailing supply
+of topics of conversation. Sir Thomas was a man of old family, of good
+income and of sufficient education, who, while reserving the power of
+comporting himself like a gentleman, preferred as a rule to assimilate
+his demeanour to that of one of his own tenants (with whom, it may be
+mentioned, he was extremely popular). Many young men habitually dined
+out on Sir Thomas's brogue and his unwearying efforts to dispose of his
+eight daughters.
+
+His wife was a handsome, amiable, and by no means unintelligent lady
+upon whose back the eight daughters had ploughed and had left long
+furrows. She was not infrequently spoken of as "that un_for_tunate Lady
+Purcell!" with a greater or less broadening of the accent on the second
+syllable according to the social standard of the speaker. Her tastes
+were comprehended and sympathised with by her gardener, and by the
+clerk at Mudie's who refilled her box. The view taken of her by her
+husband and family was mainly a negative one, and was tinged throughout
+by the facts that she was afraid to drive anything more ambitious than
+the donkey, and had been known to mistake the kennel terrier for a hound
+puppy. She had succeeded in transmitting to her daughters her very
+successful complexion and blue eyes, but her responsibility for them had
+apparently gone no further. The Misses Purcell faced the world and its
+somewhat excessive interest in them with the intrepid _esprit de corps_
+of a square of British infantry, but among themselves they fought, as
+the coachman was wont to say--and no one knew better than the
+coachman--"both bitther an regular, like man and wife!" They ranged in
+age from about five and twenty downwards, sportswomen, warriors, and
+buccaneers, all of them, and it would be difficult to determine whether
+resentment or a certain secret pride bulked the larger in their male
+parent's mind in connection with them.
+
+"Are you going to draw Clashnacrona to-morrow?" asked Muriel, the second
+of the gang (Lady Purcell, it should have been mentioned, had also been
+responsible for her daughters' names), rising from her chair and pouring
+what was left of her after dinner coffee into her saucer, a proceeding
+which caused four pairs of lambent eyes to discover themselves in the
+coiled mat of red setters that occupied the drawing-room hearthrug.
+
+"No, I am not," said Sir Thomas, "and, what's more, I'm coming in early.
+I'm a fool to go hunting at all at this time o' year, with half the
+potatoes not out of the ground." He rose, and using the toe of his boot
+as the coulter of a plough, made a way for himself among the dogs to the
+centre of the hearthrug. "Be hanged to these dogs! I declare I don't
+know am I more plagued with dogs or daughters! Lucy!"
+
+Lady Purcell dutifully disinterred her attention from a catalogue of
+Dutch bulbs.
+
+"When I get in to-morrow I'll go call on that Local Government Board
+Inspector who's staying in Drinagh. They tell me he's a very nice fellow
+and he's rolling in money. I daresay I'll ask him to dinner. He was in
+the army one time, I believe. They often give these jobs to soldiers. If
+any of you girls come across him," he continued, bending his fierce
+eyebrows upon his family, "I'll trouble you to be civil to him and show
+him none of your infernal airs because he happens to be an Englishman! I
+hear he's bicycling all over the country and he might come out to see
+the hounds."
+
+Rosamund, the eldest, delivered herself of an almost imperceptible wink
+in the direction of Violet, the third of the party. Sir Thomas's
+diplomacies were thoroughly appreciated by his offspring. "It's time
+some of you were cleared out from under my feet!" he told them.
+Nevertheless when, some four or five years before, a subaltern of
+Engineers engaged on the Government survey of Ireland had laid his
+career, plus fifty pounds per annum and some impalpable expectations, at
+the feet of Muriel, the clearance effected by Sir Thomas had been that
+of Lieutenant Aubrey Hamilton. "Is it marry one of my daughters to that
+penniless pup!" he had said to Lady Purcell, whose sympathies had, as
+usual, been on the side of the detrimental. "Upon my honour, Lucy,
+you're a bigger fool than I thought you--and that's saying a good deal!"
+
+It was near the beginning of September, and but a sleepy half dozen or
+so of riders had turned out to meet the hounds the following morning, at
+Liss Cranny Wood. There had been rain during the night and, though it
+had ceased, a wild wet wind was blowing hard from the north-west. The
+yellowing beech trees twisted and swung their grey arms in the gale.
+Hats flew down the wind like driven grouse; Sir Thomas's voice, in the
+middle of the covert, came to the riders assembled at the cross roads on
+the outskirts of the wood in gusts, fitful indeed, but not so fitful
+that Nora, on the distrained foxy mare, was not able to gauge to a
+nicety the state of his temper. From the fact of her unostentatious
+position in the rear it might safely be concluded that it, like the
+wind, was still rising. The riders huddled together in the lee of the
+trees, their various elements fused in the crucible of Sir Thomas's
+wrath into a compact and anxious mass. There had been an unusually large
+entry of puppies that season, and Sir Thomas's temper, never at its best
+on a morning of cubbing, was making exhaustive demands on his stock of
+expletives. Rabbits were flying about in every direction, each with a
+shrieking puppy or two in its wake. Jerry, the Whip, was galloping
+_ventre à terre_ along the road in the vain endeavour to overtake a
+couple in headlong flight to the farm where they had spent their happier
+earlier days. At the other side of the wood the Master was blowing
+himself into apoplexy in the attempt to recall half a dozen who were
+away in full cry after a cur-dog, and a zealous member of the hunt
+looked as if he were playing polo with another puppy that doubled and
+dodged to evade the lash and the duty of getting to covert. Hither and
+thither among the beech trees went that selection from the Master's
+family circle, exclusive of the furtive Nora, that had on this occasion
+taken the field. It was a tradition in the country that there were never
+fewer than four Miss Purcells out, and that no individual Miss Purcell
+had more than three days' hunting in the season. Whatever may have been
+the truth of this, the companion legend that each Miss Purcell slept
+with two hound puppies in her bed was plausibly upheld by the devotion
+with which the latter clung to the heels of their nurses.
+
+In the midst of these scenes of disorder an old fox rightly judging that
+this was no place for him, slid out of the covert, and crossed the road
+just in front of where Nora, in a blue serge skirt and a red
+Tam-o'-Shanter cap, lurked on the foxy mare. Close after him came four
+or five couple of old hounds, and, prominent among her elders, yelped
+the puppy that had been Nora's special charge. This was not cubbing, and
+no one knew it better than Nora; but the sight of Carnage among the
+prophets--Carnage, whose noblest quarry hitherto had been the Mount
+Purcell turkey-cock--overthrew her scruples. The foxy mare, a ponderous
+creature, with a mane like a Nubian lion and a mouth like steel,
+required nearly as much room to turn in as a man-of-war, and while Nora,
+by vigorous use of her heel and a reliable ash plant, was getting her
+head round, her sister Muriel, on a raw-boned well-bred colt--Sir
+Thomas, as he said, made the best of a bad job, and utilised his
+daughters as roughriders--shot past her down the leafy road, closely
+followed by a stranger on a weedy bay horse, which Nora instantly
+recognised as the solitary hireling of the; neighbourhood.
+
+Through the belt of wood and out into the open country went the five
+couple, and after them went Muriel, Nora and the strange man. There had
+been an instant when the colt had thought that it seemed a pity to leave
+the road, but, none the less, he had the next instant found himself in
+the air, a considerable distance above a low stone wall, with a tingling
+streak across his ribs, and a bewildering sensation of having been
+hustled. The field in which he alighted was a sloping one and he ramped
+down it very enjoyably to himself, with all the weight of his sixteen
+hands and a half concentrated in his head, when suddenly a tall grassy
+bank confronted him, with, as he perceived with horror, a ditch in front
+of it. He tried to swerve, but there seemed something irrevocable about
+the way in which the bank faced him, and if his method of "changing
+feet" was not strictly conventional, he achieved the main point and
+found all four safely under him when he landed, which was as much--if
+not more than as much--as either he or Muriel expected. The Miss
+Purcells were a practical people, and were thankful for minor mercies.
+
+It was at about this point that the stranger on the hireling drew level;
+he had not been at the meet, and Muriel turned her head to see who it
+was that was kicking old McConnell's screw along so well. He lifted his
+cap, but he was certainly a stranger. She saw a discreetly clipped and
+pointed brown beard, with a rather long and curling moustache.
+
+"Fed on furze!" thought Muriel, with a remembrance of the foxy mare's
+upper lip when she came in "off the hill".
+
+Then she met the strange man's eyes--was he quite a stranger? What was
+it about the greeny-grey gleam of them that made her heart give a
+curious lift, and then sent the colour running from it to her face and
+back again to her heart?
+
+"I thought you were going to cut me--Muriel!" said the strange man.
+
+In the meantime the five couple and Carnage were screaming down the
+heathery side of Liss Cranny Hill, on a scent that was a real comfort to
+them after nearly five miserable months of kennels and road-work, and a
+glorious wind under their sterns. Jerry, the Whip, was riding like a
+madman to stop them; they knew that well, and went the faster for it.
+Sir Thomas was blowing his horn inside out. But Jerry was four fields
+behind, and Sir Thomas was on the wrong side of the wood, and Miss
+Muriel and the strange gentleman were coming on for all they were worth,
+and were as obviously bent on having a good time as they were. Carnage
+flung up her handsome head and squealed with pure joy, as she pitched
+herself over the big bounds fence at the foot of the hill, and flopped
+across the squashy ditch on the far side. There was grass under her now,
+beautiful firm dairy grass, and that entrancing perfume was lying on it
+as thick as butter--Oh! it was well to be hunting! thought Carnage, with
+another most childish shriek, legging it after her father and mother and
+several other blood relations in a way that did Muriel's heart good to
+see.
+
+The fox, as good luck would have it, had chosen the very pick of Sir
+Thomas's country, and Muriel and the stranger had it all to themselves.
+She looked over her shoulder. Away back in a half-dug potato field Nora
+and a knot of labourers were engaged in bitter conflict with the foxy
+mare on the subject of a bank with a rivulet in front of it. To refuse
+to jump running water had been from girlhood the resolve of the foxy
+mare; it was plain that neither Nora's ash plant, nor the stalks of
+rag-wort, torn from the potato ridges, with which the countrymen
+flagellated her from behind, were likely to make her change her mind.
+Farther back still were a few specks, motionless apparently, but
+representing, as Muriel was well aware, the speeding indignant forms of
+those Miss Purcells who had got left. As for Sir Thomas--well, it was no
+good going to meet the devil half-way! was the filial reflection; of
+Sir Thomas's second daughter, as, with a clatter of stones, she and the
+colt dropped into a road, and charged on over the bank on the other
+side, the colt leaving a hind leg behind him in it, and sending thereby
+a clod of earth flying into the stranger's face. The stranger only
+laughed, and catching hold of the much enduring hireling he drove him
+level with the colt, and lifted him over the ensuing bank and gripe in a
+way subsequently described by Jerry as having "covered acres".
+
+But the old fox's hitherto straight neck was getting a twist in it.
+Possibly he had summered himself rather too well, and found himself a
+little short of training for the point that he had first fixed on. At
+all events, he swung steadily round, and headed for the lower end of the
+long belt of Liss Cranny Wood; and, as he and his pursuers so headed,
+Retributive Justice, mounted on a large brown horse, very red in the
+face, and followed by a string of hounds and daughters, galloped
+steadily toward the returning sinners.
+
+It is probably superfluous to reproduce for sporting readers the exact
+terms in which an infuriated master of hounds reproves an erring flock.
+Sir Thomas, even under ordinary circumstances, had a stirring gift of
+invective. It was currently reported that after each day's hunting Lady
+Purcell made a house-to-house visitation of conciliation to all
+subscribers of five pounds and upwards. On this occasion the Master,
+having ordered his two daughters home without an instant's delay,
+proceeded to a satiric appreciation of the situation at large and in
+detail, with general reflections as to the advantage to tailors of
+sticking to their own trade, and direct references of so pointed a
+character to the mental abilities of the third delinquent, that that
+gentleman's self-control became unequal to further strain, and he also
+retired abruptly from the scene.
+
+Nora and Muriel meanwhile pursued their humbled, but unrepentant, way
+home. It was blowing as hard as ever. Muriel's hair had only been saved
+from complete overthrow by two hair-pins yielded, with pelican-like
+devotion, by a sister. Nora had lost the Tam-o'-Shanter, and had torn
+her blue serge skirt. The foxy mare had cast a shoe, and the colt was
+unaffectedly done.
+
+"He's mad for a drink!" said Muriel, as he strained towards the side of
+the bog road, against which the waters of a small lake, swollen by the
+recent rains, were washing in little waves under the lash of the
+wind--"I think I'll let him just wet his mouth."
+
+She slackened the reins, and the thirsty colt eagerly thrust his muzzle
+into the water. As he did so he took another forward step, and
+instantly, with a terrific splash, he and his rider were floundering in
+brown water up to his withers in the ditch below the submerged edge of
+the road. To Muriel's credit it, must be said that she bore this
+unlooked-for immersion with the nerve of a Baptist convert. In a second
+she had pulled the colt round parallel with the bank, and in another she
+had hurled herself from the saddle and was dragging herself, like a
+wounded otter, up on to the level of the road.
+
+"Well you've done it now, Muriel!" said Nora dispassionately. "How
+pleased Sir Thomas will be when the colt begins to cough to-morrow
+morning! He's bound to catch cold out of this. Look out! Here's that man
+that went the run with us. I'd try and wipe some of the mud off my face
+if I were you!"
+
+A younger sister of fifteen is not apt to err on the side of over
+sympathy, but the deficiencies of Nora were more than made up for by the
+solicitude of the stranger with the pointed beard. He hauled the colt
+from his watery nest, he dried him down with handfuls of rushes, he
+wiped the saddle with his own beautiful silk pocket-handkerchief. For a
+stranger he displayed--so it struck Nora--a surprising knowledge of the
+locality. He pointed out that Mount Purcell was seven miles away, and
+that the village of Drinagh, where he was putting up--("Oho! so he's the
+inspector Sir Thomas was going to be so civil to!" thought the younger
+Miss Purcell with an inward grin)--was only two or three miles away.
+
+"You know, Nora," said Muriel with an unusually conciliatory manner, "it
+isn't at all out of our way, and the colt _ought_ to get a proper rub
+down and a hot drink."
+
+"I should have thought he'd had about as much to drink as he wanted, hot
+or cold!" said Nora.
+
+But Nora had not been a younger sister for fifteen years for nothing,
+and it was for Drinagh that the party steered their course.
+
+Their arrival stirred McKeown's Hotel (so-called) to its depths. Destiny
+had decreed that Mrs. McKeown, being, as she expressed it, "an epicure
+about boots," should choose this day of all others to go to "town" to
+buy herself a pair, leaving the direction of the hotel in the hands of
+her husband, a person of minor importance, and of Mary Ann Whooly, a
+grey-haired kitchen-maid, who milked the cows and made the beds, and at
+a distance in the back-yard was scarcely distinguishable from the
+surrounding heaps of manure.
+
+[Illustration: "THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID."]
+
+The Inspector's hospitality knew no limits, and failed to recognise that
+those of McKeown's Hotel were somewhat circumscribed. He ordered hot
+whisky and water, mutton chops, dry clothes for Miss Purcell, fires,
+tea, buttered toast, poached eggs and other delicacies simultaneously
+and immediately, and the voice of Mary Ann Whooly imploring Heaven's
+help for herself and its vengeance upon her inadequate assistants was
+heard far in the streets of Drinagh.
+
+"Sure herself" (herself was Mrs. McKeown) "has her box locked agin me,
+and I've no clothes but what's on me!" she protested, producing after a
+long interval a large brown shawl and a sallow-complexioned blanket,
+"but the Captain's after sending these. Faith, they'll do ye grand!
+Arrah, why not, asthore! Sure he'll never look at ye!"
+
+These consisted of a long covert coat, a still longer pair of yellow
+knitted stockings, and a pair of pumps.
+
+"Sure they're the only best we have," continued Mary Ann Whooly,
+pooling, as it were, her wardrobe with that of the lodger. "God's will
+must be, Miss Muriel, my darlin' gerr'l!"
+
+It says a good deal for the skill of Nora as a tire-woman that her
+sister's appearance ten minutes afterwards was open to no reproach, save
+possibly that of eccentricity, and the Inspector's gaze--which struck
+the tire-woman as being of a singularly enamoured character for so brief
+an acquaintance--was so firmly fixed upon her sister's countenance that
+nothing else seemed to signify. It was by this time past two o'clock,
+and the repast, which arrived in successive relays, had, at all events,
+the merit of || combining the leading features of breakfast, lunch and
+afternoon tea in one remarkable procession, Julia Connolly, having
+inaugurated the entertainment with tumblers of dark brown steaming
+whisky and water, was impelled from strength to strength by her growing
+sense of the greatness of the occasion, and it would be hard to say
+whether the younger Miss Purcell was more gratified by the mound of
+feather-light pancakes which followed on the tea and buttered toast, or
+by the almost cringing politeness of her elder sister.
+
+"How civil she is!" thought Nora scornfully; "for all she's so civil
+she'll have to lend me her saddle next week, or I'll tell them the whole
+story!" (Them meant the sisterhood.) "I bet he was holding her hand just
+before the pancakes came in!"
+
+At about this time Lady Purcell, pursuing her peaceful way home in her
+donkey chaise, was startled by the sound of neighing and by the rattle
+of galloping hoofs behind her, and her consternation may be imagined
+when the foxy mare and the colt, saddled but riderless, suddenly ranged
+up one on either side of her chaise. Having stopped themselves with one
+or two prodigious bounds that sent the mud flying in every direction,
+they proceeded to lively demonstrations of friendship towards the
+donkey, which that respectable animal received very symptom of
+annoyance. Lady Purcell had never in her life succeeded in knowing one
+horse from another, and what horses these were she had not the faintest
+idea; but the side saddles were suggestive of her Amazon brood; she
+perceived that one of the horses had been under water, and by the time
+she had arrived at her own hall door, with the couple still in close
+attendance upon her, anxiety as to the fate of her daughters and
+exhaustion from much scourging of the donkey, upon whom the heavy
+coquetries of the foxy mare had had a most souring effect, rendered the
+poor lady but just capable of asking if Sir Thomas had returned.
+
+"He is, my Lady, but he's just after going down to the farm, and he's
+going on to call on the English gentleman that's at Mrs. McKeown's."
+
+"And the young ladies?" gasped Lady Purcell.
+
+The answer suited with her fears. Lady Purcell was not wont to take the
+initiative, still less one of her husband's horses, without his
+approval; but the thought of the saturated side-saddle lent her
+decision, and as soon as a horse and trap could be got ready she set
+forth for Drinagh.
+
+It need not for a moment be feared that such experienced campaigners as
+the Misses Muriel and Nora Purcell had forgotten that their father had
+settled to call upon their temporary host, what time the business of the
+morning should be ended, or that they had not arranged a sound scheme
+of retirement, but when the news was brought to them that during the
+absence of the stable-boy--"to borrow a half score of eggs and a lemon
+for pancakes," it was explained--their horses had broken forth from the
+cowshed and disappeared, it may be admitted that even their stout hearts
+quailed.
+
+"Oh, it will be all right!" the Inspector assured them, with the easy
+optimism of the looker-on in domestic tragedy; "your father will see
+there was nothing else for you to do."
+
+"That's all jolly fine," returned Nora, "but _I'm_ going out to borrow
+Casey's car" (Casey was the butcher), "and I'll just tell old Mary Ann
+to keep a sharp look out for Sir Thomas, and give us warning in time."
+
+It is superfluous to this simple tale to narrate the conversation that
+befel on the departure of Nora. It was chiefly of a retrospective
+character, with disquisitions on such abstractions as the consolations
+that sometimes follow on the loss of a wealthy great-aunt, the
+difficulties of shaving with a "tennis elbow," the unchanging quality of
+certain emotions. This later topic was still under discussion when Nora
+burst into the room.
+
+"Here's Sir Thomas!" she panted. "Muriel, fly! There's no time to get
+downstairs, but Mary Ann Whooly said we could go into the room off this
+sitting-room till he's gone."
+
+Flight is hardly the term to be applied to the second Miss Purcell's
+retreat, and it says a good deal for the Inspector's mental collapse
+that he saw nothing ludicrous in her retreating back, clad as it was in
+his own covert coat, with a blanket like the garment of an Indian brave
+trailing beneath it. Nora tore open a door near the fireplace, and
+revealed a tiny room containing a table, a broken chair, and a heap of
+feathers near an old feather bed on the floor.
+
+"Get in, Muriel!" she cried.
+
+They got in, and as the door closed on them Sir Thomas entered the room.
+
+During the morning the identity of the stranger on whom he had poured
+the vials of his wrath, with the Local Government Board Inspector whom
+he was prepared to be delighted to honour, had been brought home to Sir
+Thomas, and nothing could have been more handsome and complete than the
+apology that he now tendered. He generously admitted the temptation
+endured in seeing hounds get away with a good fox on a day devoted to
+cubbing, and even went so far as to suggest that possibly Captain
+Clarke--
+
+"Hamilton-Clarke," said the Inspector.
+
+"Had ridden so hard in order to stop them."
+
+"Er--quite so," said the Inspector.
+
+Something caused the dressing-room door to rattle, and Captain
+Hamilton-Clarke grew rather red.
+
+"My wife and I hope," continued Sir Thomas, urbanely, "that you will
+come over to dine with us to-morrow evening, or possibly to-night."
+
+He stopped. A trap drove rapidly up to the door, and Lady Purcell's
+voice was heard agitatedly inquiring "if Miss Muriel and Miss Nora were
+there? Casey had just told her--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost.
+
+"Why, that _is_ my wife!" said Sir Thomas. "What the deuce does she want
+here?"
+
+A strange sound came from behind the door of the dressing-room:
+something between a stifled cry and a laugh. The Inspector's ears became
+as red as blood. Then from within there was heard a sort of rush, and
+something fell against the door. There followed a wholly uncontrolled
+yell and a crash, and the door was burst open.
+
+It has, I think, been mentioned that in the corner of the dressing-room
+in which the Misses Purcell had taken refuge there was on the floor the
+remains of a feather bed. The feathers had come out through a ragged
+hole in one corner of it; Nora, in the shock of hearing of Lady
+Purcell's arrival, trod on the corner of the bed and squeezed more of
+the feathers out of it. A gush of fluff was the result, followed by a
+curious and unaccountable movement in the bed, and then from the hole
+there came forth a corpulent and very mangy old rat. Its face was grey
+and scaly, and horrid pink patches adorned its fat person. It gave one
+beady glance at Nora, and proceeded with hideous composure to lope
+heavily across the floor towards the hole in the wall by which it had at
+some bygone time entered the room. But the hole had been nailed up, and
+as the rat turned to seek another way of escape the chair upon which
+Muriel had incontinently sprung broke down, depositing her and her
+voluminous draperies on top of the rat.
+
+I cannot feel that Miss Purcell is to be blamed that at this moment all
+power of self-control, of reason almost, forsook her. Regardless of
+every other consideration, she snatched the blankets and the covert-coat
+skirts into one massive handful, and with, as has been indicated, a yell
+of housemaid stridency, flung herself against the door and dashed into
+the sitting-room, closely followed by Nora, and rather less closely by
+the rat. The latter alone retained its presence of mind, and without an
+instant's delay hurried across the room and retired by the half-open
+door. Immediately from the narrow staircase there arose a series of
+those acclaims that usually attend the progress of royalty, and, in
+even an intenser degree, of rats. There came a masculine shout, a shrill
+and ladylike scream, a howl from Mary Ann Whooly, accompanied by the
+clang and rattle of a falling coal box, and then Lady Purcell, pale and
+breathless, appeared at the doorway of the sitting-room.
+
+"Sure the young ladies isn't in the house at all, your ladyship!" cried
+the pursuing voice of Mary Ann Whooly, faithful, even at this supreme
+crisis, to a lost cause.
+
+Lady Purcell heard her not. She was aware only of her daughter Muriel,
+attired like a scarecrow in a cold climate, and of the attendant fact
+that the arm of the Local Government Board Inspector was encircling
+Muriel's waist, as far as circumstances and a brown woollen shawl would
+permit. Nora, leaning half-way out of the window, was calling at the top
+of her voice for Sir Thomas's terrier; Sir Thomas was very loudly saying
+nothing in particular, much as an angry elderly dog barks into the
+night. Lady Purcell wildly concluded that the party was rehearsing a
+charade--the last scene of a very vulgar charade.
+
+"Muriel!" she exclaimed, "_what_ have you got on you? And who--" She
+paused and stared at the Inspector. "Good gracious!" she cried, "why,
+it's Aubrey Hamilton!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BAGMAN'S PONY
+
+
+When the regiment was at Delhi, a T.G. was sent to us from the 105th
+Lancers, a bagman, as they call that sort of globe-trotting fellow that
+knocks about from one place to another, and takes all the fun he can out
+of it at other people's expense. Scott in the 105th gave this bagman a
+letter of introduction to me, told me that he was bringing down a horse
+to run at the Delhi races; so, as a matter of course, I asked him to
+stop with me for the week. It was a regular understood thing in India
+then, this passing on the T.G. from one place to another; sometimes he
+was all right, and sometimes he was a good deal the reverse--in any
+case, you were bound to be hospitable, and afterwards you could, if you
+liked, tell the man that sent him that you didn't want any more from
+him.
+
+The bagman arrived in due course, with a rum-looking roan horse, called
+the "Doctor"; a very good horse, too, but not quite so good as the
+bagman gave out that he was. He brought along his own grass-cutter with
+him, as one generally does in India, and the grass-cutter's pony, a sort
+of animal people get because he can carry two or three more of these
+beastly clods of grass they dig up for horses than a man can, and
+without much regard to other qualities. The bagman seemed a decentish
+sort of chap in his way, but, my word! he did put his foot in it the
+first night at mess; by George, he did! There was somehow an idea that
+he belonged to a wine merchant business in England, and the Colonel
+thought we'd better open our best cellar for the occasion, and so we
+did; even got out the old Madeira, and told the usual story about the
+number of times it had been round the Cape. The bagman took everything
+that came his way, and held his tongue about it, which was rather
+damping. At last, when it came to dessert and the Madeira, Carew, one of
+our fellows, couldn't stand it any longer--after all, it _is_
+aggravating if a man won't praise your best wine, no matter how little
+you care about his opinion, and the bagman was supposed to be a
+_connoisseur_.
+
+"Not a bad glass of wine that," says Carew to him; "what do you think of
+it?"
+
+"Not bad," says the bagman, sipping it, "Think I'll show you something
+better in this line if you'll come and dine with me in London when
+you're home next."
+
+"Thanks," says Carew, getting as red as his own jacket, and beginning to
+splutter--he always did when he got angry--"this is good enough for me,
+and for most people here--"
+
+"Oh, but nobody up here has got a palate left," says the bagman,
+laughing in a very superior sort of way.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" shouted Carew, jumping up. "I'll not have any
+d----d bagmen coming here to insult me!"
+
+By George, if you'll believe me, Carew had a false palate, with a little
+bit of sponge in the middle, and we all knew it, _except the bagman_.
+There was a frightful shindy, Carew wanting to have his blood, and all
+the rest of us trying to prevent a row. We succeeded somehow in the end,
+I don't quite know how we managed it, as the bagman was very warlike
+too; but, anyhow, when I was going to bed that night I saw them both in
+the billiard room, very tight, leaning up against opposite ends of the
+billiard table, and making shoves at the balls--with the wrong ends of
+their cues, fortunately.
+
+"He called me a d----d bagman," says one, nearly tumbling down with
+laughing.
+
+"Told me I'd no palate," says the other, putting his head down on the
+table and giggling away there "best thing I ever heard in my life."
+
+Every one was as good friends as possible next day at the races, and for
+the whole week as well. Unfortunately for the bagman his horse didn't
+pull off things in the way he expected, in fact he hadn't a look in--we
+just killed him from first to last. As things went on the bagman began
+to look queer and by the end of the week he stood to lose a pretty
+considerable lot of money, nearly all of it to me. The way we arranged
+these matters then was a general settling-up day after the races were
+over; every one squared up his books and planked ready money down on the
+nail, or if he hadn't got it he went and borrowed from some one else to
+do it with. The bagman paid up what he owed the others, and I began to
+feel a bit sorry for the fellow when he came to me that night to finish
+up. He hummed and hawed a bit, and then asked if I should mind taking an
+I.O.U. from him, as he was run out of the ready.
+
+Of course I said, "All right, old man, certainly, just the same to me,"
+though it's usual in such cases to put down the hard cash, but
+still--fellow staying in my house, you know--sent on by this pal of mine
+in the 11th--absolutely nothing else to be done.
+
+Next morning I was up and out on parade as usual, and in the natural
+course of events began to look about for my bagman. By George, not a
+sign of him in his room, not a sign of him anywhere. I thought to
+myself, this is peculiar, and I went over to the stable to try whether
+there was anything to be heard of him.
+
+The first thing I saw was that the "Doctor's" stall was empty.
+
+"How's this?" I said to the groom; "where's Mr. Leggett's horse?"
+
+"The sahib has taken him away this morning."
+
+I began to have some notion then of what my I.O.U. was worth.
+
+"The sahib has left his grass-cutter and his pony," said the _sais_, who
+probably had as good a notion of what was up as I had.
+
+"All right, send for the grass-cutter," I said.
+
+The fellow came up, in a blue funk evidently, and I couldn't make
+anything of him. Sahib this, and sahib that, and salaaming and general
+idiotcy--or shamming--I couldn't tell which. I didn't know a nigger then
+as well as I do now.
+
+"This is a very fishy business," I thought to myself, "and I think it's
+well on the cards the grass-cutter will be out of this to-night on his
+pony. No, by Jove, I'll see what the pony's good for before he does
+that. Is the grass-cutter's pony there?" I said to the _sais_.
+
+"He is there, sahib, but he is only a _kattiawa tattoo_," which is the
+name for a common kind of mountain pony.
+
+I had him out, and he certainly was a wretched-looking little brute, dun
+with a black stripe down his back, like all that breed, and all bony and
+ragged and starved.
+
+"Indeed, he is a _gareeb kuch kam ki nahin_," said the _sais_, meaning
+thereby a miserable beast, in the most intensified form, "and not fit to
+stand in the sahib's stable."
+
+All the same, just for the fun of the thing, I put the grass-cutter up
+on him, and told him to trot him up and down. By George! the pony went
+like a flash of lightning! I had him galloped next; same thing--fellow
+could hardly hold him. I opened my eyes, I can tell you, but no matter
+what way I looked at him I couldn't see where on earth he got his pace
+from. It was there anyhow, there wasn't a doubt about that. "That'll
+do," I said, "put him up. And you just stay here," I said to the
+grass-cutter; "till I hear from Mr. Leggett where you're to go to. Don't
+leave Delhi till you get orders from me."
+
+It got about during the day that the bagman had disappeared, and had had
+a soft thing of it as far as I was concerned. The 112th were dining with
+us that night, and they all set to work to draw me after dinner about
+the business--thought themselves vastly witty over it.
+
+"Hullo Paddy, so you're the girl he left behind him!" "Hear he went off
+with two suits of your clothes, one over the other." "Cheer up, old man;
+he's left you the grass-cutter and the pony, and what _he_ leaves must
+be worth having, I'll bet!" and so on.
+
+I suppose I'd had a good deal more than my share of the champagne, but
+all of a sudden I began to feel pretty warm.
+
+"You're all d----d funny," I said, "but I daresay you'll find he's left
+me something that _is_ worth having."
+
+"Oh, yes!" "Go on!" "Paddy's a great man when he's drunk," and a lot
+more of the same sort.
+
+"I tell you what it is," said I, "I'll back the pony he's left here to
+trot his twelve miles an hour on the road."
+
+"Bosh!" says Barclay of the 112th. "I've seen him, and I'll lay you a
+thousand rupees even he doesn't."
+
+"Done!" said I, whacking my hand down on the table.
+
+"And I'll lay another thousand," says another fellow.
+
+"Done with you too," said I.
+
+Every one began to stare a bit then.
+
+"Go to bed, Paddy," says the Colonel, "you're making an exhibition of
+yourself."
+
+"Thank you, sir; I know pretty well what I'm talking about," said I;
+but, by George, I began privately to think I'd better pull myself
+together a bit, and I got out my book and began to hedge--laid three to
+one on the pony to do eleven miles in the hour, and four to one on him
+to do ten--all the fellows delighted to get their money on. I was to
+choose my own ground, and to have a fortnight to train the pony, and by
+the time I went to bed I stood to lose about £1,000.
+
+Somehow in the morning I didn't feel quite so cheery about things--one
+doesn't after a big night--one gets nasty qualms, both mental and the
+other kind. I went out to look after the pony, and the first thing I saw
+by way of an appetiser was Biddy, with a face as long as my arm. Biddy,
+I should explain, was a chap called Biddulph, in the Artillery; they
+called him Biddy for short, and partly, too, because he kept a racing
+stable with me in those days, I being called Paddy by every one, because
+I was Irish--English idea of wit--Paddy and Biddy, you see.
+
+"Well," said he, "I hear you've about gone and done it this time. The
+112th are going about with trumpets and shawms, and looking round for
+ways to spend that thousand when they get it. There are to be new polo
+ponies, a big luncheon, and a piece of plate bought for the mess, in
+memory of that benefactor of the regiment, the departed bagman. Well,
+now, let's see the pony. That's what I've come down for."
+
+I'm hanged if the brute didn't look more vulgar and wretched than ever
+when he was brought out, and I began to feel that perhaps I was more
+parts of a fool than I thought I was. Biddy stood looking at him there
+with his under-lip stuck out.
+
+"I think you've lost your money," he said. That was all, but the way he
+said it made me feel conscious of the shortcomings of every hair in the
+brute's ugly hide.
+
+"Wait a bit," I said, "you haven't seen him going yet. I think he has
+the heels of any pony in the place."
+
+I got a boy on to him without any more ado, thinking to myself I was
+going to astonish Biddy. "You just get out of his way, that's all," says
+I, standing back to let him start.
+
+If you'll believe it, he wouldn't budge a foot!--not an inch--no amount
+of licking had any effect on him. He just humped his back, and tossed
+his head and grunted--he must have had a skin as thick as three donkeys!
+I got on to him myself and put the spurs in, and he went up on his hind
+legs and nearly came back with me--that was all the good I got of that.
+
+"Where's the grass-cutter," I shouted, jumping off him in about as great
+a fury as I ever was in. "I suppose _he_ knows how to make this devil
+go!"
+
+"Grass-cutter went away last night, sahib. Me see him try to open stable
+door and go away. Me see him no more."
+
+I used pretty well all the bad language I knew in one blast. Biddy
+began to walk away, laughin till I felt as if I could kick him.
+
+"I'm going to have a front seat for this trotting match," he said,
+stopping to get his wind. "Spectators along the route requested to
+provide themselves with pitchforks and fireworks, I suppose, in case the
+champion pony should show any of his engaging little temper. Never mind,
+old man, I'll see you through this, there's no use in getting into a wax
+about it. I'm going shares with you, the way we always do."
+
+I can't say I responded graciously, I rather think I cursed him and
+everything else in heaps. When he was gone I began to think of what
+could be done.
+
+"Get out the dog-cart," I said, as a last chance. "Perhaps he'll go in
+harness."
+
+We wheeled the cart up to him, got him harnessed to it, and in two
+minutes that pony was walking, trotting, anything I wanted--can't
+explain why--one of the mysteries of horseflesh. I drove him out through
+the Cashmere Gate, passing Biddy on the way, and feeling a good deal the
+better for it, and as soon as I got on to the flat stretch of road
+outside the gate I tried what the pony could do. He went even better
+than I thought he could, very rough and uneven, of course, but still
+promising. I brought him home, and had him put into training at once, as
+carefully as if he was going for the Derby. I chose the course, took
+the six-mile stretch of road from the Cashmere gate to Sufter Jung's
+tomb, and drove him over it every day. It was a splendid course--level
+as a table, and dead straight for the most part--and after a few days he
+could do it in about forty minutes out and thirty-five back. People
+began to talk then, especially as the pony's look and shape were
+improving each day, and after a little time every one was planking his
+money on one way or another--Biddy putting on a thousand on his own
+account--still, I'm bound to say the odds were against the pony. The
+whole of Delhi got into a state of excitement about it, natives and all,
+and every day I got letters warning me to take care, as there might be
+foul play. The stable the pony was in was a big one, and I had a wall
+built across it, and put a man with a gun in the outer compartment. I
+bought all his corn myself, in feeds at a time, going here, there, and
+everywhere for it, never to the same place for two days together--I
+thought it was better to be sure than sorry, and there's no trusting a
+nigger.
+
+The day of the match every soul in the place turned out, such crowds
+that I could scarcely get the dog-cart through when I drove to the
+Cashmere gate. I got down there, and was looking over the cart to see
+that everything was right, when a little half-caste _keranie_, a sort
+of low-class clerk, came up behind me and began talking to me in a
+mysterious kind of way, in that vile _chi-chi_ accent one gets to hate
+so awfully.
+
+"Look here, Sar," he said, "you take my car, Sar; it built for racing. I
+do much trot-racing myself"--mentioning his name--"and you go much
+faster my car, Sar."
+
+I trusted nobody in those days, and thought a good deal of myself
+accordingly. I hadn't found out that it takes a much smarter man to know
+how to trust a few.
+
+"Thank you," I said, "I think I'll keep my own, the pony's accustomed to
+it."
+
+I think he understood quite well what I felt, but he didn't show any
+resentment.
+
+"Well, Sar, you no trust my car, you let me see your wheels?"
+
+"Certainly," I said "you may look at them," determined in my own mind I
+should keep my eye on him while he did.
+
+He got out a machine for propping the axle, and lifted the wheel off the
+ground.
+
+"Make the wheel go round," he said.
+
+I didn't like it much, but I gave the wheel a turn. He looked at it till
+it stopped.
+
+"You lose match if you take that car," he said, "you take my car, Sar."
+
+"What do you mean?" said I, pretty sharply.
+
+"Look here," he said, setting the wheel going again. "You see here, Sar,
+it die, all in a minute, it jerk, doesn't die smooth. You see _my_
+wheel, Sar."
+
+He put the lift under his own, and started the wheel revolving. It took
+about three times as long to die as mine, going steady and silent and
+stopping imperceptibly, not so much as a tremor in it.
+
+"Now, Sar!" he said, "you see I speak true, Sar. I back you two hundred
+rupee, if I lose I'm ruin, and I beg you, Sar, take my car! can no win
+with yours, mine match car."
+
+"All right!" said I with a sort of impulse, "I'll take it." And so I
+did.
+
+I had to start just under the arch of the Cashmere gate, by a pistol
+shot, fired from overhead. I didn't quite care for the look of the
+pony's ears while I was waiting for it--the crowd had frightened him a
+bit I think. By Jove, when the bang came he reared straight up, dropped
+down again and stuck his forelegs out, reared again when I gave him the
+whip, every second of course telling against me.
+
+"Here, let me help you," shouted Biddy, jumping into the trap. His
+weight settled the business, down came the pony, and we went away like
+blazes.
+
+The three umpires rode with us, one each side and one behind, at least
+that was the way at first, but I found the clattering of their hoofs
+made it next to impossible to hold the pony. I got them to keep back,
+and after that he went fairly steadily, but it was anxious work. The
+noise and excitement had told on him a lot, he had a tendency to break
+during all that six miles out, and he was in a lather before we got to
+Sufter Jung's tomb. There were a lot of people waiting for me out there,
+some ladies on horseback, too, and there was a coffee-shop going, with
+drinks of all kinds. As I got near they began to call out, "You're done,
+Paddy, thirty-four minutes gone already, you haven't the ghost of a
+chance. Come and have a drink and look pleasant over it."
+
+I turned the pony, and Biddy and I jumped out. I went up to the table,
+snatched up a glass of brandy and filled my mouth with it, then went
+back to the pony, took him by the head, and sent a squirt of brandy up
+each nostril; I squirted the rest down his throat, went back to the
+table, swallowed half a tumbler of curaçoa or something, and was into
+the trap and off again, the whole thing not taking more than twenty
+seconds.
+
+The business began to be pretty exciting after that. You can see four
+miles straight ahead of you on that road; and that day the police had
+special orders to keep it clear, so that it was a perfectly blank,
+white stretch as far as I could see. You know how one never seems to get
+any nearer to things on a road like that, and there was the clock
+hanging opposite to me on the splash board; I couldn't look at it, but I
+could hear its beastly click-click through the trotting of the pony, and
+that was nearly as bad as seeing the minute hand going from pip to pip.
+But, by George, I pretty soon heard a worse kind of noise than that. It
+was a case of preserve me from my friends. The people who had gone out
+to Sufter Jung's tomb on horseback to meet me, thought it would be a
+capital plan to come along after me and see the fun, and encourage me a
+bit--so they told me afterwards. The way they encouraged me was by
+galloping till they picked me up, and then hammering along behind me
+like a troop of cavalry till it was all I could do to keep the pony from
+breaking.
+
+"You've got to win, Paddy," calls out Mrs. Harry Le Bretton, galloping
+up alongside, "you promised you would!"
+
+Mrs. Harry and I were great friends in those days--very sporting little
+woman, nearly as keen about the match as I was--but at that moment I
+couldn't pick my words.
+
+"Keep back!" I shouted to her; "keep back, for pity's sake!"
+
+It was too late--the next instant the pony was galloping. The penalty is
+that you have to pull up, and make the wheels turn in the opposite
+direction, and I just threw the pony on his haunches. He nearly came
+back into the cart, but the tremendous jerk gave the backward turn to
+the wheels and I was off again. Not even that kept the people back. Mrs.
+Le Bretton came alongside again to say something else to me, and I
+suddenly felt half mad from the clatter and the frightful strain of the
+pony on my arms.
+
+"D----n it all! Le Bretton!" I yelled, as the pony broke for the second
+time, "can't you keep your wife away!"
+
+They did let me alone after that--turned off the road and took a scoop
+across the plain, so as to come up with me at the finish--and I pulled
+myself together to do the last couple of miles. I could see that
+Cashmere gate and the Delhi walls ahead of me; 'pon my soul I felt as if
+they were defying me and despising me, just standing waiting there under
+the blazing sky, and they never seemed to get any nearer. It was like
+the first night of a fever, the whizzing of the wheels, the ding-dong of
+the pony's hoofs, the silence all round, the feeling of stress and
+insane hurrying on, the throbbing of my head, and the scorching heat.
+I'll swear no fever I've ever had was worse than that last two miles.
+
+As I reached the Delhi walls I took one look at the clock. There was
+barely a minute left.
+
+"By Jove!" I gasped, "I'm done!"
+
+I shouted and yelled to the pony like a madman, to keep up what heart
+was left in the wretched little brute, holding on to him for bare life,
+with my arms and legs straight out in front of me. The gray wall and the
+blinding road rushed by me like a river--I scarcely knew what
+happened--I couldn't think of anything but the ticking of the clock that
+I was somehow trying to count, till there came the bang of a pistol over
+my head.
+
+It was the Cashmere gate, and I had thirteen seconds in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was never anything more heard of the bagman. He can, if he likes,
+soothe his conscience with the reflection that he was worth a thousand
+pounds to me.
+
+But Mrs. Le Bretton never quite forgave me.
+
+
+
+
+AN IRISH PROBLEM
+
+
+Conversation raged on the long flanks of the mail-car.
+
+An elderly priest, with a warm complexion and a controversial under-lip,
+was expounding his native country to a fellow-traveller, with slight but
+irrepressible pulpit gestures of the hand. The fellow traveller, albeit
+lavender-hued from an autumn east wind, was obediently observing the
+anæmic patches of oats and barley, pale and thin, like the hair of a
+starving baby, and the huge slants of brown heather and turf bog, and
+was interjecting "Just so!" at decent intervals. Now and then, as the
+two tall brown mares slackened for a bout of collar-work at a hill, or
+squeezed slowly past a cart stacked high with sods of turf, we, sitting
+in silence, Irish wolves in the clothing of English tourists, could hear
+across the intervening pile of luggage and bicycles such a storm of
+conversation as bursts forth at a dinner-party after the champagne has
+twice gone round.
+
+The brunt of the talk was borne by the old lady in the centre. Her broad
+back, chequered with red plaid, remained monumental in height and
+stillness, but there was that in the tremor of the steel spray in her
+bonnet that told of a high pressure of narrative. The bearded Dublin
+tourist on her left was but little behind her in the ardour of giving
+information. His wife, a beautifully dressed lady with cotton-wool in
+her ears, remained abstracted, whether from toothache, or exclusiveness,
+or mere wifely boredom, we cannot say. Among the swift shuttles of Irish
+speech the ponderous questions and pronouncements of an English
+fisherman drove their way. The talk was, we gathered, of sport and game
+laws and their administration.
+
+"Is it hares?" cried the Dublin tourist, perorating after a flight or
+two into the subject of poachers; "what d'ye think would happen a hare
+in Donegal?"
+
+His handsome brown eye swept his audience, even, through the spokes of a
+bicycle, gathering in our sympathies. It left no doubts as to the
+tragedy that awaited the hare.
+
+The east wind hunted us along the shore of the wide, bleak bay, rimmed
+with yellow sea-weed, and black and ruffled like the innumerable
+lakelets that lay along our route. The tall mountain over it was hooded
+in cloud. It seemed as threatening and mysterious as Sinai; ready to
+utter some awful voice of law to the brown solitudes and windy silences.
+
+Far ahead of us a few houses rose suddenly above the low coast line, an
+ugly family party of squat gables and whitewashed walls, with nothing
+nearer them to westward than the homesteads of America.
+
+Far and near there was not a tree visible, nor a touch of colour to tell
+of the saving grace of flowers. The brown mares swung the car along with
+something resembling enthusiasm; Letterbeg was the end of their stage;
+it was the end of ours also. Numb with long sitting we dropped
+cumbrously to earth from the high footboard, and found ourselves face to
+face with the problem of how to spend the next three hours. It was
+eleven o'clock in the morning, too early for lunch, though, apparently,
+quite the fashionable hour in Letterbeg for bottled porter, judging by
+the squeak of the corkscrew and the clash of glasses that issued from
+the dark interior of the house in front of which we had been shed by the
+mail-car. This was a long cottage with a prosperous slate roof, and a
+board over its narrow door announcing that one Jas. Heraty was licensed
+for the retail of spirits and porter.
+
+The mail-car rolled away; as it crawled over the top of a hill and sank
+out of sight a last wave of the priestly hand seemed to include us.
+Doubtless we were being expounded as English tourists, and our great
+economic value to the country was being expatiated upon. The _rôle_ is
+an important one, and has its privileges; yet, to the wolf, there is
+something stifling in sheep's clothing; certainly, on the occasions
+when it was discarded by us, a sympathy and understanding with the
+hotels was quickly established. Possibly they also are wolves.
+Undoubtedly the English tourist, with his circular ticket and his
+coupons, does not invariably get the best of everything. We write
+surrounded by him and his sufferings. An earlier visit than usual to the
+hotel sitting-room has revealed him, lying miserably on the sofa,
+shrouded in a filthy _duvet_, having been flung there at some two in the
+morning on his arrival, wet through, from heaven knows what tremendous
+walk. Subsequently we hear him being haled from his lair by the
+chambermaid, who treats him as the dirt under her feet (or, indeed, if
+we may judge by our bedroom carpet, with far less consideration).
+
+"Here!" she says, "go in there and wash yerself!"
+
+We hear her slamming him into a room from which two others of his kind
+have been recently bolted like rabbits, by the boots, to catch the 6
+A.M. train. We can just faintly realise its atmosphere.
+
+This, however, is a digression, but remotely connected with Letterbeg
+and Mr. Heraty's window, to which in our forlorn state we turned for
+distraction.
+
+It was very small, about two feet square, but it made its appeal to all
+the needs of humanity from the cradle to the grave. A feeding-bottle, a
+rosary, a photograph of Mr. Kruger, a peg-top, a case of salmon flies,
+an artistic letter-weight, consisting of a pigeon's egg carved in
+Connemara marble, two seductively small bottles of castor-oil--these,
+mounted on an embankment of packets of corn-flour and rat poison,
+crowded the four little panes. Inside the shop the assortment ranged
+from bundles of reaping-hooks on the earthen floor to bottles of
+champagne in the murk of the top shelf. A few men leaned against the
+tin-covered counter, gravely drinking porter. As we stood dubiously at
+the door there was a padding of bare feet in the roadway, and a very
+small boy with a red head, dressed in a long flannel frock of a rich
+madder shade fluttered past us into the shop.
+
+"Me dada says let yees be hurrying!" he gasped, between spasms of what
+was obviously whooping-cough. "Sweeny's case is comin' on!"
+
+Had the message been delivered by the Sergeant-at-Arms it could not have
+been received with more respectful attention or been more immediately
+obeyed. The porter was gulped down, one unfinished glass being bestowed
+upon the Sergeant-at-Arms, possibly as a palliative for the
+whooping-cough, and the party trooped up the road towards a thatched and
+whitewashed cottage that stood askew at the top of a lane leading to the
+seashore. Two tall constables of the R.I.C. stood at the door of the
+cottage. It came to us, with a lifting of the heart, that we had
+chanced upon Petty Sessions day in Letterbeg, and this was the
+court-house.
+
+It was uncommonly hot in what is called in newspapers "the body of the
+court". Something of the nature of a rood-screen, boarded solidly up to
+a height of about four feet, divided the long single room of the
+cottage; we, with the rest of the public, were penned in the division
+nearest the door. The cobwebbed boards of the loft overhead almost
+rested on our hats; the public, not being provided with seats by the
+Government, shuffled on the earthen floor and unaffectedly rested on us
+and each other. Within the rood-screen two magistrates sat at a table,
+with their suite, consisting of a clerk, an interpreter, and a district
+inspector of police, disposed round them.
+
+"The young fella with the foxy mustash is Docthor Lyden," whispered an
+informant in response to a question, "and the owld lad that's lookin' at
+ye now is Heraty, that owns the shop above--"
+
+At this juncture an emissary from the Bench very kindly offered us seats
+within the rood-screen. We took them, on a high wooden settle, beside
+the magisterial table, and the business of the court proceeded.
+
+Close to us stood the defendant, Sweeny, a tall elderly man, with a
+long, composed, shaven face, and an all-observant grey eye: Irish in
+type, Irish in expression, intensely Irish in the self-possession in
+which he stood, playing to perfection the part of calm rectitude and
+unassailable integrity.
+
+Facing him, the plaintiff lounged against the partition; a man strangely
+improbable in appearance, with close-cropped grey hair, a young,
+fresh-coloured face, a bristling orange moustache, and a big, blunt
+nose. One could have believed him a soldier, a German, anything but what
+he was, a peasant from the furthest shores of Western Ireland, cut off
+from what we call civilisation by his ignorance of any language save his
+own ancient speech, wherein the ideas of to-day stand out in English
+words like telegraph posts in a Connemara moorland.
+
+Between the two stood the interpreter--small, old, froglike in profile,
+full of the dignity of the Government official.
+
+"Well, we should be getting on now," remarked the Chairman, Heraty,
+J.P., after some explanatory politeness to his unexpected visitors.
+"William, swear the plaintiff!"
+
+The oath was administered in Irish, and the orange moustache brushed the
+greasy Testament. The space above the dado of the partition became
+suddenly a tapestry of attentive faces, clear-eyed, all-comprehending.
+
+[Illustration: SWEENY.]
+
+"This case," announced Mr. Heraty judicially yet not without a glance at
+the visitors, "is a demand for compensation in the matter of a sheep
+that was drowned. William"--this to the interpreter--"ask Darcy what he
+has to say for himself?"
+
+Darcy hitched himself round, still with a shoulder propped against the
+partition, and uttered, without any enthusiasm, a few nasal and guttural
+sentences.
+
+"He says, yer worship," said William, with unctuous propriety, "that
+Sweeny's gorsoons were ever and always hunting his sheep, and settin' on
+their dog to hunt her, and that last week they dhrove her into the lake
+and dhrownded her altogether."
+
+"Now," said Mr. Heraty, in a conversational tone, "William, when ye
+employ the word 'gorsoon,' do ye mean children of the male or female
+sex?"
+
+"Well, yer worship," replied William, who, it may incidentally be
+mentioned, was himself in need of either an interpreter or of a new and
+complete set of teeth, "I should considher he meant ayther the one or
+the other."
+
+"They're usually one or the other," said Doctor Lyden solemnly, and in a
+stupendous brogue. It was the first time he had spoken; he leaned back,
+with his hands in his pockets, and surveyed with quiet but very bright
+eyes the instant grin that illumined the faces of the tapestry.
+
+"Sure William himself is no bad judge of gorsoons," said Mr. Heraty.
+"Hadn't he a christening in his own house three weeks ago?"
+
+At this excursion into the family affairs of the interpreter the grin
+broke into a roar.
+
+"See now, we'll ask Mr. Byrne, the schoolmaster," went on Mr. Heraty
+with owl-like gravity. "Isn't that Mr. Byrne that I see back there in
+the coort? Come forward, Mr. Byrne!"
+
+Thus adjured, a tall, spectacled man emerged from the crowd, and,
+beaming with a pleasing elderly bashfulness through his spectacles, gave
+it as his opinion that though gorsoon was a term usually applied to the
+male child, it was equally applicable to the female. "But, indeed," he
+concluded, "the Bench has as good Irish as I have myself, and better."
+
+"The law requires that the thransactions of this coort shall take place
+in English," the Chairman responded, "and we have also the public to
+consider."
+
+As it was pretty certain that we were the only persons in the court who
+did not understand Irish, it was borne in upon us that we were the
+public, and we appreciated the consideration.
+
+"We may assume, then, that the children that set on the dog wor' of both
+sexes," proceeded Mr. Heraty. "Well, now, as to the dog-- William, ask
+Darcy what sort of dog was it."
+
+The monotonous and quiet Irish sentences followed one another again.
+
+"That'll do. Now, William--"
+
+"He says, yer worship, that he was a big lump of a yalla dog, an' very
+cross, by reason of he r'arin' a pup."
+
+"And 'twas to make mutton-broth for the pup she dhrove Darcy's sheep in
+the lake, I suppose?"
+
+A contemptuous smile passed over Darcy's face as the Chairman's sally
+was duly translated to him, and he made a rapid reply.
+
+"He says there isn't one of the neighbours but got great annoyance by
+the same dog, yer worship, and that when the dog'd be out by night
+hunting, there wouldn't be a yard o' wather in the lakes but he'd have
+it barked over."
+
+"It appears," observed Dr. Lyden serenely, "that the dog, like the
+gorsoons, was of both sexes."
+
+"Well, well, no matther now; we'll hear what the defendant has to say.
+Swear Sweeny!" said Mr. Heraty, smoothing his long grey beard, with
+suddenly remembered judicial severity and looking menacingly over his
+spectacles at Sweeny. "Here, now! you don't want an interpreter! You
+that has a sisther married to a stationmaster and a brother in the
+Connaught Rangers!"
+
+"I have as good English as anny man in this coort," said Sweeny
+morosely.
+
+"Well, show it off man! What defence have ye?"
+
+"I say that the sheep wasn't Darcy's at all," said Sweeny firmly,
+standing as straight as a ramrod, with his hands behind his back, a
+picture of surly, wronged integrity. "And there's no man livin' can
+prove she was. Ask him now what way did he know her?"
+
+The question evidently touched Darcy on a tender point. He squared his
+big shoulders in his white flannel jacket, and turning his face for the
+first time towards the magistrates delivered a flood of Irish, in which
+we heard a word that sounded like _ullán_ often repeated.
+
+"He says, yer worships," translated William, "why wouldn't he know her!
+Hadn't she the _ullán_ on her! He says a poor man like him would know
+one of the few sheep he has as well as yer worship'd know one o' yer own
+gowns if it had sthrayed from ye."
+
+It is probable that we looked some of the stupefaction that we felt at
+this remarkable reference to Mr. Heraty's wardrobe.
+
+"For the benefit of the general public," said Dr. Lyden, in his languid,
+subtle brogue, with a side-glance at that body, "it may be no harm to
+mention that the plaintiff is alluding to the Chairman's yearling calves
+and not to his costume."
+
+"Order now!" said Mr. Heraty severely.
+
+"An' he says," continued William, warily purging his frog-countenance of
+any hint of appreciation, "that Sweeny knew the _ullán_ that was on her
+as well as himself did."
+
+"_Ullán!_ What sort of English is that for an interpreter to be using!
+Do ye suppose the general public knows what is an _ullán_?" interrupted
+Mr. Heraty with lightning rapidity. "Explain that now!"
+
+"Why, yer worship, sure anny one in the world'd know what the _ullán_ on
+a sheep's back is!" said William, staggered by this sudden onslaught,
+"though there's some might call it the _rebugh_."
+
+"God help the Government that's payin' you wages!" said Mr. Heraty with
+sudden and bitter ferocity (but did we intercept a wink at his
+colleague?). "If it wasn't for the young family you're r'arin' in yer
+old age, I'd commit ye for contempt of coort!"
+
+A frank shout of laughter, from every one in court but the victim,
+greeted this sally, the chorus being, as it were, barbed by a shrill
+crow of whooping-cough.
+
+"Mr. Byrne!" continued Mr. Heraty without a smile, "we must call upon
+you again!"
+
+Mr. Byrne's meek scholastic face once more appeared at the rood-screen.
+
+"Well, I should say," he ventured decorously, "that the expression is
+locally applied to what I may call a plume or a feather that is worn on
+various parts of the sheep's back, for a mark, as I might say, of
+distinction."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Byrne, thank you," said Mr. Heraty, to whose imagination
+a vision of a plumed or feathered sheep seemed to offer nothing unusual,
+"remember that now, William!"
+
+Dr. Lyden looked at his watch.
+
+"Don't you think Sweeny might go on with his defence?" he remarked.
+"About the children, Sweeny--how many have ye?"
+
+"I have four."
+
+"And how old are they?"
+
+"There's one o' thim is six years an another o' thim is seven--"
+
+"Yes, and the other two eight and nine, I suppose?" commented Dr. Lyden.
+
+The defendant remained silent.
+
+"Do ye see now how well he began with the youngest--the way we'd think
+'twas the eldest!" resumed Dr. Lyden. "I think we may assume that a
+gorsoon--male or female--of eight or nine years is capable of setting a
+dog on the sheep."
+
+Here Darcy spoke again.
+
+"He says," interpreted William, "there isn't pig nor ass, sheep nor
+duck, belongin' to him that isn't heart-scalded with the same childhren
+an' their dog."
+
+"Well, I say now, an' I swear it," said Sweeny, his eye kindling like a
+coal, and his voice rising as the core of what was probably an old
+neighbourly grudge was neared, "my land is bare from his bastes
+threspassing on it, and my childhren are in dread to pass his house
+itself with the kicks an' the sthrokes himself an' his mother dhraws on
+them! The Lord Almighty knows--"
+
+"Stop now!" said Mr. Heraty, holding up his hand. "Stop! The Lord's not
+intherferin' in this case at all! It's me an' Doctor Lyden has it to
+settle."
+
+No one seemed to find anything surprising in this pronouncement; it was
+accepted as seriously as any similar statement of the Prophet Samuel to
+the Children of Israel, and was evidently meant to imply that abstract
+justice might be expected.
+
+"We may assume, then," said Dr. Lyden amiably, "that the sheep walked
+out into Sweeny's end of the lake and drowned herself there on account
+of the spite there was between the two families."
+
+The court tittered. A dingy red showed itself among the grizzled hairs
+and wrinkles on Sweeny's cheek. In Ireland a point can often be better
+carried by sarcasm than by logic.
+
+"She was blind enough to dhrown herself, or two like her!" he said
+angrily; "she was that owld and blind it was ayqual to her where she'd
+go!"
+
+"How d'ye know she was blind?" said Mr. Heraty quickly.
+
+"I thought the defence opened with the statement that it wasn't Darcy's
+sheep at all," put in Dr. Lyden, leaning back in his chair with his eyes
+fixed on the rafters.
+
+Sweeny firmly regarded Mr. Heraty.
+
+"How would I know she was blind?" he repeated. "Many's the time when
+she'd be takin' a sthroll in on my land I'd see her fallin' down in the
+rocks, she was that blind! An' didn't I see Darcy's mother one time, an'
+she puttin' something on her eyes."
+
+"Was it glasses she was putting on the sheep's eyes?" suggested the
+Chairman, with a glance that admitted the court to the joke.
+
+"No, but an ointment," said Sweeny stubbornly. "I seen her rubbing it to
+the eyes, an' she no more than thirty yards from me."
+
+"Will ye swear that?" thundered Mr. Heraty; "will you swear that at a
+distance of thirty yards you could tell what was between Darcy's
+mother's fingers and the sheep's eyes? No you will not! Nor no man
+could! William, is Darcy's mother in the coort? We'll have to take
+evidence from her as to the condition of the sheep's eyes!"
+
+"Darcy says, yer worship, that his mother would lose her life if she was
+to be brought into coort," explained William, after an interlude in
+Irish, to which both magistrates listened with evident interest; "that
+ere last night a frog jumped into the bed to her in the night, and she
+got out of the bed to light the Blessed Candle, and when she got back to
+the bed again she was in it always between herself and the wall, an' she
+got a wakeness out of it, and great cold--"
+
+"Are ye sure it wasn't the frog got the wakeness?" asked Dr. Lyden.
+
+A gale of laughter swept round the court.
+
+"Come, come!" said Mr. Heraty; "have done with this baldherdash!
+William, tell Darcy some one must go fetch his mother, for as wake as
+she is she could walk half a mile!" Mr. Heraty here drew forth an
+enormous white pocket-handkerchief and trumpeted angrily in its depths.
+
+Darcy raised his small blue eyes with their thick lashes, and took a
+look at his judge. There was a gabbled interchange of Irish between him
+and the interpreter.
+
+"He says she could not, yer worship, nor as much as one perch."
+
+"Ah, what nonsense is this!" said Mr. Heraty testily; "didn't I see the
+woman meself at Mass last Sunday?"
+
+Darcy's reply was garnished with a good deal more gesticulation than
+usual, and throughout his speech the ironic smile on Sweeny's face was a
+masterpiece of quiet expression.
+
+"He says," said William, "that surely she was at Mass last Sunday, the
+same as your worship says, but 'twas on the way home that she was taking
+a wall, and a stone fell on her and hurted her finger and the boot
+preyed on it, and it has her desthroyed."
+
+At this culmination of the misadventures of Mrs. Darcy the countenances
+of the general public must; again have expressed some of the
+bewilderment that they felt.
+
+"Perhaps William will be good enough to explain," said Dr. Lyden,
+permitting a faint smile to twitch the foxy moustache, "how Mrs. Darcy's
+boot affected her finger?"
+
+William's skinny hand covered his frog mouth with all a deserving
+schoolboy's embarrassment at being caught out in a bad translation.
+
+"I beg yer worships' pardon," he said, in deep confusion, "but sure your
+worships know as well as meself that in Irish we have the one word for
+your finger or your toe."
+
+"There's one thing I know very well anyhow," said Dr. Lyden, turning to
+his colleague, "I've no more time to waste sitting here talking about
+old Kit Darcy's fingers and toes! Let the two o' them get arbitrators
+and settle it out of court. There's nothing between them now only the
+value of the sheep."
+
+"Sure I was satisfied to leave it to arbithration, but Darcy wasn't
+willin'." This statement was Sweeny's.
+
+"So you were willin' to have arbithration before you came into coort at
+all?" said Mr. Heraty, eyeing the tall defendant with ominous mildness.
+"William, ask Darcy is this the case."
+
+Darcy's reply, delivered with a slow, sarcastic smile, provoked a laugh
+from the audience.
+
+"Oh, ho! So that was the way, was it!" cried Mr. Heraty, forgetting to
+wait for the translation. "Ye had your wife's cousin to arbithrate!
+Small blame to Darcy he wasn't willin'! It's a pity ye didn't say your
+wife herself should arbithrate when ye went about it! You would hardly
+believe the high opinion Sweeny here has of his wife," continued the
+Chairman in illuminative excursus to Dr. Lyden; "sure he had all the
+women wild below at my shop th' other night sayin' his wife was the
+finest woman in Ireland! Upon my soul he had!"
+
+"If I said that," growled the unfortunate Sweeny, "it was a lie for me."
+
+"Don't ye think it might be a good thing now," suggested the
+indefatigable doctor, in his mournful tuneful voice, "to call a few
+witnesses to give evidence as to whether Mrs. Michael Sweeny is the
+finest woman in Ireland or no?"
+
+"God knows, gentlemen, it's a pity ye haven't more to do this day," said
+Sweeny, turning at length upon his tormentors, "I'd sooner pay the price
+of the sheep than be losin' me time here this way."
+
+"See, now, how we're getting to the rights of it in the latter end,"
+commented Dr. Lyden imperturbably. "Sweeny began here by saying"--he
+checked off each successive point on his fingers--"that the sheep wasn't
+Darcy's at all. Then he said that his children of eight and nine years
+of age were too young to set the dog on the sheep. Then, that if the dog
+hunted her it was no more than she deserved for constant trespass. Then
+he said that the sheep was so old and blind that she committed suicide
+in his end of the lake in order to please herself and to spite him; and,
+last of all, he tells us that he offered to compensate Darcy for her
+before he came into court at all!"
+
+"And on top of that," Mr. Heraty actually rose in his seat in his
+exquisite appreciation of the position, "on top of that, mind you, after
+he has the whole machinery of the law and the entire population of
+Letterbeg attending on him for a matter o' two hours, he informs us that
+we're wasting his valuable time!"
+
+Mr. Heraty fixed his eyes in admirable passion--whether genuine or not
+we are quite incapable of pronouncing--upon Sweeny, who returned the
+gaze with all the gloom of an unfortunate but invincibly respectable
+man.
+
+Dr. Lyden once more pulled out his watch.
+
+"It might be as well for us," he said languidly, "to enter upon the
+inquiry as to the value of the sheep. That should take about another
+three-quarters of an hour. William, ask Darcy the price he puts on the
+sheep."
+
+Every emotion has its limits. We received with scarce a stirring of
+surprise the variations of sworn testimony as to the value of the sheep.
+Her price ranged from one pound, claimed by Darcy and his adherents, to
+sixpence, at which sum her skin was unhesitatingly valued by Sweeny. Her
+age swung like a pendulum between two years and fourteen, and, finally,
+in crowning proof of her worth and general attractiveness, it was stated
+that her own twin had been sold for fifteen shillings to the police at
+Dhulish, "ere last week". At this re-entrance into the case of the
+personal element Mr. Heraty's spirits obviously rose.
+
+"I think we ought to have evidence about this," he said, fixing the
+police officer with a dangerous eye. "Mr. Cox, have ye anny of the
+Dhulish police here?"
+
+Mr. Cox, whose only official act up to the present had been the highly
+beneficial one of opening the window, admitted with a grin that two of
+the Dhulish men were in the court.
+
+"Well, then!" continued the Chairman, "Mr. Cox, maybe ye'd kindly desire
+them to step forward in order that the court may be able to estimate
+from their appearance the nutritive qualities of the twin sisther of
+Darcy's sheep."
+
+At this juncture we perceived, down near the crowded doorway, two tall
+and deeply embarrassed members of the R.I.C. hastily escaping into the
+street.
+
+"Well, well; how easy it is to frighten the police!" remarked the
+Chairman, following them with a regretful eye. "I suppose, afther all,
+we'd betther put a price on the sheep and have done with it. In my
+opinion, when there's a difficulty like this--what I might call an
+accident--between decent men like these (for they're both decent men,
+and I've known them these years), I'd say both parties should share what
+hardship is in it. Now, doctor, what shall we give Darcy? I suppose if
+we gave him 8s. compensation and 2s. costs we'd not be far out?"
+
+Dr. Lyden, already in the act of charging his pipe, nodded his head.
+
+Sweeny began to fumble in his pockets, and drawing out a brownish rag,
+possibly a handkerchief, knotted in several places, proceeded to untie
+one of the knots. The doctor watched him without speaking. Ultimately,
+from some fastness in the rag a half-sovereign was extracted, and was
+laid upon the table by Sweeny. The clerk, a well-dressed young
+gentleman, whose attitude had throughout been one of the extremest
+aloofness, made an entry in his book with an aggressively business-like
+air.
+
+"Well, that's all right," remarked Dr. Lyden, getting lazily on his legs
+and looking round for his hat; "it's a funny thing, but I notice that
+the defendant brought the exact sum required into court with him."
+
+"I did! And I'm able to bring more than it, thanks be to God!" said
+Sweeny fiercely, with all the offended pride of his race. "I have two
+pounds here this minute--"
+
+"If that's the way with ye, may be ye'd like us to put a bigger fine on
+ye!" broke in Mr. Heraty hotly, in instant response to Sweeny's show of
+temper.
+
+Dr. Lyden laughed for the first time.
+
+"Mr. Heraty's getting cross now, in the latter end," he murmured
+explanatorily to the general public, while he put on an overcoat, from
+the pocket of which protruded the Medusa coils of a stethoscope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long before the arrival of the mail-car that was to take us away, the
+loafers and the litigants had alike been swallowed up, apparently by the
+brown, hungry hillsides; possibly also, some of them, by Mr. Heraty's
+tap-room. Again we clambered to our places among the inevitable tourists
+and their inevitable bicycles, again the laden car lumbered heavily yet
+swiftly along the bog roads that quivered under its weight, while the
+water in the black ditches on either side quivered in sympathy. The
+tourists spoke of the vast loneliness, unconscious of the intricate
+network of social life that lay all around them, beyond their ken, far
+beyond their understanding. They spoke authoritatively of Irish affairs;
+mentioned that the Irish were "a bit 'ot tempered," but added that "all
+they wanted was fair play".
+
+They had probably been in Ireland for a week or fortnight. They had come
+out of business centres in England, equipped with circular tickets, with
+feeling hearts, and with the belief that two and two inevitably make
+four; whereas in Ireland two and two are just as likely to make five, or
+three, and are still more likely to make nothing at all.
+
+Never will it be given to them to understand the man of whom our friend
+Sweeny was no more than a type. How can they be expected to realise that
+a man who is decorous in family and village life, indisputably
+God-fearing, kind to the poor, and reasonably honest, will enmesh
+himself in a tissue of sworn lies before his fellows for the sake of
+half a sovereign and a family feud, and that his fellows will think none
+the worse of him for it.
+
+These things lie somewhere near the heart of the Irish problem.
+
+
+
+
+THE DANE'S BREECHIN'
+
+PART I
+
+
+The story begins at the moment when my brother Robert and I had made our
+final arrangements for the expedition. These were considerable. Robert
+is a fisherman who takes himself seriously (which perhaps is fortunate,
+as he rarely seems to take anything else), and his paraphernalia does
+credit to his enthusiasm, if not to his judgment. For my part, being an
+amateur artist, I had strapped together a collection of painting
+materials that would enable me to record my inspiration in oil,
+watercolour, or pastel, as the spirit might move me. We had ordered a
+car from Coolahan's public-house in the village; an early lunch was
+imminent.
+
+The latter depended upon Julia; in fact it would be difficult to mention
+anything at Wavecrest Cottage that did not depend on Julia. We, who were
+but strangers and sojourners (the cottage with the beautiful name having
+been lent to us, with Julia, by an Aunt), felt that our very existence
+hung upon her clemency. How much more then luncheon, at the
+revolutionary hour of a quarter to one? Even courageous people are
+afraid of other people's servants, and Robert and I were far from being
+courageous. Possibly this is why Julia treated us with compassion, even
+with kindness, especially Robert.
+
+"Ah, poor Masther Robert!" I have heard her say to a friend in the
+kitchen, who was fortunately hard of hearing, "ye wouldn't feel him in
+the house no more than a feather! An' indeed, as for the two o' thim,
+sich gallopers never ye seen! It's hardly they'd come in the house to
+throw the wet boots off thim! Thim'd gallop the woods all night like the
+deer!"
+
+At half-past twelve, all, as I have said, being in train, I went to the
+window to observe the weather, and saw a covered car with a black horse
+plodding along the road that separated Wavecrest Cottage from the
+seashore. At our modest entrance gates it drew up, and the coachman
+climbed from his perch with a dignity befitting his flowing grey beard
+and the silver band on his hat.
+
+A covered car is a vehicle peculiar to the south of Ireland; it
+resembles a two-wheeled waggonette with a windowless black box on top of
+it. Its mouth is at the back, and it has the sinister quality of totally
+concealing its occupants until the irrevocable moment when it is turned
+and backed against your front door steps. For this moment my brother
+Robert and I did not wait. A short passage and a flight of steps
+separated us from the kitchen; beyond the steps, and facing the kitchen
+door, a door opened into the garden. Robert slipped up heavily in the
+passage as we fled, but gained the garden door undamaged. The hall door
+bell pealed at my ear; I caught a glimpse of Julia, pounding chops with
+the rolling pin.
+
+"Say we're out," I hissed to her--"gone out for the day! We are going
+into the garden!"
+
+"Sure ye needn't give yerself that much trouble," replied Julia affably,
+as she snatched a grimy cap off a nail.
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of the elasticity of Julia's conscience, the
+garden seemed safer.
+
+In the garden, a plot of dense and various vegetation, decorated with
+Julia's lingerie, we awaited the sound of the departing wheels. But
+nothing departed. The breathless minutes passed, and then, through the
+open drawing-room window, we were aware of strange voices. The
+drawing-room window overlooked the garden thoroughly and commandingly.
+There was not a moment to lose. We plunged into the raspberry canes, and
+crouched beneath their embowered arches, and the fulness of the
+situation began to sink into our souls.
+
+Through the window we caught a glimpse of a white beard and a portly
+black suit, of a black bonnet and a dolman that glittered with jet, of
+yet another black bonnet.
+
+With Aunt Dora's house we had taken on, as it were, her practice, and
+the goodwill of her acquaintance. The Dean of Glengad and Mrs. Doherty
+were the very apex and flower of the latter, and in the party now
+installed in Aunt Dora's drawing-room I unhesitatingly recognised them,
+and Mrs. Doherty's sister, Miss McEvoy. Miss McEvoy was an elderly lady
+of the class usually described as being "not all there". The expression,
+I imagine, implies a regret that there should not be more. As, however,
+what there was of Miss McEvoy was chiefly remarkable for a monstrous
+appetite and a marked penchant for young men, it seems to me mainly to
+be regretted that there should be as much of her as there is.
+
+A drive of nine miles in the heat of a June morning is not undertaken
+without a sustaining expectation of luncheon at the end of it. There
+were in the house three mutton chops to meet that expectation. I
+communicated all these facts to my brother. The consternation of his
+face, framed in raspberry boughs, was a picture not to be lightly
+forgotten. At such a moment, with everything depending on sheer nerve
+and resourcefulness, to consign Julia to perdition was mere
+self-indulgence on his part, but I suppose it was inevitable. Here the
+door into the garden opened and Julia came forth, with a spotless apron
+and a face of elaborate unconcern. She picked a handful of parsley, her
+black eyes questing for us among the bushes; they met mine, and a glance
+more alive with conspiracy it has not been my lot to receive. She moved
+desultorily towards us, gathering green gooseberries in her apron.
+
+"I told them the two o' ye were out," she murmured to the gooseberry
+bushes. "They axed when would ye be back. I said ye went to town on the
+early thrain and wouldn't be back till night."
+
+Decidedly Julia's conscience could stand alone.
+
+"With that then," she continued, "Miss McEvoy lands into the hall, an'
+'O Letitia,' says she, 'those must be the gentleman's fishing rods!' and
+then 'Julia!' says she, 'could ye give us a bit o' lunch?' That one's
+the imp!"
+
+"Look here!" said Robert hoarsely, and with the swiftness of panic, "I'm
+off! I'll get out over the back wall."
+
+At this moment Miss McEvoy put her head out of the drawing-room window
+and scanned the garden searchingly. Without another word we glided
+through the raspberry arches like departing fairies in a pantomine. The
+kindly lilac and laurestina bushes grew tall and thick at the end of
+the garden; the wall was high, but, as is usual with fruit-garden walls,
+it had a well-worn feasible corner that gave on to the lane leading to
+the village. We flung ourselves over it, and landed breathless and
+dishevelled, but safe, in the heart of the bed of nettles that plumed
+the common village ash-heap. Now that we were able, temporarily at all
+events, to call our souls our own, we (or rather I) took further stock
+of the situation. Its horrors continued to sink in. Driven from home
+without so much as a hat to lay our heads in, separated from those we
+loved most (the mutton chops, the painting materials, the fishing
+tackle), a promising expedition of unusual charm cut off, so to speak,
+in the flower of its youth--these were the more immediately obvious of
+the calamities which we now confronted. I preached upon them, with
+Cassandra eloquence, while we stood, indeterminate, among the nettles.
+
+"And what, I ask you," I said perorating, "what on the face of the earth
+are we to do now?"
+
+"Oh, it'll be all right, my dear girl," said Robert easily. Gratitude
+for his escape from the addresses of Miss McEvoy had apparently blinded
+him to the difficulties of the future. "There's Coolahan's pub. We'll
+get something to eat there--you'll see it'll be all right."
+
+"But," I said, picking my way after him among the rusty tins and the
+broken crockery, "the Coolahans will think we're mad! We've no hats, and
+we can't tell them about the Dohertys."
+
+"I don't care what they think," said Robert.
+
+What Mrs. Coolahan may have thought, as we dived from the sunlight into
+her dark and porter-sodden shop, did not appear; what she looked was
+consternation.
+
+"Luncheon!" she repeated with stupefaction, "luncheon! The dear help us,
+I have no luncheon for the like o' ye!"
+
+"Oh, anything will do," said Robert cheerfully. His experiences at the
+London bar had not instructed him in the commissariat of his country.
+
+"A bit of cold beef, or just some bread and cheese."
+
+Mrs. Coolahan's bleared eyes rolled wildly to mine, as seeking sympathy
+and sanity.
+
+"With the will o' Pether!" she exclaimed, "how would I have cold beef?
+And as for cheese--!" She paused, and then, curiosity over-powering all
+other emotions. "What ails Julia Cronelly at all that your honour's
+ladyship is comin' to the like o' this dirty place for your dinner?"
+
+"Oh, Julia's run away with a soldier!" struck in Robert brilliantly.
+
+"Small blame to her if she did itself!" said Mrs. Coolahan, gallantly
+accepting the jest without a change of her enormous countenance, she's a
+long time waiting for the chance! Maybe ourselves'd go if we were axed!
+I have a nice bit of salt pork in the house," she continued, "would I
+give your honours a rasher of it?"
+
+Mrs. Coolahan had probably assumed that either Julia was incapably
+drunk, or had been dismissed without benefit of clergy; at all events
+she had recognised that diplomatically it was correct to change the
+conversation.
+
+We adventured ourselves into the unknown recesses of the house, and sat
+gingerly on greasy horsehair-seated chairs, in the parlour, while the
+bubbling cry of the rasher and eggs arose to heaven from the frying-pan,
+and the reek filled the house as with a grey fog. Potent as it was, it
+but faintly foreshadowed the flavour of the massive slices that
+presently swam in briny oil on our plates. But we had breakfasted at
+eight; we tackled them with determination, and without too nice
+inspection of the three-pronged forks. We drank porter, we achieved a
+certain sense of satiety, that on very slight provocation would have
+broadened into nausea or worse. All the while the question remained in
+the balance as to what we were to do for our hats, and for the myriad
+baggage involved in the expedition.
+
+We finally decided to write a minute inventory of what was
+indispensable, and to send it to Julia by the faithful hand of Mrs.
+Coolahan's car-driver, one Croppy, with whom previous expeditions had
+placed us upon intimate terms. It would be necessary to confide the
+position to Croppy, but this we felt, could be done without a moment's
+uneasiness.
+
+By the malignity that governed all things on that troublous day, neither
+of us had a pencil, and Mrs. Coolahan had to be appealed to. That she
+had by this time properly grasped the position was apparent in the
+hoarse whisper in which she said, carefully closing the door after
+her:--
+
+"The Dane's coachman is inside!"
+
+Simultaneously Robert and I removed ourselves from the purview of the
+door.
+
+"Don't be afraid," said our hostess reassuringly, "he'll never see
+ye--sure I have him safe back in the snug! Is it a writing pin ye want,
+Miss?" she continued, moving to the door. "Katty Ann! Bring me in the
+pin out o' the office!"
+
+The Post Office was, it may be mentioned, a department of the Coolahan
+public-house, and was managed by a committee of the younger members of
+the Coolahan family. These things are all, I believe, illegal, but they
+happen in Ireland. The committee was at present, apparently, in full
+session, judging by the flood of conversation that flowed in to us
+through the open door. The request for the pen caused an instant hush,
+followed at an interval by the slamming of drawers and other sounds of
+search.
+
+"Ah, what's on ye delaying this way?" said Mrs. Coolahan irritably,
+advancing into the shop. "Sure I seen the pin with Helayna this
+morning."
+
+At the moment all that we could see of the junior postmistress was her
+long bare shins, framed by the low-browed doorway, as she stood on the
+counter to further her researches on a top shelf.
+
+"The Lord look down in pity on me this day!" said Mrs. Coolahan, in
+exalted and bitter indignation, "or on any poor creature that's striving
+to earn her living and has the likes o' ye to be thrusting to!"
+
+We here attached ourselves to the outskirts of the search, which had by
+this time drawn into its vortex a couple of countrywomen with shawls
+over their heads, who had hitherto sat in decorous but observant
+stillness in the background. Katty Ann was rapidly examining tall
+bottles of sugar-stick, accustomed receptacles apparently for the pen.
+Helayna's raven fringe showed traces of a dive into the flour-bin. Mrs.
+Coolahan remained motionless in the midst, her eyes fixed on the
+ceiling, an exposition of suffering and of eternal remoteness from the
+ungodly.
+
+We were now aware for the first time of the presence of Mr. Coolahan, a
+taciturn person, with a blue-black chin and a gloomy demeanour.
+
+"Where had ye it last?" he demanded.
+
+"I seen Katty Ann with it in the cow-house, sir," volunteered a small
+female Coolahan from beneath the flap of the counter.
+
+Katty Ann, with a vindictive eye at the tell-tale, vanished.
+
+"That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!" chanted Mrs.
+Coolahan. "Such a mee-aw! Such a thing to happen to me--the pure, decent
+woman! G'wout!" This, the imperative of the verb to retire, was hurtled
+at the tell-tale, who, presuming on her services, had incautiously left
+the covert of the counter, and had laid a sticky hand on her mother's
+skirts.
+
+"Only that some was praying for me," pursued Mrs. Coolahan, "it might as
+well be the Inspector that came in the office, asking for the pin, an'
+if that was the way we might all go under the sod! Sich a mee-aw!"
+
+"Musha! Musha!" breathed, prayerfully, one of the shawled women.
+
+At this juncture I mounted on an up-ended barrel to investigate a
+promising lair above my head, and from this altitude was unexpectedly
+presented with a bird's-eye view of a hat with a silver band inside the
+railed and curtained "snug". I descended swiftly, not without an
+impression of black bottles on the snug table, and Katty Ann here slid
+in from the search in the cow-house.
+
+[Illustration: "MUSHA! MUSHA!"]
+
+"'Twasn't in it," she whined, "nor I didn't put it in it."
+
+"For a pinny I'd give ye a slap in the jaw!" said Mr. Coolahan with
+sudden and startling ferocity.
+
+"That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!" reiterated Mrs.
+Coolahan, while the search spread upwards through the house.
+
+"Look here!" said Robert abruptly, "this business is going on for a
+week. I'm going for the things myself."
+
+Neither I nor my remonstrances overtook him till he was well out into
+the street. There, outside the Coolahan door, was the Dean's inside car,
+resting on its shafts; while the black horse, like his driver, restored
+himself elsewhere beneath the Coolahan roof. Robert paid no heed to its
+silent warning.
+
+"I must go myself. If I had forty pencils I couldn't explain to Julia
+the flies that I want!"
+
+There comes, with the most biddable of men, a moment when argument
+fails, the moment of dead pull, when the creature perceives his own
+strength, and the astute will give in, early and imperceptibly, in order
+that he may not learn it beyond forgetting.
+
+The only thing left to be done now was to accompany Robert, to avert
+what might be irretrievable disaster. It was now half-past one, and the
+three mutton chops and the stewed gooseberries must have long since
+yielded their uttermost to our guests. The latter would therefore have
+returned to the drawing-room, where it was possible that one or more of
+them might go to sleep. Remembering that the chops were loin-chops, we
+might at all events hope for some slight amount of lethargy. Again we
+waded through the nettles, we scaled the garden-wall, and worked our way
+between it and the laurestinas towards the door opposite the kitchen.
+'There remained between us and the house an open space of about fifteen
+yards, fully commanded by the drawing-room window, veiling which,
+however, the lace curtains met in reassuring stillness. We rushed the
+interval, and entered the house softly. Here we were instantly met by
+Julia, with her mouth full, and a cup of tea in her hand. She drew us
+into the kitchen.
+
+"Where are they, Julia?" I whispered. "Have they had lunch?"
+
+"Is it lunch?" replied Julia, through bread and butter; "there isn't a
+bit in the house but they have it ate! And the eggs I had for the
+fast-day for myself, didn't That One"--I knew this to indicate Miss
+McEvoy--"ax an omelette from me when she seen she had no more to get!"
+
+"Are they out of the dining-room?" broke in Robert.
+
+"Faith, they are. 'Twas no good for them to stay in it! That One's lying
+up on the sofa in the dhrawing-room like any owld dog, and the Dane and
+Mrs. Doherty's dhrinking hot water--they have bad shtomachs, the
+craytures."
+
+Robert opened the kitchen door and crept towards the dining-room,
+wherein, not long before the alarm, had been gathered all the
+essentials of the expedition. I followed him. I have never committed a
+burglary, but since the moment when I creaked past the drawing-room
+door, foretasting the instant when it would open, my sympathies are
+dedicated to burglars.
+
+In two palpitating journeys we removed from the dining-room our
+belongings, and placed them in the kitchen; silence, fraught with dire
+possibilities, still brooded over the drawing-room. Could they all be
+asleep, or was Miss McEvoy watching us through the keyhole? There
+remained only my hat, which was upstairs, and at this, the last moment,
+Robert remembered his fly-book, left under the clock in the dining-room.
+I again passed the drawing-room in safety, and got upstairs, Robert
+effecting at the same moment his third entry into the dining-room. I was
+in the act of thrusting in the second hat pin when I heard the
+drawing-room door open. I admit that, obeying the primary instinct of
+self-preservation, my first impulse was to lock myself in; it passed,
+aided by the recollection that there was no key. I made for the landing,
+and from thence viewed, in a species of trance, Miss McEvoy crossing the
+hall and entering the dining-room. A long and deathly pause followed.
+She was a small woman; had Robert strangled her? After two or three
+horrible minutes a sound reached me, the well-known rattle of the
+side-board drawer. All then was well--Miss McEvoy was probably looking
+for the biscuits, and Robert must have escaped in time through the
+window. I took my courage in both hands and glided downstairs. As I
+placed my foot on the oilcloth of the hall, I was confronted by the
+nightmare spectacle of my brother creeping towards me on all-fours
+through the open door of the dining-room, and then, crowning this
+already over-loaded moment, there arose a series of yells from Miss
+McEvoy as blood-curdling as they were excusable, yet, as even in my
+maniac flight to the kitchen I recognised, something muffled by Marie
+biscuit.
+
+It seems to me that the next incident was the composite and shattering
+collision of Robert, Julia and myself in the scullery doorway, followed
+by the swift closing of the scullery-door upon us by Julia; then the
+voice of the Dean of Glengad, demanding from the house at large an
+explanation, in a voice of cathedral severity. Miss McEvoy's reply was
+to us about as coherent as the shrieks of a parrot, but we plainly heard
+Julia murmur in the kitchen:--
+
+"May the devil choke ye!"
+
+Then again the Dean, this time near the kitchen door. "Julia! Where is
+the man who was secreted under the dinner-table?"
+
+I gripped Robert's arm. The issues of life and death were now in Julia's
+hands.
+
+"Is it who was in the dining-room, your Reverence?" asked Julia, in
+tones of respectful honey; "sure that was the carpenter's boy, that came
+to quinch a rat-hole. Sure we're destroyed with rats."
+
+"But," pursued the Dean, raising his voice to overcome Miss McEvoy's
+continuous screams of explanation to Mrs. Doherty, "I understand that he
+left the room on his hands and knees. He must have been drunk!"
+
+"Ah, not at all, your Reverence," replied Julia, with almost
+compassionate superiority, "sure that poor boy is the gentlest crayture
+ever came into a house. I suppose 'tis what it was he was ashamed like
+when Miss McEvoy comminced to screech, and faith he never stopped nor
+stayed till he ran out of the house like a wild goose!"
+
+We heard the Dean reascend the kitchen steps, and make a statement of
+which the words "drink" and "Dora" alone reached us. The drawing-room
+door closed, and in the release from tension I sank heavily down upon a
+heap of potatoes. The wolf of laughter that had been gnawing at my
+vitals broke loose.
+
+"Why did you go out of the room on your hands and knees?" I moaned,
+rolling in anguish on the potatoes.
+
+"I got under the table when I heard the brute coming," said Robert,
+with the crossness of reaction from terror, "then she settled down to
+eat biscuits, and I thought I could crawl out without her seeing me"
+
+"_Ye can come out_!" said Julia's mouth, appearing at a crack of the
+scullery door, "I have as many lies told for ye--God forgive me!--as'd
+bog a noddy!"
+
+This mysterious contingency might have impressed us more had the artist
+been able to conceal her legitimate pride in her handiwork. We emerged
+from the chill and varied smells of the scullery, retaining just
+sufficient social self-control to keep us from flinging ourselves with
+grateful tears upon Julia's neck. Shaken as we were, the expedition
+still lay open before us; the game was in our hands. We were winning by
+tricks, and Julia held all the honours.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+Perhaps it was the clinging memory of the fried pork, perhaps it was
+because all my favourite brushes were standing in a mug of soft soap on
+my washing stand, or because Robert had in his flight forgotten to
+replenish his cigarette case, but there was no doubt but that the
+expedition languished.
+
+There was no fault to be found with the setting. The pool in which the
+river coiled itself under the pine-trees was black and brimming, the
+fish were rising at the flies that wrought above it, like a spotted net
+veil in hysterics, the distant hills lay in sleepy undulations of every
+shade of blue, the grass was warm, and not unduly peopled with ants. But
+some impalpable blight was upon us. I ranged like a lost soul along the
+banks of the river--a lost soul that is condemned to bear a burden of
+some two stone of sketching materials, and a sketching umbrella with a
+defective joint--in search of a point of view that for ever eluded me.
+Robert cast his choicest flies, with delicate quiverings, with
+coquettish withdrawals; had they been cannon-balls they could hardly
+have had a more intimidating effect upon the trout. Where Robert fished
+a Sabbath stillness reigned, beyond that charmed area they rose like
+notes of exclamation in a French novel. I was on the whole inclined to
+trace these things back to the influence of the pork, working on systems
+weakened by shock; but Robert was not in the mood to trace them to
+anything. Unsuccessful fishermen are not fond of introspective
+suggestions. The member of the expedition who enjoyed himself beyond any
+question was Mrs. Coolahan's car-horse. Having been taken out of the
+shafts on the road above the river, he had with his harness on his
+back, like Horatius, unhesitatingly lumbered over a respectable bank and
+ditch in the wake of Croppy, who had preceded him with the reins. He was
+now grazing luxuriously along the river's edge, while his driver smoked,
+no less luxuriously, in the background.
+
+"Will I carry the box for ye, Miss?" Croppy inquired compassionately,
+stuffing his lighted pipe into his pocket, as I drifted desolately past
+him. "Sure you're killed with the load you have! This is a rough owld
+place for a lady to be walkin'. Sit down, Miss. God knows you have a
+right to be tired."
+
+It seemed that with Croppy also the day was dragging, doubtless he too
+had lunched on Mrs. Coolahan's pork. He planted my camp-stool and I sank
+upon it.
+
+"Well, now, for all it's so throublesome," he resumed, "I'd say painting
+was a nice thrade. There was a gintleman here one time that was a
+painther--I used to be dhrivin' him. Faith! there wasn't a place in the
+counthry but he had it pathrolled. He seen me mother one day--cleaning
+fish, I b'lieve she was, below on the quay--an' nothing would howld him
+but he should dhraw out her picture!" Croppy laughed unfilially. "Well,
+me mother was mad. 'To the divil I pitch him!' says she; 'if I wants me
+photograph drew out I'm liable to pay for it,' says she, 'an' not to be
+stuck up before the ginthry to be ped for the like o' that!' 'Tis for;
+you bein' so handsome!' says I to her. She was black mad altogether
+then. 'If that's the way,' says she, 'it's a wondher he wouldn't ax
+yerself, ye rotten little rat,' says she, 'in place of thrying could he
+make a show of yer poor little ugly little cock-nosed mother!' 'Faith!'
+says I to her, 'I wouldn't care if the divil himself axed it, if he give
+me a half-crown and nothing to do but to be sittin' down!'"
+
+The tale may or may not have been intended to have a personal
+application, but Croppy's fat scarlet face and yellow moustache,
+bristling beneath a nose which he must have inherited from his mother,
+did not lend themselves to a landscape background, and I fell to
+fugitive pencil sketches of the old white car-horse as he grazed round
+us. It was thus that I first came to notice a fact whose bearing upon
+our fortunes I was far from suspecting. The old horse's harness was of
+dingy brown leather, with dingier brass mountings; it had been
+frequently mended, in varying shades of brown, and, in remarkable
+contrast to the rest of the outfit, the breeching was of solid and
+well-polished black leather, with silver buckles. It was not so much the
+discrepancy of the breeching as its respectability that jarred upon me;
+finally I commented upon it to Croppy.
+
+[Illustration: "CROPPY."]
+
+His cap was tilted over the maternal nose, he glanced at me sideways
+from under its peak.
+
+"Sure the other breechin' was broke, and if that owld shkin was to go
+the lin'th of himself without a breechin' on him he'd break all before
+him! There was some fellas took him to a funeral one time without a
+breechin' on him, an' when he seen the hearse what did he do but to rise
+up in the sky."
+
+Wherein lay the moral support of a breeching in such a contingency it is
+hard to say. I accepted the fact without comment, and expressed a regret
+that we had not been indulged with the entire set of black harness.
+
+Croppy measured me with his eye, grinned bashfully, and said:--
+
+"Sure it's the Dane's breechin' we have, Miss! I daresay he'd hardly get
+home at all if we took any more from him!"
+
+The Dean's breeching! For an instant a wild confusion of ideas deprived
+me of the power of speech. I could only hope that Croppy had left him
+his gaiters! Then I pulled myself together.
+
+"Croppy," I said in consternation, "how did you get it? Did you borrow
+it from the coachman?"
+
+"Is it the coachman!" said Croppy tranquilly. "I did not, Miss. Sure he
+was asleep in the snug."
+
+"But can they get home without it?"
+
+A sudden alarm chilled me to the marrow.
+
+"Arrah, why not, Miss? That black horse of the Dane's wouldn't care if
+there was nothing at all on him!"
+
+I heard Robert reeling in his line--had he a fish? Or, better still, had
+he made up his mind to go home?
+
+As a matter of fact, neither was the case; Robert was merely fractious,
+and in that particular mood when he wished to have his mind
+imperceptibly made up for him, while prepared to combat any direct
+suggestion. From what quarter the ignoble proposition that we should go
+home arose is immaterial. It is enough to say that Robert believed it to
+be his own, and that, before he had time to reconsider the question, the
+tactful Croppy had crammed the old white horse into the shafts of the
+car.
+
+It was by this time past five o'clock, and a threatening range of clouds
+was rising from seaward across the west. Things had been against us from
+the first, and if the last stone in the sling of Fate was that we were
+to be wet through before we got home, it would be no more than I
+expected. The old horse, however, addressed himself to the eight Irish
+miles that lay between him and home with unexpected vivacity. We swung
+in the ruts, we shook like jellies on the merciless patches of broken
+stones, and Croppy stimulated the pace with weird whistlings through
+his teeth, and heavy prods with the butt of his whip in the region of
+the borrowed breeching.
+
+Now that the expedition had been shaken off and cast behind us, the
+humbler possibilities of the day began to stretch out alluring hands.
+There was the new box from the library; there was the afternoon post;
+there was a belated tea, with a peaceful fatigue to endear all. We
+reached at last the welcome turn that brought us into the coast road. We
+were but three miles now from that happy home from which we had been
+driven forth, years ago as it seemed, at such desperate hazard. We drove
+pleasantly along the road at the top of the cliffs. The wind was behind
+us; a rising tide plunged and splashed far below. It was already raining
+a little, enough to justify our sagacity in leaving the river, enough to
+lend a touch of passion to the thought of home and Julia.
+
+The grey horse began to lean back against the borrowed breeching, the
+chains of the traces clanked loosely. We had begun the long zig-zag
+slant down to the village. We swung gallantly round the sharp turn
+half-way down the hill.
+
+And there, not fifty yards away, was the Dean's inside car, labouring
+slowly, inevitably, up to meet us. Even in that stupefying moment I was
+aware that the silver-banded hat was at a most uncanonical angle.
+Behind me on the car was stowed my sketching umbrella; I tore it from
+the retaining embrace of the camp-stool, and unfurled its unwieldy tent
+with a speed that I have never since achieved. Robert, on the far side
+of the car, was reasonably safe. The inestimable Croppy quickened up.
+Cowering beneath the umbrella, I awaited the crucial moment at which to
+shift its protection from the side to the back. The sound of the
+approaching wheels told me that it had almost arrived, and then,
+suddenly, without a note of warning, there came a scurry of hoofs, a
+grinding of wheels, and a confused outcry of voices. A violent jerk
+nearly pitched me off the car, as Croppy dragged the white horse into
+the opposite bank; the umbrella flew from my hand and revealed to me the
+Dean's bearded coachman sitting on the road scarcely a yard from my
+feet, uttering large and drunken shouts, while the covered car hurried
+back towards the village with the unforgettable yell of Miss McEvoy
+bursting from its curtained rear. The black horse was not absolutely
+running away, but he was obviously alarmed, and with the long hill
+before him anything might happen.
+
+"They're dead! They're dead!" said Croppy, with philosophic calm; "'twas
+the parasol started him."
+
+As he spoke, the black horse stumbled, the laden car ran on top of him
+like a landslip, and, with an abortive flounder, he collapsed beneath
+it. Once down, he lay, after the manner of his kind, like a dead thing,
+and the covered car, propped on its shafts, presented its open mouth to
+the heavens. Even as I sped headlong to the rescue in the wake of Robert
+and Croppy, I fore-knew that Fate had after all been too many for us,
+and when, an instant later, I seated myself in the orthodox manner upon
+the black horse's winker, and perceived that one of the shafts was
+broken, I was already, in spirit, making up beds with Julia for the
+reception of the party.
+
+To this mental picture the howls of Miss McEvoy during the process of
+extraction from the covered car lent a pleasing reality.
+
+Only those who have been in a covered car under similar circumstances
+can at all appreciate the difficulty of getting out of it. It has once,
+in the streets of Cork, happened to me, and I can best compare it to
+escaping from the cabin of a yacht without the aid of a companion
+ladder. From Robert I can only collect the facts that the door jammed,
+and that, at a critical juncture, Miss McEvoy had put her arms round his
+neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The programme that Fate had ordained was carried out to its ultimate
+item. The party from the Deanery of Glengad spent the night at Wavecrest
+Cottage, attired by subscription, like the converts of a Mission; I
+spent it in the attic, among trunks of Aunt Dora's old clothes, and
+rats; Robert, who throughout had played an unworthy part, in the night
+mail to Dublin, called away for twenty-four hours on a pretext that
+would not have deceived an infant a week old.
+
+Croppy was firm and circumstantial in laying the blame on me and the
+sketching umbrella.
+
+"Sure, I seen the horse wondhering at it an' he comin' up the hill to
+us. 'Twas that turned him."
+
+The dissertation in which the Dean's venerable coachman made the entire
+disaster hinge upon the theft of the breeching was able, but cannot
+conveniently be here set down.
+
+For my part, I hold with Julia.
+
+"'Twas Helayna gave the dhrink to the Dane's coachman! The low curséd
+thing! There isn't another one in the place that'd do it! I'm told the
+priest was near breaking his umbrella on her over it."
+
+
+
+
+"MATCHBOX"
+
+
+It was the event of Mr. John Denny's life that he valued highest. It is
+twenty years now since it took place, and many other things have
+happened to him, such as going to England to give evidence in the
+Parnell Commission, and matrimony, and taking the second prize in the
+Lightweight Hunter Class at the Dublin Horse Show. But none of them, not
+even the trip to London, possesses quite the same fortunate blend of the
+sublime and the ridiculous that gives this incident such a perennial
+success at the Hunt and Agricultural Show dinners which are the dazzling
+breaks in the monotony of Mr. Denny's life, and he prized it
+accordingly.
+
+Mr. Johnny Denny--or Dinny Johnny as he was known to his wittier
+friends--was a young man of the straightest sect of the Cork buckeens, a
+body whose importance justifies perhaps a particular description of one
+of their number. His profession was something imperceptibly connected
+with the County Grand Jury Office, and was quite over-shadowed in winter
+by the gravities of hunting, and in summer by the gallantries of the
+Militia training; for, like many of his class, he was a captain in the
+Militia. He was always neatly dressed; his large moustache looked as if
+it shared with his boots the attention of the blacking brush. No cavalry
+sergeant in Ballincollig had a more delicately bowed leg, nor any
+creature, except, perhaps, a fox-terrier interviewing a rival, a more
+consummate swagger. He knew every horse and groom in all the leading
+livery stables, and, in moments of expansion, would volunteer to name
+the price at which any given animal could be safeguarded from any given
+veterinary criticism. With all these not specially attractive qualities,
+however, Dinny Johnny was, and is, a good fellow in his way. His temper
+was excellent, his courage indisputable; he has never been known to give
+any horse--not even a hireling--less than fair play, and a tendency to
+ride too close to hounds has waned since time, like an Irish elector,
+has taken to emphasising himself by throwing stones, and Dinny Johnny,
+once ten stone, now admits to riding 13.7.
+
+In those days, before the inertia that creeps like mildew over country
+householders had begun to form, Mr. Denny was in the habit of making
+occasional excursions into remote parts of the County Cork in search of
+those flowers of pony perfection that are supposed to blush unseen in
+any sufficiently mountainous and unknown country, and the belief in
+which is the touch of wild poetry that keeps alive the soul of the
+amateur horse coper. He had never met the pony of his dreams, but he had
+not lost faith in it, and though he would range through the Bantry fair
+with a sour eye, behind the sourness there was ever a kindling spark of
+hope.
+
+Towards the end of October, in the year '83, Mr. Denny received an
+invitation from an old friend to go down to "the West"--thus are those
+regions east of the moon, and west of the sun, and south-west of
+Drimoleague Junction, designated in the tongue of Cork civilisation--to
+"look at a colt," and with a saddle and bridle in the netting and a
+tooth-brush in his pocket he set his face for the wilderness. I have no
+time to linger over the circumstances of the deal. Suffice it to say
+that, after an arduous haggle, Mr. Denny bought the colt, and set forth
+the same day to ride him by easy stages to his future home.
+
+It was a wet day, wet with the solid determination of a western day, and
+the loaded clouds were flinging their burden down on the furze, and the
+rocks, and the steep, narrow road, with vindictive ecstacy. They also
+flung it upon Mr. Denny, and both he and his new purchase were glad to
+find a temporary shelter in one of the many public-houses of a village
+on the line of march. He was sitting warming himself at an indifferent
+turf fire, and drinking a tumbler of hot punch, when the sound of loud
+voices outside drew him to the window. In front of a semi-circle of blue
+frieze coats, brown frieze trousers and slouched black felt hats, stood
+a dejected grey pony, with a woman at its head and a lanky young man on
+its back; and it was obvious to Mr. Denny that a transaction, of an even
+more fervid sort than that in which he had recently engaged, was toward.
+
+"Fifteen pound!" screamed the woman, darting a black head on the end of
+a skinny neck out of the projecting hood of her cloak with the swiftness
+of a lizard; "fifteen pound, James Hallahane, and the divil burn the
+ha'penny less that I'll take for her!"
+
+The elderly man to whom this was addressed continued to gaze steadily at
+the ground, and turning his head slightly away, spat unostentatiously.
+The other men moved a little, vaguely, and one said in a tone of remote
+soliloquy:--
+
+"She wouldn't go tin pound in Banthry fair."
+
+"Tin pound!" echoed the pony's owner shrilly. "Ah, God help ye, poor
+man! Here, Patsey, away home wid ye out o' this. It'll be night, and
+dark night itself before--"
+
+"I'll give ye eleven pounds," said James Hallahane, addressing the toes
+of his boots. The young man on the pony turned a questioning eye towards
+his mother, but her sole response was a drag at the pony's head to set
+it going; swinging her cloak about her, she paddled through the slush
+towards the gate, supremely disregarding the fact that a gander, having
+nerved himself and his harem to the charge, had caught the ragged skirt
+of her dress in his beak, and being too angry to let go, was being
+whirled out of the yard in her train.
+
+Dinny Johnny ran to the door, moved by an impulse for which I think the
+hot whisky and water must have been responsible.
+
+"I'll give you twelve pounds for the pony, ma'am!" he called out.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, when he and the publican were tying a
+tow-rope round the pony's lean neck, Mr. Denny was aware of a sinking of
+the heart as he surveyed his bargain. It looked, and was, an utterly
+degraded little object, as it stood with its tail tucked in between its
+drooping hindquarters, and the rain running in brown streams down its
+legs. Its lips were decorated with the absurd, the almost incredible
+moustache that is the consequence among Irish horses of a furze diet (I
+would hesitatingly direct the attention of the male youth of Britain to
+this singular but undoubted fact), and although the hot whisky and
+water had not exaggerated the excellence of its shoulder and the iron
+soundness of its legs, it had certainly reversed the curve of its neck
+and levelled the corrugations of its ribs.
+
+"You could strike a bally match on her, this minute, if it wasn't so
+wet!" thought Mr. Denny, and with the simple humour that endeared him to
+his friends he christened the pony "Matchbox" on the spot.
+
+"And it's to make a hunther of her ye'd do?" said the publican, pulling
+hard at the knot of the tow-rope. "Begor', I know that one. If there was
+forty men and their wives, and they after her wid sticks, she wouldn't
+lep a sod o' turf. Well, safe home, sir, safe home, and mind out she
+wouldn't kick ye. She's a cross thief," and with this valediction Dinny
+Johnny went on his way.
+
+There was no disputing the fact of the pony's crossness.
+
+"She's sourish-like in her timper," Jimmy, Mr. Denny's head man,
+observed to his subordinate not long after the arrival, and the
+subordinate, tenderly stroking a bruised knee, replied:--
+
+"Sour! I niver see the like of her! Be gannies, the divil's always busy
+with her!"
+
+On one point, however, the grey pony proved better than had been
+anticipated. Without the intervention of the forty married couples she
+took to jumping at once.
+
+"It comes as aisy to her as lies to a tinker," said Jimmy to a
+criticising friend; "the first day ever I had her out on a string she
+wint up to the big bounds fence between us and Barrett's as indipindant
+as if she was going to her bed; and she jumped it as flippant and as
+crabbéd--By dam, she's as crabbéd as a monkey!"
+
+In those days Mr. Standish O'Grady, popularly known as "Owld Sta'," had
+the hounds, and it need scarcely be said that Mr. Denny was one of his
+most faithful followers. This season he had not done as well as usual.
+The colt was only turning out moderately, and though the pony was
+undoubtedly both crabbéd and flippant, she could not be expected to do
+much with nearly twelve stone on her back. It happened, therefore, that
+Mr. Denny took his pleasure a little sadly, with his loins girded in
+momentary expectation of trouble, and of a sudden refusal from the colt
+to jump until the crowd of skirters and gap-hunters drew round, and
+escape was impossible until Mrs. Tom Graves's splinty old carriage horse
+had ploughed its way through the bank, and all those whom he most
+contemned had flaunted through the breach in front of him. He rode the
+pony now and then, but he more often lent her to little Mary O'Grady,
+"Owld Sta's" untidy, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, and quite uneducated
+little girl. It was probable that Mary could only just write her name,
+and it was obvious that she could not do her hair; but she was afraid of
+nothing that went on four legs--in Ireland, at least--and she had the
+divine gift of "hands". From the time when she was five, up till now,
+when she was fifteen, Mr. Denny had been her particular adherent, and
+now he found a chastened pleasure in having his eye wiped by Mary, on
+the grey pony; moreover, experience showed him that if anything would
+persuade the colt to jump freely, it was getting a lead from the little
+mare.
+
+"Upon my soul, she wasn't such a bad bargain after all," he thought one
+pleasant December day as he jogged to the Meet, leading "Matchbox," who
+was fidgeting along beside him with an expression of such shrewishness
+as can only be assumed by a pony mare; "if it wasn't that Mary likes
+riding her I'd make her up a bit and she'd bring thirty-five anywhere."
+
+There had been, that autumn, a good deal of what was euphemistically
+described as "trouble" in that district of the County Cork which Mr.
+Denny and the Kilcronan hounds graced with their society, and when Mr.
+O'Grady and his field assembled at the Curragh-coolaghy cross-roads, it
+was darkly hinted that if the hounds ran over a certain farm not far
+from the covert, there might be more trouble.
+
+Dinny Johnny, occupied with pulling up Mary O'Grady's saddle girths, and
+evading the snaps with which "Matchbox" acknowledged the attention,
+thought little of these rumours.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said; "whatever they do they'll let the hounds alone.
+Come on, Mary, you and me'll sneak down to the north side of the wood.
+He's bound to break there, and we've got to take every chance we can
+get."
+
+Curragh-coolaghy covert was a large, ill-kept plantation that straggled
+over a long hillside fighting with furze-bushes and rocks for the right
+of possession; a place wherein the young hounds could catch and eat
+rabbits to their heart's content comfortably aware that the net of
+brambles that stretched from tree to tree would effectually screen them
+from punishment. From its north-east side a fairly smooth country
+trended down to a river, and if the fox did not fulfil Mr. Denny's
+expectations by breaking to the north, the purplish patch that showed
+where, on the further side of the river, Madore Wood lay, looked a point
+for which he would be likely to make. Conscious of an act which he would
+have loudly condemned in any one else, Mr. Denny, followed by Mary, like
+his shadow, rode quietly round the long flank of the covert to the
+north-east corner. They sat in perfect stillness for a few minutes, and
+then there came a rustling on the inside of the high, bracken-fringed
+fence which divided them from the covert. Then a countryman's voice said
+in a cautious whisper:--
+
+"Did he put in the hounds yit?"
+
+"He did," said another voice, "he put them in the soud-aisht side;
+they'll be apt to get it soon."
+
+"Get what?" thought Dinny Johnny, all his bristles rising in wrath as
+the idea of a drag came to him.
+
+"There! they're noising now!" said the first voice, while a whimper or
+two came from far back in the wood. "Maybe there'll not be so much chat
+out o' thim afther once they'll git to Madore!"
+
+"'Twas a pity Scanlan wouldn't put the mate in here and have done with
+it," said the second voice. "Owld Sta'll niver let them run a dhrag."
+
+"Yirrah, what dhrag man! 'Twas the fox himself they had, and he cut open
+to make a good thrail, and the way Scanlan laid it the devil himself
+wouldn't know 'twas a dhrag, and they have little Danny Casey below to
+screech he seen the fox--"
+
+At the same instant the whimpers swelled into a far-away chorus, that
+grew each moment fainter and more faint. Much as Mr. Denny desired to
+undertake the capture of the imparters of these interesting facts, he
+knew that he had now no time to attempt it, and, with a shout to Mary,
+he started the colt at full gallop up the rough hillside, round the
+covert, while the grey pony scuttled after him as nimbly as a rabbit.
+The colt seemed to realise the stress of the occasion, and jumped
+steadily enough; but the last fence on to the road was too much for his
+nerves, and, having swerved from it with discomposing abruptness, he
+fell to his wonted tactics of rearing and backing.
+
+Mr. Denny permitted himself one minute in which to establish the
+fruitlessness of spurs, whip and blasphemy in this emergency, and then,
+descending to his own legs, he climbed over the fence into the road and
+ran as fast as boots and tops would let him towards the point whence the
+cry of the hounds was coming, ever more and more faintly. In a moment or
+two he returned, out of breath, to where the faithful Mary awaited him.
+
+"It's no good, Mary," he said, wiping the perspiration from his
+forehead; "they're running like blazes to the south along through the
+furze. I suppose the devils took it that way to humbug your father, and
+then they'll turn for the bridge and run into Madore; and there's the
+end of the hounds."
+
+Mary, who regarded the hounds as the chief, if not the only, object of
+existence, looked at him with scared eyes, while the colour died out of
+her round cheeks.
+
+"Will they be poisoned, Mr. Denny?" she gasped.
+
+"Every man jack of them, if your father doesn't twig it's a drag, and
+whip 'em off," replied Mr. Denny, with grim brevity.
+
+"Couldn't we catch them up?" cried Mary, almost incoherent from
+excitement and horror.
+
+"They've gone half-a-mile by this, and that brute," this with an eye of
+concentrated hatred at the colt, "won't jump a broom-stick."
+
+"But let me try," urged Mary, maddened by the assumption of masculine
+calm which Mr. Denny's despair had taken on; "or--oh, Mr. Denny, if you
+rode 'Matchbox' yourself straight to Madore across the river, you'd be
+in time to whip them off!"
+
+"By Jove!" said Dinny Johnny, and was silent. I believe that was the
+moment at which the identity of the future Mrs. Denny was made clear to
+him.
+
+"And you'll have to ride her in my saddle!" went on Mary at lightning
+speed, taking control of the situation in a manner prophetic of her
+future successful career as a matron. "There isn't time to change--"
+
+"The devil I shall!" said Dinny Johnny, and an unworthy thought of what
+his friends would say flitted across his mind.
+
+"And you'll have to sit sideways, because the lowest crutch is so far
+back there's not room for your leg if you sit saddleways," continued his
+preceptor breathlessly. "I know it--Jimmy said so when he rode her to
+the meet for me last week. Oh hurry--hurry! How slow you are!"
+
+Mr. Denny never quite knew how he got into the horrors of the saddle,
+still less how he and "Matchbox" got into the road. At one acute moment,
+indeed, he had believed he was going to precede her thither, but they
+alighted more or less together, and turning her, by a handy gap, into
+the field on the other side of the road, he set off at a precarious
+gallop, followed by the encouraging shrieks of Mary.
+
+"Thank the Lord there's no one looking, and it's a decent old saddle
+with a pommel on the offside," he said to himself piously, while he
+grasped the curving snout of the pommel in question, "I'd be a dead man
+this minute only for that."
+
+He felt as though he were wedged in among the claws of a giant crab, but
+without the sense of retention that might be hoped for under such
+circumstances. The lowest crutch held one leg in aching durance; there
+was but just room for the other between the two upper horns, and the
+saddle was so short and hollow in the seat that its high-ridged cantle
+was the only portion from which he derived any support--a support that
+was suddenly and painfully experienced after each jump. He could see,
+very far off, the pink coat of "Owld Sta'" following a line which seemed
+each moment to be turning more directly for Madore, and in his agony he
+gave the pony an imprudent dig of the spur that sent her on and off a
+boggy fence in two goat-like bounds, and gave the sunlight opportunity
+to play intermittently upon the hollow seat of the saddle. She had never
+carried him so well, and as she put her little head down and raced at
+the fences, the unfortunate Dinny Johnny felt that though he was
+probably going to break his neck, no one would ever be able to mention
+his early demise without a grin.
+
+Field after field fled by him in painful succession till he found
+himself safe on the farther side of a big stone-faced "double," the last
+fence before the river.
+
+"Please God I'll never be a woman again!" ejaculated Mr. Denny as he
+wedged his left leg more tightly in behind the torturing leaping horn,
+"that was a hairy old place! I wish Mary saw the pair of us coming up on
+to it like new-born stags!"
+
+Had Mary seen him and "Matchbox" a moment later, emerging separately
+from a hole in mid stream, her respect might not have prevented her
+from laughing, but the fact remains that the pair got across somehow.
+At the top of the hill beyond the river Dinny Johnny saw the hounds for
+the first time. They had checked on the road by the bridge, but now he
+heard them throwing their tongues as they hit the line again, the fatal
+line that was leading them to the covert. Even at this moment, Mr. Denny
+could not restrain an admiration that would appear to most people
+ill-timed.
+
+"Aren't they going the hell of a docket!" he exclaimed fondly, "and good
+old Chantress leading the lot of them, the darling! It'll be a queer
+thing now, if I don't get there in time!"
+
+Blown though the pony was, he knew instinctively that he had not yet
+come to the end of her, and he drove her along at a canter until he
+reached a lane that encircled the covert, along which he would have to
+go to intercept the hounds. As he jumped into it he was suddenly aware
+of a yelling crowd of men and boys, who seemed, with nightmare
+unexpectedness, to fill all the lane behind him. He knew what they were
+there for, and oblivious of the lamentable absurdity of his appearance,
+he turned and roared out a defiance as he clattered at full speed down
+the stony lane. It seemed like another and almost expected episode in
+the nightmare when he became aware of a barricade of stones, built
+across the road to a height of about four feet, with along the top of
+it--raising it to what, on a fourteen hand pony, looked like
+impossibility--the branch of a fir-tree, with all its bristling twigs
+left on it.
+
+He heard the cry of the hounds clearly now; they were within a couple of
+fields of the covert. Dinny Johnny drove his left spur into the little
+mare's panting side, let go the crutch, took hold of her head in the way
+that is unmistakable, and faced her at the barricade. As he did so a
+countryman sprang up at his right hand and struck furiously at him with
+a heavy potato spade. The blow was aimed at Dinny Johnny, but the moment
+was miscalculated, and it fell on "Matchbox" instead. The sharp blade
+gashed her hind quarter, but with a spring like a frightened deer she
+rose to the jump. For one supreme moment Dinny Johnny thought she had
+cleared it, but at the next her hind legs had caught in the branch, and
+with a jerk that sent her rider flying over her head, she fell in a heap
+on the road. Fortunately for Mr. Denny, he was a proficient in the art
+of falling, and though his hands were cut, and blood was streaming down
+his face, he was able to struggle up, and run on towards the cry of the
+hounds. There was still time; panting and dizzy, and half-blinded with
+his own blood, he knew that there was still time, and he laboured on,
+heedless of everything but the hounds. A high wall divided the covert
+from the lane, and he could see the gate that was the sole entrance to
+the wood on this side standing open. It was an iron gate, very high,
+with close upright iron bars and Chantress was racing him to get there
+first, Chantress, with all the pack at her heels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dinny Johnny won. It was a very close thing between him and Chantress,
+and that good hound's valuable nose came near being caught as the gates
+clanged together, but Dinny Johnny was in first. Then he flung himself
+at the pack, whipping, slashing, and swearing like a madman, as indeed
+he was for the moment. He had often whipped for Mr. O'Grady, and the
+hounds knew him, but without the solid abetting of the wall and the
+gate, he would have had but a poor chance. As it was, he whipped them
+back into the field up which they had run, and as he did so, "Owld Sta'"
+came puffing up the hill, with about a dozen of the field hard at his
+heels.
+
+"Poison!" gasped Dinny Johnny, falling down at full length on the grass,
+"the wood's poisoned!"
+
+When they went back to look for "Matchbox" she was still lying in the
+bohireen. Her bridle had vanished, and so had the pursuing countrymen.
+Mary O'Grady's saddle was broken, and could never be used again, and no
+more could "Matchbox," because she had broken her neck.
+
+And so the hounds, whom she had saved, subsequently ate her; but one of
+her little hoofs commemorates her name, and as Mr. Denny, with its
+assistance, lights his after-dinner pipe, he often heaves an appropriate
+sigh, and remarks: "Well, Mary, we'll never get the like of that pony
+again".
+
+
+
+
+"AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON FAIR"
+
+
+The first glimpse was worthy the best traditions of an Irish horse-fair.
+The train moved slowly across a bridge; beneath it lay the principal
+street of Bandon, seething with horses, loud with voices, and as the
+engine-driver, with the stern humour of his kind, let loose the usual
+assortment of sounds, it seemed as though the roadway below boiled over.
+Horses reared, plunged and stampeded, while high above the head of a
+long-tailed chestnut a countryman floated forth into space, a vision, in
+its brief perfectness, delightfully photographed on the retina.
+
+From the moment of leaving the railway station the fair was all
+pervading. It appeared that the whole district had turned horse dealer.
+The cramped side pavements of the town failed to accommodate the
+ceaseless promenade of those whose sole business lay in criticising the
+companion promenade of horses in the narrow street. They haled horses
+before them with the aplomb of a colonel of cavalry buying remounts.
+
+"Hi! bay horse! Pull in here! Foxy mare! Hi, boy, bring up that foxy
+mare!"
+
+The ensuing comments, though mainly of a damaging nature, were
+understood on both sides to be no more than conventional dismissals. The
+bay horse and the foxy mare were re-absorbed in the stream; their
+critics directed their attentions elsewhere with unquenched assiduity.
+
+It is the truest, most changeless trait of Irish character, the desire
+to stand well with the horse, to be his confidant, his physician, his
+exponent. It is comparable to the inborn persuasion in the heart of
+every man that he is a judge of wine.
+
+The procession of horses in the long, narrow street makes the brain
+swim. Hardly has the eye taken in the elderly and astute hunter with the
+fired hocks, whose forelegs look best in action, when it is dazzled by
+the career of a cart-horse, scourged to a mighty canter by a boy with a
+rope's end, or it is horrified by the hair-breadth escape of a group of
+hooded countrywomen from before the neighing charge of a two-year-old in
+a halter and string. Yet these things are the mere preliminary to the
+fair. At the end of the town a gap broken in a fence admits to a long
+field on a hillside. The entrance is perilous, and before it is achieved
+may involve more than one headlong flight to the safe summit of a
+friendly wall, as the young horses protest, and whirl, and buck with the
+usual fatuity of their kind. Once within the fair field there befal the
+enticements of the green apple, of the dark-complexioned sweetmeat
+temptingly denominated "Peggy's leg," of the "crackers"--that is, a
+confection resembling dog biscuit sown with caraway seeds--and, above
+all, of the "crubeens," which, being interpreted, means "pigs' feet,"
+slightly salted, boiled, cold, wholly abominable. Here also is the
+three-card trick, demonstrated by a man with the incongruous accent of
+Whitechapel and a defiant eye, that even through the glaze of the second
+stage of drunkenness held the audience and yet was 'ware of the
+disposition of the nine of hearts. Here is the drinking booth, and here
+sundry itinerant vendors of old clothes, and--of all improbable
+commodities to be found at a horse-fair--wall-paper. Neither has much
+success. The old-clothes woman casts down a heap of singularly repellant
+rags before a disparaging customer; she beats them with her fists,
+presumably to show their soundness in wind and limb: a cloud of
+germ-laden dust arises.
+
+"Arrah!" she says; "the divil himself wouldn't plaze ye in clothes."
+
+The wall-paper man is not more fortunate. "Look at that for a nate
+patthern!" he says ecstatically, "that'd paper a bed! Come now, ma'am,
+wan an' thrippence!"
+
+The would-be purchaser silently tests it with a wrinkled finger and
+thumb, and shakes her head.
+
+"Well, I declare to ye now, that's a grand paper. If ye papered a room
+with that and put a hen in it she'd lay four eggs!" But not even the
+consideration of its value as an æsthetic stimulant can compass the
+sale of the one-and-threepenny wall-paper.
+
+Down at this end of the fair field congregate the three-year-olds and
+two-year-olds; they pierce the air with their infant squeals and neighs,
+they stamp, and glare, and strike attitudes with absurd statuesqueness,
+while their owners sit on a bank above them, playing them like fish on
+the end of a long rope, and fabling forth their perfections with
+tireless fancy. The perils of the way increase at every moment. In and
+out among the restless heels the onlooker must steer his course, up into
+the ampler space on the hill-top, where the horses stand in more open
+order and a general view is possible.
+
+Much may be learned at Bandon Fair of how the County Cork hunter is
+arrived at, of the Lord Hastings colt out of a high-bred Victor mare; of
+New Laund, of Speculation, of Whalebone, of the ancient and well-nigh
+mythical Druid, whose name adds a lustre to any pedigree. These things
+are matters far more real and serious than English history to every man
+and boy in the fair field, whether he is concerned in practical
+horse-dealing or not. Even the mere visitor is fired with the
+acquisition of knowledge, and, in the intervals of saving his life,
+casts a withering eye on hocks and forelegs, and cultivates the gloomy
+silence that distinguishes the buyer.
+
+It can hardly fail to attract the attention of the inquirer that, in the
+highest walks of horsiness, the desire to appear horsey has been left
+behind. These shining ones have passed beyond symbols of canes, of
+gaiters, of straws in the mouth; it is as though they craved that
+incognito which for them is for ever impossible. Bandon Fair was
+privileged to have drawn two such into its shouting vortex. One wears a
+simple suit of black serge, with trousers of a godly fulness; in it he
+might fitly hand round the plate in church. His manner is almost
+startlingly candid, his speech, what there is of it, is ungarnished with
+stable slang, his face might belong to an imperfectly shaved archbishop.
+Yesterday he bought twenty young horses; next week he will buy forty
+more; next year he will place them in the English shires at prices never
+heard of in Bandon, and, be it added, they will as a rule be worth the
+money. Here is another noted judge of horseflesh, in knickerbocker
+breeches that seem to have been made at home for some one else, in
+leather gaiters of unostentatious roominess and rusticity. Though the
+August day is innocent of all suggestion of rain, he carries instead of
+a riding cane a matronly umbrella. When he rides a horse, and he rides
+several with a singularly intimate and finished method, he hands the
+umbrella to a reverential bystander; when the trial is over the umbrella
+is reassumed. If anything were needed to accent its artless domesticity,
+it would be the group of boys, horse copers in ambition, possibly in
+achievement, who sit in a row under a fence, with their teeth grimly
+clenched upon clay pipes, their eyes screwed up in perpetual and
+ungenial observation. Their conversation is telegraphic, smileless,
+esoteric, and punctuated with expectoration. If Phaeton and the horses
+of the sun were to take a turn round the fair field these critics would
+find little in them to commend. They are in the primary phase of a
+life-long art; perhaps with time and exceptional favours of fortune it
+may be given to them to learn the disarming mildness, the simplicity,
+that, like a water-lily, is the perfected outcome of the deep.
+
+[Illustration: A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING.]
+
+Before two o'clock the magnates of the fair had left it, taking with
+them the cream of its contents, and in humbler people such a hunger
+began to assert itself as came near bringing even crubeens and Peggy's
+leg within the sphere of practical politics. While slowly struggling
+through the swarming street the perfume of mutton chops stole
+exquisitely forth from the door of one of the hotels, accompanied by the
+sound of a subdued fusillade of soda-water corks; over the heads of
+the filthy press of people round the entrance and the thirsty throng at
+the bar might be seen a procession of gaitered legs going upstairs to
+luncheon. It seemed an excellent idea. The air within was blue with
+tobacco smoke, flushed henchwomen staggered to and fro with arms spread
+wide across trays of whiskies and sodas, opening doors revealed rooms
+full of men, mutton chops and mastication. There was wildness in the eye
+of the attendant as she took the order for yet another luncheon. She
+fled, with the assurance that it would be ready immediately, yet
+subsequent events suggested that even while she spoke the sheep that was
+to respond to that thirty-fifth order for mutton chops was browsing in
+the pastures of Bandon.
+
+For eyes that had last looked on food at 7 A.M., neither the view of the
+street obtainable from the first floor parlour window, nor even the
+contemplation of the remarkable sacred pictures that adorned its walls,
+had the interest they might have held earlier in the day, and the dirty
+cruet-stand on the dirtier tablecloth was endued with an almost hypnotic
+fascination in its suggestion of coming sustenance. At the end of the
+first hour a stupor verging on indifference had set in; it was far on in
+the second when the dish of fried mutton chops, the hard potatoes, and
+the tepid whiskies and sodas were flung upon the board. No preliminary
+to a week's indigestion had been neglected, and a deserved success was
+the result.
+
+The business of the fair was still transacted at large throughout the
+hotel. From behind the mound of mutton chops a buyer shoved a roll of
+dirty one-pound notes round the potato dish, and after due haggling
+received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of "luck-penny".
+On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a
+colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of
+astuteness and arithmetic. On the wall above them a print in which
+Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable
+finish to the scene.
+
+
+
+THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of All on the Irish Shore
+by E. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
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+Project Gutenberg's All on the Irish Shore, by E. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: All on the Irish Shore
+       Irish Sketches
+
+Author: E. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+Illustrator: E. Somerville
+
+Release Date: September 27, 2005 [EBook #16766]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H." _A Grand Filly._]
+
+
+
+
+All on the Irish Shore
+
+Irish Sketches
+
+By
+
+E.OE. Somerville and Martin Ross
+
+Authors of
+
+"Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.," "The Real Charlotte" "The Silver
+Fox," "A Patrick's Day Hunt" etc., etc.
+
+With Illustrations by E.OE. Somerville
+
+
+_SECOND IMPRESSION_
+
+
+Longmans, Green, and Co.
+
+39 Paternoster Row, London
+
+New York and Bombay
+
+1903
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+THE TINKER'S DOG
+
+FANNY FITZ'S GAMBLE
+
+THE CONNEMARA MARE
+
+A GRAND FILLY
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE
+
+HIGH TEA AT MCKEOWN'S
+
+THE BAGMAN'S PONY
+
+AN IRISH PROBLEM
+
+THE DANE'S BREECHIN'
+
+"MATCHBOX"
+
+"AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON FAIR"
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+"ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H."
+
+"A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF CAUTION,
+AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH"
+
+"MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN' OUT FOR A COB"
+
+ROBERT'S AUNT
+
+THE BLOOD-HEALER
+
+"THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID"
+
+SWEENY
+
+"MUSHA! MUSHA!"
+
+"CROPPY"
+
+A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING
+
+
+
+
+THE TINKER'S DOG
+
+
+"Can't you head 'em off, Patsey? Run, you fool! _run_, can't you?"
+
+Sounds followed that suggested the intemperate use of Mr. Freddy
+Alexander's pocket-handkerchief, but that were, in effect, produced by
+his struggle with a brand new hunting-horn. To this demonstration about
+as much attention was paid by the nine couple of buccaneers whom he was
+now exercising for the first time as might have been expected, and it
+was brought to abrupt conclusion by the sudden charge of two of them
+from the rear. Being coupled, they mowed his legs from under him as
+irresistibly as chain shot and being puppies, and of an imbecile
+friendliness they remained to lick his face and generally make merry
+over him as he struggled to his feet.
+
+By this time the leaders of the pack were well away up a ploughed field,
+over a fence and into a furze brake, from which their rejoicing yelps
+streamed back on the damp breeze. The Master of the Craffroe Hounds
+picked himself up, and sprinted up the hill after the Whip and Kennel
+Huntsman--a composite official recently promoted from the stable
+yard--in a way that showed that his failure in horn-blowing was not the
+fault of his lungs. His feet were held by the heavy soil, he tripped in
+the muddy ridges; none the less he and Patsey plunged together over the
+stony rampart of the field in time to see Negress and Lily springing
+through the furze in kangaroo leaps, while they uttered long squeals of
+ecstasy. The rest of the pack, with a confidence gained in many a
+successful riot, got to them as promptly as if six Whips were behind
+them, and the whole faction plunged into a little wood on the top of
+what was evidently a burning scent.
+
+"Was it a fox, Patsey?" said the Master excitedly.
+
+"I dunno, Master Freddy: it might be 'twas a hare," returned Patsey,
+taking in a hurried reef in the strap that was responsible for the
+support of his trousers.
+
+Freddy was small and light, and four short years before had been a
+renowned hare in his school paper-chases: he went through the wood at a
+pace that gave Patsey and the puppies all they could do to keep with
+him, and dropped into a road just in time to see the pack streaming up a
+narrow lane near the end of the wood. At this point they were reinforced
+by a yellow dachshund who, with wildly flapping ears, and at that
+caricature of a gallop peculiar to his kind, joined himself to the
+hunters.
+
+"Glory be to Mercy!" exclaimed Patsey, "the misthress's dog!"
+
+Almost simultaneously the pack precipitated themselves into a ruined
+cabin at the end of the lane; instantly from within arose an uproar of
+sounds--crashes of an ironmongery sort, yells of dogs, raucous human
+curses; then the ruin exuded hounds, hens and turkeys at every one of
+the gaps in its walls, and there issued from what had been the doorway a
+tall man with a red beard, armed with a large frying-pan, with which he
+rained blows on the fleeing Craffroe Pack. It must be admitted that the
+speed with which these abandoned their prey, whatever it was, suggested
+a very intimate acquaintance with the wrath of cooks and the perils of
+resistance.
+
+Before their lawful custodians had recovered from this spectacle, a tall
+lady in black was suddenly merged in the _melee_, alternately calling
+loudly and incongruously for "Bismarck," and blowing shrill blasts on a
+whistle.
+
+"If the tinker laves a sthroke of the pan on the misthress's dog, the
+Lord help him!" said Patsey, starting in pursuit of Lily, who, with tail
+tucked in and a wounded hind leg buckled up, was removing herself
+swiftly from the scene of action.
+
+Mrs. Alexander shoved her way into the cabin, through a filthy group of
+gabbling male and female tinkers, and found herself involved in a wreck
+of branches and ragged tarpaulin that had once formed a kind of tent,
+but was now strewn on the floor by the incursion and excursion of the
+chase. Earthquake throes were convulsing the tarpaulin; a tinker woman,
+full of zeal, dashed at it and flung it back, revealing, amongst other
+_debris_, an old wooden bedstead heaped with rags. On either side of one
+of its legs protruded the passion-fraught faces of the coupled
+hound-puppies, who, still linked together, had passed through the period
+of unavailing struggle into a state of paralysed insanity of terror.
+Muffled squeals and tinny crashes told that conflict was still raging
+beneath the bed; the tinker women screamed abuse and complaint; and
+suddenly the dachshund's long yellow nose, streaming with blood, worked
+its way out of the folds. His mistress snatched at his collar and
+dragged him forth, and at his heels followed an infuriated tom cat,
+which, with its tail as thick as a muff, went like a streak through the
+confusion, and was lost in the dark ruin of the chimney.
+
+Mrs. Alexander stayed for no explanations: she extricated herself from
+the tinker party, and, filled with a righteous wrath, went forth to look
+for her son. From a plantation three fields away came the asphyxiated
+bleats of the horn and the desolate bawls of Patsey Crimmeen. Mrs.
+Alexander decided that it was better for the present to leave the
+_personnel_ of the Craffroe Hunt to their own devices.
+
+It was but three days before these occurrences that Mr. Freddy Alexander
+had stood on the platform of the Craffroe Station, with a throbbing
+heart, and a very dirty paper in his hand containing a list of eighteen
+names, that ranged alphabetically from "Batchellor" to "Warior." At his
+elbow stood a small man with a large moustache, and the thinnest legs
+that were ever buttoned into gaiters, who was assuring him that to no
+other man in Ireland would he have sold those hounds at such a price; a
+statement that was probably unimpeachable.
+
+"The only reason I'm parting them is I'm giving up me drag, and selling
+me stock, and going into partnership with a veterinary surgeon in Rugby.
+You've some of the best blood in Ireland in those hounds."
+
+"Is it blood?" chimed in an old man who was standing, slightly drunk, at
+Mr. Alexander's other elbow. "The most of them hounds is by the Kerry
+Rapparee, and he was the last of the old Moynalty Baygles. Black dogs
+they were, with red eyes! Every one o' them as big as a yearling calf,
+and they'd hunt anything that'd roar before them!" He steadied himself
+on the new Master's arm. "I have them gethered in the ladies'
+waiting-room, sir, the way ye'll have no throuble. 'Twould be as good
+for ye to lave the muzzles on them till ye'll be through the town."
+
+Freddy Alexander cannot to this hour decide what was the worst incident
+of that homeward journey; on the whole, perhaps, the most serious was
+the escape of Governess, who subsequently ravaged the country for two
+days, and was at length captured in the act of killing Mrs. Alexander's
+white Leghorn cock. For a young gentleman whose experience of hounds
+consisted in having learned at Cambridge to some slight and painful
+extent that if he rode too near them he got sworn at, the purchaser of
+the Kerry Rapparee's descendants had undertaken no mean task.
+
+On the morning following on the first run of the Craffroe Hounds, Mrs.
+Alexander was sitting at her escritoire, making up her weekly accounts
+and entering in her poultry-book the untimely demise of the Leghorn
+cock. She was a lady of secret enthusiasms which sheltered themselves
+behind habits of the most business-like severity. Her books were models
+of order, and as she neatly inscribed the Leghorn cock's epitaph,
+"Killed by hounds," she could not repress the compensating thought that
+she had never seen Freddy's dark eyes and olive complexion look so well
+as when he had tried on his new pink coat.
+
+At this point she heard a step on the gravel outside; Bismarck uttered a
+bloodhound bay and got under the sofa. It was a sunny morning in late
+October, and the French window was open; outside it, ragged as a Russian
+poodle and nearly as black, stood the tinker who had the day before
+wielded the frying-pan with such effect.
+
+"Me lady," began the tinker, "I ax yer ladyship's pardon, but me little
+dog is dead."
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Alexander, fixing a gaze of clear grey rectitude upon
+him.
+
+"Me lady," continued the tinker, reverentially but firmly, "'twas afther
+he was run by thim dogs yestherday, and 'twas your ladyship's dog that
+finished him. He tore the throat out of him under the bed!" He pointed
+an accusing forefinger at Bismarck, whose lambent eyes of terror glowed
+from beneath the valance of the sofa.
+
+"Nonsense! I saw your dog; he was twice my dog's size," said Bismarck's
+mistress decidedly, not, however, without a remembrance of the blood on
+Bismarck's nose. She adored courage, and had always cherished a belief
+that Bismarck's sharklike jaws implied the possession of latent
+ferocity.
+
+"Ah, but he was very wake, ma'am, afther he bein' hunted," urged the
+tinker. "I never slep' a wink the whole night, but keepin' sups o' milk
+to him and all sorts. Ah, ma'am, ye wouldn't like to be lookin' at him!"
+
+The tinker was a very good-looking young man, almost apostolic in type,
+with a golden red aureole of hair and beard and candid blue eyes. These
+latter filled with tears as their owner continued:--
+
+"He was like a brother for me; sure he follied me from home. 'Twas he
+was dam wise! Sure at home all me mother'd say to him was, "Where's the
+ducks, Captain?" an' he wouldn't lave wather nor bog-hole round the
+counthry but he'd have them walked and the ducks gethered. The pigs
+could be in their choice place, wherever they'd be he'd go around them.
+If ye'd tell him to put back the childhren from the fire, he'd ketch
+them by the sleeve and dhrag them."
+
+The requiem ceased, and the tinker looked grievingly into his hat.
+
+"What is your name?" asked Mrs. Alexander sternly. "How long is it since
+you left home?"
+
+Had the tinker been as well acquainted with her as he was afterwards
+destined to become, he would have been aware that when she was most
+judicial she was frequently least certain of what her verdict was going
+to be.
+
+"Me name's Willy Fennessy, me lady," replied the tinker, "an' I'm goin'
+the roads no more than three months. Indeed, me lady, I think the time
+too long that I'm with these blagyard thravellers. All the friends I
+have was poor Captain, and he's gone from me."
+
+"Go round to the kitchen," said Mrs. Alexander.
+
+The results of Willy Fennessy's going round to the kitchen were
+far-reaching. Its most immediate consequences were that (1) he mended
+the ventilator of the kitchen range; (2) he skinned a brace of rabbits
+for Miss Barnet, the cook; (3) he arranged to come next day and repair
+the clandestine devastations of the maids among the china.
+
+He was pronounced to be a very agreeable young man.
+
+Before luncheon (of which meal he partook in the kitchen) he had been
+consulted by Patsey Crimmeen about the chimney of the kennel boiler, had
+single-handed reduced it to submission, and had, in addition, boiled the
+meal for the hounds with a knowledge of proportion and an untiring
+devotion to the use of the potstick which produced "stirabout" of a
+smoothness and excellence that Miss Barnet herself might have been proud
+of.
+
+"You know, mother," said Freddy that evening, "you do want another chap
+in the garden badly."
+
+"Well it's not so much the garden," said Mrs. Alexander with alacrity,
+"but I think he might be very useful to you, dear, and it's such a
+great matter his being a teetotaler, and he seems so fond of animals. I
+really feel we ought to try and make up to him somehow for the loss of
+his dog; though, indeed, a more deplorable object than that poor mangy
+dog I never saw!"
+
+"All right: we'll put him in the back lodge, and we'll give him Bizzy as
+a watch dog. Won't we, Bizzy?" replied Freddy, dragging the somnolent
+Bismarck from out of the heart of the hearthrug, and accepting without
+repugnance the comprehensive lick that enveloped his chin.
+
+From which it may be gathered that Mrs. Alexander and her son had
+fallen, like their household, under the fatal spell of the fascinating
+tinker.
+
+At about the time that this conversation was taking place, Mr. Fennessy,
+having spent an evening of valedictory carouse with his tribe in the
+ruined cottage, was walking, somewhat unsteadily, towards the wood,
+dragging after him by a rope a large dog. He did not notice that he was
+being followed by a barefooted woman, but the dog did, and, being an
+intelligent dog, was in some degree reassured. In the wood the tinker
+spent some time in selecting a tree with a projecting branch suitable to
+his purpose, and having found one he proceeded to hang the dog. Even in
+his cups Mr. Fennessy made sentiment subservient to common sense.
+
+It is hardly too much to say that in a week the tinker had taken up a
+position in the Craffroe household only comparable to that of Ygdrasil,
+who in Norse mythology forms the ultimate support of all things. Save
+for the incessant demands upon his skill in the matter of solder and
+stitches, his recent tinkerhood was politely ignored, or treated as an
+escapade excusable in a youth of spirit. Had not his father owned a farm
+and seven cows in the county Limerick, and had not he himself three
+times returned the price of his ticket to America to a circle of adoring
+and wealthy relatives in Boston? His position in the kitchen and yard
+became speedily assured. Under his _regime_ the hounds were valeted as
+they had never been before. Lily herself (newly washed, with "blue" in
+the water) was scarcely more white than the concrete floor of the kennel
+yard, and the puppies, Ruby and Remus, who had unaccountably developed a
+virulent form of mange, were immediately taken in hand by the
+all-accomplished tinker, and anointed with a mixture whose very
+noisomeness was to Patsey Crimmeen a sufficient guarantee of its
+efficacy, and was impressive even to the Master, fresh from much anxious
+study of veterinary lore.
+
+"He's the best man we've got!" said Freddy proudly to a dubious uncle,
+"there isn't a mortal thing he can't put his hand to."
+
+"Or lay his hands on," suggested the dubious uncle. "May I ask if his
+colleagues are still within a mile of the place?"
+
+"Oh, he hates the very sight of 'em!" said Freddy hastily, "cuts 'em
+dead whenever he sees 'em."
+
+"It's no use your crabbing him, George," broke in Mrs. Alexander, "we
+won't give him up to you! Wait till you see how he has mended the lock
+of the hall door!"
+
+"I should recommend you to buy a new one at once," said Sir George Ker,
+in a way that was singularly exasperating to the paragon's proprietors.
+
+Mrs. Alexander was, or so her friends said, somewhat given to vaunting
+herself of her paragons, under which heading, it may be admitted,
+practically all her household were included. She was, indeed, one of
+those persons who may or may not be heroes to their valets, but whose
+valets are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore,
+excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the
+very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the housemaid
+and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively demand an
+audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to such
+occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless. They
+were unhappy: one said she wouldn't get her appetite, and that her
+mother was sick; the other said she wouldn't get her sleep in it, and
+there was things--sob--going on--sob.
+
+Mrs. Alexander concluded the interview abruptly, and descended to the
+kitchen to interview her queen paragon, Barnet, on the crisis.
+
+Miss Barnet was a stout and comely English lady, of that liberal forty
+that frankly admits itself in advertisements to be twenty-eight. It was
+understood that she had only accepted office in Ireland because, in the
+first place, the butler to whom she had long been affianced had married
+another, and because, in the second place, she had a brother buried in
+Belfast. She was, perhaps, the one person in the world whose opinion
+about poultry Mrs. Alexander ranked higher than her own. She now allowed
+a restrained acidity to mingle with her dignity of manner, scarcely more
+than the calculated lemon essence in her faultless castle puddings, but
+enough to indicate that she, too, had grievances. _She_ didn't know why
+they were leaving. She had heard some talk about a fairy or something,
+but she didn't hold with such nonsense.
+
+"Gerrls is very frightful!" broke in an unexpected voice; "owld
+standards like meself maybe wouldn't feel it!"
+
+A large basket of linen had suddenly blocked the scullery door, and
+from beneath it a little woman, like an Australian aborigine, delivered
+herself of this dark saying.
+
+"What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffen?" demanded Mrs. Alexander,
+turning in vexed bewilderment to her laundress, "what does all this
+mean?"
+
+"The Lord save us, ma'am, there's some says it means a death in the
+house!" replied Mrs. Griffen with unabated cheerfulness, "an' indeed
+'twas no blame for the little gerrls to be frightened an' they meetin'
+it in the passages--"
+
+"Meeting _what_?" interrupted her mistress. Mrs. Griffen was an old and
+privileged retainer, but there were limits even for Mrs. Griffen.
+
+"Sure, ma'am, there's no one knows what was in it," returned Mrs.
+Griffen, "but whatever it was they heard it goin' on before them always
+in the panthry passage, an' it walkin' as sthrong as a man. It whipped
+away up the stairs, and they seen the big snout snorting out at them
+through the banisters, and a bare back on it the same as a pig; and the
+two cheeks on it as white as yer own, and away with it! And with that
+Mary Anne got a wakeness, and only for Willy Fennessy bein' in the
+kitchen an' ketching a hold of her, she'd have cracked her head on the
+range, the crayture!"
+
+Here Barnet smiled with ineffable contempt.
+
+"What I'm tellin' them is," continued Mrs. Griffen, warming with her
+subject, "maybe that thing was a pairson that's dead, an' might be owin'
+a pound to another one, or has something that way on his soul, an' it's
+in the want o' some one that'll ax it what's throublin' it. The like o'
+thim couldn't spake till ye'll spake to thim first. But, sure, gerrls
+has no courage--"
+
+Barnet's smile was again one of wintry superiority.
+
+"Willy Fennessy and Patsey Crimmeen was afther seein' it too last
+night," went on Mrs. Griffen, "an' poor Willy was as much frightened! He
+said surely 'twas a ghost. On the back avenue it was, an' one minute
+'twas as big as an ass, an' another minute it'd be no bigger than a
+bonnive--"
+
+"Oh, the Lord save us!" wailed the kitchen-maid irrepressibly from the
+scullery.
+
+"I shall speak to Fennessy myself about this," said Mrs. Alexander,
+making for the door with concentrated purpose, "and in the meantime I
+wish to hear no more of this rubbish."
+
+"I'm sure Fennessy wishes to hear no more of it," said Barnet acridly to
+Mrs. Griffen, when Mrs. Alexander had passed swiftly out of hearing,
+"after the way those girls have been worryin' on at him about it all the
+morning. Such a set out!"
+
+Mrs. Griffen groaned in a polite and general way, and behind Barnet's
+back put her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and winked at the
+kitchen-maid.
+
+Mrs. Alexander found her conversation with Willy Fennessy less
+satisfactory than usual. He could not give any definite account of what
+he and Patsey had seen: maybe they'd seen nothing at all; maybe--as an
+obvious impromptu--it was the calf of the Kerry cow; whatever was in it,
+it was little he'd mind it, and, in easy dismissal of the subject, would
+the misthress be against his building a bit of a coal-shed at the back
+of the lodge while she was away?
+
+That evening a new terror was added to the situation. Jimmy the
+boot-boy, on his return from taking the letters to the evening post,
+fled in panic into the kitchen, and having complied with the etiquette
+invariable in such cases by having "a wakeness," he described to a
+deeply sympathetic audience how he had seen something that was like a
+woman in the avenue, and he had called to it and it returned him no
+answer, and how he had then asked it three times in the name o' God what
+was it, and it soaked away into the trees from him, and then there came
+something rushing in on him and grunting at him to bite him, and he was
+full sure it was the Fairy Pig from Lough Clure.
+
+Day by day the legend grew, thickened by tales of lights that had been
+seen moving mysteriously in the woods of Craffroe. Even the hounds were
+subpoenaed as witnesses; Patsey Crimmeen's mother stating that for three
+nights after Patsey had seen that Thing they were singing and screeching
+to each other all night.
+
+Had Mrs. Crimmeen used the verb scratch instead of screech she would
+have been nearer the mark. The puppies, Ruby and Remus, had, after the
+manner of the young, human and canine, not failed to distribute their
+malady among their elders, and the pack, straitly coupled, went for
+dismal constitutionals, and the kennels reeked to heaven of remedies,
+and Freddy's new hunter, Mayboy, from shortness of work, smashed the
+partition of the loose box and kicked his neighbour, Mrs. Alexander's
+cob, in the knee.
+
+"The worst of it is," said Freddy confidentially to his ally and
+adviser, the junior subaltern of the detachment at Enniscar, who had
+come over to see the hounds, "that I'm afraid Patsey Crimmeen--the boy
+whom I'm training to whip to me, you know"--(as a matter of fact, the
+Whip was a year older than the Master)--"is beginning to drink a bit.
+When I came down here before breakfast this mornin'"--when Freddy was
+feeling more acutely than usual his position as an M.F.H., he cut his
+g's and talked slightly through his nose, even, on occasion, going so
+far as to omit the aspirate in talking of his hounds--"there wasn't a
+sign of him--kennel door not open or anything. I let the poor brutes out
+into the run. I tell you, what with the paraffin and the carbolic and
+everything the kennel was pretty high--"
+
+"It's pretty thick now," said his friend, lighting a cigarette.
+
+"Well, I went into the boiler-house," continued Freddy impressively,
+"and there he was, asleep on the floor, with his beastly head on my
+kennel coat, and one leg in the feeding trough!"
+
+Mr. Taylour made a suitable ejaculation.
+
+"I jolly soon kicked him on to his legs," went on Freddy, "not that they
+were much use to him--he must have been on the booze all night. After
+that I went on to the stable yard, and if you'll believe me, the two
+chaps there had never turned up at all--at half-past eight, mind
+you!--and there was Fennessy doing up the horses. He said he believed
+that there'd been a wake down at Enniscar last night. I thought it was
+rather decent of him doing their work for them."
+
+"You'll sack 'em, I suppose?" remarked Mr. Taylour, with martial
+severity.
+
+"Oh well, I don't know," said Mr. Alexander evasively, "I'll see.
+Anyhow, don't say anything to my mother about it; a drunken man is like
+a red rag to a bull to her."
+
+Taking this peculiarity of Mrs. Alexander into consideration, it was
+perhaps as well that she left Craffroe a few days afterwards to stay
+with her brother. The evening before she left both the Fairy Pig and the
+Ghost Woman were seen again on the avenue, this time by the coachman,
+who came into the kitchen considerably the worse for liquor and
+announced the fact, and that night the household duties were performed
+by the maids in pairs, and even, when possible, in trios.
+
+As Mrs. Alexander said at dinner to Sir George, on the evening of her
+arrival, she was thankful to have abandoned the office of Ghostly
+Comforter to her domestics. Only for Barnet she couldn't have left poor
+Freddy to the mercy of that pack of fools; in fact, even with Barnet to
+look after them, it was impossible to tell what imbecility they were not
+capable of.
+
+"Well, if you like," said Sir George, "I might run you over there on the
+motor car some day to see how they're all getting on. If Freddy is going
+to hunt on Friday, we might go on to Craffroe after seeing the fun."
+
+The topic of Barnet was here shelved in favour of automobiles. Mrs.
+Alexander's brother was also a person of enthusiasms.
+
+But what were these enthusiasms compared to the deep-seated ecstasy of
+Freddy Alexander as in his new pink coat he rode down the main street
+of Enniscar, Patsey in equal splendour bringing up the rear, unspeakably
+conscious of the jibes of his relatives and friends. There was a select
+field, consisting of Mr. Taylour, four farmers, some young ladies on
+bicycles, and about two dozen young men and boys on foot, who, in order
+to be prepared for all contingencies, had provided themselves with five
+dogs, two horns, and a ferret. It is, after all, impossible to please
+everybody, and from the cyclists' and foot people's point of view the
+weather left nothing to be desired. The sun shone like a glistering
+shield in the light blue November sky, the roads were like iron, the
+wind, what there was of it, like steel. There was a line of white on the
+northerly side of the fences, that yielded grudgingly and inch by inch
+before the march of the pale sunshine: the new pack could hardly have
+had a more unfavourable day for their _debut_.
+
+The new Master was, however, wholly undaunted by such crumples in the
+rose-leaf. He was riding Mayboy, a big trustworthy horse, whose love of
+jumping had survived a month of incessant and arbitrary schooling, and
+he left the road as soon as was decently possible, and made a line
+across country for the covert that involved as much jumping as could
+reasonably be hoped for in half a mile. At the second fence Patsey
+Crimmeen's black mare put her nose in the air and swung round; Patsey's
+hands seemed to be at their worst this morning, and what their worst
+felt like the black mare alone knew. Mr. Taylour, as Deputy Whip,
+waltzed erratically round the nine couple on a very flippant polo pony;
+and the four farmers, who had wisely adhered to the road, reached the
+covert sufficiently in advance of the hunt to frustrate Lily's project
+of running sheep in a neighbouring field.
+
+The covert was a large, circular enclosure, crammed to the very top of
+its girdling bank with furze-bushes, bracken, low hazel, and stunted
+Scotch firs. Its primary idea was woodcock, its second rabbits; beaters
+were in the habit of getting through it somehow, but a ride feasible for
+fox hunters had never so much as occurred to it. Into this, with
+practical assistance from the country boys, the deeply reluctant hounds
+were pitched and flogged; Freddy very nervously uplifted his voice in
+falsetto encouragement, feeling much as if he were starting the solo of
+an anthem; and Mr. Taylour and Patsey, the latter having made it up with
+the black mare, galloped away with professional ardour to watch
+different sides of the covert. This, during the next hour, they had
+ample opportunities for doing. After the first outburst of joy from the
+hounds on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after
+the retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion
+discovery that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the
+far-away prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy
+Alexander. He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering
+whoops the invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth
+huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, filled with that
+horrid conviction which assails the lonely watcher, that the hounds have
+slipped away at the far side, he put spurs to Mayboy, and cantered down
+the long flank of the covert to find some one or something. Nothing had
+happened on the north side, at all events, for there was the faithful
+Taylour, pirouetting on his hill-top in the eye of the wind. Two fields
+more (in one of which he caught his first sight of any of the hounds, in
+the shape of Ruby, carefully rolling on a dead crow), and then, under
+the lee of a high bank, he came upon Patsey Crimmeen, the farmers, and
+the country boys, absorbed in the contemplation of a fight between
+Tiger, the butcher's brindled cur, and Watty, the kennel terrier.
+
+The manner in which Mr. Alexander dispersed this entertainment showed
+that he was already equipped with one important qualification of a
+Master of Hounds--a temper laid on like gas, ready to blaze at a
+moment's notice. He pitched himself off his horse and scrambled over the
+bank into the covert in search of his hounds. He pushed his way through
+briars and furze-bushes, and suddenly, near the middle of the wood, he
+caught sight of them. They were in a small group, they were very quiet
+and very busy. As a matter of fact they were engaged in eating a dead
+sheep.
+
+After this episode, there ensued a long and disconsolate period of
+wandering from one bleak hillside to another, at the bidding of various
+informants, in search of apocryphal foxes, slaughterers of flocks of
+equally apocryphal geese and turkeys--such a day as is discreetly
+ignored in all hunting annals, and, like the easterly wind that is its
+parent, is neither good for man nor beast.
+
+By half-past three hope had died, even in the sanguine bosoms of the
+Master and Mr. Taylour. Two of the farmers had disappeared, and the lady
+bicyclists, with faces lavender blue from waiting at various windy cross
+roads, had long since fled away to lunch. Two of the hounds were
+limping; all, judging by their expressions, were on the verge of tears.
+Patsey's black mare had lost two shoes; Mr. Taylour's pony had ceased to
+pull, and was too dispirited even to try to kick the hounds, and the
+country boys had dwindled to four. There had come a time when Mr.
+Taylour had sunk so low as to suggest that a drag should be run with
+the assistance of the ferret's bag, a scheme only frustrated by the
+regrettable fact that the ferret and its owner had gone home.
+
+"Well we had a nice bit of schooling, anyhow, and, it's been a real
+educational day for the hounds," said Freddy, turning in his saddle to
+look at the fires of the frosty sunset. "I'm glad they had it. I think
+we're in for a go of hard weather. I don't know what I should have done
+only for you, old chap. Patsey's gone all to pieces: it's my belief he's
+been on the drink this whole week, and where he gets it--"
+
+"Hullo! Hold hard!" interrupted Mr. Taylour. "What's Governor after?"
+
+They were riding along a grass-grown farm road outside the Craffroe
+demesne; the grey wall made a sharp bend to the right, and just at the
+corner Governor had begun to gallop, with his nose to the ground and his
+stern up. The rest of the pack joined him in an instant, and all swung
+round the corner and were lost to sight.
+
+"It's a fox!" exclaimed Freddy, snatching up his reins; "they always
+cross into the demesne just here!"
+
+By the time he and Mr. Taylour were round the corner the hounds had
+checked fifty yards ahead, and were eagerly hunting to and fro for the
+lost scent, and a little further down the old road they saw a woman
+running away from them.
+
+"Hi, ma'am!" bellowed Freddy, "did you see the fox?"
+
+The woman made no answer.
+
+"Did you see the fox?" reiterated Freddy in still more stentorian tones.
+"Can't you answer me?"
+
+The woman continued to run without even looking behind her.
+
+The laughter of Mr. Taylour added fuel to the fire of Freddy's wrath: he
+put the spurs into Mayboy, dashed after the woman, pulled his horse
+across the road in front of her, and shouted his question point-blank at
+her, coupled with a warm inquiry as to whether she had a tongue in her
+head.
+
+The woman jumped backwards as if she were shot, staring in horror at
+Freddy's furious little face, then touched her mouth and ears and began
+to jabber inarticulately and talk on her fingers.
+
+The laughter of Mr. Taylour was again plainly audible.
+
+"Sure that's a dummy woman, sir," explained the butcher's nephew,
+hurrying up. "I think she's one of them tinkers that's outside the
+town." Then with a long screech, "Look! Look over! Tiger, have it!
+Hulla, hulla, hulla!"
+
+Tiger was already over the wall and into the demesne, neck and neck with
+Fly, the smith's half-bred greyhound; and in the wake of these champions
+clambered the Craffroe Pack, with strangled yelps of ardour, striving
+and squealing and fighting horribly in the endeavour to scramble up the
+tall smooth face of the wall.
+
+"The gate! The gate further on!" yelled Freddy, thundering down the
+turfy road, with the earth flying up in lumps from his horse's hoofs.
+
+Mr. Taylour's pony gave two most uncomfortable bucks and ran away; even
+Patsey Crimmeen and the black mare shared an unequal thrill of
+enthusiasm, as the latter, wholly out of hand, bucketed after the pony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon was very cold, a fact thoroughly realised by Mrs.
+Alexander, on the front seat of Sir George's motor-car, in spite of
+enveloping furs, and of Bismarck, curled like a fried whiting, in her
+lap. The grey road rushed smoothly backwards under the broad tyres;
+golden and green plover whistled in the quiet fields, starlings and huge
+missel thrushes burst from the wayside trees as the "Bollee," uttering
+that hungry whine that indicates the desire of such creatures to devour
+space, tore past. Mrs. Alexander wondered if birds' beaks felt as cold
+as her nose after they had been cleaving the air for an afternoon; at
+all events, she reflected, they had not the consolation of tea to look
+forward to. Barnet was sure to have some of her best hot cakes ready
+for Freddy when he came home from hunting. Mrs. Alexander and Sir
+George had been scouring the roads since a very early lunch in search of
+the hounds, and her mind reposed on the thought of the hot cakes.
+
+The front lodge gates stood wide open, the motor-car curved its flight
+and skimmed through. Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three
+policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and wormlike
+thing.
+
+"Janet," called out Sir George, "you've been caught making potheen!
+They've got the worm of a still there."
+
+"They're only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I'm
+delighted they've found it!" screamed back Mrs. Alexander.
+
+The "Bollee" was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of
+the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers. There was no response.
+
+"Better go round to the kitchen," suggested her brother. "You'll find
+they're talking too hard to hear the bell."
+
+His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the
+hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.
+
+"I can't find a creature anywhere," she said, "either upstairs or
+down--I can't understand Barnet leaving the house empty--"
+
+"Listen!" interrupted Sir George, "isn't that the hounds?"
+
+They listened.
+
+"They're hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!"
+
+The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the
+twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling
+clamour of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods. The
+motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out of the
+rhododendron-bush burst a spectral black-and-white dog, with floating
+fringes of ragged wool and hideous bald patches on its back.
+
+"Fennessy's dog!" ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in her seat.
+
+Probably Bismarck never enjoyed anything in his life as much as the all
+too brief moment in which, leaning from his mistress's lap in the prow
+of the flying "Bollee," he barked hysterically in the wake of the
+piebald dog, who, in all its dolorous career had never before had the
+awful experience of being chased by a motor-car. It darted in at the
+open door of the lodge; the pursuers pulled up outside. There were
+paraffin lamps in the windows, the open door was garlanded with
+evergreens; from it proceeded loud and hilarious voices and the jerky
+strains of a concertina. Mrs. Alexander, with all, her most cherished
+convictions toppling on their pedestals, stood in the open doorway and
+stared, unable to believe the testimony of her own eyes. Was that the
+immaculate Barnet seated at the head of a crowded table, in her--Mrs.
+Alexander's--very best bonnet and velvet cape, with a glass of steaming
+potheen punch in her hand, and Willy Fennessy's arm round her waist?
+
+The glass sank from the paragon's lips, the arm of Mr. Fennessy fell
+from her waist; the circle of servants, tinkers, and country people
+vainly tried to efface themselves behind each other.
+
+"Barnet!" said Mrs. Alexander in an awful voice, and even in that moment
+she appreciated with an added pang the feathery beauty of a slice of
+Barnet's sponge-cake in the grimy fist of a tinker.
+
+"Mrs. Fennessy, m'm, if you please," replied Barnet, with a dignity
+that, considering the bonnet and cape, was highly creditable to her
+strength of character.
+
+At this point a hand dragged Mrs. Alexander backwards from the doorway,
+a barefooted woman hustled past her into the house, slammed the door in
+her face, and Mrs. Alexander found herself in the middle of the hounds.
+
+"We'd give you the brush, Mrs. Alexander," said Mr. Taylour, as he
+flogged solidly all round him in the dusk, "but as the other lady seems
+to have gone to ground with the fox I suppose she'll take it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Fennessy paid out of her own ample savings the fines inflicted upon
+her husband for potheen-making and selling drink in the Craffroe gate
+lodge without a licence, and she shortly afterwards took him to America.
+
+Mrs. Alexander's friends professed themselves as being not in the least
+surprised to hear that she had installed the afflicted Miss Fennessy
+(sister to the late occupant) and her scarcely less afflicted companion,
+the Fairy Pig, in her back lodge. Miss Fennessy, being deaf and dumb, is
+not perhaps a paragon lodge-keeper, but having, like her brother, been
+brought up in a work-house kitchen, she has taught Patsey Crimmeen how
+to boil stirabout _a merveille_.
+
+
+
+
+FANNY FITZ'S GAMBLE
+
+
+"Where's Fanny Fitz?" said Captain Spicer to his wife.
+
+They were leaning over the sea-wall in front of a little fishing hotel
+in Connemara, idling away the interval usually vouchsafed by the Irish
+car-driver between the hour at which he is ordered to be ready and that
+at which he appears. It was a misty morning in early June, the time of
+all times for Connemara, did the tourist only know it. The mountains
+towered green and grey above the palely shining sea in which they stood;
+the air was full of the sound of streams and the scent of wild flowers;
+the thin mist had in it something of the dazzle of the sunlight that was
+close behind it. Little Mrs. Spicer pulled down her veil: even after a
+fortnight's fly-fishing she still retained some regard for her
+complexion.
+
+"She says she can't come," she responded; "she has letters to write or
+something--and this is our last day!"
+
+Mrs. Spicer evidently found the fact provoking.
+
+"On this information the favourite receded 33 to 1," remarked Captain
+Spicer. "I think you may as well chuck it, my dear."
+
+"I should like to beat them both!" said his wife, flinging a pebble into
+the rising tide that was very softly mouthing the seaweedy rocks below
+them.
+
+"Well, here's Rupert; you can begin on him."
+
+"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" said Rupert's sister
+vindictively. "A great teasing, squabbling baby! Oh, how I hate fools!
+and they are _both_ fools!--Oh, there you are, Rupert," a well-simulated
+blandness invading her voice; "and what's Fanny Fitz doing?"
+
+"She's trying to do a Mayo man over a horse-deal," replied Mr. Rupert
+Gunning.
+
+"A horse-deal!" repeated Mrs. Spicer incredulously. "Fanny buying a
+horse! Oh, impossible!"
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Mr. Gunning, "she's trying pretty
+hard. I gave her my opinion--"
+
+"I'll take my oath you did," observed Captain Spicer.
+
+"--And as she didn't seem to want it, I came away," continued Mr.
+Gunning imperturbably. "Be calm, Maudie; it takes two days and two
+nights to buy a horse in these parts; you'll be home in plenty of time
+to interfere, and here's the car. Don't waste the morning."
+
+[Illustration: "A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY,
+PARTLY OF CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH."]
+
+"I never know if you're speaking the truth or no," complained Mrs.
+Spicer; nevertheless, she scrambled on to the car without delay. She and
+her brother had at least one point in common--the fanatic enthusiasm of
+the angler.
+
+In the meantime, Miss Fanny Fitzroy's negotiations were proceeding in
+the hotel yard. Fanny herself was standing in a stable doorway, with her
+hands in the pockets of her bicycle skirt. She had no hat on, and the
+mild breeze blew her hair about; it was light brown, with a brightness
+in it; her eyes also were light brown, with gleams in them like the
+shallow places in a Connemara trout stream. At this moment they were
+scanning with approval, tempered by anxiety, the muddy legs of a lean
+and lengthy grey filly, who was fearfully returning her gaze from
+between the strands of a touzled forelock. The owner of the filly, a
+small man, with a face like a serious elderly monkey, stood at her head
+in a silence that was the outcome partly of stupidity, partly of
+caution, and partly of lack of English speech. The conduct of the matter
+was in the hands of a friend, a tall young man with a black beard,
+nimble of tongue and gesture, profuse in courtesies.
+
+"Well, indeed, yes, your ladyship," he was saying glibly, "the breed of
+horses is greatly improving in these parts, and them hackney horses--"
+
+"Oh," interrupted Miss Fitzroy hastily, "I won't have her if she's a
+hackney."
+
+The eyes of the owner sought those of the friend in a gaze that clearly
+indicated the question.
+
+"What'll ye say to her now?"
+
+The position of the vendors was becoming a little complicated. They had
+come over through the mountains, from the borders of Mayo, to sell the
+filly to the hotel-keeper for posting, and were primed to the lips with
+the tale of her hackney lineage. The hotel-keeper had unconditionally
+refused to trade, and here, when a heaven-sent alternative was delivered
+into their hands, they found themselves hampered by the coils of a
+cast-off lie. No shade, however, of hesitancy appeared on the open
+countenance of the friend. He approached Miss Fitzroy with a mincing
+step, a deprecating wave of the hand, and a deeply respectful ogle. He
+was going to adopt the desperate resource of telling the truth, but to
+tell the truth profitably was a part that required rather more playing
+than any other.
+
+"Well, your honour's ladyship," he began, with a glance at the hotel
+ostler, who was standing near cleaning a bit in industrious and
+sarcastic silence, "it is a fact, no doubt, that I mentioned here this
+morning that this young mare was of the Government hackney stock. But,
+according as I understand from this poor man that owns her, he bought
+her in a small fair over the Tuam side, and the man that sold her could
+take his oath she was by the Grey Dawn--sure you'd know it out of her
+colour."
+
+"Why didn't you say so before?" asked Miss Fitzroy, bending her straight
+brows in righteous severity.
+
+"Well, that's true indeed, your ladyship; but, after all--I declare a
+man couldn't hardly live without he'd tell a lie sometimes!"
+
+Fanny Fitz stooped, rather hurriedly, and entered upon a renewed
+examination of the filly's legs. Even Rupert Gunning, after his brief
+and unsympathetic survey, had said she had good legs; in fact, he had
+only been able to crab her for the length of her back, and he, as Fanny
+Fitz reflected with a heat that took no heed of metaphor, was the
+greatest crabber that ever croaked.
+
+"What are you asking for her?" she demanded with a sudden access of
+decision.
+
+There was a pause. The owner of the filly and his friend withdrew a step
+or two and conferred together in Irish at lightning speed. The filly
+held up her head and regarded her surroundings with guileless
+wonderment. Fanny Fitz made a mental dive into her bankbook, and arrived
+at the varied conclusions that she was L30 to the good, that on that sum
+she had to weather out the summer and autumn, besides pacifying various
+cormorants (thus she designated her long-suffering tradespeople), and
+that every one had told her that if she only kept her eyes open in
+Connemara she might be able to buy something cheap and make a pot of
+money on it.
+
+"This poor honest man," said the friend, returning to the charge, "says
+he couldn't part her without he'd get twenty-eight pounds for her; and,
+thank God, it's little your ladyship would think of giving that!"
+
+Fanny Fitz's face fell.
+
+"Twenty-eight pounds!" she echoed. "Oh, that's ridiculous!"
+
+The friend turned to the owner, and, with a majestic wave of the hand,
+signalled to him to retire. The owner, without a change of expression,
+coiled up the rope halter and started slowly and implacably for the
+gate; the friend took off his hat with wounded dignity. Every gesture
+implied that the whole transaction was buried in an irrevocable past.
+
+Fanny Fitz's eyes followed the party as they silently left the yard, the
+filly stalking dutifully with a long and springy step beside her master.
+It was a moment full of bitterness, and of a quite irrational
+indignation against Rupert Gunning.
+
+"I beg your pardon, miss," said the ostler, at her elbow, "would ye be
+willing to give twenty pounds for the mare, and he to give back a pound
+luck-penny?"
+
+"I would!" said the impulsive Fanny Fitz, after the manner of her
+nation.
+
+When the fishing party returned that afternoon Miss Fitzroy met them at
+the hall door.
+
+"Well, my dear," she said airily to Mrs. Spicer, "what sort of sport
+have you had? I've enjoyed myself immensely. I've bought a horse!"
+
+Mrs. Spicer sat, paralysed, on the seat of the outside car, disregarding
+her brother's outstretched hands.
+
+"Fanny!" she exclaimed, in tones fraught with knowledge of her friend's
+resources and liabilities.
+
+"Yes, I have!" went on Fanny Fitz, undaunted. "Mr. Gunning saw her. He
+said she was a long-backed brute. Didn't you, Mr. Gunning?"
+
+Rupert Gunning lifted his small sister bodily off the car. He was a tall
+sallow man, with a big nose and a small, much-bitten, fair moustache.
+
+"Yes, I believe I did," he said shortly.
+
+Mrs. Spicer's blue eyes grew round with consternation.
+
+"Then you really have bought the thing!" she cried. "Oh, Fanny, you
+idiot! And what on earth are you going to do with it?"
+
+"It can sleep on the foot of my bed to-night," returned Fanny Fitz, "and
+I'll ride it into Galway to-morrow! Mr. Gunning, you can ride half-way
+if you like!"
+
+But Mr. Gunning had already gone into the hotel with his rod and fishing
+basket. He had a gift, that he rarely lost a chance of exercising, of
+provoking Fanny Fitz to wrath, and the fact that he now declined her
+challenge may or may not be accounted for by the gloom consequent upon
+an empty fishing basket.
+
+Next morning the various hangers-on in the hotel yard were provided with
+occupation and entertainment of the most satiating description. Fanny
+Fitz's new purchase was being despatched to the nearest railway station,
+some fourteen miles off. It had been arranged that the ostler was to
+drive her there in one of the hotel cars, which should then return with
+a horse that was coming from Galway for the hotel owner; nothing could
+have fitted in better. Unfortunately the only part of the arrangement
+that refused to fit in was the filly. Even while Fanny Fitz was
+finishing her toilet, high-pitched howls of objurgation were rising,
+alarmingly, from the stable-yard, and on reaching the scene of action
+she was confronted by the spectacle of the ostler being hurtled across
+the yard by the filly, to whose head he was clinging, while two helpers
+upheld the shafts of the outside car from which she had fled. All were
+shouting directions and warnings at the tops of their voices, the hotel
+dog was barking, the filly alone was silent, but her opinions were
+unmistakable.
+
+A waiter in shirt-sleeves was leaning comfortably out of a window,
+watching the fray and offering airy suggestion and comment.
+
+"It's what I'm telling them, miss," he said easily, including Fanny Fitz
+in the conversation; "if they get that one into Recess to-night it'll
+not be under a side-car."
+
+"But the man I bought her from," said Fanny Fitz, lamentably addressing
+the company, "told me that he drove his mother to chapel with her last
+Sunday."
+
+"Musha then, may the divil sweep hell with him and burn the broom
+afther!" panted the ostler in bitter wrath, as he slewed the filly to a
+standstill. "I wish himself and his mother was behind her when I went
+putting the crupper on her! B'leeve me, they'd drop their chat!"
+
+"Sure I knew that young Geogheghan back in Westport," remarked the
+waiter, "and all the good there is about him was a little handy talk.
+Take the harness off her, Mick, and throw a saddle on her. It's little
+I'd think meself of canthering her into Recess!"
+
+"How handy ye are yerself with your talk!" retorted the ostler; "it's
+canthering round the table ye'll be doing, and it's what'll suit ye
+betther!"
+
+Fanny Fitz began to laugh. "He might ride the saddle of mutton!" she
+said, with a levity that, under the circumstances, did her credit.
+"You'd better take the harness off, and you'll have to get her to Recess
+for me somehow."
+
+The ostler took no notice of this suggestion; he was repeating to
+himself: "Ride the saddle o' mutton! By dam, I never heard the like o'
+that! Ride the saddle o' mutton--!" He suddenly gave a yell of laughing,
+and in the next moment the startled filly dragged the reins from his
+hand with a tremendous plunge, and in half a dozen bounds was out of the
+yard gate and clattering down the road.
+
+There was an instant of petrifaction. "Diddlety--iddlety--idlety!"
+chanted the waiter with far-away sweetness.
+
+Fanny Fitz and the ostler were outside the gate simultaneously: the
+filly was already rounding the first turn of the road; two strides more,
+and she was gone as though she had never been, and "Oh, my nineteen
+pounds!" thought poor Fanny Fitz.
+
+As the ostler was wont to say in subsequent repetitions of the story:
+"Thanks be to God, the reins was rotten!" But for this it is highly
+probable that Miss Fitzroy's speculation would have collapsed abruptly
+with broken knees, possibly with a broken neck. Having galloped into
+them in the course of the first hundred yards, they fell from her as
+the green withes fell from Samson, one long streamer alone remaining to
+lash her flanks as she fled. Some five miles from the hotel she met a
+wedding, and therewith leaped the bog-drain by the side of the road and
+"took to the mountains," as the bridegroom poetically described it to
+Fanny Fitz, who, with the ostler, was pursuing the fugitive on an
+outside car.
+
+"If that's the way," said the ostler, "ye mightn't get her again before
+the winther."
+
+Fanny Fitz left the matter, together with a further instalment of the
+thirty pounds, in the hands of the sergeant of police, and went home,
+and, improbable as it may appear, in the course of something less than
+ten days she received an invoice from the local railway station,
+Enniscar, briefly stating: "1 horse arrd. Please remove."
+
+Many people, most of her friends indeed, were quite unaware that Fanny
+Fitz possessed a home. Beyond the fact that it supplied her with a
+permanent address, and a place at which she was able periodically to
+deposit consignments of half-worn-out clothes, Fanny herself was not
+prone to rate the privilege very highly. Possibly, two very elderly
+maiden step-aunts are discouraging to the homing instinct; the fact
+remained that as long as the youngest Miss Fitzroy possessed the
+where-withal to tip a housemaid she was but rarely seen within the
+decorous precincts of Craffroe Lodge.
+
+Let it not for a moment be imagined that the Connemara filly was to
+become a member of this household. Even Fanny Fitz, with all her
+optimism, knew better than to expect that William O'Loughlin, who
+divided his attentions between the ancient cob and the garden, and ruled
+the elder Misses Fitzroy with a rod of iron, would undertake the
+education of anything more skittish than early potatoes. It was to the
+stable, or rather cow-house, of one Johnny Connolly, that the new
+purchase was ultimately conveyed, and it was thither that Fanny Fitz,
+with apples in one pocket and sugar in the other, conducted her ally,
+Mr. Freddy Alexander, the master of the Craffroe Hounds. Fanny Fitz's
+friendship with Freddy was one of long standing, and was soundly based
+on the fact that when she had been eighteen he had been fourteen; and
+though it may be admitted that this is a discrepancy that somewhat fades
+with time, even Freddy's mother acquitted Fanny Fitz of any ulterior
+motive; and Freddy was an only son.
+
+"She was very rejected last night afther she coming in," said Johnny
+Connolly, manipulating as he spoke the length of rusty chain and bit of
+stick that fastened the door. "I think it was lonesome she was on the
+thrain."
+
+Fanny Fitz and Mr. Alexander peered into the dark and vasty interior of
+the cow-house; from a remote corner they heard a heavy breath and the
+jingle of a training bit, but they saw nothing.
+
+"I have the cavesson and all on her ready for ye, and I was thinking
+we'd take her south into Mr. Gunning's land. His finces is very good,"
+continued Johnny, going cautiously in; "wait till I pull her out."
+
+Johnny Connolly was a horse trainer who did a little farming, or a
+farmer who did a little horse training, and his management of young
+horses followed no known rules, and indeed knew none, but it was
+generally successful. He fed them by rule of thumb; he herded them in
+hustling, squabbling parties in pitch-dark sheds; he ploughed them at
+eighteen months; he beat them with a stick like dogs when they
+transgressed, and like dogs they loved him. He had what gardeners call
+"a lucky hand" with them, and they throve with him, and he had,
+moreover, that gift of winning their wayward hearts that comes neither
+by cultivation nor by knowledge, but is innate and unconscious. Already,
+after two days, he and the Connemara filly understood each other; she
+sniffed distantly and with profound suspicion at Fanny and her
+offerings, and entirely declined to permit Mr. Alexander to estimate her
+height on the questionable assumption that the point of his chin
+represented 15'2, but she allowed Johnny to tighten or slacken every
+buckle in her new and unfamiliar costume without protest.
+
+"I think she'll make a ripping good mare," said the enthusiastic Freddy,
+as he and Fanny Fitz followed her out of the yard; "I don't care what
+Rupert Gunning says, she's any amount of quality, and I bet you'll do
+well over her."
+
+"She'll make a real nice fashionable mare," remarked Johnny, opening the
+gate of a field and leading the filly in, "and she's a sweet galloper,
+but she's very frightful in herself. Faith, I thought she'd run up the
+wall from me the first time I went to feed her! Ah ha! none o' yer
+thricks!" as the filly, becoming enjoyably aware of the large space of
+grass round her, let fling a kick of malevolent exuberance at the two
+fox-terriers who were trotting decorously in her rear.
+
+It was soon found that, in the matter of "stone gaps," the A B C of
+Irish jumping, Connemara had taught the grey filly all there was to
+learn.
+
+"Begor, Miss Fanny, she's as crabbed as a mule!" said her teacher
+approvingly. "D'ye mind the way she soaks the hind legs up into her!
+We'll give her a bank now."
+
+At the bank, however, the trouble began. Despite the ministrations of
+Mr. Alexander and a long whip, despite the precept and example of Mr.
+Connolly, who performed prodigies of activity in running his pupil in at
+the bank and leaping on to it himself the filly time after time either
+ran her chest against it or swerved from it at the last instant with a
+vigour that plucked her preceptor from off it and scattered Fanny Fitz
+and the fox-terriers like leaves before the wind. These latter were
+divided between sycophantic and shrieking indignation with the filly for
+declining to jump, and a most wary attention to the sphere of influence
+of the whip. They were a mother and daughter, as conceited, as craven,
+and as wholly attractive as only the judiciously spoiled ladies of their
+race can be. Their hearts were divided between Fanny Fitz and the cook,
+the rest of them appertained to the Misses Harriet and Rachael Fitzroy,
+whom they regarded with toleration tinged with boredom.
+
+"I tell ye now, Masther Freddy, 'tis no good for us to be goin' on
+sourin' the mare this way. 'Tis what the fince is too steep for her.
+Maybe she never seen the like in that backwards counthry she came from.
+We'll give her the bank below with the ditch in front of it. 'Tisn't
+very big at all, and she'll be bound to lep with the sup of wather
+that's in it."
+
+Thus Johnny Connolly, wiping a very heated brow.
+
+The bank below was a broad and solid structure well padded with grass
+and bracken, and it had a sufficiently obvious ditch, of some three feet
+wide, on the nearer side. The grand effort was duly prepared for. The
+bank was solemnly exhibited to the filly; the dogs, who had with
+unerring instinct seated themselves on its most jumpable portion, were
+scattered with one threat of the whip to the horizon. Fanny tore away
+the last bit of bracken that might prove a discouragement, and Johnny
+issued his final order.
+
+"Come inside me with the whip, sir, and give her one good belt at the
+last."
+
+No one knows exactly how it happened. There was a rush, a scramble, a
+backward sliding, a great deal of shouting, and the Connemara filly was
+couched in the narrow ditch at right angles to the fence, with the water
+oozing up through the weeds round her, like a wild duck on its nest; and
+at this moment Mr. Rupert Gunning appeared suddenly on the top of the
+bank and inspected the scene with an amusement that he made little
+attempt to conceal.
+
+It took half an hour, and ropes, and a number of Rupert Gunning's
+haymakers, to get Fanny Fitz's speculation on to its legs again, and Mr.
+Gunning's comments during the process successfully sapped Fanny Fitz's
+control of her usually equable temper, "He's a beast!" she said
+wrathfully to Freddy, as the party moved soberly homewards in the
+burning June afternoon, with the horseflies clustering round them, and
+the smell of new-mown grass wafting to them from where, a field or two
+away, came the rattle of Rupert Gunning's mowing-machine. "A crabbing
+beast! It was just like my luck that he should come up at that moment
+and have the supreme joy of seeing Gamble--" Gamble was the filly's
+rarely-used name--"wallowing in the ditch! That's the second time he's
+scored off me. I _pity_ poor little Maudie Spicer for having such a
+brother!"
+
+In spite of this discouraging _debut_, the filly's education went on and
+prospered. She marched discreetly along the roads in long reins; she
+champed detested mouthfuls of rusty mouthing bit in the process
+described by Johnny Connolly as "getting her neck broke"; she trotted
+for treadmill half-hours in the lunge; and during and in spite of all
+these penances, she fattened up and thickened out until that great
+authority, Mr. Alexander, pronounced it would be a sin not to send her
+up to the Dublin Horse Show, as she was just the mare to catch an
+English dealer's eye.
+
+"But sure ye wouldn't sell her, miss?" said her faithful nurse, "and
+Masther Freddy afther starting the hounds and all!"
+
+Fanny Fitz scratched the filly softly under the jawbone, and thought of
+the document in her pocket--long, and blue, and inscribed with the too
+familiar notice in red ink: "An early settlement will oblige".
+
+"I must, Johnny," she said, "worse luck!"
+
+"Well, indeed, that's too bad, miss," said Johnny comprehendingly.
+"There was a mare I had one time, and I sold her before I went to
+America. God knows, afther she went from me, whenever I'd look at her
+winkers hanging on the wall I'd have to cry. I never seen a sight of her
+till three years afther that, afther I coming home. I was coming out o'
+the fair at Enniscar, an' I was talking to a man an' we coming down
+Dangan Hill, and what was in it but herself coming up in a cart! "An' I
+didn't look at her, good nor bad, nor know her, but sorra bit but she
+knew me talking, an' she turned in to me with the cart! Ho, ho, ho!'
+says she, and she stuck her nose into me like she'd be kissing me. Be
+dam, but I had to cry. An' the world wouldn't stir her out o' that till
+I'd lead her on meself. As for cow nor dog nor any other thing, there's
+nothing would rise your heart like a horse!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was early in July, a hot and sunny morning, and Fanny Fitz, seated on
+the flawless grassplot in front of Craffroe Lodge hall-door, was engaged
+in washing the dogs. The mother, who had been the first victim, was
+morosely licking herself, shuddering effectively, and coldly ignoring
+her oppressor's apologies. The daughter, trembling in every limb, was
+standing knee-deep in the bath; one paw, placed on its rim, was ready
+for flight if flight became practicable; her tail, rigid with anguish
+would have hummed like a violin-string if it were touched. Fanny, with
+her shirt-sleeves rolled up to her elbows, scrubbed in the soap. A
+clipped fuchsia hedge, the pride of William O'Loughlin's heart, screened
+the little lawn and garden from the high road.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Fanny," said a voice over the hedge.
+
+Fanny Fitz raised a flushed face and wiped a fleck of Naldyre off her
+nose with her arm.
+
+"I've just been looking at your mare," went on the voice.
+
+"Well, I hope you liked her!" said Fanny Fitz defiantly, for the voice
+was the voice of Rupert Gunning, and there was that in it that in this
+connection acted on Miss Fitzroy as a slogan.
+
+"Well, 'like' is a strong word, you know!" said Mr. Gunning, moving on
+and standing with his arms on the top of the white gate and meeting
+Fanny's glance with provoking eyes. Then, as an after-thought, "Do you
+think you give her enough to eat?"
+
+"She gets a feed of oats every Sunday, and strong tea and thistles
+through the week," replied Fanny Fitz in furious sarcasm.
+
+"Yes, that's what she looks like," said Rupert Gunning thoughtfully.
+"Connolly tells me you want to send her to the show--Barnum's, I
+suppose--as the skeleton dude?"
+
+"I believe you want to buy her yourself," retorted Fanny, with a vicious
+dab of the soap in the daughter's eye.
+
+"Yes, she's just about up to my weight, isn't she? By-the-bye, you
+haven't had her backed yet, I believe?"
+
+"I'm going to try her to-day!" said Fanny with sudden resolve.
+
+"Ride her yourself!" said Mr. Gunning, his eyebrows going up into the
+roots of his hair.
+
+"Yes!" said Fanny, with calm as icy as a sudden burst of struggles on
+the part of the daughter would admit of.
+
+Rupert Gunning hesitated; then he said, "Well, she ought to carry a
+side-saddle well. Decent shoulders, and a nice long--" Perhaps he caught
+Fanny Fitz's eye; at all events, he left the commendation unfinished,
+and went on, "I should like to look in and see the performance, if I
+may? I suppose you wouldn't let me try her first? No?"
+
+He walked on.
+
+"Puppy, _will_ you stay quiet!" said Fanny Fitz very crossly. She even
+slapped the daughter's soap-sud muffled person, for no reason that the
+daughter could see.
+
+"Begorra, miss, I dunno," said Johnny Connolly dubiously when the
+suggestion that the filly should be ridden there and then was made to
+him a few minutes later; "wouldn't ye wait till I put her a few turns
+under the cart, or maybe threw a sack o' oats on her back?"
+
+But Fanny would brook no delay. Her saddle was in the harness-room:
+William O'Loughlin could help to put it on; she would try the filly at
+once.
+
+Miss Fitzroy's riding was of the sort that makes up in pluck what it
+wants in knowledge. She stuck on by sheer force of character; that she
+sat fairly straight, and let a horse's head alone were gifts of
+Providence of which she was wholly unconscious. Riding, in her opinion,
+was just getting on to a saddle and staying there, and making the thing
+under it go as fast as possible. She had always ridden other people's
+horses, and had ridden them so straight, and looked so pretty,
+that--other people in this connection being usually men--such trifles as
+riding out a hard run minus both fore shoes, or watering her mount
+generously during a check, were endured with a forbearance not frequent
+in horse owners. Hunting people, however, do not generally mount their
+friends, no matter how attractive, on young and valuable horses. Fanny
+Fitz's riding had been matured on well-seasoned screws, and she sallied
+forth to the subjugation of the Connemara filly with a self-confidence
+formed on experience only of the old, and the kind, and the cunning.
+
+The filly trembled and sidled away from the garden-seat up to which
+Johnny Connolly had manoeuvred her. Johnny's supreme familiarity with
+young horses had brought him to the same point of recklessness that
+Fanny had arrived at from the opposite extreme, but some lingering
+remnant of prudence had induced him to put on the cavesson headstall,
+with the long rope attached to it, over the filly's bridle. The latter
+bore with surprising nerve Fanny's depositing of herself in the saddle.
+
+"I'll keep a holt o' the rope, Miss Fanny," said Johnny, assiduously
+fondling his pupil; "it might be she'd be strange in herself for the
+first offer. I'll lead her on a small piece. Come on, gerr'l! Come on
+now!"
+
+The pupil, thus adjured, made a hesitating movement, and Fanny settled
+herself down into the saddle. It was the shifting of the weight that
+seemed to bring home to the grey filly the true facts of the case, and
+with the discovery she shot straight up into the air as if she had been
+fired from a mortar. The rope whistled through Johnny Connolly's
+fingers, and the point of the filly's shoulder laid him out on the
+ground with the precision of a prize-fighter.
+
+"I felt, my dear," as Fanny Fitz remarked in a letter to a friend, "as
+if I were in something between an earthquake and a bad dream and a
+churn. I just _clamped_ my legs round the crutches, and she whirled the
+rest of me round her like the lash of a whip. In one of her flights she
+nearly went in at the hall door, and I was aware of William O'Loughlin's
+snow-white face somewhere behind the geraniums in the porch. I think I
+was clean out of the saddle then. I remember looking up at my knees, and
+my left foot was nearly on the ground. Then she gave another flourish,
+and swung me up on top again. I was hanging on to the reins hard; in
+fact, I think they must have pulled me back on to the saddle, as I
+_know_ at one time I was sitting in a bunch on the stirrup! Then I heard
+most heart-rending yells from the poor old Aunts: 'Oh, the begonias! O
+Fanny, get off the grass!' and then, suddenly, the filly and I were
+perfectly still, and the house and the trees were spinning round me,
+black, edged with green and yellow dazzles. Then I discovered that some
+one had got hold of the cavesson rope and had hauled us in, as if we
+were salmon; Johnny had grabbed me by the left leg, and was trying to
+drag me off the filly's back; William O'Loughlin had broken two pots of
+geraniums, and was praying loudly among the fragments; and Aunt Harriet
+and Aunt Rachel, who don't to this hour realise that anything unusual
+had happened, were reproachfully collecting the trampled remnants of the
+begonias."
+
+It was, perhaps unworthy on Fanny Fitz's part to conceal the painful
+fact that it was that distinguished fisherman, Mr. Rupert Gunning, who
+had landed her and the Connemara filly. Freddy Alexander, however, heard
+the story in its integrity, and commented on it with his usual candour.
+"I don't know which was the bigger fool, you or Johnny," he said; "I
+think you ought to be jolly grateful to old Rupert!"
+
+"Well, I'm not!" returned Fanny Fitz.
+
+After this episode the training of the filly proceeded with more system
+and with entire success. Her nerves having been steadied by an hour in
+the lunge with a sack of oats strapped, Mazeppa-like, on to her back,
+she was mounted without difficulty, and was thereafter ridden daily. By
+the time Fanny's muscles and joints had recovered from their first
+attempt at rough-riding, the filly was taking her place as a reasonable
+member of society, and her nerves, which had been as much _en evidence_
+as her bones, were, like the latter, finding their proper level, and
+becoming clothed with tranquillity and fat. The Dublin Horse Show drew
+near, and, abetted by Mr. Alexander, Fanny Fitz filled the entry forms
+and drew the necessary cheque, and then fell back in her chair and gazed
+at the attentive dogs with fateful eyes.
+
+"Dogs!" she said, "if I don't sell the filly I am done for!"
+
+The mother scratched languidly behind her ear till she yawned musically,
+but said nothing. The daughter, who was an enthusiast, gave a sudden
+bound on to Miss Fitzroy's lap, and thus it was that the cheque was
+countersigned with two blots and a paw mark.
+
+None the less, the bank honoured it, being a kind bank, and not desirous
+to emphasise too abruptly the fact that Fanny Fitz was overdrawn.
+
+In spite of, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of this fact, it would
+have been hard to find a smarter and more prosperous-looking young woman
+than the owner of No. 548, as she signed her name at the season-ticket
+turnstile and entered the wide soft aisles of the cathedral of horses at
+Ballsbridge. It was the first day of the show, and in token of Fanny
+Fitz's enthusiasm be it recorded, it was little more than 9.30 A.M.
+Fanny knew the show well, but hitherto only in its more worldly and
+social aspects. Never before had she been of the elect who have a horse
+"up," and as she hurried along, attended by Captain Spicer, at whose
+house she was staying, and Mr. Alexander, she felt magnificently
+conscious of the importance of the position.
+
+The filly had preceded her from Craffroe by a couple of days, under the
+charge of Patsey Crimmeen, lent by Freddy for the occasion.
+
+"I don't expect a prize, you know," Fanny had said loftily to Mr.
+Gunning, "but she has improved so tremendously, every one says she ought
+to be an easy mare to sell."
+
+The sun came filtering through the high roof down on to the long rows of
+stalls, striking electric sparks out of the stirrup-irons and bits, and
+adding a fresh gloss to the polish that the grooms were giving to their
+charges. The judging had begun in several of the rings, and every now
+and then a glittering exemplification of all that horse and groom could
+be would come with soft thunder up the tan behind Fanny and her squires.
+
+"We've come up through the heavy weights," said Captain Spicer; "the
+twelve-stone horses will look like rats--" He stopped.
+
+They had arrived at the section in which figured "No. 548. Miss F.
+Fitzroy's 'Gamble,' grey mare; 4 years, by Grey Dawn," and opposite
+them was stall No. 548. In it stood the Connemara filly, or rather
+something that might have been her astral body. A more spectral,
+deplorable object could hardly be imagined. Her hind quarters had fallen
+in, her hips were standing out; her ribs were like the bars of a grate;
+her head, hung low before her, was turned so that one frightened eye
+scanned the passers-by, and she propped her fragile form against the
+partition of her stall, as though she were too weak to stand up.
+
+To say that Fanny Fitz's face fell is to put it mildly. As she described
+it to Mrs. Spicer, it fell till it was about an inch wide and five miles
+long. Captain Spicer was speechless. Freddy alone was equal to demanding
+of Patsey Crimmeen what had happened to the mare.
+
+"Begor, Masther Freddy, it's a wonder she's alive at all!" replied
+Patsey, who was now perceived to be looking but little better than the
+filly. "She was middlin' quiet in the thrain, though she went to lep out
+o' the box with the first screech the engine give, but I quietened her
+some way, and it wasn't till we got into the sthreets here that she went
+mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three
+times! 'Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o' thim
+alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin'
+on the rope the way ye'd swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, them
+was the ecstasies!"
+
+Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of
+his audience.
+
+"An' as for her food," he resumed, "she didn't use a bit, hay, nor oats,
+nor bran, bad nor good, since she left Johnny Connolly's. No, nor drink.
+The divil dang the bit she put in her mouth for two days, first and
+last. Why wouldn't she eat is it, miss? From the fright sure! She'll do
+nothing, only standing that way, and bushtin' out sweatin', and watching
+out all the time the way I wouldn't lave her. I declare to God I'm
+heart-scalded with her!"
+
+At this harrowing juncture came the order to No. 548 to go forth to Ring
+3 to be judged, and further details were reserved. But Fanny Fitz had
+heard enough.
+
+"Captain Spicer," she said, as the party paced in deepest depression
+towards Ring 3, "if I hadn't on a new veil I should cry!"
+
+"Well, I haven't," replied Captain Spicer; "shall I do it for you? Upon
+my soul, I think the occasion demands it!"
+
+"I just want to know one thing," continued Miss Fitzroy. "When does your
+brother-in-law arrive?"
+
+"Not till to-night."
+
+"That's the only nice thing I've heard to-day," sighed Fanny Fitz.
+
+The judging went no better for the grey filly than might have been
+expected, even though she cheered up a little in the ring, and found
+herself equal to an invalidish but well-aimed kick at a
+fellow-competitor. She was ushered forth with the second batch of the
+rejected, her spirits sank to their former level, and Fanny's
+accompanied them.
+
+Perhaps the most trying feature of the affair was the reproving sympathy
+of her friends, a sympathy that was apt to break down into almost
+irrepressible laughter at the sight of the broken-down skeleton of whose
+prowess poor Fanny Fitz had so incautiously boasted.
+
+"Y' know, my dear child," said one elderly M.F.H., "you had no business
+to send up an animal without the condition of a wire fence to the Dublin
+Show. Look at my horses! Fat as butter, every one of 'em!"
+
+"So was mine, but it all melted away in the train," protested Fanny Fitz
+in vain. Those of her friends who had only seen the mare in the
+catalogue sent dealers to buy her, and those who had seen her in the
+flesh--or what was left of it--sent amateurs; but all, dealers and the
+greenest of amateurs alike, entirely declined to think of buying her.
+
+The weather was perfect; every one declared there never was a better
+show, and Fanny Fitz, in her newest and least-paid-for clothes, looked
+brilliantly successful, and declared to Mr. Rupert Gunning that nothing
+made a show so interesting as having something up for it. She even
+encouraged him to his accustomed jibes at her Connemara speculation, and
+personally conducted him to stall No. 548, and made merry over its
+melancholy occupant in a way that scandalised Patsey, and convinced Mrs.
+Spicer that Fanny's pocket was even harder hit than she had feared.
+
+On the second day, however, things looked a little more hopeful.
+
+"She ate her grub last night and this morning middlin' well, miss," said
+Patsey, "and"--here he looked round stealthily and began to
+whisper--"when I had her in the ring, exercisin', this morning, there
+was one that called me in to the rails; like a dealer he was. 'Hi! grey
+mare!' says he. I went in. 'What's your price?' says he. 'Sixty guineas,
+sir,' says I. 'Begin at the shillings and leave out the pounds!' says
+he. He went away then, but I think he's not done with me."
+
+"I'm sure the ring is our best chance, Patsey," said Fanny, her voice
+thrilling with the ardour of conspiracy and of reawakened hope. "She
+doesn't look so thin when she's moving. I'll go and stand by the rails,
+and I'll call you in now and then just to make people look at her!"
+
+"Sure I had Masther Freddy doing that to me yestherday," said Patsey;
+but hope dies hard in an Irishman, and he saddled up with all speed.
+
+For two long burning hours did the Connemara filly circle in Ring 3, and
+during all that time not once did her owner's ears hear the longed-for
+summons, "Hi! grey mare!" It seemed to her that every other horse in the
+ring was called in to the rails, "and she doesn't look so very thin
+to-day!" said Fanny indignantly to Captain Spicer, who, with Mr.
+Gunning, had come to take her away for lunch.
+
+"Oh, you'll see, you'll sell her on the last day; she's getting fitter
+every minute," responded Captain Spicer. "What would you take for her?"
+
+"I'm asking sixty," said Fanny dubiously. "What would _you_ take for
+her, Mr. Gunning--on the last day, you know?"
+
+"I'd take a ticket for her," said Rupert Gunning, "back to Craffroe--if
+you haven't a return."
+
+The second and third days crawled by unmarked by any incident of cheer,
+but on the morning of the fourth, when Fanny arrived at the stall, she
+found that Patsey had already gone out to exercise. She hurried to the
+ring and signalled to him to come to her.
+
+"There's a fella' afther her, miss!" said Patsey, bending very low and
+whispering at close and tobacco-scented range. "He came last night to
+buy her; a jock he was, from the Curragh, and he said for me to be in
+the ring this morning. He's not come yet. He had a straw hat on him."
+
+Fanny sat down under the trees and waited for the jockey in the straw
+hat. All around were preoccupied knots of bargainers, of owners making
+their final arrangements, of would-be-buyers hurrying from ring to ring
+in search of the paragon that they had now so little time to find. But
+the man from the Curragh came not. Fanny sent the mare in, and sat on
+under the trees, sunk in depression. It seemed to her she was the only
+person in the show who had nothing to do, who was not clinking handfuls
+of money, or smoothing out banknotes, or folding up cheques and
+interring them in fat and greasy pocket-books. She had never known this
+aspect of the Horse Show before, and--so much is in the point of
+view--it seemed to her sordid and detestable. Prize-winners with their
+coloured rosettes were swaggering about everywhere. Every horse in the
+show seemed to have got a prize except hers, thought Fanny. And not a
+man in a straw hat came near Ring 3.
+
+She went home to lunch, dead tired. The others were going to see the
+polo in the park.
+
+"I must go back and sell the mare," said Fanny valiantly, "or else take
+that ticket to Craffroe, Mr. Gunning!"
+
+"Well, we'll come down and pick you up there after the first match, you
+poor, miserable thing," said Mrs. Spicer, "and I hope you'll find that
+beast of a horse dead when you get there! You look half dead yourself!"
+
+How sick Fanny was of signing her name at that turnstile! The pen was
+more atrocious every time. How tired her feet were! How sick she was of
+the whole thing, and how incredibly big a fool she had been! She was
+almost too tired to know what she was doing, and she had actually walked
+past stall No. 548 without noticing it, when she heard Patsey's voice
+calling her.
+
+"Miss Fanny! Miss Fanny! I have her sold! The mare's sold, miss! See
+here! I have the money in me pocket!"
+
+The colour flooded Fanny Fitz's face. She stared at Patsey with eyes
+that more than ever suggested the Connemara trout-stream with the sun
+playing in it; so bright were they, so changing, and so wet. So at least
+thought a man, much addicted to fishing, who was regarding the scene
+from a little way off.
+
+"He was a dealer, miss," went on Patsey; "a Dublin fella'. Sixty-three
+sovereigns I asked him, and he offered me fifty-five, and a man that was
+there said we should shplit the differ, and in the latther end he gave
+me the sixty pounds. He wasn't very stiff at all. I'm thinking he wasn't
+buying for himself."
+
+The man who had noticed Fanny Fitz's eyes moved away unostentatiously.
+He had seen in them as much as he wanted; for that time at least.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONNEMARA MARE
+
+PART I
+
+
+The grey mare who had been one of the last, if not the very last, of the
+sales at the Dublin Horse Show, was not at all happy in her mind.
+
+Still less so was the dealer's under-strapper, to whom fell the task of
+escorting her through the streets of Dublin. Her late owner's groom had
+assured him that she would "folly him out of his hand, and that whatever
+she'd see she wouldn't care for it nor ask to look at it!"
+
+It cannot be denied, however, that when an electric tram swept past her
+like a terrace under weigh, closely followed by a cart laden with a
+clanking and horrific reaping-machine, she showed that she possessed
+powers of observation. The incident passed off with credit to the
+under-strapper, but when an animal has to be played like a salmon down
+the length of Lower Mount Street, and when it barn-dances obliquely
+along the north side of Merrion Square, the worst may be looked for in
+Nassau Street.
+
+And it was indeed in Nassau Street, and, moreover, in full view of the
+bow window of Kildare Street Club, that the cup of the under-strapper's
+misfortunes brimmed over. To be sure he could not know that the new
+owner of the grey mare was in that window; it was enough for him that a
+quiescent and unsuspected piano-organ broke with three majestic chords
+into Mascagni's "Intermezzo" at his very ear, and that, without any
+apparent interval of time, he was surmounting a heap composed of a
+newspaper boy, a sandwich man, and a hospital nurse, while his hands
+held nothing save a red-hot memory of where the rope had been. The
+smashing of glass and the clatter of hoofs on the pavement filled in
+what space was left in his mind for other impressions.
+
+"She's into the hat shop!" said Mr. Rupert Gunning to himself in the
+window of the club, recognising his recent purchase and the full measure
+of the calamity in one and the same moment.
+
+He also recognised in its perfection the fact, already suspected by him,
+that he had been a fool.
+
+Upheld by this soothing reflection he went out into the street, where
+awaited him the privileges of proprietorship. These began with the
+despatching of the mare, badly cut, and apparently lame on every leg, in
+charge of the remains of the under-strapper, to her destination. They
+continued with the consolation of the hospital nurse, and embraced in
+varying pecuniary degrees the compensation of the sandwich man, the
+newspaper boy, and the proprietor of the hat shop. During all this time
+he enjoyed the unfaltering attention of a fair-sized crowd, liberal in
+comment, prolific of imbecile suggestion. And all these things were only
+the beginning of the trouble.
+
+Mr. Gunning proceeded to his room and to the packing of his portmanteau
+for that evening's mail-boat to Holyhead in a mood of considerable
+sourness. It may be conceded to him that circumstances had been of a
+souring character. He had bought Miss Fanny Fitzroy's grey mare at the
+Horse Show for reasons of an undeniably sentimental sort. Therefore,
+having no good cause to show for the purchase, he had made it secretly,
+the sum of sixty pounds, for an animal that he had consistently crabbed,
+amounting in the eyes of the world in general to a rather advanced
+love-token, if not a formal declaration. He had planned no future for
+the grey mare, but he had cherished a trembling hope that some day he
+might be in a position to restore her to her late owner without
+considering the expression in any eyes save those which, a couple of
+hours ago, had recalled to him the play of lights in a Connemara trout
+stream.
+
+Now, it appeared, this pleasing vision must go the way of many others.
+
+The August sunlight illumined Mr. Gunning's folly, and his bulging
+portmanteau, packed as brutally as only a man in a passion can pack;
+when he reached the hall, it also with equal inappropriateness
+irradiated the short figure and seedy tidiness of the dealer who had
+been his confederate in the purchase of the mare.
+
+"What did the vet say, Brennan?" said Mr. Gunning, with the brevity of
+ill humour.
+
+Mr. Brennan paused before replying, a pause laden with the promise of
+evil tidings. His short silvery hair glistened respectably in the
+sunshine: he had preserved unblemished from some earlier phase of his
+career the air of a family coachman out of place. It veiled, though it
+could not conceal, the dissolute twinkle in his eye as he replied:--
+
+"He said sir, if it wasn't that she was something out of condition, he'd
+recommend you to send her out to the lions at the Zoo!"
+
+The specimen of veterinary humour had hardly the success that had been
+hoped for it. Rupert Gunning's face was so remarkably void of
+appreciation that Mr. Brennan abruptly relapsed into gloom.
+
+"He said he'd only be wasting his time with her, sir; he might as well
+go stitch a bog-hole as them wounds the window gave her; the tendon of
+the near fore is the same as in two halves with it, let alone the
+shoulder, that's worse again with her pitching out on the point of it."
+
+"Was that all he had to say?" demanded the mare's owner.
+
+"Well, beyond those remarks he passed about the Zoo, I should say it
+was, sir," admitted Mr. Brennan.
+
+There was another pause, during which Rupert asked himself what the
+devil he was to do with the mare, and Mr. Brennan, thoroughly aware that
+he was doing so, decorously thumbed the brim of his hat.
+
+"Maybe we might let her get the night, sir," he said, after a respectful
+interval, "and you might see her yourself in the morning--"
+
+"I don't want to see her. I know well enough what she looks like,"
+interrupted his client irritably. "Anyhow, I'm crossing to England
+to-night, and I don't choose to miss the boat for the fun of looking at
+an unfortunate brute that's cut half to pieces!"
+
+Mr. Brennan cleared his throat. "If you were thinking to leave her in my
+stables, sir," he said firmly, "I'd sooner be quit of her. I've only a
+small place, and I'd lose too much time with her if I had to keep her
+the way she is. She might be on my hands three months and die at the end
+of it."
+
+The clock here struck the quarter, at which Mr. Gunning ought to start
+for his train at Westland Row.
+
+"You see, sir--" recommenced Brennan. It was precisely at this point
+that Mr. Gunning lost his temper.
+
+"I suppose you can find time to shoot her," he said, with a very red
+face. "Kindly do so to-night!"
+
+Mr. Brennan's arid countenance revealed no emotion. He was accustomed to
+understanding his clients a trifle better than they understood
+themselves, and inscrutable though Mr. Gunning's original motive in
+buying the mare had been, he had during this interview yielded to
+treatment and followed a prepared path.
+
+That night, in the domestic circle, he went so far as to lay the matter
+before Mrs. Brennan.
+
+"He picked out a mare that was as poor as a raven--though she's a good
+enough stamp if she was in condition--and tells me to buy her. 'What
+price will I give, sir?' says I. 'Ye'll give what they're askin',' says
+he, 'and that's sixty sovereigns!' I'm thirty years buying horses, and
+such a disgrace was never put on me, to be made a fool of before all
+Dublin! Going giving the first price for a mare that wasn't value for
+the half of it! Well; he sees the mare then, cut into garters below in
+Nassau Street. Devil a hair he cares! Nor never came down to the stable
+to put an eye on her! 'Shoot her!' says he, leppin' up on a car.
+'Westland Row!' says he to the fella'. 'Drive like blazes!' and away
+with him! Well, no matter; I earned my money easy, an' I got the mare
+cheap!"
+
+Mrs. Brennan added another spoonful of brown sugar to the porter that
+she was mulling in a sauce-pan on the range.
+
+"Didn't ye say it was a young lady that owned the mare, James?" she
+asked in a colourless voice.
+
+"Well, you're the devil, Mary!" replied Mr. Brennan in sincere
+admiration.
+
+The mail-boat was as crowded as is usual on the last night of the Horse
+Show week. Overhead flowed the smoke river from the funnels, behind
+flowed the foam river of wake; the Hill of Howth receded apace into the
+west, and its lighthouse glowed like a planet in the twilight. Men with
+cigars, aggressively fit and dinner-full, strode the deck in couples,
+and thrashed out the Horse Show and Leopardstown to their uttermost
+husks.
+
+Rupert Gunning was also, but with excessive reluctance, discussing the
+Horse Show. As he had given himself a good deal of trouble in order to
+cross on this particular evening, and as any one who was even slightly
+acquainted with Miss Fitzroy must have been aware that she would decline
+to talk of anything else, sympathy for him is not altogether deserved.
+The boat swung softly in a trance of speed, and Miss Fitzroy, better
+known to a large circle of intimates as Fanny Fitz, tried to think the
+motion was pleasant. She had made a good many migrations to England, by
+various routes and classes. There had indeed been times of stress when
+she had crossed unostentatiously, third class, trusting that luck and a
+thick veil might save her from her friends, but the day after she had
+sold a horse for sixty pounds was not the day for a daughter of Ireland
+to study economics. The breeze brought warm and subtle wafts from the
+machinery; it also blew wisps of hair into Fanny Fitz's eyes and over
+her nose, in a manner much revered in fiction, but in real life usually
+unbecoming and always exasperating. She leaned back on the bench and
+wondered whether the satisfaction of crowing over Mr. Gunning
+compensated her for abandoning the tranquil security of the ladies'
+cabin.
+
+Mr. Gunning, though less contradictious than his wont, was certainly one
+of the most deliberately unsympathetic men she knew. None the less he
+was a man, and some one to talk to, both points in his favour, and she
+stayed on.
+
+"I just missed meeting the man who bought my mare," she said, recurring
+to the subject for the fourth time; "apparently _he_ didn't think her 'a
+leggy, long-backed brute,' as other people did, or said they did!"
+
+"Did many people say it?" asked Mr. Gunning, beginning to make a
+cigarette.
+
+"Oh, no one whose opinion signified!" retorted Fanny Fitz, with a glance
+from her charming, changeful eyes that suggested that she did not always
+mean quite what she said. "I believe the dealer bought her for a
+Leicestershire man. What she really wants is a big country where she can
+extend herself."
+
+Mr. Gunning reflected that by this time the grey mare had extended
+herself once for all in Brennan's back-yard: he had done nothing to be
+ashamed of, but he felt abjectly guilty.
+
+"If I go with Maudie to Connemara again next year," continued Fanny, "I
+must look out for another. You'll come too, I hope? A little opposition
+is such a help in making up one's mind! I don't know what I should have
+done without you at Leenane last June!"
+
+Perhaps it was the vision of early summer that the words called up;
+perhaps it was the smile, half-seen in the semi-dark, that curved her
+provoking lips; perhaps it was compunction for his share in the tragedy
+of the Connemara mare; but possibly without any of these explanations
+Rupert would have done as he did, which was to place his hand on Fanny
+Fitz's as it lay on the bench beside him.
+
+She was so amazed that for a moment she wildly thought he had mistaken
+it in the darkness for his tobacco pouch. Then, jumping with a shock to
+the conclusion that even the unsympathetic Mr. Gunning shared most men's
+views about not wasting an opportunity, she removed her hand with a
+jerk.
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon!" said Rupert pusillanimously. Miss Fitzroy fell
+back again on the tobacco pouch theory.
+
+At this moment the glowing end of a cigar deviated from its orbit on the
+deck and approached them.
+
+"Is that you, Gunning? I thought it was your voice," said the owner of
+the cigar.
+
+"Yes, it is," said Mr. Gunning, in a tone singularly lacking in
+encouragement. "Thought I saw you at dinner, but couldn't be sure."
+
+As a matter of fact, no one could have been more thoroughly aware than
+he of Captain Carteret's presence in the saloon.
+
+"I thought so too!" said Fanny Fitz, from the darkness, "Captain
+Carteret wouldn't look my way!"
+
+Captain Carteret gave a somewhat exaggerated start of discovery, and
+threw his cigar over the side. He had evidently come to stay.
+
+"How was it I didn't see you at the Horse Show?" he said.
+
+"The only people one ever sees there are the people one doesn't want to
+see," said Fanny, "I could meet no one except the auctioneer from
+Craffroe, and he always said the same thing. 'Fearful sultry, Miss
+Fitzroy! Have ye a purchaser yet for your animal, Miss Fitzroy? Ye have
+not! Oh, fie, fie!' It was rather funny at first, but it palled."
+
+"I was only there one day," said Captain Carteret; "I wish I'd known you
+had a horse up, I might have helped you to sell."
+
+"Thanks! I sold all right," said Fanny Fitz magnificently. "Did rather
+well too!"
+
+"Capital!" said Captain Carteret vaguely. His acquaintance with Fanny
+extended over a three-day shooting party in Kildare, and a dance given
+by the detachment of his regiment at Enniscar, for which he had come
+down from the depot. It was not sufficient to enlighten him as to what
+it meant to her to own and sell a horse for the first time in her life.
+
+"By-the-bye, Gunning," he went on, "you seemed to be having a lively
+time in Nassau Street yesterday! My wife and I were driving in from the
+polo, and we saw you in the thick of what looked like a street row. Some
+one in the club afterwards told me it was a horse you had only just
+bought at the Show that had come to grief. I hope it wasn't much hurt?"
+
+There was a moment of silence--astonished, inquisitive silence on the
+part of Miss Fitzroy temporary cessation of the faculty of speech on
+that of Mr. Gunning. It was the moment, as he reflected afterwards, for
+a clean, decisive lie, a denial of all ownership; either that, or the
+instant flinging of Captain Carteret overboard.
+
+Unfortunately for him, he did neither; he lied partially, timorously,
+and with that clinging to the skirts of the truth that marks the novice.
+
+"Oh, she was all right," he said, his face purpling heavily in the
+kindly darkness. "What was the polo like, Carteret?"
+
+"But I had no idea that you had bought a horse!" broke in Fanny Fitz, in
+high excitement. "Why didn't you tell Maudie and me? What is it like?"
+
+"Oh, it's--she's just a cob--a grey cob--I just picked her up at the end
+of the show."
+
+"What sort of a cob? Can she jump? Are you going to ride her with
+Freddy's hounds?" continued the implacably interested Fanny.
+
+"I bought her as--as a trapper, and to do a bit of carting," replied
+Rupert, beginning suddenly to feel his powers of invention awakening;
+"she's quite a common brute. She doesn't jump."
+
+"She seems to have jumped pretty well in Nassau Street," remarked
+Captain Carteret; "as well as I could see in the crowd, she didn't
+strike me as if she'd take kindly to carting."
+
+"Well, I do think you might have told us about it!" reiterated Fanny
+Fitz. "Men are so ridiculously mysterious about buying or selling
+horses. I simply named my price and got it. _I_ see nothing to make a
+mystery about in a deal; do you, Captain Carteret?"
+
+"Well, that depends on whether you are buying or selling," replied
+Captain Carteret.
+
+But Fate, in the shape of a turning tide and a consequent roll, played
+for once into the hands of Rupert Gunning. The boat swayed slowly, but
+deeply, and a waft of steam blew across Miss Fitzroy's face. It was not
+mere steam; it had been among hot oily things, stealing and giving
+odour. Fanny Fitz was not ill, but she knew that she had her limits, and
+that conversation, save of the usual rudimentary kind with the
+stewardess, were best abandoned.
+
+Miss Fitzroy's movements during the next two and a half months need not
+be particularly recorded. They included--
+
+1. A week in London, during which the sixty pounds, or a great part of
+it, acquired by the sale of the Connemara mare, passed imperceptibly
+into items, none of which, on a strict survey of expenditure, appeared
+to exceed three shillings and nine pence.
+
+2. A month at Southsea, with Rupert Gunning's sister, Maudie Spicer,
+where she again encountered Captain Carteret, and entered aimlessly upon
+a semi-platonic and wholly unprofitable flirtation with him. During this
+epoch she wore out the remnant of her summer clothes and laid in
+substitutes; rather encouraged than otherwise by the fact that she had
+long since lost touch with the amount of her balance at the bank.
+
+3. An expiatory and age-long sojourn of three weeks with relatives at an
+Essex vicarage, mitigated only by persistent bicycling with her uncle's
+curate. The result, as might have been predicted by any one acquainted
+with Miss Fitzroy, was that the curate's affections were diverted from
+the bourne long appointed for them, namely, the eldest daughter of the
+house, and that Fanny departed in blackest disgrace, with the single
+consolation of knowing that she would never be asked to the vicarage
+again.
+
+Finally she returned, third-class, to her home in Ireland, with nothing
+to show for the expedition except a new and very smart habit, and a
+vague assurance that Captain Carteret would give her a mount now and
+then with Freddy Alexander's hounds. Captain Carteret was to be on
+detachment at Enniscar.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+Mr. William Fennessy, lately returned from America, at present publican
+in Enniscar and proprietor of a small farm on its outskirts, had taken a
+grey mare to the forge.
+
+It was now November, and the mare had been out at grass for nearly three
+months, somewhat to the detriment of her figure, but very much to her
+general advantage. Even in the south-west of Ireland it is not usual to
+keep horses out quite so late in the year, but Mr. Fennessy, having
+begun his varied career as a travelling tinker, was not the man to be
+bound by convention. He had provided the mare with the society of a
+donkey and two sheep, and with the shelter of a filthy and ruinous
+cowshed. Taking into consideration the fact that he had only paid seven
+pounds ten shillings for her, he thought this accommodation was as much
+as she was entitled to.
+
+She was now drooping and dozing in a dark corner of the forge, waiting
+her turn to be shod, while the broken spring of a car was being patched,
+as shaggy and as dirty a creature as had ever stood there.
+
+"Where did you get that one?" inquired the owner of the car of Mr.
+Fennessy, in the course of much lengthy conversation.
+
+"I got her from a cousin of my own that died down in the County
+Limerick," said Mr. Fennessy in his most agreeable manner. "'Twas
+himself bred her, and she was near deshtroyed fallin' back on a harra'
+with him. It's for postin' I have her."
+
+"She's shlack enough yet," said the carman.
+
+"Ah, wait awhile!" said Mr. Fennessy easily, "in a week's time when I'll
+have her clipped out, she'll be as clean as amber."
+
+The conversation flowed on to other themes.
+
+It was nearly dark when the carman took his departure, and the smith, a
+silent youth with sore eyes, caught hold of one of the grey mare's
+fetlocks and told her to "lift!" He examined each hoof in succession by
+the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, raked his fire together, and
+then, turning to Mr. Fennessy, remarked:--
+
+"Ye'd laugh if ye were here the day I put a slipper on this one, an' she
+afther comin' out o' the thrain--last June it was. 'Twas one Connolly
+back from Craffroe side was taking her from the station; him that
+thrained her for Miss Fitzroy. She gave him the two heels in the face."
+The glow from the fire illumined the smith's sardonic grin of
+remembrance. "She had a sandcrack in the near fore that time, and
+there's the sign of it yet."
+
+The Cinderella-like episode of the slipper had naturally not entered
+into Mr. Fennessy's calculations, but he took the unforeseen without a
+change of countenance.
+
+"Well, now," he said deliberately, "I was sayin' to meself on the road a
+while ago, if there was one this side o' the counthry would know her
+it'd be yerself."
+
+The smith took the compliment with a blink of his sore eyes.
+
+"Annyone'd be hard set to know her now," he said.
+
+There was a pause, during which a leap of sparks answered each thump of
+the hammer on the white hot iron, and Mr. Fennessy arranged his course
+of action.
+
+"Well, Larry," he said, "I'll tell ye now what no one in this counthry
+knows but meself and Patsey Crimmeen. Sure I know it's as good to tell a
+thing to the ground as to tell it to yerself!"
+
+He lowered his voice.
+
+"'Twas Mr. Gunning of Streamstown bought that one from Miss Fitzroy at
+the Dublin Show, and a hundhred pound he gave for her!"
+
+The smith mentally docked this sum by seventy pounds, but said, "By
+dam!" in polite convention.
+
+"'Twasn't a week afther that I got her for twinty-five pounds!"
+
+The smith made a further mental deduction equally justified by the
+facts; the long snore and wheeze of the bellows filled the silence, and
+the dirty walls flushed and glowed with the steady crescendo and
+diminuendo of the glow.
+
+The ex-tinker picked up the bottle with the candle. "Look at that!" he
+said, lowering the light and displaying a long transverse scar beginning
+at the mare's knee and ending in an enlarged fetlock.
+
+"I seen that," said the smith.
+
+"And look at that!" continued Mr. Fennessy, putting back the shaggy hair
+on her shoulder. A wide and shiny patch of black skin showed where the
+hatter's plate glass had flayed the shoulder. "She played the divil
+goin' through the streets, and made flitthers of herself this way, in a
+shop window. Gunning give the word to shoot her. The dealer's boy told
+Patsey Crimmeen. 'Twas Patsey was caring her at the show for Miss
+Fitzroy. Shtan' will ye!"--this to the mare, whose eyes glinted white as
+she flung away her head from the light of the candle.
+
+"Whatever fright she got she didn't forget it," said the smith.
+
+[Illustration: "MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN' OUT FOR A COB."]
+
+"I was up in Dublin meself the same time," pursued Mr. Fennessy. "Afther
+I seem' Patsey I took a sthroll down to Brennan's yard. The leg was in
+two halves, barrin' the shkin, and the showldher swoll up as big as a
+sack o' meal. I was three or four days goin' down to look at her this
+way, and I seen she wasn't as bad as what they thought. I come in one
+morning, and the boy says to me, 'The boss has three horses comin' in
+to-day, an' I dunno where'll we put this one.' I goes to Brennan, and he
+sitting down to his breakfast, and the wife with him. 'Sir,' says I,
+'for the honour of God sell me that mare!' We had hard strugglin' then.
+In the latther end the wife says, 'It's as good for ye to part her,
+James,' says she, 'and Mr. Gunning'll never know what way she went. This
+honest man'll never say where he got her.' 'I will not, ma'am,' says I.
+'I have a brother in the postin' line in Belfast, and it's for him I'm
+buyin' her.'"
+
+The, process of making nail-holes in the shoe seemed to engross the
+taciturn young smith's attention for the next minute or two.
+
+"There was a man over from Craffroe in town yesterday," he observed
+presently, "that said Mr. Gunning was lookin' out for a cob, and he'd
+fancy one that would lep."
+
+He eyed his work sedulously as he spoke.
+
+Something, it might have been the light of the candle, woke a flicker in
+Mr. Fennessy's eye. He passed his hand gently down the mare's quarter.
+
+"Supposing now that the mane was off her, and something about six inches
+of a dock took off her tail, what sort of a cob d'ye think she'd make,
+Larry?"
+
+The smith, with a sudden falsetto cackle of laughter, plunged the shoe
+into a tub of water, in which it gurgled and spluttered as if in
+appreciation of the jest.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+Dotted at intervals throughout society are the people endowed with the
+faculty for "getting up things". They are dauntless people, filled with
+the power of driving lesser and deeper reluctant spirits before them;
+remorseless to the timid, carneying to the stubborn.
+
+Of such was Mrs. Carteret, with powers matured in hill-stations in
+India, mellowed by much voyaging in P. and O. steamers. Not even an
+environment as unpromising as that of Enniscar in its winter torpor had
+power to dismay her. A public whose artistic tastes had hitherto been
+nourished upon travelling circuses, Nationalist meetings, and missionary
+magic lanterns in the Wesleyan schoolhouse, was, she argued, practically
+virgin soil, and would ecstatically respond to any form of cultivation.
+
+"I know there's not much talent to be had," she said combatively to her
+husband, "but we'll just black our faces, and call ourselves the Green
+Coons or something, and it will be all right!"
+
+"Dashed if I'll black my face again," said Captain Carteret; "I call it
+rot trying to get up anything here. There's no one to do anything."
+
+"Well, there's ourselves and little Taylour" ("little Taylour," it may
+be explained, was Captain Carteret's subaltern), "that's two banjoes and
+a bones anyhow; and Freddy Alexander, and there's your dear friend Fanny
+Fitz--she'll be home in a few days, and these two big Hamilton girls--"
+
+"Oh, Lord!" ejaculated Captain Carteret.
+
+"Oh, yes!" continued Mrs. Carteret, unheedingly, "and there's Mr.
+Gunning; he'll come if Fanny Fitz does."
+
+"He'll not be much advantage when he does come," said Captain Carteret
+spitefully.
+
+"Oh, he sings," said Mrs. Carteret, arranging her neat small fringe at
+the glass--"rather a good voice. You needn't be afraid, my dear, I'll
+arrange that the fascinating Fanny shall sit next you!"
+
+Upon this somewhat unstable basis the formation of the troupe of Green
+Coons was undertaken. Mrs. Carteret took off her coat to the work, or
+rather, to be accurate, she put on a fur-lined one, and attended a
+Nationalist meeting in the Town Hall to judge for herself how the voices
+carried. She returned rejoicing--she had sat at the back of the hall,
+and had not lost a syllable of the oratory, even during sundry heated
+episodes, discreetly summarised by the local paper as "interruption".
+The Town Hall was chartered, superficially cleansed, and in the space of
+a week the posters had gone forth.
+
+By what means it was accomplished that Rupert Gunning should attend the
+first rehearsal he did not exactly understand; he found himself enmeshed
+in a promise to meet every one else at the Town Hall with tea at the
+Carterets' afterwards. Up to this point the fact that he was to appear
+before the public with a blackened face had been diplomatically withheld
+from him, and an equal diplomacy was shown on his arrival in the
+deputing of Miss Fitzroy to break the news to him.
+
+"Mrs. Carteret says it's really awfully becoming," said Fanny,
+breathless and brilliant from assiduous practice of a hornpipe under
+Captain Carteret's tuition, "and as for trouble! We might as well make a
+virtue of necessity in this incredibly dirty place; my hands are black
+already, and I've only swept the stage!"
+
+She was standing at the edge of the platform that was to serve as the
+stage, looking down at him, and it may be taken as a sufficient guide to
+his mental condition that his abhorrence of the prospect for himself was
+swallowed up by fury at the thought of it for her.
+
+"Are you--do you mean to tell me you are going to dance _with a black
+face_?" he demanded in bitter and incongruous wrath.
+
+"No, I'm going to dance with Captain Carteret!" replied Fanny
+frivolously, "and so can you if you like!"
+
+She was maddeningly pretty as she smiled down at him, with her bright
+hair roughened, and the afterglow of the dance alight in her eyes and
+cheeks. Nevertheless, for one whirling moment, the old Adam, an Adam
+blissfully unaware of the existence of Eve, asserted himself in Rupert.
+He picked up his cap and stick without a word, and turned towards the
+door. There, however, he was confronted by Mrs. Carteret, tugging at a
+line of chairs attached to a plank, like a very small bird with a very
+large twig. To refuse the aid that she immediately demanded was
+impossible, and even before the future back row of the sixpennies had
+been towed to its moorings, he realised that hateful as it would be to
+stay and join in these distasteful revels, it would be better than going
+home and thinking about them.
+
+From this the intelligent observer may gather that absence had had its
+traditional, but by no means invariable, effect upon the heart of Mr.
+Gunning, and, had any further stimulant been needed, it had been
+supplied in the last few minutes by the aggressive and possessive manner
+of Captain Carteret.
+
+The rehearsal progressed after the manner of amateur rehearsals. The
+troupe, with the exception of Mr. Gunning, who remained wrapped in
+silence, talked irrepressibly, and quite inappropriately to their role
+as Green Coons. Freddy Alexander and Mr. Taylour bear-fought untiringly
+for possession of the bones and the position of Corner Man; Mrs.
+Carteret alone had a copy of the music that was to be practised, and in
+consequence, the company hung heavily over her at the piano in a
+deafening and discordant swarm. The two tall Hamiltons, hitherto
+speechless by nature and by practice, became suddenly exhilarated at
+finding themselves in the inner circle of the soldiery, and bubbled with
+impotent suggestions and reverential laughter at the witticisms of Mr.
+Taylour. Fanny Fitz and Captain Carteret finally removed themselves to a
+grimy corner behind the proscenium, and there practised, _sotto voce_,
+the song with banjo accompaniment that was to culminate in the hornpipe.
+Freddy Alexander had gone forth to purchase a pack of cards, in the
+futile hope that he could prevail upon Mrs. Carteret to allow him to
+inflict conjuring tricks upon the audience.
+
+"As if there were anything on earth that bored people as much as card
+tricks!" said that experienced lady to Rupert Gunning. "Look here,
+_would_ you mind reading over these riddles, to see which you'd like to
+have to answer. Now, here's a local one. I'll ask it--'Why am dis room
+like de Enniscar Demesne?'--and then _you'll_ say, 'Because dere am so
+many pretty little deers in it'!"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't possibly do that!" said Rupert hastily, alarmed as well
+as indignant; "I'm afraid I really must go now--"
+
+He had to pass by Fanny Fitz on his way out of the hall. There was
+something vexed and forlorn about him, and, being sympathetic, she
+perceived it, though not its cause.
+
+"You're deserting us!" she said, looking up at him.
+
+"I have an appointment," he said stiffly, his glance evading hers, and
+resting on Captain Carteret's well-clipped little black head.
+
+Some of Fanny's worst scrapes had been brought about by her incapacity
+to allow any one to part from her on bad terms, and, moreover, she liked
+Rupert Gunning. She cast about in her mind for something conciliatory to
+say to him.
+
+"When are you going to show me the cob that you bought at the Horse
+Show?"
+
+The olive branch thus confidently tendered had a somewhat withering
+reception.
+
+"The cob I bought at the Horse Show?" Mr. Gunning repeated with an
+increase of rigidity, "Oh, yes--I got rid of it."
+
+He paused; the twanging of Captain Carteret's banjo bridged the interval
+imperturbably.
+
+"Why had you to get rid of it?" asked Fanny, still sympathetic.
+
+"She was a failure!" said Rupert vindictively; "I made a fool of myself
+in buying her!"
+
+Fanny looked at him sideways from under her lashes.
+
+"And I had counted on your giving me a mount on her now and then!"
+
+Rupert forgot his wrath, forgot even the twanging banjo.
+
+"I've just got another cob," he said quickly; "she jumps very well, and
+if you'd like to hunt her next Tuesday--"
+
+"Oh, thanks awfully, but Captain Carteret has promised me a mount for
+next Tuesday!" said the perfidious Fanny.
+
+Mrs. Carteret, on her knees by a refractory footlight, watched with
+anxiety Mr. Gunning's abrupt departure from the room.
+
+"Fanny!" she said severely, "what have you been doing to that man?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" said Fanny.
+
+"If you've put him off singing I'll never forgive you!" continued Mrs.
+Carteret, advancing on her knees to the next footlight.
+
+"I tell you I've done nothing to him," said Fanny Fitz guiltily.
+
+"Give me the hammer!" said Mrs. Carteret. "Have I eyes, or have I not?"
+
+"He's awfully keen about her!" Mrs. Carteret said that evening to her
+husband. "Bad temper is one of the worst signs. Men in love are always
+cross."
+
+"Oh, he's a rotter!" said Captain Carteret conclusively.
+
+In the meantime the object of this condemnation was driving his ten
+Irish miles home, by the light of a frosty full moon. Between the shafts
+of his cart a trim-looking mare of about fifteen hands trotted lazily,
+forging, shying, and generally comporting herself in a way only possible
+to a grass-fed animal who has been in the hands of such as Mr. William
+Fennessy. The thick and dingy mane that had hung impartially on each
+side of her neck, now, together with the major portion of her voluminous
+tail, adorned the manure heap in the rear of the Fennessy public-house.
+The pallid fleece in which she had been muffled had given place to a
+polished coat of iron-grey, that looked black in the moonlight. A week
+of over-abundant oats had made her opinionated, but had not, so far,
+restored to her the fine lady nervousness that had landed her in the
+window of the hat shop.
+
+Rupert laid the whip along her fat sides with bitter disfavour. She was
+a brute in harness, he said to himself, her blemished fetlock was uglier
+than he had at first thought, and even though she had yesterday schooled
+over two miles of country like an old stager, she was too small to carry
+him, and she was not, apparently, wanted to carry any one else. Here the
+purchase received a very disagreeable cut on the neck that interrupted
+her speculations as to the nature of the shadows of telegraph-posts. To
+have bought two useless horses in four months was pretty average bad
+luck. It was also pretty bad luck to have been born a fool. Reflection
+here became merged in the shapeless and futile fumings of a man badly in
+love and preposterously jealous.
+
+Known only to the elect among entertainment promoters are the methods
+employed by Mrs. Carteret to float the company of The Green Coons. The
+fact remains that on the appointed night the chosen troupe,
+approximately word-perfect, and with spirits something chastened by
+stage fright, were assembled in the clerk's room of the Enniscar Town
+Hall, round a large basin filled horribly with a compound of burnt cork
+and water.
+
+"It's not as bad as it looks!" said Mrs. Carteret, plunging in her hands
+and heroically smearing her face with a mass of black oozy matter
+believed to be a sponge. "It's quite becoming if you do it thoroughly.
+Mind, all of you, get it well into your ears and the roots of your
+hair!"
+
+The Hamiltons, giggling wildly, submitted themselves to the
+ministrations of Freddy Alexander, and Mrs. Carteret, appallingly
+transformed into a little West Indian coolie woman, applied the sponge
+to the shrinking Fanny Fitz.
+
+"Will you do Mr. Gunning, Fanny?" she whispered into one of the ears
+that she had conscientiously blackened. "I think he'd bear it better
+from you!"
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind!" replied Fanny, with a dignity somewhat
+impaired by her ebon countenance and monstrous green turban.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Mrs. Carteret's small neat features seemed unnaturally sharpened, and
+her eyes and teeth glittered in her excitement.
+
+"For goodness' sake, take your awful little black face away, Mabel!"
+exclaimed Fanny hysterically. "It quite frightens me! I'm _very_ angry
+with Mr. Gunning! I'll tell you why some other time."
+
+"Well, don't forget you've got to say 'Buck up, Sambo!' to him after
+he's sung his song, and you may fight with him as much as you like
+afterwards," said Mrs. Carteret, hurrying off to paint glaring
+vermilion mouths upon the loudly protesting Hamiltons.
+
+During these vicissitudes, Rupert Gunning, arrayed in a green
+swallow-tailed calico coat, short white cotton trousers, and a skimpy
+nigger wig, presented a pitiful example of the humiliations which the
+allied forces of love and jealousy can bring upon the just. Fanny Fitz
+has since admitted that, in spite of the wrath that burned within her,
+the sight of Mr. Gunning morosely dabbing his long nose with the
+repulsive sponge that was shared by the troupe, almost moved her to
+compassion.
+
+A pleasing impatience was already betraying itself in cat-calls and
+stampings from the sixpenny places, and Mrs. Carteret, flitting like a
+sheep dog round her flock, arranged them in couples and drove them
+before her on to the stage, singing in chorus, with a fair assumption of
+hilarity, "As we go marching through Georgia".
+
+For Fanny Fitz the subsequent proceedings became merged in a nightmare
+of blinding heat and glare, made actual only by poignant anxiety as to
+the length of her green skirt. The hope that she might be unrecognisable
+was shattered by the yell of "More power, Miss Fanny!" that crested the
+thunderous encore evoked by her hornpipe with Captain Carteret, and the
+question of the skirt was decided by the fact that her aunts, in the
+front row, firmly perused their programmes from the beginning of her
+dance to its conclusion.
+
+The entertainment went with varying success after the manner of its
+kind. The local hits and personal allusions, toilfully compiled and
+ardently believed in, were received in damping silence, while Rupert
+Gunning's song, of the truculent order dedicated to basses, and sung by
+him with a face that would have done credit to Othello, received an
+ovation that confirmed Captain Carteret in his contempt for country
+audiences. The performance raged to its close in a "Cake Walk," to the
+inspiring strains of "Razors a-flying through the air," and the curtain
+fell on what the Enniscar _Independent_ described cryptically as "a
+_tout ensemble a la conversazione_ that was refreshingly unique".
+
+"Five minutes more and I should have had heat apoplexy!" said Mrs.
+Carteret, hurling her turban across the clerk's room, "but it all went
+splendidly! Empty that basin out of the window, somebody, and give me
+the vaseline. The last time I blacked my face it was covered with red
+spots for a week afterwards because I used soap instead of vaseline!"
+
+Rupert Gunning approached Fanny with an open note in his hand.
+
+"I've had this from your aunt," he said, handing it to her; it was
+decorated with sooty thumb marks, to which Fanny's black claw
+contributed a fresh batch as she took it, but she read it without a
+smile.
+
+It was to the effect that the heat of the room had been too much for the
+elder Misses Fitzroy, and they had therefore gone home, but as Mr.
+Gunning had to pass their gate perhaps he would be kind enough to drive
+their niece home.
+
+"Oh--" said Fanny, in tones from which dismay was by no means
+eliminated. "How stupid of Aunt Rachel!"
+
+"I'm afraid there seems no way out of it for you," said Rupert
+offendedly.
+
+A glimpse of their two wrathful black faces in the glass abruptly
+checked Fanny's desire to say something crushing. At this juncture she
+would rather have died than laughed.
+
+Burnt cork is not lightly to be removed at the first essay, and when,
+half an hour later, Fanny Fitz, with a pale and dirty face, stood under
+the dismal light of the lamp outside the Town Hall, waiting for Mr.
+Gunning's trap, she had the pleasure of hearing a woman among the
+loiterers say compassionately:--
+
+"God help her, the crayture! She looks like a servant that'd be bate out
+with work!"
+
+Mr. Gunning's new cob stood hearkening with flickering ears to the
+various commotions of the street--she understood them all perfectly
+well, but her soul being unlifted by reason of oats, she chose to resent
+them as impertinences. Having tolerated with difficulty the instalment
+of Miss Fitzroy in the trap, she started with a flourish, and pulled
+hard until clear of the town and its flaring public-houses. On the open
+road, with nothing more enlivening than the dark hills, half-seen in the
+light of the rising moon, she settled down. Rupert turned to his silent
+companion. He had become aware during the evening that something was
+wrong, and his own sense of injury was frightened into the background.
+
+"What do you think of my new buy?" he said pacifically, "she's a good
+goer, isn't she?"
+
+"Very," replied Fanny.
+
+Silence again reigned. One or two further attempts at conversation met
+with equal discouragement. The miles passed by. At length, as the mare
+slackened to walk up a long hill, Rupert said with a voice that had the
+shake of pent-up injury:--
+
+"I've been wondering what I've done to be put into Coventry like this!"
+
+"I thought you probably wouldn't care to speak to me!" was Fanny's
+astonishing reply, delivered in tones of ice.
+
+"I!" he stammered, "not care to speak to _you_! You ought to know--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, I do know!" broke in Fanny, passing from the frigid to the
+torrid zone with characteristic speed, "I know what a _failure_ your
+horse-dealing at the Dublin Show was! I've heard how you bought my mare,
+and had her shot the same night, because you wouldn't take the trouble
+even to go and look at her after the poor little thing was hurt! Oh! I
+can't bear even to _think_ of it!"
+
+Rupert Gunning remained abjectly and dumfoundedly silent.
+
+"And then," continued Fanny, whirling on to the final point of her
+indictment, "you pretended to Captain Carteret and me that the horse you
+had bought was 'a common brute,' _a cob for carting_, and you said the
+other night that you had made a fool of yourself over it! I didn't know
+then all about it, but I do now. Captain Carteret heard about it from
+the dealer in Dublin. Even the dealer said it was a pity you hadn't
+given the mare a chance!"
+
+"It's all perfectly true," said Rupert, in a low voice.
+
+A soft answer, so far from turning away wrath, frequently inflames it.
+
+"Then I think there's no more to be said!" said Fanny hotly.
+
+There was silence. They had reached the top of the hill, and the grey
+mare began to trot.
+
+"Well, there's just one thing I should like to say," said Rupert
+awkwardly, his breath coming very short, "I couldn't help everything
+going wrong about the mare. It was just my bad luck. I only bought her
+to please you. They told me she couldn't get right after the accident.
+What was the good of my going to look at her? I wanted to cross in the
+boat with you. Whatever I did I did for you. I would do anything in the
+world for you--"
+
+It was at this crucial moment that there arose suddenly from the dim
+grey road in front of them a slightly greyer shadow, a shadow that
+limped amid the clanking of chains. The Connemara mare, now masquerading
+as a County Cork cob, asked for nothing better. If it were a ghost, she
+was legitimately entitled to flee from it; if, as was indeed the case,
+it was a donkey, she made a point of shying at donkeys. She realised
+that, by a singular stroke of good fortune, the reins were lying in
+loops on her back.
+
+A snort, a sideways bound, a couple of gleeful kicks on the dashboard,
+and she was away at full gallop, with one rein under her tail, and a
+pleasant open road before her.
+
+"It's all right!" said Rupert, recovering his balance by a
+hair-breadth, and feeling in his heart that it was all wrong, "the
+Craffroe Hill will stop her. Hold on to the rail."
+
+Fanny said nothing. It was, indeed, all that she could do to keep her
+seat in the trap, with which the rushing road was playing cup and ball;
+she was, besides, not one of the people who are conversational in
+emergencies. When an animal, as active and artful as the Connemara mare,
+is going at some twenty miles an hour, with one of the reins under its
+tail, endeavours to detach the rein are not much avail, and when the
+tail is still tender from recent docking, they are a good deal worse
+than useless. Having twice nearly fallen on his head, Rupert abandoned
+the attempt and prayed for the long stiff ascent of the Craffroe Hill.
+
+It came swiftly out of the grey moonlight. At its foot another road
+forked to the right; instead of facing the hill that led to home and
+stable, the mare swung into the side road, with one wheel up on the
+grass, and the cushions slipping from the seat, and Rupert, just saving
+the situation with the left rein that remained to him, said to himself
+that they were in for a bad business.
+
+For a mile they swung and clattered along it, with the wind striking and
+splitting against their faces like a cold and tearing stream of water; a
+light wavered and disappeared across the pallid fields to the left, a
+group of starveling trees on a hill slid up into the skyline behind
+them, and at last it seemed as if some touch of self-control, some
+suggestion of having had enough of the joke, was shortening the mare's
+grasping stride. The trap pitched more than ever as she came up into the
+shafts and back into her harness; she twisted suddenly to the left into
+a narrow lane, cleared the corner by an impossible fluke, and Fanny Fitz
+was hurled ignominiously on to Rupert Gunning's lap. Long briars and
+twigs struck them from either side, the trap bumped in craggy ruts and
+slashed through wide puddles, then reeled irretrievably over a heap of
+stones and tilted against the low bank to the right.
+
+Without any exact knowledge of how she got there, Fanny found herself on
+her hands and knees in a clump of bracken on top of the bank; Rupert was
+already picking himself out of rugs and other jetsam in the field below
+her, and the mare was proceeding up the lane at a disorderly trot,
+having jerked the trap on to its legs again from its reclining position.
+
+Fanny was lifted down into the lane; she told him that she was not hurt,
+but her knees shook, her hands trembled, and the arm that was round her
+tightened its clasp in silence. When a man is strongly moved by
+tenderness and anxiety and relief, he can say little to make it known;
+he need not--it is known beyond all telling by the one other person whom
+it concerns. She felt suddenly that she was safe, that his heart was
+torn for her sake, and that the tension of the last ten minutes had been
+great. It went through her with a pang, and her head swayed against his
+arm. In a moment she felt his lips on her hair, on her temple, and the
+oldest, the most familiar of all words of endearment was spoken at her
+ear. She recovered herself, but in a new world. She tried to walk on up
+the lane, but stumbled in the deep ruts and found the supporting arm
+again ready at need. She did not resist it.
+
+A shrill neigh arose in front of them. The mare had pulled up at a
+closed gate, and was apparently apostrophising some low farm buildings
+beyond it. A dog barked hysterically, the door of a cowshed burst open,
+and a man came out with a lantern.
+
+"Oh, I know now where we are!" cried Fanny wildly, "it's Johnny
+Connolly's! Oh, Johnny, Johnny Connolly, we've been run away with!"
+
+"For God's sake!" responded Johnny Connolly, standing stock still in his
+amazement, "is that Miss Fanny?"
+
+"Get hold of the mare," shouted Rupert, "or she'll jump the gate!"
+
+Johnny Connolly advanced, still calling upon his God, and the mare
+uttered a low but vehement neigh.
+
+"Ye're deshtroyed, Miss Fanny! And Mr. Gunning, the Lord save us! Ye're
+killed the two o' ye! What happened ye at all? Woa, gerr'l, woa,
+gerrlie! Ye'd say she knew me, the crayture."
+
+The mare was rubbing her dripping face and neck against the farmer's
+shoulder, with hoarse whispering snorts of recognition and pleasure. He
+held his lantern high to look at her.
+
+"Musha, why wouldn't she know me!" he roared, "sure it's yer own mare,
+Miss Fanny! 'Tis the Connemara mare I thrained for ye! And may the divil
+sweep and roast thim that has it told through all the counthry that she
+was killed!"
+
+
+
+
+A GRAND FILLY
+
+
+I am an Englishman. I say this without either truculence or
+vainglorying, rather with humility--a mere Englishman, who submits his
+Plain Tale from the Western Hills with the conviction that the Kelt who
+may read it will think him more mere than ever.
+
+I was in Yorkshire last season when what is trivially called "the cold
+snap" came upon us. I had five horses eating themselves silly all the
+time, and I am not going to speak of it. I don't consider it a subject
+to be treated lightly. It was in about the thickest of it that I heard
+from a man I know in Ireland. He is a little old horse-coping sportsman
+with a red face and iron-grey whiskers, who has kept hounds all his
+life; or, rather, he has always had hounds about, on much the same
+conditions that other men have rats. The rats are indubitably there, and
+feed themselves variously, and so do old Robert Trinder's "Rioters,"
+which is their _nom de guerre_ in the County Corkerry (the few who know
+anything of the map of Ireland may possibly identify the two counties
+buried in this cryptogram).
+
+I meet old Robert most years at the Dublin Horse Show, and every now and
+then he has sold me a pretty good horse, so when he wrote and renewed a
+standing invitation, assuring me that there was open weather, and that
+he had a grand four-year-old filly to sell, I took him at his word, and
+started at once. The journey lasted for twenty-eight hours, going hard
+all the time, and during the last three of them there were no
+foot-warmers and the cushions became like stones enveloped in mustard
+plasters. Old Trinder had not sent to the station for me, and it was
+pelting rain, so I had to drive seven miles in a thing that only exists
+south of the Limerick Junction, and is called a "jingle". A jingle is a
+square box of painted canvas with no back to it, because, as was
+luminously explained to me, you must have some way to get into it, and I
+had to sit sideways in it, with my portmanteau bucking like a
+three-year-old on the seat opposite to me. It fell out on the road twice
+going uphill. After the second fall my hair tonic slowly oozed forth
+from the seams, and added a fresh ingredient to the smells of the grimy
+cushions and the damp hay that furnished the machine. My hair tonic
+costs eight-and-sixpence a bottle.
+
+There is probably not in the United Kingdom a worse-planned entrance
+gate than Robert Trinder's. You come at it obliquely on the side of a
+crooked hill, squeeze between its low pillars with an inch to spare
+each side, and immediately drop down a yet steeper hill, which lasts for
+the best part of a quarter of a mile. The jingle went swooping and
+jerking down into the unknown, till, through the portholes on either
+side of the driver's legs, I saw Lisangle House. It had looked decidedly
+better in large red letters at the top of old Robert's notepaper than it
+did at the top of his lawn, being no more than a square yellow box of a
+house, that had been made a fool of by being promiscuously trimmed with
+battlements. Just as my jingle tilted me in backwards against the flight
+of steps, I heard through the open door a loud and piercing yell;
+following on it came the thunder of many feet, and the next instant a
+hound bolted down the steps with a large plucked turkey in its mouth.
+Close in its wake fled a brace of puppies, and behind them, variously
+armed, pursued what appeared to be the staff of Lisangle House. They
+went past me in full cry, leaving a general impression of dirty aprons,
+flying hair, and onions, and I feel sure that there were bare feet
+somewhere in it. My carman leaped from his perch and joined in the
+chase, and the whole party swept from my astonished gaze round or into a
+clump of bushes. At this juncture I was not sorry to hear Robert
+Trinder's voice greeting me as if nothing unusual were occurring.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT'S AUNT]
+
+"Upon me honour, it's the Captain! You're welcome, sir, you're welcome!
+Come in, come in, don't mind the horse at all; he'll eat the grass there
+as he's done many a time before! When the gerr'ls have old Amazon cot
+they'll bring in your things."
+
+(Perhaps I ought to mention at once that Mr. Trinder belongs to the
+class who are known in Ireland as "Half-sirs". You couldn't say he was a
+gentleman, and he himself wouldn't have tried to say so. But, as a
+matter of fact, I have seen worse imitations.)
+
+Robert was delighted to see me, and I had had a whisky-and-soda and been
+shown two or three more hound puppies before it occurred to him to
+introduce me to his aunt. I had not expected an aunt, as Robert is well
+on the heavenward side of sixty; but there she was: she made me think of
+a badly preserved Egyptian mummy with a brogue. I am always a little
+afraid of my hostess, but there was something about Robert's aunt that
+made me know I was a worm. She came down to dinner in a bonnet and black
+kid gloves--a circumstance that alone was awe-inspiring. She sat
+entrenched at the head of the table behind an enormous dish of thickly
+jacketed potatoes, and, though she scorned to speak to Robert or me, she
+kept up a sort of whispered wrangle with the parlour-maid all the time.
+The latter's red hair hung down over her shoulders--and at intervals
+over mine also--in horrible luxuriance, and recalled the leading figure
+in the pursuit of Amazon; there was, moreover, something about the heavy
+boots in which she tramped round the table that suggested that Amazon
+had sought sanctuary in the cow-house. I have done some roughing it in
+my time, and I am not over-particular, but I admit that it was rather a
+shock to meet the turkey itself again, more especially as it was the
+sole item of the _menu_. There was no doubt of its identity, as it was
+short of a leg, and half the breast had been shaved away. The aunt must
+have read my thoughts in my face. She fixed her small implacable eyes on
+mine for one quelling instant, then she looked at Robert. Her nephew was
+obviously afraid to meet her eye; he coughed uneasily, and handed a
+surreptitious potato to the puppy who was sitting under his chair.
+
+"This place is rotten with dogs," said the aunt; with which announcement
+she retired from the conversation, and fell again to the slaughter of
+the parlour-maid. I timidly ate my portion of turkey and tried not to
+think about the cow-house.
+
+It rained all night. I could hear the water hammering into something
+that rang like a gong; and each time I rolled over in the musty trough
+of my feather-bed I fractiously asked myself why the mischief they had
+left the tap running all night. Next morning the matter was explained
+when, on demanding a bath, I was told that "there wasn't but one in the
+house, and 'twas undher the rain-down. But sure ye can have it," with
+which it was dragged in full of dirty water and flakes of whitewash, and
+when I got out of it I felt as if I had been through the Bankruptcy
+Court.
+
+The day was windy and misty--a combination of weather possible only in
+Ireland--but there was no snow, and Robert Trinder, seated at breakfast
+in a purple-red hunting coat, dingy drab breeches, and woollen socks,
+assured me that it was turning out a grand morning.
+
+I distinctly liked the looks of my mount when Jerry the Whip pulled her
+out of the stable for me. She was big and brown, with hindquarters that
+looked like jumping; she was also very dirty and obviously underfed.
+None the less she was lively enough, and justified Jerry's prediction
+that "she'd be apt to shake a couple or three bucks out of herself when
+she'd see the hounds". Old Robert was on an ugly brute of a yellow
+horse, rather like a big mule, who began the day by bucking out of the
+yard gate as if he had been trained by Buffalo Bill. It was at this
+juncture that I first really respected Robert Trinder; his retention of
+his seat was so unstudied, and his command of appropriate epithets so
+complete.
+
+Jerry and the hounds awaited us on the road, the latter as mixed a party
+as I have ever come across. There were about fourteen couple in all, and
+they ranged in style from a short-legged black-and-tan harrier, who had
+undoubtedly had an uncle who was a dachshund, to a thing with a head
+like a greyhound, a snow-white body, and a feathered stern that would
+have been a credit to a setter. In between these extremes came several
+broken-haired Welshmen, some dilapidated 24-inch foxhounds, and a lot of
+pale-coloured hounds, whose general effect was that of the tablecloth on
+which we had eaten our breakfast that morning, being dirty white,
+covered with stains that looked like either tea or egg, or both.
+
+"Them's the old Irish breed," said Robert, as the yellow horse
+voluntarily stopped short to avoid stepping on one of them; "there's no
+better. That Gaylass there would take a line up Patrick Street on a fair
+day, and you'd live and die seeing her kill rats."
+
+I am bound to say I thought it more likely that I should live to see her
+and some of her relations killing sheep, judging by their manners along
+the road; but we got to Letter cross-roads at last with no more than an
+old hen and a wandering cur dog on our collective consciences. The road
+and its adjacent fences were thronged with foot people, mostly
+strapping young men and boys, in the white flannel coats and slouched
+felt hats that strike a stranger with their unusualness and
+picturesqueness.
+
+"Do you ever have a row with Land Leaguers?" I asked, noting their
+sticks, while the warnings of a sentimental Radical friend as to the
+danger of encountering an infuriated Irish peasantry suddenly assumed
+plausibility.
+
+"Land League? The dear help ye! Who'd be bothered with the Land League
+here?" said Robert, shoving the yellow horse into the crowd; "let the
+hounds through, boys, can't ye? No, Captain, but 'tis Saint November's
+Day, as they call it, a great holiday, and there isn't a ruffian in the
+country but has come out with his blagyard dog to head the fox!"
+
+A grin of guilt passed over the faces of the audience.
+
+"There's plinty foxes in the hill, Mr. Thrinder," shouted one of them;
+"Dan Murphy says there isn't a morning but he'd see six or eight o' them
+hoppin' there."
+
+"Faith, 'tis thrue for you," corroborated Dan Murphy. "If ye had thim
+gethered in a quarther of ground and dhropped a pin from th' elements,
+'twould reach one o' thim!"
+
+(As a matter of fact, I haven't a notion what Mr. Murphy meant, but that
+is what he said, so I faithfully record it.)
+
+The riders were farmers and men of Robert's own undetermined class, and
+there was hardly a horse out who was more than four years old, saving
+two or three who were nineteen. Robert pushed through them and turned up
+a bohireen--_i.e._, a narrow and incredibly badly made lane--and I
+presently heard him cheering the hounds into covert. As to that covert,
+imagine a hill that in any civilised country would be called a mountain:
+its nearer side a cliff, with just enough slope to give root-hold to
+giant furze bushes, its summit a series of rocky and boggy terraces,
+trending down at one end into a ravine, and at the other becoming merged
+in the depths of an aboriginal wood of low scrubby oak trees. It seemed
+as feasible to ride a horse over it as over the roof of York Minster. I
+hadn't the vaguest idea what to do or where to go, and I clave to Jerry
+the Whip.
+
+The hounds were scrambling like monkeys along the side of the hill; so
+were the country boys with their curs; old Trinder moved parallel with
+them along its base. Jerry galloped away to the ravine, and there
+dismounting, struggled up by zig-zag cattle paths to the comparative
+levels of the summit. I did the same, and was pretty well blown by the
+time I got to the top, as the filly scorned the zigzags, and hauled me
+up as straight as she could go over the rocks and furze bushes. A few
+other fellows had followed us, and we all pursued on along the top of
+the hill.
+
+Suddenly Jerry stopped short and held up his hand. A hound spoke below
+us, then another, and then came a halloa from Jerry that made the filly
+quiver all over. The fox had come up over the low fence that edged the
+cliff, and was running along the terrace in front of us. Old Robert
+below us--I could almost have chucked a stone on to him--gave an
+answering screech, and one by one the hounds fought their way up over
+the fence and went away on the line, throwing their tongues in a style
+that did one good to hear. Our only way ahead lay along a species of
+trench between the hill, on whose steep side we were standing, and the
+cliff fence. Jerry kicked the spurs into his good ugly little horse, and
+making him jump down into the trench, squeezed along it after the
+hounds. But the delay of waiting for them had got the filly's temper up.
+When I faced her at the trench she reared, and whirled round, and
+pranced backwards in, considering the circumstances, a highly
+discomposing way. The rest of the field crowded through the furze past
+me and down into the trench, and twice I thought the mare would land
+herself and me on top of one of them. I don't wonder she was frightened.
+I know I was. There was nothing between us and a hundred-foot drop but
+this narrow trench and a low, rotten fence, and the fool behaved as
+though she wanted to jump it all. I hope no one will ever erect an
+equestrian statue in my honour; now that I have experienced the
+sensation of ramping over nothing, I find I dislike it. I believe I
+might have been there now, but just then a couple of hounds came up, and
+before I knew what she was at, the filly had jumped down after them into
+the trench as if she had been doing it all her life. I was not long
+about picking the others up; the filly could gallop anyhow, and we
+thundered on over ground where, had I been on foot, I should have liked
+a guide and an alpenstock. At intervals we jumped things made of sharp
+stones, and slates, and mud; I don't know whether they were banks or
+walls. Sometimes the horses changed feet on them, sometimes they flew
+the whole affair, according to their individual judgment. Sometimes we
+were splashing over sedgy patches that looked and felt like buttered
+toast, sometimes floundering through stuff resembling an ill-made
+chocolate souffle, whether intended for a ploughed field or a partially
+drained bog-hole I could not determine, and all was fenced as carefully
+as cricket-pitches. Presently the hounds took a swing to the left and
+over the edge of the hill again, and our leader Jerry turned sharp off
+after them, down a track that seemed to have been dug out of the face of
+the hill. I should have liked to get off and lead, but they did not
+give me time, and we suddenly found ourselves joined to Robert Trinder
+and his company of infantry, all going hard for the oak wood that I
+mentioned before.
+
+It was pretty to see the yellow horse jump. Nothing came amiss to him,
+and he didn't seem able to make a mistake. There was a stone stile out
+of a bohireen that stopped every one, and he changed feet on the flag on
+top and went down by the steps on the other side. No one need believe
+this unless they like, but I saw him do it. The country boys were most
+exhilarating. How they got there I don't know, but they seemed to spring
+up before us wherever we went. They cheered every jump, they pulled away
+the astounding obstacles that served as gates (such as the end of an
+iron bedstead, a broken harrow, or a couple of cartwheels), and their
+power of seeing the fox through a stone wall or a hill could only be
+equalled by the Roentgen rays. We fought our way through the oak wood,
+and out over a boggy bounds ditch into open country at last. The Rioters
+had come out of the wood on a screaming scent, and big and little were
+running together in a compact body, followed, like the tail of a kite,
+by a string of yapping country curs. The country was all grass,
+enchantingly green and springy; the jumps were big, yet not too big,
+and there were no two alike; the filly pulled hard, but not too hard,
+and she was jumping like a deer; I felt that all I had heard of Irish
+hunting had not been overstated.
+
+We had been running for half an hour when we checked at a farmhouse; the
+yellow horse had been leading the hunt all the time, making a noise like
+a steam-engine, but perfectly undefeated, and our numbers were reduced
+to five. An old woman and a girl rushed out of the yard to meet us,
+screaming like sea-gulls.
+
+"He's gone south this five minutes! I was out spreadin' clothes, and I
+seen him circling round the Kerry cow, and he as big as a man!" screamed
+the girl.
+
+"He was, the thief!" yelled the old woman. "I seen him firsht on the
+hill, cringeing behind a rock, and he hardly able to thrail the tail
+afther him!"
+
+"Run now, like a good girl, and show me where did he cross the fence,"
+said old Robert, puffing and blowing, as with a purple face he hurried
+into the yard to collect the hounds, who, like practised foragers, had
+already overrun the farmhouse, as was evidenced by an indignant and
+shrieking flight of fowls through the open door.
+
+The girl ran, snatching off her red plaid shawl as she went.
+
+"Here's the shpot now!" she called out, flinging the shawl down on the
+fence; "here's the very way just that he wint! Go south to the gap; I'll
+pull the pole out for ye--this is a cross place."
+
+The hunt gratefully accepted her good offices. She tore the monstrous
+shaft of a cart out of a place that with it was impossible, and without
+it was a boggy scramble, and as we began to gallop again, I began to
+think there was a good deal to be said in favour of the New Woman.
+
+I suppose we had had another quarter of an hour, when the mist, that had
+been hanging about all day, came down on us, and it was difficult to see
+more than a field ahead. We had got down on to lower ground, and we were
+in a sort of marshy hollow when we were confronted by the most serious
+obstacle of the day: a tall and obviously rotten bank clothed in briars,
+with sharp stones along its top, a wide ditch in front of it, and a
+disgustingly squashy take-off. Robert Trinder and the yellow horse held
+their course undaunted: the rest of the field turned as one man, and
+went for another way round--I, in my arrogance, followed the Master. The
+yellow horse rose out of the soft ground with quiet, indescribable ease,
+got a foothold on the side of the bank for his hind legs, and was away
+into the next field without pause or mistake.
+
+"Go round, Captain!" shouted Trinder; "it's a bad place!"
+
+I hardly heard him; I was already putting the filly at it for the second
+time. It took about three minutes for her to convince me that she and
+Robert were right, and I was wrong, and by that time everybody was out
+of sight, swallowed up in the mist. I tried round after the others, and
+found their footmarks up a lane and across a field; a loose stone wall
+confronted me, and I rode at it confidently; but the filly, soured by
+our recent encounter, reared and would have none of it. I tried yet
+another way round, and put her at a moderate and seemingly innocuous
+bank, at which, with the contrariety of her sex, she rushed at a
+thousand miles an hour. It looked somehow as if there might be a bit of
+a drop, but the filly had got her beastly blood up, and I have been in a
+better temper myself.
+
+She rose to the jump when she was a good six feet from it. I knew she
+would not put an iron on it, and I sat down for the drop. It came with a
+vengeance. I had a glimpse of a thatched roof below me, and the next
+instant we were on it or in it--I don't know which. It gave way with a
+crash of rafters, the mare's forelegs went in, and I was shot over her
+head, rolled over the edge of the roof, and fell on my face into a
+manure heap. A yell and a pig burst simultaneously from the door, a calf
+followed, and while I struggled up out of my oozy resting-place, I was
+aware of the filly's wild face staring from the door of the shed in
+which she so unexpectedly found herself. The broken reins trailed round
+her legs, she was panting and shivering, and blood was trickling down
+the white blaze on her nose. I got her out through the low doorway with
+a little coaxing, and for a moment hardly dared to examine as to the
+amount of damage done. She was covered with cobwebs and dirt out of the
+roof, and, as I led her forward, she went lame on one foreleg; but
+beyond this, and a good many scratches, there was nothing wrong. My own
+appearance need not here be dilated upon. I was cleaning off what they
+call in Ireland "the biggest of the filth" with a bunch of heather,
+when from a cottage a little bit down the lane in which I was standing a
+small barelegged child emerged. It saw me, uttered one desperate howl,
+and fled back into the house. I abandoned my toilet and led the mare to
+the cottage door.
+
+"Is any one in?" I said to the house at large.
+
+A fresh outburst of yells was the sole response; there was a pattering
+of bare feet, and somewhere in the smoky gloom a door slammed. It was
+clearly a case of "Not at Home" in its conventional sense. I scribbled
+Robert Trinder's name on one of my visiting cards, laid it and half a
+sovereign on a table by the door, and started to make my way home.
+
+The south of Ireland is singularly full of people. I do not believe you
+can go a quarter of a mile on any given road without meeting some one,
+and that some one is sure to be conversationally disposed and glad of
+the chance of answering questions. By dint of asking a good many, I
+eventually found myself on the high road, with five miles between me and
+Lisangle. The mare's lameness had nearly worn off, and she walked beside
+me like a dog. After all, I thought, I had had the best of the day, had
+come safely out of what might have been a nasty business, and was
+supplied with a story on which to dine out for the rest of my life. My
+only anxiety was as to whether I could hope for a bath when I got in--a
+luxury that had been hideously converted by the _locale_ of my fall into
+a necessity. I led the filly in the twilight down the dark Lisangle
+drive, feeling all the complacency of a man who knows he has gone well
+in a strange country, and was just at the turn to the yard when I came
+upon an extraordinary group. All the women of the household were there,
+gathered in a tight circle round some absorbing central fact; all were
+shrieking at the tops of their voices, and the turkey cock in the yard
+gobbled in response to each shriek.
+
+"Ma'am, ma'am!" I heard, "ye'll pull the tail off him!"
+
+"Twisht the tink-an now, Bridgie! Twisht it!"
+
+"Holy Biddy! the masther'll kill us!"
+
+What the deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the
+filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of
+the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss
+Trinder and Bridgie the parlour-maid. Both were seated on the ground
+pulling at the puppy for all they were worth; Miss Trinder had him by
+the back of his neck and his tail, while Bridgie was dragging--what
+_was_ she dragging at? Then I saw that the puppy's head was jammed in a
+narrow-necked tin milk-can, and that, as things were going, he would
+wear it, like the Man in the Iron Mask, for the rest of his life.
+
+The small, grim face of Robert's aunt was scarlet with exertion; her
+black bonnet had slipped off her head, and the thin grey hair that was
+ordinarily wound round her little skull as tightly as cotton on a reel,
+was hanging in scanty wisps from its central knot; nevertheless, she
+was, metaphorically speaking, pulling Bridgie across the line every
+time. I gave the filly to one of the audience, and took Bridgie's place
+at the "tink-an". Miss Trinder and I put our backs into it, and suddenly
+I found myself flat on mine, with the "tink-an" grasped in both hands
+above my head.
+
+A composite whoop of triumph rose from the spectators, and the filly
+rose with it. She went straight up on her hind legs, and the next
+instant she was away across the drive and into the adjoining field, and,
+considering all things, I don't blame her. We all ran after her. I led,
+and the various female retainers strung out after me like a flight of
+wild-duck, uttering cries of various encouragement and consternation.
+Miss Trinder followed, silent and indomitable, at the heel of the hunt,
+and the released puppy, who had also harked in, could be heard throwing
+his tongue in the dusky shrubbery ahead of us. It was all exasperatingly
+absurd, as things seem to have a habit of being in Ireland. I never felt
+more like a fool in my life, and the bitterest part of it was that it
+was all I could do to keep ahead of Bridgie. As for the filly, she
+waited till we got near her, and then she jumped a five-foot coped wall
+into the road, fell, picked herself up, and clattered away into
+darkness. At this point I heard Robert's horn, and sundry confused
+shouts and sounds informed me that the filly had run into the hounds.
+
+She was found next day on the farm where she was bred, fifteen miles
+away. The farmer brought her back to Lisangle. She had injured three
+hounds, upset two old women and a donkey-cart, broken a gate, and
+finally, on arriving at the place of her birth, had, according to the
+farmer, "fired the divil's pelt of a kick into her own mother's
+stomach". Moreover, she "hadn't as much sound skin on her as would bait
+a rat-trap"--I here quote Mr. Trinder--and she had fever in all her
+feet.
+
+Of course I bought her. I could hardly do less. I told Robert he might
+give her to the hounds, but he sent her over to me in a couple of months
+as good as new, and I won the regimental steeplechase cup with her last
+April.
+
+
+
+
+A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE
+
+
+Captain "Pat" Naylor, of the --th Dragoons, had the influenza. For three
+days he had lain prostrate, a sodden and aching victim to the universal
+leveller, and an intolerable nuisance to his wife. This last is perhaps
+an over-statement; Mrs. Naylor was in the habit of bearing other
+people's burdens with excellent fortitude, but she felt justly annoyed
+that Captain Pat should knock up before they had fairly settled down in
+their new quarters, and while yet three of the horses were out of sorts
+after the crossing from England.
+
+Pilot, however, was quite fit, a very tranquillising fact, and one that
+Mrs. Pat felt was due to her own good sense in summering him on her
+father's broad pastures in Meath, instead of "lugging him to Aldershot
+with the rest of the string, as Pat wanted to do," as she explained to
+Major Booth. Major Booth shed a friendly grin upon his fallen comrade,
+who lay, a deplorable object, on the horrid velvet-covered sofa peculiar
+to indifferent lodgings, and said vaguely that one of his brutes was
+right anyhow, and he was going to ride him at Carnfother the next day.
+
+"You'd better come too, Mrs. Pat," he added; "and if you'll drive me
+I'll send my chap on with the horses. It's too far to ride. It's
+fourteen Irish miles off; and fourteen Irish miles is just about the
+longest distance I know."
+
+Carnfother is a village in a remote part of the Co. Cork; it possesses a
+small hotel--in Ireland no hostelry, however abject, would demean itself
+by accepting the title of inn--a police barrack, a few minor
+public-houses, a good many dirty cottages, and an unrivalled collection
+of loafers. The stretch of salmon river that gleamed away to the distant
+heathery hills afforded the _raison d'etre_ of both hotel and loafers,
+but the fishing season had not begun, and the attention of both was
+therefore undividedly bestowed on Mrs. Naylor and Major Booth. The
+former's cigarette and the somewhat Paradisaic dimensions of her apron
+skirt would indeed at any time have rivalled in interest the landing of
+a 20-lb. fish, and as she strode into the hotel the bystanders'
+ejaculatory piety would have done credit to a revival meeting.
+
+"Well, well, I'll say nothing for her but that she's quare!" said the
+old landlady, hurrying in from her hens to attend to these rarer birds
+whom fortune had sent to her net.
+
+Mrs. Pat's roan cob had attacked and defeated the fourteen Irish miles
+with superfluous zeal, and there were still several minutes before the
+hounds could be reasonably expected on the scene. The soda was bad, the
+whisky was worse. The sound of a riddle came in with the sunshine
+through the open door, and our friends strolled out into the street to
+see what was going on. In the centre of a ring of onlookers an old man
+was playing, and was, moreover, dancing to his own music, and dancing
+with serious, incongruous elegance. Round and round the circle he footed
+it, his long thin legs twinkling in absolute accord with the complicated
+jig that his long thin fingers were ripping out of the cracked and
+raucous fiddle. A very plain, stout young woman, with a heavy red face
+and discordantly golden hair, shuffled round after him in a clumsy
+pretence of dancing, and as the couple faced Mrs. Pat she saw that the
+old man was blind. Steam was rising from his domed bald head, and his
+long black hair danced on his shoulders. His face was pale and strange
+and entirely self-absorbed. Had Mrs. Pat been in the habit of
+instituting romantic parallels between the past and the present she
+might have thought of the priests of Baal who danced in probably just
+such measures round the cromlechs in the hills above Carnfother; as she
+wasn't, she remarked merely that this was all very well, but that the
+old maniac would have to clear out of that before they brought Pilot
+round, or there'd be trouble.
+
+There was trouble, but it did not arise from Pilot, but from the
+yellow-haired woman's pertinacious demands for money from Mrs. Naylor.
+She had the offensive fluency that comes of long practice in alternate
+wheedling and bullying, and although Major Booth had given her a
+shilling she continued to pester Mrs. Pat for a further largesse. But,
+as it happened, Mrs. Pat's purse was in her covert coat in the dog-cart,
+and Mrs. Pat's temper was ever within easy reach, and on being too
+closely pressed for the one she exhibited the other with a decision that
+contracted the ring of bystanders to hear the fun, and loosened the
+yellow-haired woman's language, till unfortunate Major Booth felt that
+if he could get her off the field of battle for a sovereign it would be
+cheap at the price. The old man continued to walk round and round,
+fingering a dumb tune on his fiddle that he did not bow, while the
+sunlight glistened hot and bright in his unwinking eyes; there was a
+faint smile on his lips, he heard as little as he saw; it was evident
+that he was away where "beyond these voices there is peace," in the
+fairy country that his forefathers called the Tir na'n Oge.
+
+At this juncture the note of the horn sounded very sweetly from across
+the shining ford of the river. Hounds and riders came splashing up into
+the village street, the old man and his daughter were hustled to one
+side, and Mrs. Pat's affability returned as she settled her extremely
+smart little person on Pilot's curveting back, and was instantly aware
+that there was nothing present that could touch either of them in looks
+or quality. Carnfother was at the extreme verge of the D---- Hounds'
+country; there were not more than about thirty riders out, and Mrs. Pat
+was not far wrong when she observed to Major Booth that there was not
+much class about them. Of the four or five women who were of the field,
+but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred
+laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection
+with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from
+Royal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel. So she informed
+Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by Pilot for
+conversation.
+
+"All right," responded that gentleman, "you wait until you and that
+ramping brute of yours get up among the stone walls, and you'll be jolly
+glad if she'll call a cab for you and see you taken safe home. I tell
+you what--you won't be able to see the way she goes."
+
+"Rubbish!" said Mrs. Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant
+touch of her heel, Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate
+a series of plunges and bucks as to preclude further discussion.
+
+The first covert--a small wood on the flank of a hill--was blank, and
+the hounds moved on across country to the next draw. It was a land of
+pasture, and in every fence was a deep muddy passage, through which the
+field splashed in single file with the grave stolidity of the cows by
+whom the gaps had been made. Mrs. Pat was feeling horribly bored. Her
+escort had joined himself to two of the ladies of the hunt, and though
+it was gratifying to observe that one wore a paste brooch in her tie and
+the other had an imitation cavalry bit and bridle, with a leather tassel
+hanging from her pony's throat, these things lost their savour when she
+had no one with whom to make merry over them. She had left her
+sandwiches in the dog-cart, her servant had mistaken whisky for sherry
+when he was filling her flask; the day had clouded over, and already one
+brief but furious shower had scourged the curl out of her dark fringe
+and made the reins slippery.
+
+At last, however, a nice-looking gorse covert was reached, and the
+hounds threw themselves into it with promising alacrity. Pilot steadied
+himself, and stood with pricked ears, giving an occasional snatch at his
+bit, and looking, as no one knew better than his rider, the very picture
+of a hunter, while he listened for the first note that should tell of a
+find. He had not long to wait. There came a thin little squeal from the
+middle of the covert, and a hound flung up out of the thicker gorse and
+began to run along a ridge of rock, with head down, and feathering
+stern.
+
+"They've got him, my lady," said a young farmer on a rough
+three-year-old to Mrs. Pat, as he stuffed his pipe in his pocket.
+"That's Patience; we'll have a hunt out o' this."
+
+Then came another and longer squeal as Patience plunged out of sight
+again, and then, as the glowing chorus rose from the half-seen pack, a
+whip, posted on a hillside beyond the covert, raised his cap high in the
+air, and a wild screech that set Pilot dancing from leg to leg broke
+from a country boy who was driving a harrow in the next field: "Ga--aane
+awa--ay!"
+
+Mrs. Pat forgot her annoyances. Her time had come. She would show that
+idiot Booth that Pilot was not to be insulted with impunity, and--But
+here retrospect and intention became alike merged in the present, and in
+the single resolve to get ahead and stay there. Half a dozen of Pilot's
+great reaching strides, and she was in the next field and over the low
+bank without putting an iron on it. The horse with the harrow, deserted
+by his driver, was following the hunt with the best of them, and,
+combining business with pleasure, was, as he went, harrowing the field
+with absurd energy. The Paste Brooch and the Shelburne Porter--so Mrs.
+Pat mentally distinguished them--were sailing along with a good start,
+and Major Booth was close at their heels. The light soil of the tilled
+field flew in every direction as thirty or more horses raced across it,
+and the usual retinue of foot runners raised an ecstatic yell as Mrs.
+Pat forged ahead and sent her big horse over the fence at the end of the
+field in a style that happily combined swagger with knowledge.
+
+The hounds were streaking along over a succession of pasture fields, and
+the cattle gaps which were to be found in every fence vexed the proud
+soul of Mrs. Pat. She was too good a sportswoman to school her horse
+over needless jumps when hounds were running, but it infuriated her to
+have to hustle with these outsiders for her place at a gap. So she
+complained to Major Booth, with a vehemence of adjective that, though it
+may be forgiven to her, need not be set down here.
+
+"Is _all_ the wretched country like this?" she inquired indignantly, as
+the Shelburne Porter's pony splashed ahead of her through a muddy ford,
+just beyond which the hounds had momentarily checked; "you told me to
+bring out a big-jumped horse, and I might have gone the whole hunt on a
+bicycle!"
+
+Major Booth's reply was to point to the hounds. They had cast back to
+the line that they had flashed over, and had begun to run again at
+right angles from the grassy valley down which they had come, up towards
+the heather-clad hills that lay back of Carnfother.
+
+"Say your prayers, Mrs. Pat!" he said, in what Mrs. Pat felt to be a
+gratuitously offensive manner, "and I'll ask the lady in the pretty blue
+habit to have an eye to you. This is a hill fox and he's going to make
+you and Pilot sit up!"
+
+Mrs. Pat was not in a mood to be trifled with, and I again think it
+better to omit her response to this inconvenient jesting. What she did
+was to give Pilot his head, and she presently found herself as near the
+hounds as was necessary, galloping in a line with the huntsman straight
+for a three-foot wall, lightly built of round stones. That her horse
+could refuse to jump it was a possibility that did not so much as enter
+her head; but that he did so was a fact whose stern logic could not be
+gainsaid. She had too firm a seat to be discomposed by the swinging
+plunge with which he turned from it, but her mental balance sustained a
+serious shake. That Pilot, at the head of the hunt should refuse, was a
+thing that struck at the root of her dearest beliefs. She stopped him
+and turned him at the wall again; again he refused, and at the same
+instant Major Booth and the blue habit jumped it side by side.
+
+"What did I tell you!" the former called back, with a laugh that grated
+on Mrs. Pat's ear with a truly fiendish rasp; "do you want a lead?"
+
+The incensed Mrs. Pat once more replied in forcible phraseology, as she
+drove her horse again at the wall. The average Meath horse likes stones
+just about as much as the average Co. Cork horse enjoys water, and the
+train of running men and boys were given the exquisite gratification of
+a contest between Pilot and his rider.
+
+"Howld on, miss, till I knock a few shtones for ye!" volunteered one,
+trying to interpose between Pilot and the wall.
+
+"Get out of the way!" was Mrs. Pat's response to this civility, as she
+crammed her steed at the jump again. The volunteer, amid roars of
+laughter from his friends, saved his life only by dint of undignified
+agility, as the big horse whirled round, rearing and plunging.
+
+"Isn't he the divil painted?" exclaimed another in highest admiration;
+"wait till I give him a couple of slaps of my bawneen, miss!" He dragged
+off his white flannel coat and attacked Pilot in the rear with it, while
+another of the party flung clods of mud vaguely into the battle, and
+another persistently implored the maddened Mrs. Pat to get off and let
+him lead the horse over "before she'd lose her life:" a suggestion that
+has perhaps a more thoroughly exasperating effect than any other on
+occasions such as this.
+
+By the time that Pilot had pawed down half the wall and been induced to
+buck over, or into, what remained of it, Mrs. Pat's temper was
+irretrievably gone, and she was at the heel instead of the head of the
+hunt. Thanks to this position there was bestowed on her the abhorred,
+but not to be declined, advantage of availing herself of the gaps made
+in the next couple of jumps by the other riders; but the stones they had
+kicked down were almost as agitating to Pilot's ruffled nerves as those
+that still remained in position. She found it the last straw that she
+should have to wait for the obsequious runners to tear these out of her
+way, while the galloping backs in front of her grew smaller and smaller,
+and the adulatory condolences of her assistants became more and more
+hard to endure. She literally hurled the shilling at them as she set off
+once more to try to recover her lost ground, and by sheer force of
+passion hustled Pilot over the next broken-down wall without a refusal.
+For she had now got into that stony country whereof Major Booth had
+spoken. Rough heathery fields, ribbed with rocks and sown with grey
+boulders, were all round. The broad salmon river swept sleekly through
+the valley below, among the bland green fields which were as far away
+for all practical purposes as the plains of Paradise. No one who has
+not ridden a stern chase over rough ground on a well-bred horse with his
+temper a bit out of hand will be able at all fitly to sympathise with
+the trials of Mrs. Naylor. The hunt and all that appertained to it had
+sunk out of sight over a rugged hillside, and she had nothing by which
+to steer her course save the hoof-marks in the occasional black and
+boggy intervals between the heathery knolls. No one had ever accused her
+of being short of pluck, and she pressed on her difficult way with the
+utmost gallantry; but short of temper she certainly was, and at each
+succeeding obstacle there ensued a more bitter battle between her and
+her horse. Every here and there a band of crisp upland meadow would give
+the latter a chance, but each such advantage would be squandered in the
+war dance that he indulged in at every wall.
+
+At last the summit of the interminable series of hills was gained, and
+Mrs. Pat scanned the solitudes that surrounded her with wrathful eyes.
+The hounds were lost, as completely swallowed up as ever were Korah,
+Dathan and Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest
+of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their
+course; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass,
+and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she
+set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the
+field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty
+stones, and on the further side there was a wide and boggy drain. It was
+not a nice place, and Pilot thundered down towards it at a pace that
+suited his rider's temper better than her judgment. It was evident, at
+all events, that he did not mean to refuse. Nor did he; he rose out of
+the heavy ground at the wall like a rocketing pheasant, and cleared it
+by more than twice its height; but though he jumped high he did not jump
+wide, and he landed half in and out of the drain, with his forefeet
+clawing at its greasy edge, and his hind legs deep in the black mud.
+
+Mrs. Pat scrambled out of the saddle with the speed of light, and after
+a few momentous seconds, during which it seemed horribly likely that the
+horse would relapse bodily into the drain, his and Mrs. Pat's efforts
+prevailed, and he was standing, trembling, and dripping, on the narrow
+road. She led him on for a few steps; he went sound, and for one
+delusive instant she thought he had escaped damage; then, through the
+black slime on one of his hind legs the red blood began to flow. It came
+from high up inside the off hind leg, above the hock, and it welled ever
+faster and faster, a plaited crimson stream that made his owner's heart
+sink. She dipped her handkerchief in the ditch and cleaned the cut. It
+was deep in the fleshy part of the leg, a gaping wound, inflicted by one
+of those razor slates that hide like sentient enemies in such boggy
+places. It was large enough for her to put her hand in; she held the
+edges together, and the bleeding ceased for an instant; then, as she
+released them, it began again worse than ever. Her handkerchief was as
+inadequate for any practical purpose as ladies' handkerchiefs generally
+are, but an inspiration came to her. She tore off her gloves, and in a
+few seconds the long linen hunting-scarf that had been pinned and tied
+with such skilled labour in the morning was being used as a bandage for
+the wound. But though Mrs. Pat could tie a tie with any man in the
+regiment, she failed badly as a bandager of a less ornamental character.
+The hateful stream continued to pump forth from the cut, incarnadining
+the muddy road, and in despair she took Pilot by the head and began to
+lead him down the hill towards the valley.
+
+Another gusty shower flung itself at her. It struck her bare white neck
+with whips of ice, and though she turned up the collar of her coat, the
+rain ran down under the neckband of her shirt and chilled her through
+and through. It was evident that an artery had been cut in Pilot's leg;
+the flow, from the wound never ceased; the hunting-scarf drenched with
+blood, had slipped down to the hock. It seemed to Mrs. Pat that her
+horse must bleed to death, and, tough and unemotional though she was,
+Pilot was very near her heart; tears gathered in her eyes as she led him
+slowly on through the rain and the loneliness, in the forlorn hope of
+finding help. She progressed in this lamentable manner for perhaps half
+a mile; the rain ceased, and she stopped to try once more to readjust
+the scarf, when, in the stillness that had followed the cessation of the
+rain, she heard a faint and distant sound of music. It drew nearer, a
+thin, shrill twittering, and as Mrs. Pat turned quickly from her task to
+see what this could portend, she heard a woman's voice say harshly:--
+
+"Ah, have done with that thrash of music; sure, it'll be dark night
+itself before we're in to Lismore."
+
+There was something familiar in the coarse tones. The weirdness fell
+from the wail of the music as Mrs. Pat remembered the woman who had
+bothered her for money that morning in Carnfother. She and the blind old
+man were tramping slowly up the road, seemingly as useless a couple to
+any one in Mrs. Pat's plight as could well be imagined.
+
+"How far am I from Carnfother?" she asked, as they drew near to her. "Is
+there any house near here?"
+
+"There is not," said the yellow-haired woman; "and ye're four miles from
+Carnfother yet."
+
+"I'll pay you well if you will take a message there for me--" began Mrs.
+Pat.
+
+"Are ye sure have ye yer purse in yer pocket?" interrupted the
+yellow-haired woman with a laugh that succeeded in being as nasty as she
+wished; "or will I go dancin' down to Carnfother--"
+
+"Have done, Joanna!" said the old man suddenly; "what trouble is on the
+lady? What lamed the horse?"
+
+He turned his bright blind eyes full on Mrs. Pat. They were of the
+curious green blue that is sometimes seen in the eyes of a grey collie,
+and with all Mrs. Pat's dislike and suspicion of the couple, she knew
+that he was blind.
+
+"He was cut in a ditch," she said shortly.
+
+The old man had placed his fiddle in his daughter's hands; his own hands
+were twitching and trembling.
+
+"I feel the blood flowing," he said in a very low voice, and he walked
+up to Pilot.
+
+His hands went unguided to the wound, from which the steady flow of
+blood had never ceased. With one he closed the lips of the cut, while
+with the other he crossed himself three times. His daughter watched him
+stolidly; Mrs. Pat, with a certain alarm, having, after the manner of
+her kind, explained to herself the incomprehensible with the
+all-embracing formula of madness. Yes, she thought, he was undoubtedly
+mad, and as soon as the paroxysm was past she would have another try at
+bribing the woman.
+
+The old man was muttering to himself, still holding the wound in one
+hand. Mrs. Pat could distinguish no words, but it seemed to her that he
+repeated three times what he was saying. Then he straightened himself
+and stroked Pilot's quarter with a light, pitying hand. Mrs. Pat stared.
+The bleeding had ceased. The hunting-scarf lay on the road at the
+horse's empurpled hoof. There was nothing to explain the mystery, but
+the fact remained.
+
+"He'll do now," said the blind man. "Take him on to Carnfother; but
+ye'll want to get five stitches in that to make a good job of it."
+
+"But--I don't understand--" stammered Mrs. Pat, shaken for once out of
+her self-possession by this sudden extension of her spiritual horizon.
+"What have you done? Won't it begin again?" She turned to the woman in
+her bewilderment: "Is--is he mad?"
+
+"For as mad as he is, it's him you may thank for yer horse," answered
+the yellow-haired woman. "Why, Holy Mother! did ye never hear of Kane
+the Blood-Healer?"
+
+[Illustration: THE BLOOD-HEALER.]
+
+The road round them was suddenly thronged with hounds, snuffing at
+Pilot, and pushing between Mrs. Pat and the fence. The cheerful
+familiar sound of the huntsman's voice rating them made her feel her
+feet on solid ground again. In a moment Major Booth was there, the
+Master had dismounted, the habits, loud with sympathy and excitement,
+had gathered round; a Whip was examining the cut, while he spoke to the
+yellow-haired woman.
+
+Mrs. Pat tie-less, her face splashed with mud, her bare hands stained
+with blood, told her story. It is, I think, a point in her favour that
+for a moment she forgot what her appearance must be.
+
+"The horse would have bled to death before the lady got to Carnfother,
+sir," said the Whip to the Master; "it isn't the first time I seen life
+saved by that one. Sure, didn't I see him heal a man that got his leg in
+a mowing machine, and he half-dead, with the blood spouting out of him
+like two rainbows!"
+
+This is not a fairy story. Neither need it be set lightly down as a
+curious coincidence. I know the charm that the old man said. I cannot
+give it here. It will only work successfully if taught by man to woman
+or by woman to man; nor do I pretend to say that it will work for every
+one. I believe it to be a personal and wholly incomprehensible gift, but
+that such a gift has been bestowed, and in more parts of Ireland than
+one, is a bewildering and indisputable fact.
+
+
+
+
+HIGH TEA AT McKEOWN'S
+
+
+"Papa!" said the youngest Miss Purcell, aged eleven, entering the
+drawing-room at Mount Purcell in a high state of indignation and a
+flannel dressing-gown that had descended to her in unbroken line of
+succession from her eldest sister, "isn't it my turn for the foxy mare
+to-morrow? Nora had her at Kilmacabee, and it's a rotten shame--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell here showed signs of the imminence of tears,
+and rooted in the torn pocket of the dressing-gown for the hereditary
+pocket-handkerchief that went with it.
+
+Sir Thomas paused in the act of cutting the end off a long cigar, and
+said briefly:--
+
+"Neither of you'll get her. She's going ploughing the Craughmore."
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell knew as well as her sister Nora that the
+latter had already commandeered the foxy mare, and, with the connivance
+of the cowboy, had concealed her in the cow-house; but her sense of
+tribal honour, stimulated by her sister's threatening eye, withheld her
+from opening this branch of the subject.
+
+"Well, but Johnny Mulcahy won't plough to-morrow because he's going to
+the Donovan child's funeral. Tommy Brien's just told me so, and he'll be
+drunk when he comes back, and to-morrow'll be the first day that Carnage
+and Trumpeter are going out--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell paused, and uttered a loud sob.
+
+"My darling baby," remonstrated Lady Purcell from behind a reading-lamp,
+"you really ought not to run about the stable-yard at this hour of the
+night, or, indeed, at any other time!"
+
+"Baby's always bothering to come out hunting," remarked an elder sister,
+"and you know yourself, mamma, that the last time she came was when she
+stole the postman's pony, and he had to run all the way to Drinagh, and
+you said yourself she was to be kept in the next day for a punishment."
+
+"How ready you are with your punishments! What is it to you if she goes
+out or no?" demanded Sir Thomas, whose temper was always within easy
+reach.
+
+"She can have the cob, Tom," interposed stout and sympathetic Lady
+Purcell, on whom the tears of her youngest born were having their wonted
+effect, "I'll take the donkey chaise if I go out."
+
+"The cob is it?" responded Sir Thomas, in the stalwart brogue in which
+he usually expressed himself. "The cob has a leg on him as big as your
+own since the last day one of them had him out!" The master of the
+house looked round with exceeding disfavour on his eight good-looking
+daughters. "However, I suppose it's as good to be hanged for a sheep as
+a lamb, and if you don't want him--"
+
+The youngest Miss Purcell swiftly returned her handkerchief to her
+pocket, and left the room before any change of opinion was possible.
+
+Mount Purcell was one of those households that deserve to be subsidised
+by any country neighbourhood in consideration of their unfailing supply
+of topics of conversation. Sir Thomas was a man of old family, of good
+income and of sufficient education, who, while reserving the power of
+comporting himself like a gentleman, preferred as a rule to assimilate
+his demeanour to that of one of his own tenants (with whom, it may be
+mentioned, he was extremely popular). Many young men habitually dined
+out on Sir Thomas's brogue and his unwearying efforts to dispose of his
+eight daughters.
+
+His wife was a handsome, amiable, and by no means unintelligent lady
+upon whose back the eight daughters had ploughed and had left long
+furrows. She was not infrequently spoken of as "that un_for_tunate Lady
+Purcell!" with a greater or less broadening of the accent on the second
+syllable according to the social standard of the speaker. Her tastes
+were comprehended and sympathised with by her gardener, and by the
+clerk at Mudie's who refilled her box. The view taken of her by her
+husband and family was mainly a negative one, and was tinged throughout
+by the facts that she was afraid to drive anything more ambitious than
+the donkey, and had been known to mistake the kennel terrier for a hound
+puppy. She had succeeded in transmitting to her daughters her very
+successful complexion and blue eyes, but her responsibility for them had
+apparently gone no further. The Misses Purcell faced the world and its
+somewhat excessive interest in them with the intrepid _esprit de corps_
+of a square of British infantry, but among themselves they fought, as
+the coachman was wont to say--and no one knew better than the
+coachman--"both bitther an regular, like man and wife!" They ranged in
+age from about five and twenty downwards, sportswomen, warriors, and
+buccaneers, all of them, and it would be difficult to determine whether
+resentment or a certain secret pride bulked the larger in their male
+parent's mind in connection with them.
+
+"Are you going to draw Clashnacrona to-morrow?" asked Muriel, the second
+of the gang (Lady Purcell, it should have been mentioned, had also been
+responsible for her daughters' names), rising from her chair and pouring
+what was left of her after dinner coffee into her saucer, a proceeding
+which caused four pairs of lambent eyes to discover themselves in the
+coiled mat of red setters that occupied the drawing-room hearthrug.
+
+"No, I am not," said Sir Thomas, "and, what's more, I'm coming in early.
+I'm a fool to go hunting at all at this time o' year, with half the
+potatoes not out of the ground." He rose, and using the toe of his boot
+as the coulter of a plough, made a way for himself among the dogs to the
+centre of the hearthrug. "Be hanged to these dogs! I declare I don't
+know am I more plagued with dogs or daughters! Lucy!"
+
+Lady Purcell dutifully disinterred her attention from a catalogue of
+Dutch bulbs.
+
+"When I get in to-morrow I'll go call on that Local Government Board
+Inspector who's staying in Drinagh. They tell me he's a very nice fellow
+and he's rolling in money. I daresay I'll ask him to dinner. He was in
+the army one time, I believe. They often give these jobs to soldiers. If
+any of you girls come across him," he continued, bending his fierce
+eyebrows upon his family, "I'll trouble you to be civil to him and show
+him none of your infernal airs because he happens to be an Englishman! I
+hear he's bicycling all over the country and he might come out to see
+the hounds."
+
+Rosamund, the eldest, delivered herself of an almost imperceptible wink
+in the direction of Violet, the third of the party. Sir Thomas's
+diplomacies were thoroughly appreciated by his offspring. "It's time
+some of you were cleared out from under my feet!" he told them.
+Nevertheless when, some four or five years before, a subaltern of
+Engineers engaged on the Government survey of Ireland had laid his
+career, plus fifty pounds per annum and some impalpable expectations, at
+the feet of Muriel, the clearance effected by Sir Thomas had been that
+of Lieutenant Aubrey Hamilton. "Is it marry one of my daughters to that
+penniless pup!" he had said to Lady Purcell, whose sympathies had, as
+usual, been on the side of the detrimental. "Upon my honour, Lucy,
+you're a bigger fool than I thought you--and that's saying a good deal!"
+
+It was near the beginning of September, and but a sleepy half dozen or
+so of riders had turned out to meet the hounds the following morning, at
+Liss Cranny Wood. There had been rain during the night and, though it
+had ceased, a wild wet wind was blowing hard from the north-west. The
+yellowing beech trees twisted and swung their grey arms in the gale.
+Hats flew down the wind like driven grouse; Sir Thomas's voice, in the
+middle of the covert, came to the riders assembled at the cross roads on
+the outskirts of the wood in gusts, fitful indeed, but not so fitful
+that Nora, on the distrained foxy mare, was not able to gauge to a
+nicety the state of his temper. From the fact of her unostentatious
+position in the rear it might safely be concluded that it, like the
+wind, was still rising. The riders huddled together in the lee of the
+trees, their various elements fused in the crucible of Sir Thomas's
+wrath into a compact and anxious mass. There had been an unusually large
+entry of puppies that season, and Sir Thomas's temper, never at its best
+on a morning of cubbing, was making exhaustive demands on his stock of
+expletives. Rabbits were flying about in every direction, each with a
+shrieking puppy or two in its wake. Jerry, the Whip, was galloping
+_ventre a terre_ along the road in the vain endeavour to overtake a
+couple in headlong flight to the farm where they had spent their happier
+earlier days. At the other side of the wood the Master was blowing
+himself into apoplexy in the attempt to recall half a dozen who were
+away in full cry after a cur-dog, and a zealous member of the hunt
+looked as if he were playing polo with another puppy that doubled and
+dodged to evade the lash and the duty of getting to covert. Hither and
+thither among the beech trees went that selection from the Master's
+family circle, exclusive of the furtive Nora, that had on this occasion
+taken the field. It was a tradition in the country that there were never
+fewer than four Miss Purcells out, and that no individual Miss Purcell
+had more than three days' hunting in the season. Whatever may have been
+the truth of this, the companion legend that each Miss Purcell slept
+with two hound puppies in her bed was plausibly upheld by the devotion
+with which the latter clung to the heels of their nurses.
+
+In the midst of these scenes of disorder an old fox rightly judging that
+this was no place for him, slid out of the covert, and crossed the road
+just in front of where Nora, in a blue serge skirt and a red
+Tam-o'-Shanter cap, lurked on the foxy mare. Close after him came four
+or five couple of old hounds, and, prominent among her elders, yelped
+the puppy that had been Nora's special charge. This was not cubbing, and
+no one knew it better than Nora; but the sight of Carnage among the
+prophets--Carnage, whose noblest quarry hitherto had been the Mount
+Purcell turkey-cock--overthrew her scruples. The foxy mare, a ponderous
+creature, with a mane like a Nubian lion and a mouth like steel,
+required nearly as much room to turn in as a man-of-war, and while Nora,
+by vigorous use of her heel and a reliable ash plant, was getting her
+head round, her sister Muriel, on a raw-boned well-bred colt--Sir
+Thomas, as he said, made the best of a bad job, and utilised his
+daughters as roughriders--shot past her down the leafy road, closely
+followed by a stranger on a weedy bay horse, which Nora instantly
+recognised as the solitary hireling of the; neighbourhood.
+
+Through the belt of wood and out into the open country went the five
+couple, and after them went Muriel, Nora and the strange man. There had
+been an instant when the colt had thought that it seemed a pity to leave
+the road, but, none the less, he had the next instant found himself in
+the air, a considerable distance above a low stone wall, with a tingling
+streak across his ribs, and a bewildering sensation of having been
+hustled. The field in which he alighted was a sloping one and he ramped
+down it very enjoyably to himself, with all the weight of his sixteen
+hands and a half concentrated in his head, when suddenly a tall grassy
+bank confronted him, with, as he perceived with horror, a ditch in front
+of it. He tried to swerve, but there seemed something irrevocable about
+the way in which the bank faced him, and if his method of "changing
+feet" was not strictly conventional, he achieved the main point and
+found all four safely under him when he landed, which was as much--if
+not more than as much--as either he or Muriel expected. The Miss
+Purcells were a practical people, and were thankful for minor mercies.
+
+It was at about this point that the stranger on the hireling drew level;
+he had not been at the meet, and Muriel turned her head to see who it
+was that was kicking old McConnell's screw along so well. He lifted his
+cap, but he was certainly a stranger. She saw a discreetly clipped and
+pointed brown beard, with a rather long and curling moustache.
+
+"Fed on furze!" thought Muriel, with a remembrance of the foxy mare's
+upper lip when she came in "off the hill".
+
+Then she met the strange man's eyes--was he quite a stranger? What was
+it about the greeny-grey gleam of them that made her heart give a
+curious lift, and then sent the colour running from it to her face and
+back again to her heart?
+
+"I thought you were going to cut me--Muriel!" said the strange man.
+
+In the meantime the five couple and Carnage were screaming down the
+heathery side of Liss Cranny Hill, on a scent that was a real comfort to
+them after nearly five miserable months of kennels and road-work, and a
+glorious wind under their sterns. Jerry, the Whip, was riding like a
+madman to stop them; they knew that well, and went the faster for it.
+Sir Thomas was blowing his horn inside out. But Jerry was four fields
+behind, and Sir Thomas was on the wrong side of the wood, and Miss
+Muriel and the strange gentleman were coming on for all they were worth,
+and were as obviously bent on having a good time as they were. Carnage
+flung up her handsome head and squealed with pure joy, as she pitched
+herself over the big bounds fence at the foot of the hill, and flopped
+across the squashy ditch on the far side. There was grass under her now,
+beautiful firm dairy grass, and that entrancing perfume was lying on it
+as thick as butter--Oh! it was well to be hunting! thought Carnage, with
+another most childish shriek, legging it after her father and mother and
+several other blood relations in a way that did Muriel's heart good to
+see.
+
+The fox, as good luck would have it, had chosen the very pick of Sir
+Thomas's country, and Muriel and the stranger had it all to themselves.
+She looked over her shoulder. Away back in a half-dug potato field Nora
+and a knot of labourers were engaged in bitter conflict with the foxy
+mare on the subject of a bank with a rivulet in front of it. To refuse
+to jump running water had been from girlhood the resolve of the foxy
+mare; it was plain that neither Nora's ash plant, nor the stalks of
+rag-wort, torn from the potato ridges, with which the countrymen
+flagellated her from behind, were likely to make her change her mind.
+Farther back still were a few specks, motionless apparently, but
+representing, as Muriel was well aware, the speeding indignant forms of
+those Miss Purcells who had got left. As for Sir Thomas--well, it was no
+good going to meet the devil half-way! was the filial reflection; of
+Sir Thomas's second daughter, as, with a clatter of stones, she and the
+colt dropped into a road, and charged on over the bank on the other
+side, the colt leaving a hind leg behind him in it, and sending thereby
+a clod of earth flying into the stranger's face. The stranger only
+laughed, and catching hold of the much enduring hireling he drove him
+level with the colt, and lifted him over the ensuing bank and gripe in a
+way subsequently described by Jerry as having "covered acres".
+
+But the old fox's hitherto straight neck was getting a twist in it.
+Possibly he had summered himself rather too well, and found himself a
+little short of training for the point that he had first fixed on. At
+all events, he swung steadily round, and headed for the lower end of the
+long belt of Liss Cranny Wood; and, as he and his pursuers so headed,
+Retributive Justice, mounted on a large brown horse, very red in the
+face, and followed by a string of hounds and daughters, galloped
+steadily toward the returning sinners.
+
+It is probably superfluous to reproduce for sporting readers the exact
+terms in which an infuriated master of hounds reproves an erring flock.
+Sir Thomas, even under ordinary circumstances, had a stirring gift of
+invective. It was currently reported that after each day's hunting Lady
+Purcell made a house-to-house visitation of conciliation to all
+subscribers of five pounds and upwards. On this occasion the Master,
+having ordered his two daughters home without an instant's delay,
+proceeded to a satiric appreciation of the situation at large and in
+detail, with general reflections as to the advantage to tailors of
+sticking to their own trade, and direct references of so pointed a
+character to the mental abilities of the third delinquent, that that
+gentleman's self-control became unequal to further strain, and he also
+retired abruptly from the scene.
+
+Nora and Muriel meanwhile pursued their humbled, but unrepentant, way
+home. It was blowing as hard as ever. Muriel's hair had only been saved
+from complete overthrow by two hair-pins yielded, with pelican-like
+devotion, by a sister. Nora had lost the Tam-o'-Shanter, and had torn
+her blue serge skirt. The foxy mare had cast a shoe, and the colt was
+unaffectedly done.
+
+"He's mad for a drink!" said Muriel, as he strained towards the side of
+the bog road, against which the waters of a small lake, swollen by the
+recent rains, were washing in little waves under the lash of the
+wind--"I think I'll let him just wet his mouth."
+
+She slackened the reins, and the thirsty colt eagerly thrust his muzzle
+into the water. As he did so he took another forward step, and
+instantly, with a terrific splash, he and his rider were floundering in
+brown water up to his withers in the ditch below the submerged edge of
+the road. To Muriel's credit it, must be said that she bore this
+unlooked-for immersion with the nerve of a Baptist convert. In a second
+she had pulled the colt round parallel with the bank, and in another she
+had hurled herself from the saddle and was dragging herself, like a
+wounded otter, up on to the level of the road.
+
+"Well you've done it now, Muriel!" said Nora dispassionately. "How
+pleased Sir Thomas will be when the colt begins to cough to-morrow
+morning! He's bound to catch cold out of this. Look out! Here's that man
+that went the run with us. I'd try and wipe some of the mud off my face
+if I were you!"
+
+A younger sister of fifteen is not apt to err on the side of over
+sympathy, but the deficiencies of Nora were more than made up for by the
+solicitude of the stranger with the pointed beard. He hauled the colt
+from his watery nest, he dried him down with handfuls of rushes, he
+wiped the saddle with his own beautiful silk pocket-handkerchief. For a
+stranger he displayed--so it struck Nora--a surprising knowledge of the
+locality. He pointed out that Mount Purcell was seven miles away, and
+that the village of Drinagh, where he was putting up--("Oho! so he's the
+inspector Sir Thomas was going to be so civil to!" thought the younger
+Miss Purcell with an inward grin)--was only two or three miles away.
+
+"You know, Nora," said Muriel with an unusually conciliatory manner, "it
+isn't at all out of our way, and the colt _ought_ to get a proper rub
+down and a hot drink."
+
+"I should have thought he'd had about as much to drink as he wanted, hot
+or cold!" said Nora.
+
+But Nora had not been a younger sister for fifteen years for nothing,
+and it was for Drinagh that the party steered their course.
+
+Their arrival stirred McKeown's Hotel (so-called) to its depths. Destiny
+had decreed that Mrs. McKeown, being, as she expressed it, "an epicure
+about boots," should choose this day of all others to go to "town" to
+buy herself a pair, leaving the direction of the hotel in the hands of
+her husband, a person of minor importance, and of Mary Ann Whooly, a
+grey-haired kitchen-maid, who milked the cows and made the beds, and at
+a distance in the back-yard was scarcely distinguishable from the
+surrounding heaps of manure.
+
+[Illustration: "THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID."]
+
+The Inspector's hospitality knew no limits, and failed to recognise that
+those of McKeown's Hotel were somewhat circumscribed. He ordered hot
+whisky and water, mutton chops, dry clothes for Miss Purcell, fires,
+tea, buttered toast, poached eggs and other delicacies simultaneously
+and immediately, and the voice of Mary Ann Whooly imploring Heaven's
+help for herself and its vengeance upon her inadequate assistants was
+heard far in the streets of Drinagh.
+
+"Sure herself" (herself was Mrs. McKeown) "has her box locked agin me,
+and I've no clothes but what's on me!" she protested, producing after a
+long interval a large brown shawl and a sallow-complexioned blanket,
+"but the Captain's after sending these. Faith, they'll do ye grand!
+Arrah, why not, asthore! Sure he'll never look at ye!"
+
+These consisted of a long covert coat, a still longer pair of yellow
+knitted stockings, and a pair of pumps.
+
+"Sure they're the only best we have," continued Mary Ann Whooly,
+pooling, as it were, her wardrobe with that of the lodger. "God's will
+must be, Miss Muriel, my darlin' gerr'l!"
+
+It says a good deal for the skill of Nora as a tire-woman that her
+sister's appearance ten minutes afterwards was open to no reproach, save
+possibly that of eccentricity, and the Inspector's gaze--which struck
+the tire-woman as being of a singularly enamoured character for so brief
+an acquaintance--was so firmly fixed upon her sister's countenance that
+nothing else seemed to signify. It was by this time past two o'clock,
+and the repast, which arrived in successive relays, had, at all events,
+the merit of || combining the leading features of breakfast, lunch and
+afternoon tea in one remarkable procession, Julia Connolly, having
+inaugurated the entertainment with tumblers of dark brown steaming
+whisky and water, was impelled from strength to strength by her growing
+sense of the greatness of the occasion, and it would be hard to say
+whether the younger Miss Purcell was more gratified by the mound of
+feather-light pancakes which followed on the tea and buttered toast, or
+by the almost cringing politeness of her elder sister.
+
+"How civil she is!" thought Nora scornfully; "for all she's so civil
+she'll have to lend me her saddle next week, or I'll tell them the whole
+story!" (Them meant the sisterhood.) "I bet he was holding her hand just
+before the pancakes came in!"
+
+At about this time Lady Purcell, pursuing her peaceful way home in her
+donkey chaise, was startled by the sound of neighing and by the rattle
+of galloping hoofs behind her, and her consternation may be imagined
+when the foxy mare and the colt, saddled but riderless, suddenly ranged
+up one on either side of her chaise. Having stopped themselves with one
+or two prodigious bounds that sent the mud flying in every direction,
+they proceeded to lively demonstrations of friendship towards the
+donkey, which that respectable animal received very symptom of
+annoyance. Lady Purcell had never in her life succeeded in knowing one
+horse from another, and what horses these were she had not the faintest
+idea; but the side saddles were suggestive of her Amazon brood; she
+perceived that one of the horses had been under water, and by the time
+she had arrived at her own hall door, with the couple still in close
+attendance upon her, anxiety as to the fate of her daughters and
+exhaustion from much scourging of the donkey, upon whom the heavy
+coquetries of the foxy mare had had a most souring effect, rendered the
+poor lady but just capable of asking if Sir Thomas had returned.
+
+"He is, my Lady, but he's just after going down to the farm, and he's
+going on to call on the English gentleman that's at Mrs. McKeown's."
+
+"And the young ladies?" gasped Lady Purcell.
+
+The answer suited with her fears. Lady Purcell was not wont to take the
+initiative, still less one of her husband's horses, without his
+approval; but the thought of the saturated side-saddle lent her
+decision, and as soon as a horse and trap could be got ready she set
+forth for Drinagh.
+
+It need not for a moment be feared that such experienced campaigners as
+the Misses Muriel and Nora Purcell had forgotten that their father had
+settled to call upon their temporary host, what time the business of the
+morning should be ended, or that they had not arranged a sound scheme
+of retirement, but when the news was brought to them that during the
+absence of the stable-boy--"to borrow a half score of eggs and a lemon
+for pancakes," it was explained--their horses had broken forth from the
+cowshed and disappeared, it may be admitted that even their stout hearts
+quailed.
+
+"Oh, it will be all right!" the Inspector assured them, with the easy
+optimism of the looker-on in domestic tragedy; "your father will see
+there was nothing else for you to do."
+
+"That's all jolly fine," returned Nora, "but _I'm_ going out to borrow
+Casey's car" (Casey was the butcher), "and I'll just tell old Mary Ann
+to keep a sharp look out for Sir Thomas, and give us warning in time."
+
+It is superfluous to this simple tale to narrate the conversation that
+befel on the departure of Nora. It was chiefly of a retrospective
+character, with disquisitions on such abstractions as the consolations
+that sometimes follow on the loss of a wealthy great-aunt, the
+difficulties of shaving with a "tennis elbow," the unchanging quality of
+certain emotions. This later topic was still under discussion when Nora
+burst into the room.
+
+"Here's Sir Thomas!" she panted. "Muriel, fly! There's no time to get
+downstairs, but Mary Ann Whooly said we could go into the room off this
+sitting-room till he's gone."
+
+Flight is hardly the term to be applied to the second Miss Purcell's
+retreat, and it says a good deal for the Inspector's mental collapse
+that he saw nothing ludicrous in her retreating back, clad as it was in
+his own covert coat, with a blanket like the garment of an Indian brave
+trailing beneath it. Nora tore open a door near the fireplace, and
+revealed a tiny room containing a table, a broken chair, and a heap of
+feathers near an old feather bed on the floor.
+
+"Get in, Muriel!" she cried.
+
+They got in, and as the door closed on them Sir Thomas entered the room.
+
+During the morning the identity of the stranger on whom he had poured
+the vials of his wrath, with the Local Government Board Inspector whom
+he was prepared to be delighted to honour, had been brought home to Sir
+Thomas, and nothing could have been more handsome and complete than the
+apology that he now tendered. He generously admitted the temptation
+endured in seeing hounds get away with a good fox on a day devoted to
+cubbing, and even went so far as to suggest that possibly Captain
+Clarke--
+
+"Hamilton-Clarke," said the Inspector.
+
+"Had ridden so hard in order to stop them."
+
+"Er--quite so," said the Inspector.
+
+Something caused the dressing-room door to rattle, and Captain
+Hamilton-Clarke grew rather red.
+
+"My wife and I hope," continued Sir Thomas, urbanely, "that you will
+come over to dine with us to-morrow evening, or possibly to-night."
+
+He stopped. A trap drove rapidly up to the door, and Lady Purcell's
+voice was heard agitatedly inquiring "if Miss Muriel and Miss Nora were
+there? Casey had just told her--"
+
+The rest of the sentence was lost.
+
+"Why, that _is_ my wife!" said Sir Thomas. "What the deuce does she want
+here?"
+
+A strange sound came from behind the door of the dressing-room:
+something between a stifled cry and a laugh. The Inspector's ears became
+as red as blood. Then from within there was heard a sort of rush, and
+something fell against the door. There followed a wholly uncontrolled
+yell and a crash, and the door was burst open.
+
+It has, I think, been mentioned that in the corner of the dressing-room
+in which the Misses Purcell had taken refuge there was on the floor the
+remains of a feather bed. The feathers had come out through a ragged
+hole in one corner of it; Nora, in the shock of hearing of Lady
+Purcell's arrival, trod on the corner of the bed and squeezed more of
+the feathers out of it. A gush of fluff was the result, followed by a
+curious and unaccountable movement in the bed, and then from the hole
+there came forth a corpulent and very mangy old rat. Its face was grey
+and scaly, and horrid pink patches adorned its fat person. It gave one
+beady glance at Nora, and proceeded with hideous composure to lope
+heavily across the floor towards the hole in the wall by which it had at
+some bygone time entered the room. But the hole had been nailed up, and
+as the rat turned to seek another way of escape the chair upon which
+Muriel had incontinently sprung broke down, depositing her and her
+voluminous draperies on top of the rat.
+
+I cannot feel that Miss Purcell is to be blamed that at this moment all
+power of self-control, of reason almost, forsook her. Regardless of
+every other consideration, she snatched the blankets and the covert-coat
+skirts into one massive handful, and with, as has been indicated, a yell
+of housemaid stridency, flung herself against the door and dashed into
+the sitting-room, closely followed by Nora, and rather less closely by
+the rat. The latter alone retained its presence of mind, and without an
+instant's delay hurried across the room and retired by the half-open
+door. Immediately from the narrow staircase there arose a series of
+those acclaims that usually attend the progress of royalty, and, in
+even an intenser degree, of rats. There came a masculine shout, a shrill
+and ladylike scream, a howl from Mary Ann Whooly, accompanied by the
+clang and rattle of a falling coal box, and then Lady Purcell, pale and
+breathless, appeared at the doorway of the sitting-room.
+
+"Sure the young ladies isn't in the house at all, your ladyship!" cried
+the pursuing voice of Mary Ann Whooly, faithful, even at this supreme
+crisis, to a lost cause.
+
+Lady Purcell heard her not. She was aware only of her daughter Muriel,
+attired like a scarecrow in a cold climate, and of the attendant fact
+that the arm of the Local Government Board Inspector was encircling
+Muriel's waist, as far as circumstances and a brown woollen shawl would
+permit. Nora, leaning half-way out of the window, was calling at the top
+of her voice for Sir Thomas's terrier; Sir Thomas was very loudly saying
+nothing in particular, much as an angry elderly dog barks into the
+night. Lady Purcell wildly concluded that the party was rehearsing a
+charade--the last scene of a very vulgar charade.
+
+"Muriel!" she exclaimed, "_what_ have you got on you? And who--" She
+paused and stared at the Inspector. "Good gracious!" she cried, "why,
+it's Aubrey Hamilton!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BAGMAN'S PONY
+
+
+When the regiment was at Delhi, a T.G. was sent to us from the 105th
+Lancers, a bagman, as they call that sort of globe-trotting fellow that
+knocks about from one place to another, and takes all the fun he can out
+of it at other people's expense. Scott in the 105th gave this bagman a
+letter of introduction to me, told me that he was bringing down a horse
+to run at the Delhi races; so, as a matter of course, I asked him to
+stop with me for the week. It was a regular understood thing in India
+then, this passing on the T.G. from one place to another; sometimes he
+was all right, and sometimes he was a good deal the reverse--in any
+case, you were bound to be hospitable, and afterwards you could, if you
+liked, tell the man that sent him that you didn't want any more from
+him.
+
+The bagman arrived in due course, with a rum-looking roan horse, called
+the "Doctor"; a very good horse, too, but not quite so good as the
+bagman gave out that he was. He brought along his own grass-cutter with
+him, as one generally does in India, and the grass-cutter's pony, a sort
+of animal people get because he can carry two or three more of these
+beastly clods of grass they dig up for horses than a man can, and
+without much regard to other qualities. The bagman seemed a decentish
+sort of chap in his way, but, my word! he did put his foot in it the
+first night at mess; by George, he did! There was somehow an idea that
+he belonged to a wine merchant business in England, and the Colonel
+thought we'd better open our best cellar for the occasion, and so we
+did; even got out the old Madeira, and told the usual story about the
+number of times it had been round the Cape. The bagman took everything
+that came his way, and held his tongue about it, which was rather
+damping. At last, when it came to dessert and the Madeira, Carew, one of
+our fellows, couldn't stand it any longer--after all, it _is_
+aggravating if a man won't praise your best wine, no matter how little
+you care about his opinion, and the bagman was supposed to be a
+_connoisseur_.
+
+"Not a bad glass of wine that," says Carew to him; "what do you think of
+it?"
+
+"Not bad," says the bagman, sipping it, "Think I'll show you something
+better in this line if you'll come and dine with me in London when
+you're home next."
+
+"Thanks," says Carew, getting as red as his own jacket, and beginning to
+splutter--he always did when he got angry--"this is good enough for me,
+and for most people here--"
+
+"Oh, but nobody up here has got a palate left," says the bagman,
+laughing in a very superior sort of way.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" shouted Carew, jumping up. "I'll not have any
+d----d bagmen coming here to insult me!"
+
+By George, if you'll believe me, Carew had a false palate, with a little
+bit of sponge in the middle, and we all knew it, _except the bagman_.
+There was a frightful shindy, Carew wanting to have his blood, and all
+the rest of us trying to prevent a row. We succeeded somehow in the end,
+I don't quite know how we managed it, as the bagman was very warlike
+too; but, anyhow, when I was going to bed that night I saw them both in
+the billiard room, very tight, leaning up against opposite ends of the
+billiard table, and making shoves at the balls--with the wrong ends of
+their cues, fortunately.
+
+"He called me a d----d bagman," says one, nearly tumbling down with
+laughing.
+
+"Told me I'd no palate," says the other, putting his head down on the
+table and giggling away there "best thing I ever heard in my life."
+
+Every one was as good friends as possible next day at the races, and for
+the whole week as well. Unfortunately for the bagman his horse didn't
+pull off things in the way he expected, in fact he hadn't a look in--we
+just killed him from first to last. As things went on the bagman began
+to look queer and by the end of the week he stood to lose a pretty
+considerable lot of money, nearly all of it to me. The way we arranged
+these matters then was a general settling-up day after the races were
+over; every one squared up his books and planked ready money down on the
+nail, or if he hadn't got it he went and borrowed from some one else to
+do it with. The bagman paid up what he owed the others, and I began to
+feel a bit sorry for the fellow when he came to me that night to finish
+up. He hummed and hawed a bit, and then asked if I should mind taking an
+I.O.U. from him, as he was run out of the ready.
+
+Of course I said, "All right, old man, certainly, just the same to me,"
+though it's usual in such cases to put down the hard cash, but
+still--fellow staying in my house, you know--sent on by this pal of mine
+in the 11th--absolutely nothing else to be done.
+
+Next morning I was up and out on parade as usual, and in the natural
+course of events began to look about for my bagman. By George, not a
+sign of him in his room, not a sign of him anywhere. I thought to
+myself, this is peculiar, and I went over to the stable to try whether
+there was anything to be heard of him.
+
+The first thing I saw was that the "Doctor's" stall was empty.
+
+"How's this?" I said to the groom; "where's Mr. Leggett's horse?"
+
+"The sahib has taken him away this morning."
+
+I began to have some notion then of what my I.O.U. was worth.
+
+"The sahib has left his grass-cutter and his pony," said the _sais_, who
+probably had as good a notion of what was up as I had.
+
+"All right, send for the grass-cutter," I said.
+
+The fellow came up, in a blue funk evidently, and I couldn't make
+anything of him. Sahib this, and sahib that, and salaaming and general
+idiotcy--or shamming--I couldn't tell which. I didn't know a nigger then
+as well as I do now.
+
+"This is a very fishy business," I thought to myself, "and I think it's
+well on the cards the grass-cutter will be out of this to-night on his
+pony. No, by Jove, I'll see what the pony's good for before he does
+that. Is the grass-cutter's pony there?" I said to the _sais_.
+
+"He is there, sahib, but he is only a _kattiawa tattoo_," which is the
+name for a common kind of mountain pony.
+
+I had him out, and he certainly was a wretched-looking little brute, dun
+with a black stripe down his back, like all that breed, and all bony and
+ragged and starved.
+
+"Indeed, he is a _gareeb kuch kam ki nahin_," said the _sais_, meaning
+thereby a miserable beast, in the most intensified form, "and not fit to
+stand in the sahib's stable."
+
+All the same, just for the fun of the thing, I put the grass-cutter up
+on him, and told him to trot him up and down. By George! the pony went
+like a flash of lightning! I had him galloped next; same thing--fellow
+could hardly hold him. I opened my eyes, I can tell you, but no matter
+what way I looked at him I couldn't see where on earth he got his pace
+from. It was there anyhow, there wasn't a doubt about that. "That'll
+do," I said, "put him up. And you just stay here," I said to the
+grass-cutter; "till I hear from Mr. Leggett where you're to go to. Don't
+leave Delhi till you get orders from me."
+
+It got about during the day that the bagman had disappeared, and had had
+a soft thing of it as far as I was concerned. The 112th were dining with
+us that night, and they all set to work to draw me after dinner about
+the business--thought themselves vastly witty over it.
+
+"Hullo Paddy, so you're the girl he left behind him!" "Hear he went off
+with two suits of your clothes, one over the other." "Cheer up, old man;
+he's left you the grass-cutter and the pony, and what _he_ leaves must
+be worth having, I'll bet!" and so on.
+
+I suppose I'd had a good deal more than my share of the champagne, but
+all of a sudden I began to feel pretty warm.
+
+"You're all d----d funny," I said, "but I daresay you'll find he's left
+me something that _is_ worth having."
+
+"Oh, yes!" "Go on!" "Paddy's a great man when he's drunk," and a lot
+more of the same sort.
+
+"I tell you what it is," said I, "I'll back the pony he's left here to
+trot his twelve miles an hour on the road."
+
+"Bosh!" says Barclay of the 112th. "I've seen him, and I'll lay you a
+thousand rupees even he doesn't."
+
+"Done!" said I, whacking my hand down on the table.
+
+"And I'll lay another thousand," says another fellow.
+
+"Done with you too," said I.
+
+Every one began to stare a bit then.
+
+"Go to bed, Paddy," says the Colonel, "you're making an exhibition of
+yourself."
+
+"Thank you, sir; I know pretty well what I'm talking about," said I;
+but, by George, I began privately to think I'd better pull myself
+together a bit, and I got out my book and began to hedge--laid three to
+one on the pony to do eleven miles in the hour, and four to one on him
+to do ten--all the fellows delighted to get their money on. I was to
+choose my own ground, and to have a fortnight to train the pony, and by
+the time I went to bed I stood to lose about L1,000.
+
+Somehow in the morning I didn't feel quite so cheery about things--one
+doesn't after a big night--one gets nasty qualms, both mental and the
+other kind. I went out to look after the pony, and the first thing I saw
+by way of an appetiser was Biddy, with a face as long as my arm. Biddy,
+I should explain, was a chap called Biddulph, in the Artillery; they
+called him Biddy for short, and partly, too, because he kept a racing
+stable with me in those days, I being called Paddy by every one, because
+I was Irish--English idea of wit--Paddy and Biddy, you see.
+
+"Well," said he, "I hear you've about gone and done it this time. The
+112th are going about with trumpets and shawms, and looking round for
+ways to spend that thousand when they get it. There are to be new polo
+ponies, a big luncheon, and a piece of plate bought for the mess, in
+memory of that benefactor of the regiment, the departed bagman. Well,
+now, let's see the pony. That's what I've come down for."
+
+I'm hanged if the brute didn't look more vulgar and wretched than ever
+when he was brought out, and I began to feel that perhaps I was more
+parts of a fool than I thought I was. Biddy stood looking at him there
+with his under-lip stuck out.
+
+"I think you've lost your money," he said. That was all, but the way he
+said it made me feel conscious of the shortcomings of every hair in the
+brute's ugly hide.
+
+"Wait a bit," I said, "you haven't seen him going yet. I think he has
+the heels of any pony in the place."
+
+I got a boy on to him without any more ado, thinking to myself I was
+going to astonish Biddy. "You just get out of his way, that's all," says
+I, standing back to let him start.
+
+If you'll believe it, he wouldn't budge a foot!--not an inch--no amount
+of licking had any effect on him. He just humped his back, and tossed
+his head and grunted--he must have had a skin as thick as three donkeys!
+I got on to him myself and put the spurs in, and he went up on his hind
+legs and nearly came back with me--that was all the good I got of that.
+
+"Where's the grass-cutter," I shouted, jumping off him in about as great
+a fury as I ever was in. "I suppose _he_ knows how to make this devil
+go!"
+
+"Grass-cutter went away last night, sahib. Me see him try to open stable
+door and go away. Me see him no more."
+
+I used pretty well all the bad language I knew in one blast. Biddy
+began to walk away, laughin till I felt as if I could kick him.
+
+"I'm going to have a front seat for this trotting match," he said,
+stopping to get his wind. "Spectators along the route requested to
+provide themselves with pitchforks and fireworks, I suppose, in case the
+champion pony should show any of his engaging little temper. Never mind,
+old man, I'll see you through this, there's no use in getting into a wax
+about it. I'm going shares with you, the way we always do."
+
+I can't say I responded graciously, I rather think I cursed him and
+everything else in heaps. When he was gone I began to think of what
+could be done.
+
+"Get out the dog-cart," I said, as a last chance. "Perhaps he'll go in
+harness."
+
+We wheeled the cart up to him, got him harnessed to it, and in two
+minutes that pony was walking, trotting, anything I wanted--can't
+explain why--one of the mysteries of horseflesh. I drove him out through
+the Cashmere Gate, passing Biddy on the way, and feeling a good deal the
+better for it, and as soon as I got on to the flat stretch of road
+outside the gate I tried what the pony could do. He went even better
+than I thought he could, very rough and uneven, of course, but still
+promising. I brought him home, and had him put into training at once, as
+carefully as if he was going for the Derby. I chose the course, took
+the six-mile stretch of road from the Cashmere gate to Sufter Jung's
+tomb, and drove him over it every day. It was a splendid course--level
+as a table, and dead straight for the most part--and after a few days he
+could do it in about forty minutes out and thirty-five back. People
+began to talk then, especially as the pony's look and shape were
+improving each day, and after a little time every one was planking his
+money on one way or another--Biddy putting on a thousand on his own
+account--still, I'm bound to say the odds were against the pony. The
+whole of Delhi got into a state of excitement about it, natives and all,
+and every day I got letters warning me to take care, as there might be
+foul play. The stable the pony was in was a big one, and I had a wall
+built across it, and put a man with a gun in the outer compartment. I
+bought all his corn myself, in feeds at a time, going here, there, and
+everywhere for it, never to the same place for two days together--I
+thought it was better to be sure than sorry, and there's no trusting a
+nigger.
+
+The day of the match every soul in the place turned out, such crowds
+that I could scarcely get the dog-cart through when I drove to the
+Cashmere gate. I got down there, and was looking over the cart to see
+that everything was right, when a little half-caste _keranie_, a sort
+of low-class clerk, came up behind me and began talking to me in a
+mysterious kind of way, in that vile _chi-chi_ accent one gets to hate
+so awfully.
+
+"Look here, Sar," he said, "you take my car, Sar; it built for racing. I
+do much trot-racing myself"--mentioning his name--"and you go much
+faster my car, Sar."
+
+I trusted nobody in those days, and thought a good deal of myself
+accordingly. I hadn't found out that it takes a much smarter man to know
+how to trust a few.
+
+"Thank you," I said, "I think I'll keep my own, the pony's accustomed to
+it."
+
+I think he understood quite well what I felt, but he didn't show any
+resentment.
+
+"Well, Sar, you no trust my car, you let me see your wheels?"
+
+"Certainly," I said "you may look at them," determined in my own mind I
+should keep my eye on him while he did.
+
+He got out a machine for propping the axle, and lifted the wheel off the
+ground.
+
+"Make the wheel go round," he said.
+
+I didn't like it much, but I gave the wheel a turn. He looked at it till
+it stopped.
+
+"You lose match if you take that car," he said, "you take my car, Sar."
+
+"What do you mean?" said I, pretty sharply.
+
+"Look here," he said, setting the wheel going again. "You see here, Sar,
+it die, all in a minute, it jerk, doesn't die smooth. You see _my_
+wheel, Sar."
+
+He put the lift under his own, and started the wheel revolving. It took
+about three times as long to die as mine, going steady and silent and
+stopping imperceptibly, not so much as a tremor in it.
+
+"Now, Sar!" he said, "you see I speak true, Sar. I back you two hundred
+rupee, if I lose I'm ruin, and I beg you, Sar, take my car! can no win
+with yours, mine match car."
+
+"All right!" said I with a sort of impulse, "I'll take it." And so I
+did.
+
+I had to start just under the arch of the Cashmere gate, by a pistol
+shot, fired from overhead. I didn't quite care for the look of the
+pony's ears while I was waiting for it--the crowd had frightened him a
+bit I think. By Jove, when the bang came he reared straight up, dropped
+down again and stuck his forelegs out, reared again when I gave him the
+whip, every second of course telling against me.
+
+"Here, let me help you," shouted Biddy, jumping into the trap. His
+weight settled the business, down came the pony, and we went away like
+blazes.
+
+The three umpires rode with us, one each side and one behind, at least
+that was the way at first, but I found the clattering of their hoofs
+made it next to impossible to hold the pony. I got them to keep back,
+and after that he went fairly steadily, but it was anxious work. The
+noise and excitement had told on him a lot, he had a tendency to break
+during all that six miles out, and he was in a lather before we got to
+Sufter Jung's tomb. There were a lot of people waiting for me out there,
+some ladies on horseback, too, and there was a coffee-shop going, with
+drinks of all kinds. As I got near they began to call out, "You're done,
+Paddy, thirty-four minutes gone already, you haven't the ghost of a
+chance. Come and have a drink and look pleasant over it."
+
+I turned the pony, and Biddy and I jumped out. I went up to the table,
+snatched up a glass of brandy and filled my mouth with it, then went
+back to the pony, took him by the head, and sent a squirt of brandy up
+each nostril; I squirted the rest down his throat, went back to the
+table, swallowed half a tumbler of curacoa or something, and was into
+the trap and off again, the whole thing not taking more than twenty
+seconds.
+
+The business began to be pretty exciting after that. You can see four
+miles straight ahead of you on that road; and that day the police had
+special orders to keep it clear, so that it was a perfectly blank,
+white stretch as far as I could see. You know how one never seems to get
+any nearer to things on a road like that, and there was the clock
+hanging opposite to me on the splash board; I couldn't look at it, but I
+could hear its beastly click-click through the trotting of the pony, and
+that was nearly as bad as seeing the minute hand going from pip to pip.
+But, by George, I pretty soon heard a worse kind of noise than that. It
+was a case of preserve me from my friends. The people who had gone out
+to Sufter Jung's tomb on horseback to meet me, thought it would be a
+capital plan to come along after me and see the fun, and encourage me a
+bit--so they told me afterwards. The way they encouraged me was by
+galloping till they picked me up, and then hammering along behind me
+like a troop of cavalry till it was all I could do to keep the pony from
+breaking.
+
+"You've got to win, Paddy," calls out Mrs. Harry Le Bretton, galloping
+up alongside, "you promised you would!"
+
+Mrs. Harry and I were great friends in those days--very sporting little
+woman, nearly as keen about the match as I was--but at that moment I
+couldn't pick my words.
+
+"Keep back!" I shouted to her; "keep back, for pity's sake!"
+
+It was too late--the next instant the pony was galloping. The penalty is
+that you have to pull up, and make the wheels turn in the opposite
+direction, and I just threw the pony on his haunches. He nearly came
+back into the cart, but the tremendous jerk gave the backward turn to
+the wheels and I was off again. Not even that kept the people back. Mrs.
+Le Bretton came alongside again to say something else to me, and I
+suddenly felt half mad from the clatter and the frightful strain of the
+pony on my arms.
+
+"D----n it all! Le Bretton!" I yelled, as the pony broke for the second
+time, "can't you keep your wife away!"
+
+They did let me alone after that--turned off the road and took a scoop
+across the plain, so as to come up with me at the finish--and I pulled
+myself together to do the last couple of miles. I could see that
+Cashmere gate and the Delhi walls ahead of me; 'pon my soul I felt as if
+they were defying me and despising me, just standing waiting there under
+the blazing sky, and they never seemed to get any nearer. It was like
+the first night of a fever, the whizzing of the wheels, the ding-dong of
+the pony's hoofs, the silence all round, the feeling of stress and
+insane hurrying on, the throbbing of my head, and the scorching heat.
+I'll swear no fever I've ever had was worse than that last two miles.
+
+As I reached the Delhi walls I took one look at the clock. There was
+barely a minute left.
+
+"By Jove!" I gasped, "I'm done!"
+
+I shouted and yelled to the pony like a madman, to keep up what heart
+was left in the wretched little brute, holding on to him for bare life,
+with my arms and legs straight out in front of me. The gray wall and the
+blinding road rushed by me like a river--I scarcely knew what
+happened--I couldn't think of anything but the ticking of the clock that
+I was somehow trying to count, till there came the bang of a pistol over
+my head.
+
+It was the Cashmere gate, and I had thirteen seconds in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was never anything more heard of the bagman. He can, if he likes,
+soothe his conscience with the reflection that he was worth a thousand
+pounds to me.
+
+But Mrs. Le Bretton never quite forgave me.
+
+
+
+
+AN IRISH PROBLEM
+
+
+Conversation raged on the long flanks of the mail-car.
+
+An elderly priest, with a warm complexion and a controversial under-lip,
+was expounding his native country to a fellow-traveller, with slight but
+irrepressible pulpit gestures of the hand. The fellow traveller, albeit
+lavender-hued from an autumn east wind, was obediently observing the
+anaemic patches of oats and barley, pale and thin, like the hair of a
+starving baby, and the huge slants of brown heather and turf bog, and
+was interjecting "Just so!" at decent intervals. Now and then, as the
+two tall brown mares slackened for a bout of collar-work at a hill, or
+squeezed slowly past a cart stacked high with sods of turf, we, sitting
+in silence, Irish wolves in the clothing of English tourists, could hear
+across the intervening pile of luggage and bicycles such a storm of
+conversation as bursts forth at a dinner-party after the champagne has
+twice gone round.
+
+The brunt of the talk was borne by the old lady in the centre. Her broad
+back, chequered with red plaid, remained monumental in height and
+stillness, but there was that in the tremor of the steel spray in her
+bonnet that told of a high pressure of narrative. The bearded Dublin
+tourist on her left was but little behind her in the ardour of giving
+information. His wife, a beautifully dressed lady with cotton-wool in
+her ears, remained abstracted, whether from toothache, or exclusiveness,
+or mere wifely boredom, we cannot say. Among the swift shuttles of Irish
+speech the ponderous questions and pronouncements of an English
+fisherman drove their way. The talk was, we gathered, of sport and game
+laws and their administration.
+
+"Is it hares?" cried the Dublin tourist, perorating after a flight or
+two into the subject of poachers; "what d'ye think would happen a hare
+in Donegal?"
+
+His handsome brown eye swept his audience, even, through the spokes of a
+bicycle, gathering in our sympathies. It left no doubts as to the
+tragedy that awaited the hare.
+
+The east wind hunted us along the shore of the wide, bleak bay, rimmed
+with yellow sea-weed, and black and ruffled like the innumerable
+lakelets that lay along our route. The tall mountain over it was hooded
+in cloud. It seemed as threatening and mysterious as Sinai; ready to
+utter some awful voice of law to the brown solitudes and windy silences.
+
+Far ahead of us a few houses rose suddenly above the low coast line, an
+ugly family party of squat gables and whitewashed walls, with nothing
+nearer them to westward than the homesteads of America.
+
+Far and near there was not a tree visible, nor a touch of colour to tell
+of the saving grace of flowers. The brown mares swung the car along with
+something resembling enthusiasm; Letterbeg was the end of their stage;
+it was the end of ours also. Numb with long sitting we dropped
+cumbrously to earth from the high footboard, and found ourselves face to
+face with the problem of how to spend the next three hours. It was
+eleven o'clock in the morning, too early for lunch, though, apparently,
+quite the fashionable hour in Letterbeg for bottled porter, judging by
+the squeak of the corkscrew and the clash of glasses that issued from
+the dark interior of the house in front of which we had been shed by the
+mail-car. This was a long cottage with a prosperous slate roof, and a
+board over its narrow door announcing that one Jas. Heraty was licensed
+for the retail of spirits and porter.
+
+The mail-car rolled away; as it crawled over the top of a hill and sank
+out of sight a last wave of the priestly hand seemed to include us.
+Doubtless we were being expounded as English tourists, and our great
+economic value to the country was being expatiated upon. The _role_ is
+an important one, and has its privileges; yet, to the wolf, there is
+something stifling in sheep's clothing; certainly, on the occasions
+when it was discarded by us, a sympathy and understanding with the
+hotels was quickly established. Possibly they also are wolves.
+Undoubtedly the English tourist, with his circular ticket and his
+coupons, does not invariably get the best of everything. We write
+surrounded by him and his sufferings. An earlier visit than usual to the
+hotel sitting-room has revealed him, lying miserably on the sofa,
+shrouded in a filthy _duvet_, having been flung there at some two in the
+morning on his arrival, wet through, from heaven knows what tremendous
+walk. Subsequently we hear him being haled from his lair by the
+chambermaid, who treats him as the dirt under her feet (or, indeed, if
+we may judge by our bedroom carpet, with far less consideration).
+
+"Here!" she says, "go in there and wash yerself!"
+
+We hear her slamming him into a room from which two others of his kind
+have been recently bolted like rabbits, by the boots, to catch the 6
+A.M. train. We can just faintly realise its atmosphere.
+
+This, however, is a digression, but remotely connected with Letterbeg
+and Mr. Heraty's window, to which in our forlorn state we turned for
+distraction.
+
+It was very small, about two feet square, but it made its appeal to all
+the needs of humanity from the cradle to the grave. A feeding-bottle, a
+rosary, a photograph of Mr. Kruger, a peg-top, a case of salmon flies,
+an artistic letter-weight, consisting of a pigeon's egg carved in
+Connemara marble, two seductively small bottles of castor-oil--these,
+mounted on an embankment of packets of corn-flour and rat poison,
+crowded the four little panes. Inside the shop the assortment ranged
+from bundles of reaping-hooks on the earthen floor to bottles of
+champagne in the murk of the top shelf. A few men leaned against the
+tin-covered counter, gravely drinking porter. As we stood dubiously at
+the door there was a padding of bare feet in the roadway, and a very
+small boy with a red head, dressed in a long flannel frock of a rich
+madder shade fluttered past us into the shop.
+
+"Me dada says let yees be hurrying!" he gasped, between spasms of what
+was obviously whooping-cough. "Sweeny's case is comin' on!"
+
+Had the message been delivered by the Sergeant-at-Arms it could not have
+been received with more respectful attention or been more immediately
+obeyed. The porter was gulped down, one unfinished glass being bestowed
+upon the Sergeant-at-Arms, possibly as a palliative for the
+whooping-cough, and the party trooped up the road towards a thatched and
+whitewashed cottage that stood askew at the top of a lane leading to the
+seashore. Two tall constables of the R.I.C. stood at the door of the
+cottage. It came to us, with a lifting of the heart, that we had
+chanced upon Petty Sessions day in Letterbeg, and this was the
+court-house.
+
+It was uncommonly hot in what is called in newspapers "the body of the
+court". Something of the nature of a rood-screen, boarded solidly up to
+a height of about four feet, divided the long single room of the
+cottage; we, with the rest of the public, were penned in the division
+nearest the door. The cobwebbed boards of the loft overhead almost
+rested on our hats; the public, not being provided with seats by the
+Government, shuffled on the earthen floor and unaffectedly rested on us
+and each other. Within the rood-screen two magistrates sat at a table,
+with their suite, consisting of a clerk, an interpreter, and a district
+inspector of police, disposed round them.
+
+"The young fella with the foxy mustash is Docthor Lyden," whispered an
+informant in response to a question, "and the owld lad that's lookin' at
+ye now is Heraty, that owns the shop above--"
+
+At this juncture an emissary from the Bench very kindly offered us seats
+within the rood-screen. We took them, on a high wooden settle, beside
+the magisterial table, and the business of the court proceeded.
+
+Close to us stood the defendant, Sweeny, a tall elderly man, with a
+long, composed, shaven face, and an all-observant grey eye: Irish in
+type, Irish in expression, intensely Irish in the self-possession in
+which he stood, playing to perfection the part of calm rectitude and
+unassailable integrity.
+
+Facing him, the plaintiff lounged against the partition; a man strangely
+improbable in appearance, with close-cropped grey hair, a young,
+fresh-coloured face, a bristling orange moustache, and a big, blunt
+nose. One could have believed him a soldier, a German, anything but what
+he was, a peasant from the furthest shores of Western Ireland, cut off
+from what we call civilisation by his ignorance of any language save his
+own ancient speech, wherein the ideas of to-day stand out in English
+words like telegraph posts in a Connemara moorland.
+
+Between the two stood the interpreter--small, old, froglike in profile,
+full of the dignity of the Government official.
+
+"Well, we should be getting on now," remarked the Chairman, Heraty,
+J.P., after some explanatory politeness to his unexpected visitors.
+"William, swear the plaintiff!"
+
+The oath was administered in Irish, and the orange moustache brushed the
+greasy Testament. The space above the dado of the partition became
+suddenly a tapestry of attentive faces, clear-eyed, all-comprehending.
+
+[Illustration: SWEENY.]
+
+"This case," announced Mr. Heraty judicially yet not without a glance at
+the visitors, "is a demand for compensation in the matter of a sheep
+that was drowned. William"--this to the interpreter--"ask Darcy what he
+has to say for himself?"
+
+Darcy hitched himself round, still with a shoulder propped against the
+partition, and uttered, without any enthusiasm, a few nasal and guttural
+sentences.
+
+"He says, yer worship," said William, with unctuous propriety, "that
+Sweeny's gorsoons were ever and always hunting his sheep, and settin' on
+their dog to hunt her, and that last week they dhrove her into the lake
+and dhrownded her altogether."
+
+"Now," said Mr. Heraty, in a conversational tone, "William, when ye
+employ the word 'gorsoon,' do ye mean children of the male or female
+sex?"
+
+"Well, yer worship," replied William, who, it may incidentally be
+mentioned, was himself in need of either an interpreter or of a new and
+complete set of teeth, "I should considher he meant ayther the one or
+the other."
+
+"They're usually one or the other," said Doctor Lyden solemnly, and in a
+stupendous brogue. It was the first time he had spoken; he leaned back,
+with his hands in his pockets, and surveyed with quiet but very bright
+eyes the instant grin that illumined the faces of the tapestry.
+
+"Sure William himself is no bad judge of gorsoons," said Mr. Heraty.
+"Hadn't he a christening in his own house three weeks ago?"
+
+At this excursion into the family affairs of the interpreter the grin
+broke into a roar.
+
+"See now, we'll ask Mr. Byrne, the schoolmaster," went on Mr. Heraty
+with owl-like gravity. "Isn't that Mr. Byrne that I see back there in
+the coort? Come forward, Mr. Byrne!"
+
+Thus adjured, a tall, spectacled man emerged from the crowd, and,
+beaming with a pleasing elderly bashfulness through his spectacles, gave
+it as his opinion that though gorsoon was a term usually applied to the
+male child, it was equally applicable to the female. "But, indeed," he
+concluded, "the Bench has as good Irish as I have myself, and better."
+
+"The law requires that the thransactions of this coort shall take place
+in English," the Chairman responded, "and we have also the public to
+consider."
+
+As it was pretty certain that we were the only persons in the court who
+did not understand Irish, it was borne in upon us that we were the
+public, and we appreciated the consideration.
+
+"We may assume, then, that the children that set on the dog wor' of both
+sexes," proceeded Mr. Heraty. "Well, now, as to the dog-- William, ask
+Darcy what sort of dog was it."
+
+The monotonous and quiet Irish sentences followed one another again.
+
+"That'll do. Now, William--"
+
+"He says, yer worship, that he was a big lump of a yalla dog, an' very
+cross, by reason of he r'arin' a pup."
+
+"And 'twas to make mutton-broth for the pup she dhrove Darcy's sheep in
+the lake, I suppose?"
+
+A contemptuous smile passed over Darcy's face as the Chairman's sally
+was duly translated to him, and he made a rapid reply.
+
+"He says there isn't one of the neighbours but got great annoyance by
+the same dog, yer worship, and that when the dog'd be out by night
+hunting, there wouldn't be a yard o' wather in the lakes but he'd have
+it barked over."
+
+"It appears," observed Dr. Lyden serenely, "that the dog, like the
+gorsoons, was of both sexes."
+
+"Well, well, no matther now; we'll hear what the defendant has to say.
+Swear Sweeny!" said Mr. Heraty, smoothing his long grey beard, with
+suddenly remembered judicial severity and looking menacingly over his
+spectacles at Sweeny. "Here, now! you don't want an interpreter! You
+that has a sisther married to a stationmaster and a brother in the
+Connaught Rangers!"
+
+"I have as good English as anny man in this coort," said Sweeny
+morosely.
+
+"Well, show it off man! What defence have ye?"
+
+"I say that the sheep wasn't Darcy's at all," said Sweeny firmly,
+standing as straight as a ramrod, with his hands behind his back, a
+picture of surly, wronged integrity. "And there's no man livin' can
+prove she was. Ask him now what way did he know her?"
+
+The question evidently touched Darcy on a tender point. He squared his
+big shoulders in his white flannel jacket, and turning his face for the
+first time towards the magistrates delivered a flood of Irish, in which
+we heard a word that sounded like _ullan_ often repeated.
+
+"He says, yer worships," translated William, "why wouldn't he know her!
+Hadn't she the _ullan_ on her! He says a poor man like him would know
+one of the few sheep he has as well as yer worship'd know one o' yer own
+gowns if it had sthrayed from ye."
+
+It is probable that we looked some of the stupefaction that we felt at
+this remarkable reference to Mr. Heraty's wardrobe.
+
+"For the benefit of the general public," said Dr. Lyden, in his languid,
+subtle brogue, with a side-glance at that body, "it may be no harm to
+mention that the plaintiff is alluding to the Chairman's yearling calves
+and not to his costume."
+
+"Order now!" said Mr. Heraty severely.
+
+"An' he says," continued William, warily purging his frog-countenance of
+any hint of appreciation, "that Sweeny knew the _ullan_ that was on her
+as well as himself did."
+
+"_Ullan!_ What sort of English is that for an interpreter to be using!
+Do ye suppose the general public knows what is an _ullan_?" interrupted
+Mr. Heraty with lightning rapidity. "Explain that now!"
+
+"Why, yer worship, sure anny one in the world'd know what the _ullan_ on
+a sheep's back is!" said William, staggered by this sudden onslaught,
+"though there's some might call it the _rebugh_."
+
+"God help the Government that's payin' you wages!" said Mr. Heraty with
+sudden and bitter ferocity (but did we intercept a wink at his
+colleague?). "If it wasn't for the young family you're r'arin' in yer
+old age, I'd commit ye for contempt of coort!"
+
+A frank shout of laughter, from every one in court but the victim,
+greeted this sally, the chorus being, as it were, barbed by a shrill
+crow of whooping-cough.
+
+"Mr. Byrne!" continued Mr. Heraty without a smile, "we must call upon
+you again!"
+
+Mr. Byrne's meek scholastic face once more appeared at the rood-screen.
+
+"Well, I should say," he ventured decorously, "that the expression is
+locally applied to what I may call a plume or a feather that is worn on
+various parts of the sheep's back, for a mark, as I might say, of
+distinction."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Byrne, thank you," said Mr. Heraty, to whose imagination
+a vision of a plumed or feathered sheep seemed to offer nothing unusual,
+"remember that now, William!"
+
+Dr. Lyden looked at his watch.
+
+"Don't you think Sweeny might go on with his defence?" he remarked.
+"About the children, Sweeny--how many have ye?"
+
+"I have four."
+
+"And how old are they?"
+
+"There's one o' thim is six years an another o' thim is seven--"
+
+"Yes, and the other two eight and nine, I suppose?" commented Dr. Lyden.
+
+The defendant remained silent.
+
+"Do ye see now how well he began with the youngest--the way we'd think
+'twas the eldest!" resumed Dr. Lyden. "I think we may assume that a
+gorsoon--male or female--of eight or nine years is capable of setting a
+dog on the sheep."
+
+Here Darcy spoke again.
+
+"He says," interpreted William, "there isn't pig nor ass, sheep nor
+duck, belongin' to him that isn't heart-scalded with the same childhren
+an' their dog."
+
+"Well, I say now, an' I swear it," said Sweeny, his eye kindling like a
+coal, and his voice rising as the core of what was probably an old
+neighbourly grudge was neared, "my land is bare from his bastes
+threspassing on it, and my childhren are in dread to pass his house
+itself with the kicks an' the sthrokes himself an' his mother dhraws on
+them! The Lord Almighty knows--"
+
+"Stop now!" said Mr. Heraty, holding up his hand. "Stop! The Lord's not
+intherferin' in this case at all! It's me an' Doctor Lyden has it to
+settle."
+
+No one seemed to find anything surprising in this pronouncement; it was
+accepted as seriously as any similar statement of the Prophet Samuel to
+the Children of Israel, and was evidently meant to imply that abstract
+justice might be expected.
+
+"We may assume, then," said Dr. Lyden amiably, "that the sheep walked
+out into Sweeny's end of the lake and drowned herself there on account
+of the spite there was between the two families."
+
+The court tittered. A dingy red showed itself among the grizzled hairs
+and wrinkles on Sweeny's cheek. In Ireland a point can often be better
+carried by sarcasm than by logic.
+
+"She was blind enough to dhrown herself, or two like her!" he said
+angrily; "she was that owld and blind it was ayqual to her where she'd
+go!"
+
+"How d'ye know she was blind?" said Mr. Heraty quickly.
+
+"I thought the defence opened with the statement that it wasn't Darcy's
+sheep at all," put in Dr. Lyden, leaning back in his chair with his eyes
+fixed on the rafters.
+
+Sweeny firmly regarded Mr. Heraty.
+
+"How would I know she was blind?" he repeated. "Many's the time when
+she'd be takin' a sthroll in on my land I'd see her fallin' down in the
+rocks, she was that blind! An' didn't I see Darcy's mother one time, an'
+she puttin' something on her eyes."
+
+"Was it glasses she was putting on the sheep's eyes?" suggested the
+Chairman, with a glance that admitted the court to the joke.
+
+"No, but an ointment," said Sweeny stubbornly. "I seen her rubbing it to
+the eyes, an' she no more than thirty yards from me."
+
+"Will ye swear that?" thundered Mr. Heraty; "will you swear that at a
+distance of thirty yards you could tell what was between Darcy's
+mother's fingers and the sheep's eyes? No you will not! Nor no man
+could! William, is Darcy's mother in the coort? We'll have to take
+evidence from her as to the condition of the sheep's eyes!"
+
+"Darcy says, yer worship, that his mother would lose her life if she was
+to be brought into coort," explained William, after an interlude in
+Irish, to which both magistrates listened with evident interest; "that
+ere last night a frog jumped into the bed to her in the night, and she
+got out of the bed to light the Blessed Candle, and when she got back to
+the bed again she was in it always between herself and the wall, an' she
+got a wakeness out of it, and great cold--"
+
+"Are ye sure it wasn't the frog got the wakeness?" asked Dr. Lyden.
+
+A gale of laughter swept round the court.
+
+"Come, come!" said Mr. Heraty; "have done with this baldherdash!
+William, tell Darcy some one must go fetch his mother, for as wake as
+she is she could walk half a mile!" Mr. Heraty here drew forth an
+enormous white pocket-handkerchief and trumpeted angrily in its depths.
+
+Darcy raised his small blue eyes with their thick lashes, and took a
+look at his judge. There was a gabbled interchange of Irish between him
+and the interpreter.
+
+"He says she could not, yer worship, nor as much as one perch."
+
+"Ah, what nonsense is this!" said Mr. Heraty testily; "didn't I see the
+woman meself at Mass last Sunday?"
+
+Darcy's reply was garnished with a good deal more gesticulation than
+usual, and throughout his speech the ironic smile on Sweeny's face was a
+masterpiece of quiet expression.
+
+"He says," said William, "that surely she was at Mass last Sunday, the
+same as your worship says, but 'twas on the way home that she was taking
+a wall, and a stone fell on her and hurted her finger and the boot
+preyed on it, and it has her desthroyed."
+
+At this culmination of the misadventures of Mrs. Darcy the countenances
+of the general public must; again have expressed some of the
+bewilderment that they felt.
+
+"Perhaps William will be good enough to explain," said Dr. Lyden,
+permitting a faint smile to twitch the foxy moustache, "how Mrs. Darcy's
+boot affected her finger?"
+
+William's skinny hand covered his frog mouth with all a deserving
+schoolboy's embarrassment at being caught out in a bad translation.
+
+"I beg yer worships' pardon," he said, in deep confusion, "but sure your
+worships know as well as meself that in Irish we have the one word for
+your finger or your toe."
+
+"There's one thing I know very well anyhow," said Dr. Lyden, turning to
+his colleague, "I've no more time to waste sitting here talking about
+old Kit Darcy's fingers and toes! Let the two o' them get arbitrators
+and settle it out of court. There's nothing between them now only the
+value of the sheep."
+
+"Sure I was satisfied to leave it to arbithration, but Darcy wasn't
+willin'." This statement was Sweeny's.
+
+"So you were willin' to have arbithration before you came into coort at
+all?" said Mr. Heraty, eyeing the tall defendant with ominous mildness.
+"William, ask Darcy is this the case."
+
+Darcy's reply, delivered with a slow, sarcastic smile, provoked a laugh
+from the audience.
+
+"Oh, ho! So that was the way, was it!" cried Mr. Heraty, forgetting to
+wait for the translation. "Ye had your wife's cousin to arbithrate!
+Small blame to Darcy he wasn't willin'! It's a pity ye didn't say your
+wife herself should arbithrate when ye went about it! You would hardly
+believe the high opinion Sweeny here has of his wife," continued the
+Chairman in illuminative excursus to Dr. Lyden; "sure he had all the
+women wild below at my shop th' other night sayin' his wife was the
+finest woman in Ireland! Upon my soul he had!"
+
+"If I said that," growled the unfortunate Sweeny, "it was a lie for me."
+
+"Don't ye think it might be a good thing now," suggested the
+indefatigable doctor, in his mournful tuneful voice, "to call a few
+witnesses to give evidence as to whether Mrs. Michael Sweeny is the
+finest woman in Ireland or no?"
+
+"God knows, gentlemen, it's a pity ye haven't more to do this day," said
+Sweeny, turning at length upon his tormentors, "I'd sooner pay the price
+of the sheep than be losin' me time here this way."
+
+"See, now, how we're getting to the rights of it in the latter end,"
+commented Dr. Lyden imperturbably. "Sweeny began here by saying"--he
+checked off each successive point on his fingers--"that the sheep wasn't
+Darcy's at all. Then he said that his children of eight and nine years
+of age were too young to set the dog on the sheep. Then, that if the dog
+hunted her it was no more than she deserved for constant trespass. Then
+he said that the sheep was so old and blind that she committed suicide
+in his end of the lake in order to please herself and to spite him; and,
+last of all, he tells us that he offered to compensate Darcy for her
+before he came into court at all!"
+
+"And on top of that," Mr. Heraty actually rose in his seat in his
+exquisite appreciation of the position, "on top of that, mind you, after
+he has the whole machinery of the law and the entire population of
+Letterbeg attending on him for a matter o' two hours, he informs us that
+we're wasting his valuable time!"
+
+Mr. Heraty fixed his eyes in admirable passion--whether genuine or not
+we are quite incapable of pronouncing--upon Sweeny, who returned the
+gaze with all the gloom of an unfortunate but invincibly respectable
+man.
+
+Dr. Lyden once more pulled out his watch.
+
+"It might be as well for us," he said languidly, "to enter upon the
+inquiry as to the value of the sheep. That should take about another
+three-quarters of an hour. William, ask Darcy the price he puts on the
+sheep."
+
+Every emotion has its limits. We received with scarce a stirring of
+surprise the variations of sworn testimony as to the value of the sheep.
+Her price ranged from one pound, claimed by Darcy and his adherents, to
+sixpence, at which sum her skin was unhesitatingly valued by Sweeny. Her
+age swung like a pendulum between two years and fourteen, and, finally,
+in crowning proof of her worth and general attractiveness, it was stated
+that her own twin had been sold for fifteen shillings to the police at
+Dhulish, "ere last week". At this re-entrance into the case of the
+personal element Mr. Heraty's spirits obviously rose.
+
+"I think we ought to have evidence about this," he said, fixing the
+police officer with a dangerous eye. "Mr. Cox, have ye anny of the
+Dhulish police here?"
+
+Mr. Cox, whose only official act up to the present had been the highly
+beneficial one of opening the window, admitted with a grin that two of
+the Dhulish men were in the court.
+
+"Well, then!" continued the Chairman, "Mr. Cox, maybe ye'd kindly desire
+them to step forward in order that the court may be able to estimate
+from their appearance the nutritive qualities of the twin sisther of
+Darcy's sheep."
+
+At this juncture we perceived, down near the crowded doorway, two tall
+and deeply embarrassed members of the R.I.C. hastily escaping into the
+street.
+
+"Well, well; how easy it is to frighten the police!" remarked the
+Chairman, following them with a regretful eye. "I suppose, afther all,
+we'd betther put a price on the sheep and have done with it. In my
+opinion, when there's a difficulty like this--what I might call an
+accident--between decent men like these (for they're both decent men,
+and I've known them these years), I'd say both parties should share what
+hardship is in it. Now, doctor, what shall we give Darcy? I suppose if
+we gave him 8s. compensation and 2s. costs we'd not be far out?"
+
+Dr. Lyden, already in the act of charging his pipe, nodded his head.
+
+Sweeny began to fumble in his pockets, and drawing out a brownish rag,
+possibly a handkerchief, knotted in several places, proceeded to untie
+one of the knots. The doctor watched him without speaking. Ultimately,
+from some fastness in the rag a half-sovereign was extracted, and was
+laid upon the table by Sweeny. The clerk, a well-dressed young
+gentleman, whose attitude had throughout been one of the extremest
+aloofness, made an entry in his book with an aggressively business-like
+air.
+
+"Well, that's all right," remarked Dr. Lyden, getting lazily on his legs
+and looking round for his hat; "it's a funny thing, but I notice that
+the defendant brought the exact sum required into court with him."
+
+"I did! And I'm able to bring more than it, thanks be to God!" said
+Sweeny fiercely, with all the offended pride of his race. "I have two
+pounds here this minute--"
+
+"If that's the way with ye, may be ye'd like us to put a bigger fine on
+ye!" broke in Mr. Heraty hotly, in instant response to Sweeny's show of
+temper.
+
+Dr. Lyden laughed for the first time.
+
+"Mr. Heraty's getting cross now, in the latter end," he murmured
+explanatorily to the general public, while he put on an overcoat, from
+the pocket of which protruded the Medusa coils of a stethoscope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long before the arrival of the mail-car that was to take us away, the
+loafers and the litigants had alike been swallowed up, apparently by the
+brown, hungry hillsides; possibly also, some of them, by Mr. Heraty's
+tap-room. Again we clambered to our places among the inevitable tourists
+and their inevitable bicycles, again the laden car lumbered heavily yet
+swiftly along the bog roads that quivered under its weight, while the
+water in the black ditches on either side quivered in sympathy. The
+tourists spoke of the vast loneliness, unconscious of the intricate
+network of social life that lay all around them, beyond their ken, far
+beyond their understanding. They spoke authoritatively of Irish affairs;
+mentioned that the Irish were "a bit 'ot tempered," but added that "all
+they wanted was fair play".
+
+They had probably been in Ireland for a week or fortnight. They had come
+out of business centres in England, equipped with circular tickets, with
+feeling hearts, and with the belief that two and two inevitably make
+four; whereas in Ireland two and two are just as likely to make five, or
+three, and are still more likely to make nothing at all.
+
+Never will it be given to them to understand the man of whom our friend
+Sweeny was no more than a type. How can they be expected to realise that
+a man who is decorous in family and village life, indisputably
+God-fearing, kind to the poor, and reasonably honest, will enmesh
+himself in a tissue of sworn lies before his fellows for the sake of
+half a sovereign and a family feud, and that his fellows will think none
+the worse of him for it.
+
+These things lie somewhere near the heart of the Irish problem.
+
+
+
+
+THE DANE'S BREECHIN'
+
+PART I
+
+
+The story begins at the moment when my brother Robert and I had made our
+final arrangements for the expedition. These were considerable. Robert
+is a fisherman who takes himself seriously (which perhaps is fortunate,
+as he rarely seems to take anything else), and his paraphernalia does
+credit to his enthusiasm, if not to his judgment. For my part, being an
+amateur artist, I had strapped together a collection of painting
+materials that would enable me to record my inspiration in oil,
+watercolour, or pastel, as the spirit might move me. We had ordered a
+car from Coolahan's public-house in the village; an early lunch was
+imminent.
+
+The latter depended upon Julia; in fact it would be difficult to mention
+anything at Wavecrest Cottage that did not depend on Julia. We, who were
+but strangers and sojourners (the cottage with the beautiful name having
+been lent to us, with Julia, by an Aunt), felt that our very existence
+hung upon her clemency. How much more then luncheon, at the
+revolutionary hour of a quarter to one? Even courageous people are
+afraid of other people's servants, and Robert and I were far from being
+courageous. Possibly this is why Julia treated us with compassion, even
+with kindness, especially Robert.
+
+"Ah, poor Masther Robert!" I have heard her say to a friend in the
+kitchen, who was fortunately hard of hearing, "ye wouldn't feel him in
+the house no more than a feather! An' indeed, as for the two o' thim,
+sich gallopers never ye seen! It's hardly they'd come in the house to
+throw the wet boots off thim! Thim'd gallop the woods all night like the
+deer!"
+
+At half-past twelve, all, as I have said, being in train, I went to the
+window to observe the weather, and saw a covered car with a black horse
+plodding along the road that separated Wavecrest Cottage from the
+seashore. At our modest entrance gates it drew up, and the coachman
+climbed from his perch with a dignity befitting his flowing grey beard
+and the silver band on his hat.
+
+A covered car is a vehicle peculiar to the south of Ireland; it
+resembles a two-wheeled waggonette with a windowless black box on top of
+it. Its mouth is at the back, and it has the sinister quality of totally
+concealing its occupants until the irrevocable moment when it is turned
+and backed against your front door steps. For this moment my brother
+Robert and I did not wait. A short passage and a flight of steps
+separated us from the kitchen; beyond the steps, and facing the kitchen
+door, a door opened into the garden. Robert slipped up heavily in the
+passage as we fled, but gained the garden door undamaged. The hall door
+bell pealed at my ear; I caught a glimpse of Julia, pounding chops with
+the rolling pin.
+
+"Say we're out," I hissed to her--"gone out for the day! We are going
+into the garden!"
+
+"Sure ye needn't give yerself that much trouble," replied Julia affably,
+as she snatched a grimy cap off a nail.
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of the elasticity of Julia's conscience, the
+garden seemed safer.
+
+In the garden, a plot of dense and various vegetation, decorated with
+Julia's lingerie, we awaited the sound of the departing wheels. But
+nothing departed. The breathless minutes passed, and then, through the
+open drawing-room window, we were aware of strange voices. The
+drawing-room window overlooked the garden thoroughly and commandingly.
+There was not a moment to lose. We plunged into the raspberry canes, and
+crouched beneath their embowered arches, and the fulness of the
+situation began to sink into our souls.
+
+Through the window we caught a glimpse of a white beard and a portly
+black suit, of a black bonnet and a dolman that glittered with jet, of
+yet another black bonnet.
+
+With Aunt Dora's house we had taken on, as it were, her practice, and
+the goodwill of her acquaintance. The Dean of Glengad and Mrs. Doherty
+were the very apex and flower of the latter, and in the party now
+installed in Aunt Dora's drawing-room I unhesitatingly recognised them,
+and Mrs. Doherty's sister, Miss McEvoy. Miss McEvoy was an elderly lady
+of the class usually described as being "not all there". The expression,
+I imagine, implies a regret that there should not be more. As, however,
+what there was of Miss McEvoy was chiefly remarkable for a monstrous
+appetite and a marked penchant for young men, it seems to me mainly to
+be regretted that there should be as much of her as there is.
+
+A drive of nine miles in the heat of a June morning is not undertaken
+without a sustaining expectation of luncheon at the end of it. There
+were in the house three mutton chops to meet that expectation. I
+communicated all these facts to my brother. The consternation of his
+face, framed in raspberry boughs, was a picture not to be lightly
+forgotten. At such a moment, with everything depending on sheer nerve
+and resourcefulness, to consign Julia to perdition was mere
+self-indulgence on his part, but I suppose it was inevitable. Here the
+door into the garden opened and Julia came forth, with a spotless apron
+and a face of elaborate unconcern. She picked a handful of parsley, her
+black eyes questing for us among the bushes; they met mine, and a glance
+more alive with conspiracy it has not been my lot to receive. She moved
+desultorily towards us, gathering green gooseberries in her apron.
+
+"I told them the two o' ye were out," she murmured to the gooseberry
+bushes. "They axed when would ye be back. I said ye went to town on the
+early thrain and wouldn't be back till night."
+
+Decidedly Julia's conscience could stand alone.
+
+"With that then," she continued, "Miss McEvoy lands into the hall, an'
+'O Letitia,' says she, 'those must be the gentleman's fishing rods!' and
+then 'Julia!' says she, 'could ye give us a bit o' lunch?' That one's
+the imp!"
+
+"Look here!" said Robert hoarsely, and with the swiftness of panic, "I'm
+off! I'll get out over the back wall."
+
+At this moment Miss McEvoy put her head out of the drawing-room window
+and scanned the garden searchingly. Without another word we glided
+through the raspberry arches like departing fairies in a pantomine. The
+kindly lilac and laurestina bushes grew tall and thick at the end of
+the garden; the wall was high, but, as is usual with fruit-garden walls,
+it had a well-worn feasible corner that gave on to the lane leading to
+the village. We flung ourselves over it, and landed breathless and
+dishevelled, but safe, in the heart of the bed of nettles that plumed
+the common village ash-heap. Now that we were able, temporarily at all
+events, to call our souls our own, we (or rather I) took further stock
+of the situation. Its horrors continued to sink in. Driven from home
+without so much as a hat to lay our heads in, separated from those we
+loved most (the mutton chops, the painting materials, the fishing
+tackle), a promising expedition of unusual charm cut off, so to speak,
+in the flower of its youth--these were the more immediately obvious of
+the calamities which we now confronted. I preached upon them, with
+Cassandra eloquence, while we stood, indeterminate, among the nettles.
+
+"And what, I ask you," I said perorating, "what on the face of the earth
+are we to do now?"
+
+"Oh, it'll be all right, my dear girl," said Robert easily. Gratitude
+for his escape from the addresses of Miss McEvoy had apparently blinded
+him to the difficulties of the future. "There's Coolahan's pub. We'll
+get something to eat there--you'll see it'll be all right."
+
+"But," I said, picking my way after him among the rusty tins and the
+broken crockery, "the Coolahans will think we're mad! We've no hats, and
+we can't tell them about the Dohertys."
+
+"I don't care what they think," said Robert.
+
+What Mrs. Coolahan may have thought, as we dived from the sunlight into
+her dark and porter-sodden shop, did not appear; what she looked was
+consternation.
+
+"Luncheon!" she repeated with stupefaction, "luncheon! The dear help us,
+I have no luncheon for the like o' ye!"
+
+"Oh, anything will do," said Robert cheerfully. His experiences at the
+London bar had not instructed him in the commissariat of his country.
+
+"A bit of cold beef, or just some bread and cheese."
+
+Mrs. Coolahan's bleared eyes rolled wildly to mine, as seeking sympathy
+and sanity.
+
+"With the will o' Pether!" she exclaimed, "how would I have cold beef?
+And as for cheese--!" She paused, and then, curiosity over-powering all
+other emotions. "What ails Julia Cronelly at all that your honour's
+ladyship is comin' to the like o' this dirty place for your dinner?"
+
+"Oh, Julia's run away with a soldier!" struck in Robert brilliantly.
+
+"Small blame to her if she did itself!" said Mrs. Coolahan, gallantly
+accepting the jest without a change of her enormous countenance, she's a
+long time waiting for the chance! Maybe ourselves'd go if we were axed!
+I have a nice bit of salt pork in the house," she continued, "would I
+give your honours a rasher of it?"
+
+Mrs. Coolahan had probably assumed that either Julia was incapably
+drunk, or had been dismissed without benefit of clergy; at all events
+she had recognised that diplomatically it was correct to change the
+conversation.
+
+We adventured ourselves into the unknown recesses of the house, and sat
+gingerly on greasy horsehair-seated chairs, in the parlour, while the
+bubbling cry of the rasher and eggs arose to heaven from the frying-pan,
+and the reek filled the house as with a grey fog. Potent as it was, it
+but faintly foreshadowed the flavour of the massive slices that
+presently swam in briny oil on our plates. But we had breakfasted at
+eight; we tackled them with determination, and without too nice
+inspection of the three-pronged forks. We drank porter, we achieved a
+certain sense of satiety, that on very slight provocation would have
+broadened into nausea or worse. All the while the question remained in
+the balance as to what we were to do for our hats, and for the myriad
+baggage involved in the expedition.
+
+We finally decided to write a minute inventory of what was
+indispensable, and to send it to Julia by the faithful hand of Mrs.
+Coolahan's car-driver, one Croppy, with whom previous expeditions had
+placed us upon intimate terms. It would be necessary to confide the
+position to Croppy, but this we felt, could be done without a moment's
+uneasiness.
+
+By the malignity that governed all things on that troublous day, neither
+of us had a pencil, and Mrs. Coolahan had to be appealed to. That she
+had by this time properly grasped the position was apparent in the
+hoarse whisper in which she said, carefully closing the door after
+her:--
+
+"The Dane's coachman is inside!"
+
+Simultaneously Robert and I removed ourselves from the purview of the
+door.
+
+"Don't be afraid," said our hostess reassuringly, "he'll never see
+ye--sure I have him safe back in the snug! Is it a writing pin ye want,
+Miss?" she continued, moving to the door. "Katty Ann! Bring me in the
+pin out o' the office!"
+
+The Post Office was, it may be mentioned, a department of the Coolahan
+public-house, and was managed by a committee of the younger members of
+the Coolahan family. These things are all, I believe, illegal, but they
+happen in Ireland. The committee was at present, apparently, in full
+session, judging by the flood of conversation that flowed in to us
+through the open door. The request for the pen caused an instant hush,
+followed at an interval by the slamming of drawers and other sounds of
+search.
+
+"Ah, what's on ye delaying this way?" said Mrs. Coolahan irritably,
+advancing into the shop. "Sure I seen the pin with Helayna this
+morning."
+
+At the moment all that we could see of the junior postmistress was her
+long bare shins, framed by the low-browed doorway, as she stood on the
+counter to further her researches on a top shelf.
+
+"The Lord look down in pity on me this day!" said Mrs. Coolahan, in
+exalted and bitter indignation, "or on any poor creature that's striving
+to earn her living and has the likes o' ye to be thrusting to!"
+
+We here attached ourselves to the outskirts of the search, which had by
+this time drawn into its vortex a couple of countrywomen with shawls
+over their heads, who had hitherto sat in decorous but observant
+stillness in the background. Katty Ann was rapidly examining tall
+bottles of sugar-stick, accustomed receptacles apparently for the pen.
+Helayna's raven fringe showed traces of a dive into the flour-bin. Mrs.
+Coolahan remained motionless in the midst, her eyes fixed on the
+ceiling, an exposition of suffering and of eternal remoteness from the
+ungodly.
+
+We were now aware for the first time of the presence of Mr. Coolahan, a
+taciturn person, with a blue-black chin and a gloomy demeanour.
+
+"Where had ye it last?" he demanded.
+
+"I seen Katty Ann with it in the cow-house, sir," volunteered a small
+female Coolahan from beneath the flap of the counter.
+
+Katty Ann, with a vindictive eye at the tell-tale, vanished.
+
+"That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!" chanted Mrs.
+Coolahan. "Such a mee-aw! Such a thing to happen to me--the pure, decent
+woman! G'wout!" This, the imperative of the verb to retire, was hurtled
+at the tell-tale, who, presuming on her services, had incautiously left
+the covert of the counter, and had laid a sticky hand on her mother's
+skirts.
+
+"Only that some was praying for me," pursued Mrs. Coolahan, "it might as
+well be the Inspector that came in the office, asking for the pin, an'
+if that was the way we might all go under the sod! Sich a mee-aw!"
+
+"Musha! Musha!" breathed, prayerfully, one of the shawled women.
+
+At this juncture I mounted on an up-ended barrel to investigate a
+promising lair above my head, and from this altitude was unexpectedly
+presented with a bird's-eye view of a hat with a silver band inside the
+railed and curtained "snug". I descended swiftly, not without an
+impression of black bottles on the snug table, and Katty Ann here slid
+in from the search in the cow-house.
+
+[Illustration: "MUSHA! MUSHA!"]
+
+"'Twasn't in it," she whined, "nor I didn't put it in it."
+
+"For a pinny I'd give ye a slap in the jaw!" said Mr. Coolahan with
+sudden and startling ferocity.
+
+"That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!" reiterated Mrs.
+Coolahan, while the search spread upwards through the house.
+
+"Look here!" said Robert abruptly, "this business is going on for a
+week. I'm going for the things myself."
+
+Neither I nor my remonstrances overtook him till he was well out into
+the street. There, outside the Coolahan door, was the Dean's inside car,
+resting on its shafts; while the black horse, like his driver, restored
+himself elsewhere beneath the Coolahan roof. Robert paid no heed to its
+silent warning.
+
+"I must go myself. If I had forty pencils I couldn't explain to Julia
+the flies that I want!"
+
+There comes, with the most biddable of men, a moment when argument
+fails, the moment of dead pull, when the creature perceives his own
+strength, and the astute will give in, early and imperceptibly, in order
+that he may not learn it beyond forgetting.
+
+The only thing left to be done now was to accompany Robert, to avert
+what might be irretrievable disaster. It was now half-past one, and the
+three mutton chops and the stewed gooseberries must have long since
+yielded their uttermost to our guests. The latter would therefore have
+returned to the drawing-room, where it was possible that one or more of
+them might go to sleep. Remembering that the chops were loin-chops, we
+might at all events hope for some slight amount of lethargy. Again we
+waded through the nettles, we scaled the garden-wall, and worked our way
+between it and the laurestinas towards the door opposite the kitchen.
+'There remained between us and the house an open space of about fifteen
+yards, fully commanded by the drawing-room window, veiling which,
+however, the lace curtains met in reassuring stillness. We rushed the
+interval, and entered the house softly. Here we were instantly met by
+Julia, with her mouth full, and a cup of tea in her hand. She drew us
+into the kitchen.
+
+"Where are they, Julia?" I whispered. "Have they had lunch?"
+
+"Is it lunch?" replied Julia, through bread and butter; "there isn't a
+bit in the house but they have it ate! And the eggs I had for the
+fast-day for myself, didn't That One"--I knew this to indicate Miss
+McEvoy--"ax an omelette from me when she seen she had no more to get!"
+
+"Are they out of the dining-room?" broke in Robert.
+
+"Faith, they are. 'Twas no good for them to stay in it! That One's lying
+up on the sofa in the dhrawing-room like any owld dog, and the Dane and
+Mrs. Doherty's dhrinking hot water--they have bad shtomachs, the
+craytures."
+
+Robert opened the kitchen door and crept towards the dining-room,
+wherein, not long before the alarm, had been gathered all the
+essentials of the expedition. I followed him. I have never committed a
+burglary, but since the moment when I creaked past the drawing-room
+door, foretasting the instant when it would open, my sympathies are
+dedicated to burglars.
+
+In two palpitating journeys we removed from the dining-room our
+belongings, and placed them in the kitchen; silence, fraught with dire
+possibilities, still brooded over the drawing-room. Could they all be
+asleep, or was Miss McEvoy watching us through the keyhole? There
+remained only my hat, which was upstairs, and at this, the last moment,
+Robert remembered his fly-book, left under the clock in the dining-room.
+I again passed the drawing-room in safety, and got upstairs, Robert
+effecting at the same moment his third entry into the dining-room. I was
+in the act of thrusting in the second hat pin when I heard the
+drawing-room door open. I admit that, obeying the primary instinct of
+self-preservation, my first impulse was to lock myself in; it passed,
+aided by the recollection that there was no key. I made for the landing,
+and from thence viewed, in a species of trance, Miss McEvoy crossing the
+hall and entering the dining-room. A long and deathly pause followed.
+She was a small woman; had Robert strangled her? After two or three
+horrible minutes a sound reached me, the well-known rattle of the
+side-board drawer. All then was well--Miss McEvoy was probably looking
+for the biscuits, and Robert must have escaped in time through the
+window. I took my courage in both hands and glided downstairs. As I
+placed my foot on the oilcloth of the hall, I was confronted by the
+nightmare spectacle of my brother creeping towards me on all-fours
+through the open door of the dining-room, and then, crowning this
+already over-loaded moment, there arose a series of yells from Miss
+McEvoy as blood-curdling as they were excusable, yet, as even in my
+maniac flight to the kitchen I recognised, something muffled by Marie
+biscuit.
+
+It seems to me that the next incident was the composite and shattering
+collision of Robert, Julia and myself in the scullery doorway, followed
+by the swift closing of the scullery-door upon us by Julia; then the
+voice of the Dean of Glengad, demanding from the house at large an
+explanation, in a voice of cathedral severity. Miss McEvoy's reply was
+to us about as coherent as the shrieks of a parrot, but we plainly heard
+Julia murmur in the kitchen:--
+
+"May the devil choke ye!"
+
+Then again the Dean, this time near the kitchen door. "Julia! Where is
+the man who was secreted under the dinner-table?"
+
+I gripped Robert's arm. The issues of life and death were now in Julia's
+hands.
+
+"Is it who was in the dining-room, your Reverence?" asked Julia, in
+tones of respectful honey; "sure that was the carpenter's boy, that came
+to quinch a rat-hole. Sure we're destroyed with rats."
+
+"But," pursued the Dean, raising his voice to overcome Miss McEvoy's
+continuous screams of explanation to Mrs. Doherty, "I understand that he
+left the room on his hands and knees. He must have been drunk!"
+
+"Ah, not at all, your Reverence," replied Julia, with almost
+compassionate superiority, "sure that poor boy is the gentlest crayture
+ever came into a house. I suppose 'tis what it was he was ashamed like
+when Miss McEvoy comminced to screech, and faith he never stopped nor
+stayed till he ran out of the house like a wild goose!"
+
+We heard the Dean reascend the kitchen steps, and make a statement of
+which the words "drink" and "Dora" alone reached us. The drawing-room
+door closed, and in the release from tension I sank heavily down upon a
+heap of potatoes. The wolf of laughter that had been gnawing at my
+vitals broke loose.
+
+"Why did you go out of the room on your hands and knees?" I moaned,
+rolling in anguish on the potatoes.
+
+"I got under the table when I heard the brute coming," said Robert,
+with the crossness of reaction from terror, "then she settled down to
+eat biscuits, and I thought I could crawl out without her seeing me"
+
+"_Ye can come out_!" said Julia's mouth, appearing at a crack of the
+scullery door, "I have as many lies told for ye--God forgive me!--as'd
+bog a noddy!"
+
+This mysterious contingency might have impressed us more had the artist
+been able to conceal her legitimate pride in her handiwork. We emerged
+from the chill and varied smells of the scullery, retaining just
+sufficient social self-control to keep us from flinging ourselves with
+grateful tears upon Julia's neck. Shaken as we were, the expedition
+still lay open before us; the game was in our hands. We were winning by
+tricks, and Julia held all the honours.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+Perhaps it was the clinging memory of the fried pork, perhaps it was
+because all my favourite brushes were standing in a mug of soft soap on
+my washing stand, or because Robert had in his flight forgotten to
+replenish his cigarette case, but there was no doubt but that the
+expedition languished.
+
+There was no fault to be found with the setting. The pool in which the
+river coiled itself under the pine-trees was black and brimming, the
+fish were rising at the flies that wrought above it, like a spotted net
+veil in hysterics, the distant hills lay in sleepy undulations of every
+shade of blue, the grass was warm, and not unduly peopled with ants. But
+some impalpable blight was upon us. I ranged like a lost soul along the
+banks of the river--a lost soul that is condemned to bear a burden of
+some two stone of sketching materials, and a sketching umbrella with a
+defective joint--in search of a point of view that for ever eluded me.
+Robert cast his choicest flies, with delicate quiverings, with
+coquettish withdrawals; had they been cannon-balls they could hardly
+have had a more intimidating effect upon the trout. Where Robert fished
+a Sabbath stillness reigned, beyond that charmed area they rose like
+notes of exclamation in a French novel. I was on the whole inclined to
+trace these things back to the influence of the pork, working on systems
+weakened by shock; but Robert was not in the mood to trace them to
+anything. Unsuccessful fishermen are not fond of introspective
+suggestions. The member of the expedition who enjoyed himself beyond any
+question was Mrs. Coolahan's car-horse. Having been taken out of the
+shafts on the road above the river, he had with his harness on his
+back, like Horatius, unhesitatingly lumbered over a respectable bank and
+ditch in the wake of Croppy, who had preceded him with the reins. He was
+now grazing luxuriously along the river's edge, while his driver smoked,
+no less luxuriously, in the background.
+
+"Will I carry the box for ye, Miss?" Croppy inquired compassionately,
+stuffing his lighted pipe into his pocket, as I drifted desolately past
+him. "Sure you're killed with the load you have! This is a rough owld
+place for a lady to be walkin'. Sit down, Miss. God knows you have a
+right to be tired."
+
+It seemed that with Croppy also the day was dragging, doubtless he too
+had lunched on Mrs. Coolahan's pork. He planted my camp-stool and I sank
+upon it.
+
+"Well, now, for all it's so throublesome," he resumed, "I'd say painting
+was a nice thrade. There was a gintleman here one time that was a
+painther--I used to be dhrivin' him. Faith! there wasn't a place in the
+counthry but he had it pathrolled. He seen me mother one day--cleaning
+fish, I b'lieve she was, below on the quay--an' nothing would howld him
+but he should dhraw out her picture!" Croppy laughed unfilially. "Well,
+me mother was mad. 'To the divil I pitch him!' says she; 'if I wants me
+photograph drew out I'm liable to pay for it,' says she, 'an' not to be
+stuck up before the ginthry to be ped for the like o' that!' 'Tis for;
+you bein' so handsome!' says I to her. She was black mad altogether
+then. 'If that's the way,' says she, 'it's a wondher he wouldn't ax
+yerself, ye rotten little rat,' says she, 'in place of thrying could he
+make a show of yer poor little ugly little cock-nosed mother!' 'Faith!'
+says I to her, 'I wouldn't care if the divil himself axed it, if he give
+me a half-crown and nothing to do but to be sittin' down!'"
+
+The tale may or may not have been intended to have a personal
+application, but Croppy's fat scarlet face and yellow moustache,
+bristling beneath a nose which he must have inherited from his mother,
+did not lend themselves to a landscape background, and I fell to
+fugitive pencil sketches of the old white car-horse as he grazed round
+us. It was thus that I first came to notice a fact whose bearing upon
+our fortunes I was far from suspecting. The old horse's harness was of
+dingy brown leather, with dingier brass mountings; it had been
+frequently mended, in varying shades of brown, and, in remarkable
+contrast to the rest of the outfit, the breeching was of solid and
+well-polished black leather, with silver buckles. It was not so much the
+discrepancy of the breeching as its respectability that jarred upon me;
+finally I commented upon it to Croppy.
+
+[Illustration: "CROPPY."]
+
+His cap was tilted over the maternal nose, he glanced at me sideways
+from under its peak.
+
+"Sure the other breechin' was broke, and if that owld shkin was to go
+the lin'th of himself without a breechin' on him he'd break all before
+him! There was some fellas took him to a funeral one time without a
+breechin' on him, an' when he seen the hearse what did he do but to rise
+up in the sky."
+
+Wherein lay the moral support of a breeching in such a contingency it is
+hard to say. I accepted the fact without comment, and expressed a regret
+that we had not been indulged with the entire set of black harness.
+
+Croppy measured me with his eye, grinned bashfully, and said:--
+
+"Sure it's the Dane's breechin' we have, Miss! I daresay he'd hardly get
+home at all if we took any more from him!"
+
+The Dean's breeching! For an instant a wild confusion of ideas deprived
+me of the power of speech. I could only hope that Croppy had left him
+his gaiters! Then I pulled myself together.
+
+"Croppy," I said in consternation, "how did you get it? Did you borrow
+it from the coachman?"
+
+"Is it the coachman!" said Croppy tranquilly. "I did not, Miss. Sure he
+was asleep in the snug."
+
+"But can they get home without it?"
+
+A sudden alarm chilled me to the marrow.
+
+"Arrah, why not, Miss? That black horse of the Dane's wouldn't care if
+there was nothing at all on him!"
+
+I heard Robert reeling in his line--had he a fish? Or, better still, had
+he made up his mind to go home?
+
+As a matter of fact, neither was the case; Robert was merely fractious,
+and in that particular mood when he wished to have his mind
+imperceptibly made up for him, while prepared to combat any direct
+suggestion. From what quarter the ignoble proposition that we should go
+home arose is immaterial. It is enough to say that Robert believed it to
+be his own, and that, before he had time to reconsider the question, the
+tactful Croppy had crammed the old white horse into the shafts of the
+car.
+
+It was by this time past five o'clock, and a threatening range of clouds
+was rising from seaward across the west. Things had been against us from
+the first, and if the last stone in the sling of Fate was that we were
+to be wet through before we got home, it would be no more than I
+expected. The old horse, however, addressed himself to the eight Irish
+miles that lay between him and home with unexpected vivacity. We swung
+in the ruts, we shook like jellies on the merciless patches of broken
+stones, and Croppy stimulated the pace with weird whistlings through
+his teeth, and heavy prods with the butt of his whip in the region of
+the borrowed breeching.
+
+Now that the expedition had been shaken off and cast behind us, the
+humbler possibilities of the day began to stretch out alluring hands.
+There was the new box from the library; there was the afternoon post;
+there was a belated tea, with a peaceful fatigue to endear all. We
+reached at last the welcome turn that brought us into the coast road. We
+were but three miles now from that happy home from which we had been
+driven forth, years ago as it seemed, at such desperate hazard. We drove
+pleasantly along the road at the top of the cliffs. The wind was behind
+us; a rising tide plunged and splashed far below. It was already raining
+a little, enough to justify our sagacity in leaving the river, enough to
+lend a touch of passion to the thought of home and Julia.
+
+The grey horse began to lean back against the borrowed breeching, the
+chains of the traces clanked loosely. We had begun the long zig-zag
+slant down to the village. We swung gallantly round the sharp turn
+half-way down the hill.
+
+And there, not fifty yards away, was the Dean's inside car, labouring
+slowly, inevitably, up to meet us. Even in that stupefying moment I was
+aware that the silver-banded hat was at a most uncanonical angle.
+Behind me on the car was stowed my sketching umbrella; I tore it from
+the retaining embrace of the camp-stool, and unfurled its unwieldy tent
+with a speed that I have never since achieved. Robert, on the far side
+of the car, was reasonably safe. The inestimable Croppy quickened up.
+Cowering beneath the umbrella, I awaited the crucial moment at which to
+shift its protection from the side to the back. The sound of the
+approaching wheels told me that it had almost arrived, and then,
+suddenly, without a note of warning, there came a scurry of hoofs, a
+grinding of wheels, and a confused outcry of voices. A violent jerk
+nearly pitched me off the car, as Croppy dragged the white horse into
+the opposite bank; the umbrella flew from my hand and revealed to me the
+Dean's bearded coachman sitting on the road scarcely a yard from my
+feet, uttering large and drunken shouts, while the covered car hurried
+back towards the village with the unforgettable yell of Miss McEvoy
+bursting from its curtained rear. The black horse was not absolutely
+running away, but he was obviously alarmed, and with the long hill
+before him anything might happen.
+
+"They're dead! They're dead!" said Croppy, with philosophic calm; "'twas
+the parasol started him."
+
+As he spoke, the black horse stumbled, the laden car ran on top of him
+like a landslip, and, with an abortive flounder, he collapsed beneath
+it. Once down, he lay, after the manner of his kind, like a dead thing,
+and the covered car, propped on its shafts, presented its open mouth to
+the heavens. Even as I sped headlong to the rescue in the wake of Robert
+and Croppy, I fore-knew that Fate had after all been too many for us,
+and when, an instant later, I seated myself in the orthodox manner upon
+the black horse's winker, and perceived that one of the shafts was
+broken, I was already, in spirit, making up beds with Julia for the
+reception of the party.
+
+To this mental picture the howls of Miss McEvoy during the process of
+extraction from the covered car lent a pleasing reality.
+
+Only those who have been in a covered car under similar circumstances
+can at all appreciate the difficulty of getting out of it. It has once,
+in the streets of Cork, happened to me, and I can best compare it to
+escaping from the cabin of a yacht without the aid of a companion
+ladder. From Robert I can only collect the facts that the door jammed,
+and that, at a critical juncture, Miss McEvoy had put her arms round his
+neck.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The programme that Fate had ordained was carried out to its ultimate
+item. The party from the Deanery of Glengad spent the night at Wavecrest
+Cottage, attired by subscription, like the converts of a Mission; I
+spent it in the attic, among trunks of Aunt Dora's old clothes, and
+rats; Robert, who throughout had played an unworthy part, in the night
+mail to Dublin, called away for twenty-four hours on a pretext that
+would not have deceived an infant a week old.
+
+Croppy was firm and circumstantial in laying the blame on me and the
+sketching umbrella.
+
+"Sure, I seen the horse wondhering at it an' he comin' up the hill to
+us. 'Twas that turned him."
+
+The dissertation in which the Dean's venerable coachman made the entire
+disaster hinge upon the theft of the breeching was able, but cannot
+conveniently be here set down.
+
+For my part, I hold with Julia.
+
+"'Twas Helayna gave the dhrink to the Dane's coachman! The low cursed
+thing! There isn't another one in the place that'd do it! I'm told the
+priest was near breaking his umbrella on her over it."
+
+
+
+
+"MATCHBOX"
+
+
+It was the event of Mr. John Denny's life that he valued highest. It is
+twenty years now since it took place, and many other things have
+happened to him, such as going to England to give evidence in the
+Parnell Commission, and matrimony, and taking the second prize in the
+Lightweight Hunter Class at the Dublin Horse Show. But none of them, not
+even the trip to London, possesses quite the same fortunate blend of the
+sublime and the ridiculous that gives this incident such a perennial
+success at the Hunt and Agricultural Show dinners which are the dazzling
+breaks in the monotony of Mr. Denny's life, and he prized it
+accordingly.
+
+Mr. Johnny Denny--or Dinny Johnny as he was known to his wittier
+friends--was a young man of the straightest sect of the Cork buckeens, a
+body whose importance justifies perhaps a particular description of one
+of their number. His profession was something imperceptibly connected
+with the County Grand Jury Office, and was quite over-shadowed in winter
+by the gravities of hunting, and in summer by the gallantries of the
+Militia training; for, like many of his class, he was a captain in the
+Militia. He was always neatly dressed; his large moustache looked as if
+it shared with his boots the attention of the blacking brush. No cavalry
+sergeant in Ballincollig had a more delicately bowed leg, nor any
+creature, except, perhaps, a fox-terrier interviewing a rival, a more
+consummate swagger. He knew every horse and groom in all the leading
+livery stables, and, in moments of expansion, would volunteer to name
+the price at which any given animal could be safeguarded from any given
+veterinary criticism. With all these not specially attractive qualities,
+however, Dinny Johnny was, and is, a good fellow in his way. His temper
+was excellent, his courage indisputable; he has never been known to give
+any horse--not even a hireling--less than fair play, and a tendency to
+ride too close to hounds has waned since time, like an Irish elector,
+has taken to emphasising himself by throwing stones, and Dinny Johnny,
+once ten stone, now admits to riding 13.7.
+
+In those days, before the inertia that creeps like mildew over country
+householders had begun to form, Mr. Denny was in the habit of making
+occasional excursions into remote parts of the County Cork in search of
+those flowers of pony perfection that are supposed to blush unseen in
+any sufficiently mountainous and unknown country, and the belief in
+which is the touch of wild poetry that keeps alive the soul of the
+amateur horse coper. He had never met the pony of his dreams, but he had
+not lost faith in it, and though he would range through the Bantry fair
+with a sour eye, behind the sourness there was ever a kindling spark of
+hope.
+
+Towards the end of October, in the year '83, Mr. Denny received an
+invitation from an old friend to go down to "the West"--thus are those
+regions east of the moon, and west of the sun, and south-west of
+Drimoleague Junction, designated in the tongue of Cork civilisation--to
+"look at a colt," and with a saddle and bridle in the netting and a
+tooth-brush in his pocket he set his face for the wilderness. I have no
+time to linger over the circumstances of the deal. Suffice it to say
+that, after an arduous haggle, Mr. Denny bought the colt, and set forth
+the same day to ride him by easy stages to his future home.
+
+It was a wet day, wet with the solid determination of a western day, and
+the loaded clouds were flinging their burden down on the furze, and the
+rocks, and the steep, narrow road, with vindictive ecstacy. They also
+flung it upon Mr. Denny, and both he and his new purchase were glad to
+find a temporary shelter in one of the many public-houses of a village
+on the line of march. He was sitting warming himself at an indifferent
+turf fire, and drinking a tumbler of hot punch, when the sound of loud
+voices outside drew him to the window. In front of a semi-circle of blue
+frieze coats, brown frieze trousers and slouched black felt hats, stood
+a dejected grey pony, with a woman at its head and a lanky young man on
+its back; and it was obvious to Mr. Denny that a transaction, of an even
+more fervid sort than that in which he had recently engaged, was toward.
+
+"Fifteen pound!" screamed the woman, darting a black head on the end of
+a skinny neck out of the projecting hood of her cloak with the swiftness
+of a lizard; "fifteen pound, James Hallahane, and the divil burn the
+ha'penny less that I'll take for her!"
+
+The elderly man to whom this was addressed continued to gaze steadily at
+the ground, and turning his head slightly away, spat unostentatiously.
+The other men moved a little, vaguely, and one said in a tone of remote
+soliloquy:--
+
+"She wouldn't go tin pound in Banthry fair."
+
+"Tin pound!" echoed the pony's owner shrilly. "Ah, God help ye, poor
+man! Here, Patsey, away home wid ye out o' this. It'll be night, and
+dark night itself before--"
+
+"I'll give ye eleven pounds," said James Hallahane, addressing the toes
+of his boots. The young man on the pony turned a questioning eye towards
+his mother, but her sole response was a drag at the pony's head to set
+it going; swinging her cloak about her, she paddled through the slush
+towards the gate, supremely disregarding the fact that a gander, having
+nerved himself and his harem to the charge, had caught the ragged skirt
+of her dress in his beak, and being too angry to let go, was being
+whirled out of the yard in her train.
+
+Dinny Johnny ran to the door, moved by an impulse for which I think the
+hot whisky and water must have been responsible.
+
+"I'll give you twelve pounds for the pony, ma'am!" he called out.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, when he and the publican were tying a
+tow-rope round the pony's lean neck, Mr. Denny was aware of a sinking of
+the heart as he surveyed his bargain. It looked, and was, an utterly
+degraded little object, as it stood with its tail tucked in between its
+drooping hindquarters, and the rain running in brown streams down its
+legs. Its lips were decorated with the absurd, the almost incredible
+moustache that is the consequence among Irish horses of a furze diet (I
+would hesitatingly direct the attention of the male youth of Britain to
+this singular but undoubted fact), and although the hot whisky and
+water had not exaggerated the excellence of its shoulder and the iron
+soundness of its legs, it had certainly reversed the curve of its neck
+and levelled the corrugations of its ribs.
+
+"You could strike a bally match on her, this minute, if it wasn't so
+wet!" thought Mr. Denny, and with the simple humour that endeared him to
+his friends he christened the pony "Matchbox" on the spot.
+
+"And it's to make a hunther of her ye'd do?" said the publican, pulling
+hard at the knot of the tow-rope. "Begor', I know that one. If there was
+forty men and their wives, and they after her wid sticks, she wouldn't
+lep a sod o' turf. Well, safe home, sir, safe home, and mind out she
+wouldn't kick ye. She's a cross thief," and with this valediction Dinny
+Johnny went on his way.
+
+There was no disputing the fact of the pony's crossness.
+
+"She's sourish-like in her timper," Jimmy, Mr. Denny's head man,
+observed to his subordinate not long after the arrival, and the
+subordinate, tenderly stroking a bruised knee, replied:--
+
+"Sour! I niver see the like of her! Be gannies, the divil's always busy
+with her!"
+
+On one point, however, the grey pony proved better than had been
+anticipated. Without the intervention of the forty married couples she
+took to jumping at once.
+
+"It comes as aisy to her as lies to a tinker," said Jimmy to a
+criticising friend; "the first day ever I had her out on a string she
+wint up to the big bounds fence between us and Barrett's as indipindant
+as if she was going to her bed; and she jumped it as flippant and as
+crabbed--By dam, she's as crabbed as a monkey!"
+
+In those days Mr. Standish O'Grady, popularly known as "Owld Sta'," had
+the hounds, and it need scarcely be said that Mr. Denny was one of his
+most faithful followers. This season he had not done as well as usual.
+The colt was only turning out moderately, and though the pony was
+undoubtedly both crabbed and flippant, she could not be expected to do
+much with nearly twelve stone on her back. It happened, therefore, that
+Mr. Denny took his pleasure a little sadly, with his loins girded in
+momentary expectation of trouble, and of a sudden refusal from the colt
+to jump until the crowd of skirters and gap-hunters drew round, and
+escape was impossible until Mrs. Tom Graves's splinty old carriage horse
+had ploughed its way through the bank, and all those whom he most
+contemned had flaunted through the breach in front of him. He rode the
+pony now and then, but he more often lent her to little Mary O'Grady,
+"Owld Sta's" untidy, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, and quite uneducated
+little girl. It was probable that Mary could only just write her name,
+and it was obvious that she could not do her hair; but she was afraid of
+nothing that went on four legs--in Ireland, at least--and she had the
+divine gift of "hands". From the time when she was five, up till now,
+when she was fifteen, Mr. Denny had been her particular adherent, and
+now he found a chastened pleasure in having his eye wiped by Mary, on
+the grey pony; moreover, experience showed him that if anything would
+persuade the colt to jump freely, it was getting a lead from the little
+mare.
+
+"Upon my soul, she wasn't such a bad bargain after all," he thought one
+pleasant December day as he jogged to the Meet, leading "Matchbox," who
+was fidgeting along beside him with an expression of such shrewishness
+as can only be assumed by a pony mare; "if it wasn't that Mary likes
+riding her I'd make her up a bit and she'd bring thirty-five anywhere."
+
+There had been, that autumn, a good deal of what was euphemistically
+described as "trouble" in that district of the County Cork which Mr.
+Denny and the Kilcronan hounds graced with their society, and when Mr.
+O'Grady and his field assembled at the Curragh-coolaghy cross-roads, it
+was darkly hinted that if the hounds ran over a certain farm not far
+from the covert, there might be more trouble.
+
+Dinny Johnny, occupied with pulling up Mary O'Grady's saddle girths, and
+evading the snaps with which "Matchbox" acknowledged the attention,
+thought little of these rumours.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said; "whatever they do they'll let the hounds alone.
+Come on, Mary, you and me'll sneak down to the north side of the wood.
+He's bound to break there, and we've got to take every chance we can
+get."
+
+Curragh-coolaghy covert was a large, ill-kept plantation that straggled
+over a long hillside fighting with furze-bushes and rocks for the right
+of possession; a place wherein the young hounds could catch and eat
+rabbits to their heart's content comfortably aware that the net of
+brambles that stretched from tree to tree would effectually screen them
+from punishment. From its north-east side a fairly smooth country
+trended down to a river, and if the fox did not fulfil Mr. Denny's
+expectations by breaking to the north, the purplish patch that showed
+where, on the further side of the river, Madore Wood lay, looked a point
+for which he would be likely to make. Conscious of an act which he would
+have loudly condemned in any one else, Mr. Denny, followed by Mary, like
+his shadow, rode quietly round the long flank of the covert to the
+north-east corner. They sat in perfect stillness for a few minutes, and
+then there came a rustling on the inside of the high, bracken-fringed
+fence which divided them from the covert. Then a countryman's voice said
+in a cautious whisper:--
+
+"Did he put in the hounds yit?"
+
+"He did," said another voice, "he put them in the soud-aisht side;
+they'll be apt to get it soon."
+
+"Get what?" thought Dinny Johnny, all his bristles rising in wrath as
+the idea of a drag came to him.
+
+"There! they're noising now!" said the first voice, while a whimper or
+two came from far back in the wood. "Maybe there'll not be so much chat
+out o' thim afther once they'll git to Madore!"
+
+"'Twas a pity Scanlan wouldn't put the mate in here and have done with
+it," said the second voice. "Owld Sta'll niver let them run a dhrag."
+
+"Yirrah, what dhrag man! 'Twas the fox himself they had, and he cut open
+to make a good thrail, and the way Scanlan laid it the devil himself
+wouldn't know 'twas a dhrag, and they have little Danny Casey below to
+screech he seen the fox--"
+
+At the same instant the whimpers swelled into a far-away chorus, that
+grew each moment fainter and more faint. Much as Mr. Denny desired to
+undertake the capture of the imparters of these interesting facts, he
+knew that he had now no time to attempt it, and, with a shout to Mary,
+he started the colt at full gallop up the rough hillside, round the
+covert, while the grey pony scuttled after him as nimbly as a rabbit.
+The colt seemed to realise the stress of the occasion, and jumped
+steadily enough; but the last fence on to the road was too much for his
+nerves, and, having swerved from it with discomposing abruptness, he
+fell to his wonted tactics of rearing and backing.
+
+Mr. Denny permitted himself one minute in which to establish the
+fruitlessness of spurs, whip and blasphemy in this emergency, and then,
+descending to his own legs, he climbed over the fence into the road and
+ran as fast as boots and tops would let him towards the point whence the
+cry of the hounds was coming, ever more and more faintly. In a moment or
+two he returned, out of breath, to where the faithful Mary awaited him.
+
+"It's no good, Mary," he said, wiping the perspiration from his
+forehead; "they're running like blazes to the south along through the
+furze. I suppose the devils took it that way to humbug your father, and
+then they'll turn for the bridge and run into Madore; and there's the
+end of the hounds."
+
+Mary, who regarded the hounds as the chief, if not the only, object of
+existence, looked at him with scared eyes, while the colour died out of
+her round cheeks.
+
+"Will they be poisoned, Mr. Denny?" she gasped.
+
+"Every man jack of them, if your father doesn't twig it's a drag, and
+whip 'em off," replied Mr. Denny, with grim brevity.
+
+"Couldn't we catch them up?" cried Mary, almost incoherent from
+excitement and horror.
+
+"They've gone half-a-mile by this, and that brute," this with an eye of
+concentrated hatred at the colt, "won't jump a broom-stick."
+
+"But let me try," urged Mary, maddened by the assumption of masculine
+calm which Mr. Denny's despair had taken on; "or--oh, Mr. Denny, if you
+rode 'Matchbox' yourself straight to Madore across the river, you'd be
+in time to whip them off!"
+
+"By Jove!" said Dinny Johnny, and was silent. I believe that was the
+moment at which the identity of the future Mrs. Denny was made clear to
+him.
+
+"And you'll have to ride her in my saddle!" went on Mary at lightning
+speed, taking control of the situation in a manner prophetic of her
+future successful career as a matron. "There isn't time to change--"
+
+"The devil I shall!" said Dinny Johnny, and an unworthy thought of what
+his friends would say flitted across his mind.
+
+"And you'll have to sit sideways, because the lowest crutch is so far
+back there's not room for your leg if you sit saddleways," continued his
+preceptor breathlessly. "I know it--Jimmy said so when he rode her to
+the meet for me last week. Oh hurry--hurry! How slow you are!"
+
+Mr. Denny never quite knew how he got into the horrors of the saddle,
+still less how he and "Matchbox" got into the road. At one acute moment,
+indeed, he had believed he was going to precede her thither, but they
+alighted more or less together, and turning her, by a handy gap, into
+the field on the other side of the road, he set off at a precarious
+gallop, followed by the encouraging shrieks of Mary.
+
+"Thank the Lord there's no one looking, and it's a decent old saddle
+with a pommel on the offside," he said to himself piously, while he
+grasped the curving snout of the pommel in question, "I'd be a dead man
+this minute only for that."
+
+He felt as though he were wedged in among the claws of a giant crab, but
+without the sense of retention that might be hoped for under such
+circumstances. The lowest crutch held one leg in aching durance; there
+was but just room for the other between the two upper horns, and the
+saddle was so short and hollow in the seat that its high-ridged cantle
+was the only portion from which he derived any support--a support that
+was suddenly and painfully experienced after each jump. He could see,
+very far off, the pink coat of "Owld Sta'" following a line which seemed
+each moment to be turning more directly for Madore, and in his agony he
+gave the pony an imprudent dig of the spur that sent her on and off a
+boggy fence in two goat-like bounds, and gave the sunlight opportunity
+to play intermittently upon the hollow seat of the saddle. She had never
+carried him so well, and as she put her little head down and raced at
+the fences, the unfortunate Dinny Johnny felt that though he was
+probably going to break his neck, no one would ever be able to mention
+his early demise without a grin.
+
+Field after field fled by him in painful succession till he found
+himself safe on the farther side of a big stone-faced "double," the last
+fence before the river.
+
+"Please God I'll never be a woman again!" ejaculated Mr. Denny as he
+wedged his left leg more tightly in behind the torturing leaping horn,
+"that was a hairy old place! I wish Mary saw the pair of us coming up on
+to it like new-born stags!"
+
+Had Mary seen him and "Matchbox" a moment later, emerging separately
+from a hole in mid stream, her respect might not have prevented her
+from laughing, but the fact remains that the pair got across somehow.
+At the top of the hill beyond the river Dinny Johnny saw the hounds for
+the first time. They had checked on the road by the bridge, but now he
+heard them throwing their tongues as they hit the line again, the fatal
+line that was leading them to the covert. Even at this moment, Mr. Denny
+could not restrain an admiration that would appear to most people
+ill-timed.
+
+"Aren't they going the hell of a docket!" he exclaimed fondly, "and good
+old Chantress leading the lot of them, the darling! It'll be a queer
+thing now, if I don't get there in time!"
+
+Blown though the pony was, he knew instinctively that he had not yet
+come to the end of her, and he drove her along at a canter until he
+reached a lane that encircled the covert, along which he would have to
+go to intercept the hounds. As he jumped into it he was suddenly aware
+of a yelling crowd of men and boys, who seemed, with nightmare
+unexpectedness, to fill all the lane behind him. He knew what they were
+there for, and oblivious of the lamentable absurdity of his appearance,
+he turned and roared out a defiance as he clattered at full speed down
+the stony lane. It seemed like another and almost expected episode in
+the nightmare when he became aware of a barricade of stones, built
+across the road to a height of about four feet, with along the top of
+it--raising it to what, on a fourteen hand pony, looked like
+impossibility--the branch of a fir-tree, with all its bristling twigs
+left on it.
+
+He heard the cry of the hounds clearly now; they were within a couple of
+fields of the covert. Dinny Johnny drove his left spur into the little
+mare's panting side, let go the crutch, took hold of her head in the way
+that is unmistakable, and faced her at the barricade. As he did so a
+countryman sprang up at his right hand and struck furiously at him with
+a heavy potato spade. The blow was aimed at Dinny Johnny, but the moment
+was miscalculated, and it fell on "Matchbox" instead. The sharp blade
+gashed her hind quarter, but with a spring like a frightened deer she
+rose to the jump. For one supreme moment Dinny Johnny thought she had
+cleared it, but at the next her hind legs had caught in the branch, and
+with a jerk that sent her rider flying over her head, she fell in a heap
+on the road. Fortunately for Mr. Denny, he was a proficient in the art
+of falling, and though his hands were cut, and blood was streaming down
+his face, he was able to struggle up, and run on towards the cry of the
+hounds. There was still time; panting and dizzy, and half-blinded with
+his own blood, he knew that there was still time, and he laboured on,
+heedless of everything but the hounds. A high wall divided the covert
+from the lane, and he could see the gate that was the sole entrance to
+the wood on this side standing open. It was an iron gate, very high,
+with close upright iron bars and Chantress was racing him to get there
+first, Chantress, with all the pack at her heels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dinny Johnny won. It was a very close thing between him and Chantress,
+and that good hound's valuable nose came near being caught as the gates
+clanged together, but Dinny Johnny was in first. Then he flung himself
+at the pack, whipping, slashing, and swearing like a madman, as indeed
+he was for the moment. He had often whipped for Mr. O'Grady, and the
+hounds knew him, but without the solid abetting of the wall and the
+gate, he would have had but a poor chance. As it was, he whipped them
+back into the field up which they had run, and as he did so, "Owld Sta'"
+came puffing up the hill, with about a dozen of the field hard at his
+heels.
+
+"Poison!" gasped Dinny Johnny, falling down at full length on the grass,
+"the wood's poisoned!"
+
+When they went back to look for "Matchbox" she was still lying in the
+bohireen. Her bridle had vanished, and so had the pursuing countrymen.
+Mary O'Grady's saddle was broken, and could never be used again, and no
+more could "Matchbox," because she had broken her neck.
+
+And so the hounds, whom she had saved, subsequently ate her; but one of
+her little hoofs commemorates her name, and as Mr. Denny, with its
+assistance, lights his after-dinner pipe, he often heaves an appropriate
+sigh, and remarks: "Well, Mary, we'll never get the like of that pony
+again".
+
+
+
+
+"AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON FAIR"
+
+
+The first glimpse was worthy the best traditions of an Irish horse-fair.
+The train moved slowly across a bridge; beneath it lay the principal
+street of Bandon, seething with horses, loud with voices, and as the
+engine-driver, with the stern humour of his kind, let loose the usual
+assortment of sounds, it seemed as though the roadway below boiled over.
+Horses reared, plunged and stampeded, while high above the head of a
+long-tailed chestnut a countryman floated forth into space, a vision, in
+its brief perfectness, delightfully photographed on the retina.
+
+From the moment of leaving the railway station the fair was all
+pervading. It appeared that the whole district had turned horse dealer.
+The cramped side pavements of the town failed to accommodate the
+ceaseless promenade of those whose sole business lay in criticising the
+companion promenade of horses in the narrow street. They haled horses
+before them with the aplomb of a colonel of cavalry buying remounts.
+
+"Hi! bay horse! Pull in here! Foxy mare! Hi, boy, bring up that foxy
+mare!"
+
+The ensuing comments, though mainly of a damaging nature, were
+understood on both sides to be no more than conventional dismissals. The
+bay horse and the foxy mare were re-absorbed in the stream; their
+critics directed their attentions elsewhere with unquenched assiduity.
+
+It is the truest, most changeless trait of Irish character, the desire
+to stand well with the horse, to be his confidant, his physician, his
+exponent. It is comparable to the inborn persuasion in the heart of
+every man that he is a judge of wine.
+
+The procession of horses in the long, narrow street makes the brain
+swim. Hardly has the eye taken in the elderly and astute hunter with the
+fired hocks, whose forelegs look best in action, when it is dazzled by
+the career of a cart-horse, scourged to a mighty canter by a boy with a
+rope's end, or it is horrified by the hair-breadth escape of a group of
+hooded countrywomen from before the neighing charge of a two-year-old in
+a halter and string. Yet these things are the mere preliminary to the
+fair. At the end of the town a gap broken in a fence admits to a long
+field on a hillside. The entrance is perilous, and before it is achieved
+may involve more than one headlong flight to the safe summit of a
+friendly wall, as the young horses protest, and whirl, and buck with the
+usual fatuity of their kind. Once within the fair field there befal the
+enticements of the green apple, of the dark-complexioned sweetmeat
+temptingly denominated "Peggy's leg," of the "crackers"--that is, a
+confection resembling dog biscuit sown with caraway seeds--and, above
+all, of the "crubeens," which, being interpreted, means "pigs' feet,"
+slightly salted, boiled, cold, wholly abominable. Here also is the
+three-card trick, demonstrated by a man with the incongruous accent of
+Whitechapel and a defiant eye, that even through the glaze of the second
+stage of drunkenness held the audience and yet was 'ware of the
+disposition of the nine of hearts. Here is the drinking booth, and here
+sundry itinerant vendors of old clothes, and--of all improbable
+commodities to be found at a horse-fair--wall-paper. Neither has much
+success. The old-clothes woman casts down a heap of singularly repellant
+rags before a disparaging customer; she beats them with her fists,
+presumably to show their soundness in wind and limb: a cloud of
+germ-laden dust arises.
+
+"Arrah!" she says; "the divil himself wouldn't plaze ye in clothes."
+
+The wall-paper man is not more fortunate. "Look at that for a nate
+patthern!" he says ecstatically, "that'd paper a bed! Come now, ma'am,
+wan an' thrippence!"
+
+The would-be purchaser silently tests it with a wrinkled finger and
+thumb, and shakes her head.
+
+"Well, I declare to ye now, that's a grand paper. If ye papered a room
+with that and put a hen in it she'd lay four eggs!" But not even the
+consideration of its value as an aesthetic stimulant can compass the
+sale of the one-and-threepenny wall-paper.
+
+Down at this end of the fair field congregate the three-year-olds and
+two-year-olds; they pierce the air with their infant squeals and neighs,
+they stamp, and glare, and strike attitudes with absurd statuesqueness,
+while their owners sit on a bank above them, playing them like fish on
+the end of a long rope, and fabling forth their perfections with
+tireless fancy. The perils of the way increase at every moment. In and
+out among the restless heels the onlooker must steer his course, up into
+the ampler space on the hill-top, where the horses stand in more open
+order and a general view is possible.
+
+Much may be learned at Bandon Fair of how the County Cork hunter is
+arrived at, of the Lord Hastings colt out of a high-bred Victor mare; of
+New Laund, of Speculation, of Whalebone, of the ancient and well-nigh
+mythical Druid, whose name adds a lustre to any pedigree. These things
+are matters far more real and serious than English history to every man
+and boy in the fair field, whether he is concerned in practical
+horse-dealing or not. Even the mere visitor is fired with the
+acquisition of knowledge, and, in the intervals of saving his life,
+casts a withering eye on hocks and forelegs, and cultivates the gloomy
+silence that distinguishes the buyer.
+
+It can hardly fail to attract the attention of the inquirer that, in the
+highest walks of horsiness, the desire to appear horsey has been left
+behind. These shining ones have passed beyond symbols of canes, of
+gaiters, of straws in the mouth; it is as though they craved that
+incognito which for them is for ever impossible. Bandon Fair was
+privileged to have drawn two such into its shouting vortex. One wears a
+simple suit of black serge, with trousers of a godly fulness; in it he
+might fitly hand round the plate in church. His manner is almost
+startlingly candid, his speech, what there is of it, is ungarnished with
+stable slang, his face might belong to an imperfectly shaved archbishop.
+Yesterday he bought twenty young horses; next week he will buy forty
+more; next year he will place them in the English shires at prices never
+heard of in Bandon, and, be it added, they will as a rule be worth the
+money. Here is another noted judge of horseflesh, in knickerbocker
+breeches that seem to have been made at home for some one else, in
+leather gaiters of unostentatious roominess and rusticity. Though the
+August day is innocent of all suggestion of rain, he carries instead of
+a riding cane a matronly umbrella. When he rides a horse, and he rides
+several with a singularly intimate and finished method, he hands the
+umbrella to a reverential bystander; when the trial is over the umbrella
+is reassumed. If anything were needed to accent its artless domesticity,
+it would be the group of boys, horse copers in ambition, possibly in
+achievement, who sit in a row under a fence, with their teeth grimly
+clenched upon clay pipes, their eyes screwed up in perpetual and
+ungenial observation. Their conversation is telegraphic, smileless,
+esoteric, and punctuated with expectoration. If Phaeton and the horses
+of the sun were to take a turn round the fair field these critics would
+find little in them to commend. They are in the primary phase of a
+life-long art; perhaps with time and exceptional favours of fortune it
+may be given to them to learn the disarming mildness, the simplicity,
+that, like a water-lily, is the perfected outcome of the deep.
+
+[Illustration: A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING.]
+
+Before two o'clock the magnates of the fair had left it, taking with
+them the cream of its contents, and in humbler people such a hunger
+began to assert itself as came near bringing even crubeens and Peggy's
+leg within the sphere of practical politics. While slowly struggling
+through the swarming street the perfume of mutton chops stole
+exquisitely forth from the door of one of the hotels, accompanied by the
+sound of a subdued fusillade of soda-water corks; over the heads of
+the filthy press of people round the entrance and the thirsty throng at
+the bar might be seen a procession of gaitered legs going upstairs to
+luncheon. It seemed an excellent idea. The air within was blue with
+tobacco smoke, flushed henchwomen staggered to and fro with arms spread
+wide across trays of whiskies and sodas, opening doors revealed rooms
+full of men, mutton chops and mastication. There was wildness in the eye
+of the attendant as she took the order for yet another luncheon. She
+fled, with the assurance that it would be ready immediately, yet
+subsequent events suggested that even while she spoke the sheep that was
+to respond to that thirty-fifth order for mutton chops was browsing in
+the pastures of Bandon.
+
+For eyes that had last looked on food at 7 A.M., neither the view of the
+street obtainable from the first floor parlour window, nor even the
+contemplation of the remarkable sacred pictures that adorned its walls,
+had the interest they might have held earlier in the day, and the dirty
+cruet-stand on the dirtier tablecloth was endued with an almost hypnotic
+fascination in its suggestion of coming sustenance. At the end of the
+first hour a stupor verging on indifference had set in; it was far on in
+the second when the dish of fried mutton chops, the hard potatoes, and
+the tepid whiskies and sodas were flung upon the board. No preliminary
+to a week's indigestion had been neglected, and a deserved success was
+the result.
+
+The business of the fair was still transacted at large throughout the
+hotel. From behind the mound of mutton chops a buyer shoved a roll of
+dirty one-pound notes round the potato dish, and after due haggling
+received back one, according to the mystic Irish custom of "luck-penny".
+On the sofa two farmers carried on a transaction in which the swap of a
+colt, boot money, and luck-penny were blended into one trackless maze of
+astuteness and arithmetic. On the wall above them a print in which
+Ananias and Sapphira were the central figures gave a simple and suitable
+finish to the scene.
+
+
+
+THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of All on the Irish Shore
+by E. Somerville and Martin Ross
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