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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16766-0.txt b/16766-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef4eeab --- /dev/null +++ b/16766-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6644 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of All on the Irish Shore, by E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: All on the Irish Shore + Irish Sketches + +Author: E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross + +Illustrator: E. Œ. Somerville + +Release Date: September 27, 2005 [eBook #16766] +[Most recently updated: January 23, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE *** + + + + +[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 +wherewithal 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 seein’ 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 with every 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, laughing 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 ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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Somerville and Martin Ross</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: All on the Irish Shore<br /> + Irish Sketches</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: E. Œ. Somerville</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 27, 2005 [eBook #16766]<br /> +[Most recently updated: January 23, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE ***</div> + +<h1>All on the Irish Shore</h1> + +<h2>Irish Sketches</h2> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross</h2> + +<h3>Authors of</h3> + +<h4>“Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.,” “The Real +Charlotte” “The Silver Fox,” “A Patrick’s Day +Hunt” etc., etc.</h4> + +<h2>With Illustrations by E. Œ. Somerville</h2> + +<h4><i>SECOND IMPRESSION</i></h4> + +<h4>Longmans, Green, and Co.</h4> + +<h4>39 Paternoster Row, London</h4> + +<h4>New York and Bombay</h4> + +<h4>1903</h4> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="ROBERTTRINDER"></a> +<img src="images/001.png" alt=" "ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H," A +Grand Filly." title=" "ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H," A Grand Filly." /> + +<p> +<b>“ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H,” <i>A Grand Filly.</i></b> +</p> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<div class="center"> + +<a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#THE_TINKERS_DOG"><b>THE TINKER’S DOG</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#FANNY_FITZS_GAMBLE"><b>FANNY FITZ’S GAMBLE</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#THE_CONNEMARA_MARE"><b>THE CONNEMARA MARE</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#A_GRAND_FILLY"><b>A GRAND FILLY</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#A_NINETEENTH_CENTURY_MIRACLE"><b>A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#HIGH_TEA_AT_McKEOWNS"><b>HIGH TEA AT McKEOWN’S</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#THE_BAGMANS_PONY"><b>THE BAGMAN’S PONY</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#AN_IRISH_PROBLEM"><b>AN IRISH PROBLEM</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#THE_DANES_BREECHIN"><b>THE DANE’S BREECHIN’</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#MATCHBOX"><b>“MATCHBOX”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#AS_I_WAS_GOING_TO_BANDON_FAIR"><b>“AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON +FAIR”</b></a> +<br/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<div class="center"> + +<a href="#ROBERTTRINDER"><b>ROBERT TRINDER, ESQ., M.F.H,</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#SILENCE"><b>“A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF +STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH +SPEECH”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#GUNNING"><b>“MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN’ OUT FOR A +COB”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#ROBERT"><b>ROBERT’S AUNT</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#BLOOD"><b>THE BLOOD-HEALER</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#GREY"><b>“THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#SWEENY"><b>SWEENY</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#MUSHA"><b>“MUSHA! MUSHA!”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#CROPPY"><b>“CROPPY”</b></a> +<br/> +<br/> +<a href="#HORSE"></a> +<br/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_TINKERS_DOG"></a> +THE TINKER’S DOG</h2> + +<p> +“Can’t you head ’em off, Patsey? Run, you fool! <i>run</i>, +can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it a fox, Patsey?” said the Master excitedly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Glory be to Mercy!” exclaimed Patsey, “the misthress’s +dog!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Before their lawful custodians had recovered from this spectacle, a tall lady +in black was suddenly merged in the <i>mêlée</i>, alternately +calling loudly and incongruously for “Bismarck,” and blowing shrill +blasts on a whistle. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>débris</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>personnel</i> of the Craffroe Hunt +to their own devices. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Me lady,” began the tinker, “I ax yer ladyship’s +pardon, but me little dog is dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Mrs. Alexander, fixing a gaze of clear grey rectitude +upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The requiem ceased, and the tinker looked grievingly into his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“What is your name?” asked Mrs. Alexander sternly. “How long +is it since you left home?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go round to the kitchen,” said Mrs. Alexander. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He was pronounced to be a very agreeable young man. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, mother,” said Freddy that evening, “you do want +another chap in the garden badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>régime</i> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or lay his hands on,” suggested the dubious uncle. “May I +ask if his colleagues are still within a mile of the place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he hates the very sight of ’em!” said Freddy hastily, +“cuts ’em dead whenever he sees ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Alexander concluded the interview abruptly, and descended to the kitchen +to interview her queen paragon, Barnet, on the crisis. +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>She</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Gerrls is very frightful!” broke in an unexpected voice; +“owld standards like meself maybe wouldn’t feel it!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffen?” demanded Mrs. +Alexander, turning in vexed bewilderment to her laundress, “what does all +this mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Meeting <i>what</i>?” interrupted her mistress. Mrs. Griffen was +an old and privileged retainer, but there were limits even for Mrs. Griffen. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Here Barnet smiled with ineffable contempt. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Barnet’s smile was again one of wintry superiority. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the Lord save us!” wailed the kitchen-maid irrepressibly from +the scullery. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +subpœnaed 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s pretty thick now,” said his friend, lighting a +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Taylour made a suitable ejaculation. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll sack ’em, I suppose?” remarked Mr. Taylour, +with martial severity. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The topic of Barnet was here shelved in favour of automobiles. Mrs. +Alexander’s brother was also a person of enthusiasms. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>début</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! Hold hard!” interrupted Mr. Taylour. “What’s +Governor after?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a fox!” exclaimed Freddy, snatching up his reins; +“they always cross into the demesne just here!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi, ma’am!” bellowed Freddy, “did you see the +fox?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see the fox?” reiterated Freddy in still more stentorian +tones. “Can’t you answer me?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman continued to run without even looking behind her. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The laughter of Mr. Taylour was again plainly audible. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Janet,” called out Sir George, “you’ve been caught +making potheen! They’ve got the worm of a still there.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re only making a short cut through the place from the bog; +I’m delighted they’ve found it!” screamed back Mrs. +Alexander. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Better go round to the kitchen,” suggested her brother. +“You’ll find they’re talking too hard to hear the +bell.” +</p> + +<p> +His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the hall +door with an extremely perturbed countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t find a creature anywhere,” she said, “either +upstairs or down—I can’t understand Barnet leaving the house +empty—” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen!” interrupted Sir George, “isn’t that the +hounds?” +</p> + +<p> +They listened. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Fennessy’s dog!” ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in +her seat. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>à +merveille</i>. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="FANNY_FITZS_GAMBLE"></a> + FANNY FITZ’S GAMBLE</h2> + +<p> +“Where’s Fanny Fitz?” said Captain Spicer to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“She says she can’t come,” she responded; “she has +letters to write or something—and this is our last day!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Spicer evidently found the fact provoking. +</p> + +<p> +“On this information the favourite receded 33 to 1,” remarked +Captain Spicer. “I think you may as well chuck it, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here’s Rupert; you can begin on him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing would give me greater pleasure!” said Rupert’s +sister vindictively. “A great teasing, squabbling baby! Oh, how I hate +fools! and they are <i>both</i> fools!—Oh, there you are, Rupert,” +a well-simulated blandness invading her voice; “and what’s Fanny +Fitz doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s trying to do a Mayo man over a horse-deal,” replied +Mr. Rupert Gunning. +</p> + +<p> +“A horse-deal!” repeated Mrs. Spicer incredulously. “Fanny +buying a horse! Oh, impossible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Gunning, +“she’s trying pretty hard. I gave her my opinion—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take my oath you did,” observed Captain Spicer. +</p> + +<p> +“—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.” +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="SILENCE"></a> +<img src="images/039.png" alt=""A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF +STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH."" +title=" "A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF +CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH."" /> + +<p> +<b>“A SILENCE THAT WAS THE OUTCOME PARTLY OF STUPIDITY, PARTLY OF +CAUTION, AND PARTLY OF LACK OF ENGLISH SPEECH.”</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, indeed, yes, your ladyship,” he was saying glibly, +“the breed of horses is greatly improving in these parts, and them +hackney horses—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” interrupted Miss Fitzroy hastily, “I won’t have +her if she’s a hackney.” +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of the owner sought those of the friend in a gaze that clearly +indicated the question. +</p> + +<p> +“What’ll ye say to her now?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you say so before?” asked Miss Fitzroy, bending +her straight brows in righteous severity. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you asking for her?” she demanded with a sudden access of +decision. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny Fitz’s face fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-eight pounds!” she echoed. “Oh, that’s +ridiculous!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would!” said the impulsive Fanny Fitz, after the manner of her +nation. +</p> + +<p> +When the fishing party returned that afternoon Miss Fitzroy met them at the +hall door. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Spicer sat, paralysed, on the seat of the outside car, disregarding her +brother’s outstretched hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny!” she exclaimed, in tones fraught with knowledge of her +friend’s resources and liabilities. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I believe I did,” he said shortly. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Spicer’s blue eyes grew round with consternation. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you really have bought the thing!” she cried. “Oh, +Fanny, you idiot! And what on earth are you going to do with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A waiter in shirt-sleeves was leaning comfortably out of a window, watching the +fray and offering airy suggestion and comment. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +There was an instant of petrifaction. +“Diddlety—iddlety—idlety!” chanted the waiter with +far-away sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“If that’s the way,” said the ostler, “ye +mightn’t get her again before the winther.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus Johnny Connolly, wiping a very heated brow. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come inside me with the whip, sir, and give her one good belt at the +last.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>pity</i> poor +little Maudie Spicer for having such a brother!” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of this discouraging <i>début</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“But sure ye wouldn’t sell her, miss?” said her faithful +nurse, “and Masther Freddy afther starting the hounds and all!” +</p> + +<p> +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”. +</p> + +<p> +“I must, Johnny,” she said, “worse luck!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Miss Fanny,” said a voice over the hedge. +</p> + +<p> +Fanny Fitz raised a flushed face and wiped a fleck of Naldyre off her nose with +her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just been looking at your mare,” went on the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“She gets a feed of oats every Sunday, and strong tea and thistles +through the week,” replied Fanny Fitz in furious sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you want to buy her yourself,” retorted Fanny, with a +vicious dab of the soap in the daughter’s eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she’s just about up to my weight, isn’t she? +By-the-bye, you haven’t had her backed yet, I believe?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to try her to-day!” said Fanny with sudden +resolve. +</p> + +<p> +“Ride her yourself!” said Mr. Gunning, his eyebrows going up into +the roots of his hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said Fanny, with calm as icy as a sudden burst of struggles +on the part of the daughter would admit of. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +He walked on. +</p> + +<p> +“Puppy, <i>will</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The filly trembled and sidled away from the garden-seat up to which Johnny +Connolly had manœuvred 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>clamped</i> 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 <i>know</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m not!” returned Fanny Fitz. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>en évidence</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dogs!” she said, “if I don’t sell the filly I am done +for!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The filly had preceded her from Craffroe by a couple of days, under the charge +of Patsey Crimmeen, lent by Freddy for the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve come up through the heavy weights,” said Captain +Spicer; “the twelve-stone horses will look like rats—” He +stopped. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of his +audience. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I haven’t,” replied Captain Spicer; “shall I do +it for you? Upon my soul, I think the occasion demands it!” +</p> + +<p> +“I just want to know one thing,” continued Miss Fitzroy. +“When does your brother-in-law arrive?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not till to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the only nice thing I’ve heard to-day,” sighed +Fanny Fitz. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +On the second day, however, things looked a little more hopeful. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m asking sixty,” said Fanny dubiously. “What would +<i>you</i> take for her, Mr. Gunning—on the last day, you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d take a ticket for her,” said Rupert Gunning, “back +to Craffroe—if you haven’t a return.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She went home to lunch, dead tired. The others were going to see the polo in +the park. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go back and sell the mare,” said Fanny valiantly, “or +else take that ticket to Craffroe, Mr. Gunning!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Fanny! Miss Fanny! I have her sold! The mare’s sold, miss! +See here! I have the money in me pocket!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_CONNEMARA_MARE"></a> + THE CONNEMARA MARE</h2> + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He also recognised in its perfection the fact, already suspected by him, that +he had been a fool. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Now, it appeared, this pleasing vision must go the way of many others. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What did the vet say, Brennan?” said Mr. Gunning, with the brevity +of ill humour. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was that all he had to say?” demanded the mare’s owner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, beyond those remarks he passed about the Zoo, I should say it was, +sir,” admitted Mr. Brennan. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe we might let her get the night, sir,” he said, after a +respectful interval, “and you might see her yourself in the +morning—” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +The clock here struck the quarter, at which Mr. Gunning ought to start for his +train at Westland Row. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, sir—” recommenced Brennan. It was precisely at this +point that Mr. Gunning lost his temper. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you can find time to shoot her,” he said, with a very +red face. “Kindly do so to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +That night, in the domestic circle, he went so far as to lay the matter before +Mrs. Brennan. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Brennan added another spoonful of brown sugar to the porter that she was +mulling in a sauce-pan on the range. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t ye say it was a young lady that owned the mare, +James?” she asked in a colourless voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’re the devil, Mary!” replied Mr. Brennan in +sincere admiration. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I just missed meeting the man who bought my mare,” she said, +recurring to the subject for the fourth time; “apparently <i>he</i> +didn’t think her ‘a leggy, long-backed brute,’ as other +people did, or said they did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Did many people say it?” asked Mr. Gunning, beginning to make a +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I beg your pardon!” said Rupert pusillanimously. Miss Fitzroy +fell back again on the tobacco pouch theory. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the glowing end of a cigar deviated from its orbit on the deck +and approached them. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Gunning? I thought it was your voice,” said the owner +of the cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is,” said Mr. Gunning, in a tone singularly lacking in +encouragement. “Thought I saw you at dinner, but couldn’t be +sure.” +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, no one could have been more thoroughly aware than he of +Captain Carteret’s presence in the saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so too!” said Fanny Fitz, from the darkness, +“Captain Carteret wouldn’t look my way!” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Carteret gave a somewhat exaggerated start of discovery, and threw his +cigar over the side. He had evidently come to stay. +</p> + +<p> +“How was it I didn’t see you at the Horse Show?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks! I sold all right,” said Fanny Fitz magnificently. +“Did rather well too!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Unfortunately for him, he did neither; he lied partially, timorously, and with +that clinging to the skirts of the truth that marks the novice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she was all right,” he said, his face purpling heavily in the +kindly darkness. “What was the polo like, Carteret?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s—she’s just a cob—a grey cob—I +just picked her up at the end of the show.” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of a cob? Can she jump? Are you going to ride her with +Freddy’s hounds?” continued the implacably interested Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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>I</i> see nothing to make a +mystery about in a deal; do you, Captain Carteret?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that depends on whether you are buying or selling,” replied +Captain Carteret. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fitzroy’s movements during the next two and a half months need not +be particularly recorded. They included— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get that one?” inquired the owner of the car of Mr. +Fennessy, in the course of much lengthy conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s shlack enough yet,” said the carman. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The conversation flowed on to other themes. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Cinderella-like episode of the slipper had naturally not entered into Mr. +Fennessy’s calcula tions, but he took the unforeseen without a change of +countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The smith took the compliment with a blink of his sore eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Annyone’d be hard set to know her now,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +He lowered his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas Mr. Gunning of Streamstown bought that one from Miss Fitzroy +at the Dublin Show, and a hundhred pound he gave for her!” +</p> + +<p> +The smith mentally docked this sum by seventy pounds, but said, “By +dam!” in polite convention. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twasn’t a week afther that I got her for twinty-five +pounds!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I seen that,” said the smith. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever fright she got she didn’t forget it,” said the +smith. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="GUNNING"></a> +<img src="images/091.png" alt=""MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN’ OUT FOR A +COB."" title=" "MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN’ OUT FOR A COB."" +/> + +<p> +<b>“MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN’ OUT FOR A COB.”</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“I was up in Dublin meself the same time,” pursued Mr. Fennessy. +“Afther I seein’ 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.’” +</p> + +<p> +The process of making nail-holes in the shoe seemed to engross the taciturn +young smith’s attention for the next minute or two. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He eyed his work sedulously as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="PART_III"></a> +PART III</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lord!” ejaculated Captain Carteret. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” continued Mrs. Carteret, unheedingly, “and +there’s Mr. Gunning; he’ll come if Fanny Fitz does.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll not be much advantage when he does come,” said Captain +Carteret spitefully. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you—do you mean to tell me you are going to dance <i>with a +black face</i>?” he demanded in bitter and incongruous wrath. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m going to dance with Captain Carteret!” replied Fanny +frivolously, “and so can you if you like!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>sotto voce</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“As if there were anything on earth that bored people as much as card +tricks!” said that experienced lady to Rupert Gunning. “Look here, +<i>would</i> 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 +<i>you’ll</i> say, ‘Because dere am so many pretty little deers in +it’!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that!” said Rupert hastily, +alarmed as well as indignant; “I’m afraid I really must go +now—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re deserting us!” she said, looking up at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an appointment,” he said stiffly, his glance evading hers, +and resting on Captain Carteret’s well-clipped little black head. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going to show me the cob that you bought at the Horse +Show?” +</p> + +<p> +The olive branch thus confidently tendered had a somewhat withering reception. +</p> + +<p> +“The cob I bought at the Horse Show?” Mr. Gunning repeated with an +increase of rigidity, “Oh, yes—I got rid of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused; the twanging of Captain Carteret’s banjo bridged the interval +imperturbably. +</p> + +<p> +“Why had you to get rid of it?” asked Fanny, still sympathetic. +</p> + +<p> +“She was a failure!” said Rupert vindictively; “I made a fool +of myself in buying her!” +</p> + +<p> +Fanny looked at him sideways from under her lashes. +</p> + +<p> +“And I had counted on your giving me a mount on her now and then!” +</p> + +<p> +Rupert forgot his wrath, forgot even the twanging banjo. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just got another cob,” he said quickly; “she +jumps very well, and if you’d like to hunt her next Tuesday—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thanks awfully, but Captain Carteret has promised me a mount for +next Tuesday!” said the perfidious Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carteret, on her knees by a refractory footlight, watched with anxiety Mr. +Gunning’s abrupt departure from the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny!” she said severely, “what have you been doing to that +man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing!” said Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ve put him off singing I’ll never forgive you!” +continued Mrs. Carteret, advancing on her knees to the next footlight. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I’ve done nothing to him,” said Fanny Fitz +guiltily. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the hammer!” said Mrs. Carteret. “Have I eyes, or +have I not?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s a rotter!” said Captain Carteret conclusively. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall do nothing of the kind!” replied Fanny, with a dignity +somewhat impaired by her ebon countenance and monstrous green turban. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Carteret’s small neat features seemed unnaturally sharpened, and her +eyes and teeth glittered in her excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“For goodness’ sake, take your awful little black face away, +Mabel!” exclaimed Fanny hysterically. “It quite frightens me! +I’m <i>very</i> angry with Mr. Gunning! I’ll tell you why some +other time.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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”. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Independent</i> described cryptically as “a <i>tout ensemble à +la conversazione</i> that was refreshingly unique”. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Rupert Gunning approached Fanny with an open note in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—” said Fanny, in tones from which dismay was by no means +eliminated. “How stupid of Aunt Rachel!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there seems no way out of it for you,” said +Rupert offendedly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“God help her, the crayture! She looks like a servant that’d be +bate out with work!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of my new buy?” he said pacifically, +“she’s a good goer, isn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” replied Fanny. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been wondering what I’ve done to be put into Coventry +like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you probably wouldn’t care to speak to me!” was +Fanny’s astonishing reply, delivered in tones of ice. +</p> + +<p> +“I!” he stammered, “not care to speak to <i>you</i>! You +ought to know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed, I do know!” broke in Fanny, passing from the frigid +to the torrid zone with characteristic speed, “I know what a +<i>failure</i> 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 <i>think</i> of it!” +</p> + +<p> +Rupert Gunning remained abjectly and dumfoundedly silent. +</p> + +<p> +“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,’ <i>a cob for carting</i>, 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!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all perfectly true,” said Rupert, in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +A soft answer, so far from turning away wrath, frequently inflames it. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I think there’s no more to be said!” said Fanny hotly. +</p> + +<p> +There was silence. They had reached the top of the hill, and the grey mare +began to trot. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake!” responded Johnny Connolly, standing stock +still in his amazement, “is that Miss Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Get hold of the mare,” shouted Rupert, “or she’ll jump +the gate!” +</p> + +<p> +Johnny Connolly advanced, still calling upon his God, and the mare uttered a +low but vehement neigh. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="A_GRAND_FILLY"></a> +A GRAND FILLY</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>nom de +guerre</i> in the County Corkerry (the few who know anything of the map of +Ireland may possibly identify the two counties buried in this cryptogram). +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="ROBERT"></a> +<img src="images/117.png" alt="ROBERT’S AUNT" title="ROBERT’S AUNT" +/> + +<p> +<b>ROBERT’S AUNT</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +(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.) +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>menu</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +A grin of guilt passed over the faces of the audience. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +(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.) +</p> + +<p> +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>i.e</i>., 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The girl ran, snatching off her red plaid shawl as she went. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Go round, Captain!” shouted Trinder; “it’s a bad +place!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is any one in?” I said to the house at large. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>locale</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ma’am, ma’am!” I heard, “ye’ll pull the +tail off him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Twisht the tink-an now, Bridgie! Twisht it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Holy Biddy! the masther’ll kill us!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>was</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="A_NINETEENTH_CENTURY_MIRACLE"></a> + A NINETEENTH-CENTURY MIRACLE</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>raison d’être</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is <i>all</i> 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Howld on, miss, till I knock a few shtones for ye!” volunteered +one, trying to interpose between Pilot and the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, have done with that thrash of music; sure, it’ll be dark night +itself before we’re in to Lismore.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“How far am I from Carnfother?” she asked, as they drew near to +her. “Is there any house near here?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is not,” said the yellow-haired woman; “and +ye’re four miles from Carnfother yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pay you well if you will take a message there for +me—” began Mrs. Pat. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Have done, Joanna!” said the old man suddenly; “what trouble +is on the lady? What lamed the horse?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He was cut in a ditch,” she said shortly. +</p> + +<p> +The old man had placed his fiddle in his daughter’s hands; his own hands +were twitching and trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel the blood flowing,” he said in a very low voice, and he +walked up to Pilot. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="BLOOD"></a> +<img src="images/152.png" alt="THE BLOOD-HEALER" title="THE BLOOD-HEALER" /> + +<p> +<b>THE BLOOD-HEALER</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="HIGH_TEA_AT_McKEOWNS"></a> + HIGH TEA AT McKEOWN’S</h2> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Thomas paused in the act of cutting the end off a long cigar, and said +briefly:— +</p> + +<p> +“Neither of you’ll get her. She’s going ploughing the +Craughmore.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +The youngest Miss Purcell paused, and uttered a loud sob. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +The youngest Miss Purcell swiftly returned her handkerchief to her pocket, and +left the room before any change of opinion was possible. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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<i>for</i>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 <i>esprit de +corps</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Purcell dutifully disinterred her attention from a catalogue of Dutch +bulbs. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>ventre à terre</i> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Fed on furze!” thought Muriel, with a remembrance of the foxy +mare’s upper lip when she came in “off the hill”. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were going to cut me—Muriel!” said the strange +man. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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”. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Nora,” said Muriel with an unusually conciliatory +manner, “it isn’t at all out of our way, and the colt <i>ought</i> +to get a proper rub down and a hot drink.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought he’d had about as much to drink as he +wanted, hot or cold!” said Nora. +</p> + +<p> +But Nora had not been a younger sister for fifteen years for nothing, and it +was for Drinagh that the party steered their course. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="GREY"></a> +<img src="images/170.png" alt=" "THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID."" +title=" "THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID."" /> + +<p> +<b>“THE GREY-HAIRED KITCHEN-MAID.”</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +These consisted of a long covert coat, a still longer pair of yellow knitted +stockings, and a pair of pumps. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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 with +every 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the young ladies?” gasped Lady Purcell. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all jolly fine,” returned Nora, “but +<i>I’m</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Get in, Muriel!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +They got in, and as the door closed on them Sir Thomas entered the room. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +“Hamilton-Clarke,” said the Inspector. +</p> + +<p> +“Had ridden so hard in order to stop them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Er—quite so,” said the Inspector. +</p> + +<p> +Something caused the dressing-room door to rattle, and Captain Hamilton-Clarke +grew rather red. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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—” +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the sentence was lost. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that <i>is</i> my wife!” said Sir Thomas. “What the +deuce does she want here?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Muriel!” she exclaimed, “<i>what</i> have you got on you? +And who—” She paused and stared at the Inspector. “Good +gracious!” she cried, “why, it’s Aubrey Hamilton!” +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_BAGMANS_PONY"></a> + THE BAGMAN’S PONY</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>is</i> +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 +<i>connoisseur</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bad glass of wine that,” says Carew to him; “what do +you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but nobody up here has got a palate left,” says the bagman, +laughing in a very superior sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean, sir?” shouted Carew, jumping up. +“I’ll not have any d——d bagmen coming here to insult +me!” +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>except the bagman</i>. +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He called me a d——d bagman,” says one, nearly tumbling +down with laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The first thing I saw was that the “Doctor’s” stall was +empty. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s this?” I said to the groom; “where’s Mr. +Leggett’s horse?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sahib has taken him away this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to have some notion then of what my I.O.U. was worth. +</p> + +<p> +“The sahib has left his grass-cutter and his pony,” said the +<i>sais</i>, who probably had as good a notion of what was up as I had. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, send for the grass-cutter,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>sais</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“He is there, sahib, but he is only a <i>kattiawa tattoo</i>,” +which is the name for a common kind of mountain pony. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, he is a <i>gareeb kuch kam ki nahin</i>,” said the +<i>sais</i>, meaning thereby a miserable beast, in the most intensified form, +“and not fit to stand in the sahib’s stable.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>he</i> leaves must be worth having, I’ll +bet!” and so on. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re all d——d funny,” I said, “but I +daresay you’ll find he’s left me something that <i>is</i> worth +having.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” “Go on!” “Paddy’s a great man +when he’s drunk,” and a lot more of the same sort. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bosh!” says Barclay of the 112th. “I’ve seen him, and +I’ll lay you a thousand rupees even he doesn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” said I, whacking my hand down on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll lay another thousand,” says another fellow. +</p> + +<p> +“Done with you too,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +Every one began to stare a bit then. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to bed, Paddy,” says the Colonel, “you’re making an +exhibition of yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a bit,” I said, “you haven’t seen him going yet. +I think he has the heels of any pony in the place.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the grass-cutter,” I shouted, jumping off him in +about as great a fury as I ever was in. “I suppose <i>he</i> knows how to +make this devil go!” +</p> + +<p> +“Grass-cutter went away last night, sahib. Me see him try to open stable +door and go away. Me see him no more.” +</p> + +<p> +I used pretty well all the bad language I knew in one blast. Biddy began to +walk away, laughing till I felt as if I could kick him. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out the dog-cart,” I said, as a last chance. “Perhaps +he’ll go in harness.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>keranie</i>, a sort of low-class clerk, came up +behind me and began talking to me in a mysterious kind of way, in that vile +<i>chi-chi</i> accent one gets to hate so awfully. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” I said, “I think I’ll keep my own, the +pony’s accustomed to it.” +</p> + +<p> +I think he understood quite well what I felt, but he didn’t show any +resentment. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Sar, you no trust my car, you let me see your wheels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I said “you may look at them,” determined +in my own mind I should keep my eye on him while he did. +</p> + +<p> +He got out a machine for propping the axle, and lifted the wheel off the +ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Make the wheel go round,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +I didn’t like it much, but I gave the wheel a turn. He looked at it till +it stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“You lose match if you take that car,” he said, “you take my +car, Sar.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” said I, pretty sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>my</i> wheel, Sar.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right!” said I with a sort of impulse, “I’ll take +it.” And so I did. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got to win, Paddy,” calls out Mrs. Harry Le Bretton, +galloping up alongside, “you promised you would!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep back!” I shouted to her; “keep back, for pity’s +sake!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“D——n it all! Le Bretton!” I yelled, as the pony broke +for the second time, “can’t you keep your wife away!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As I reached the Delhi walls I took one look at the clock. There was barely a +minute left. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove!” I gasped, “I’m done!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was the Cashmere gate, and I had thirteen seconds in hand. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Le Bretton never quite forgave me. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AN_IRISH_PROBLEM"></a> + AN IRISH PROBLEM</h2> + +<p> +Conversation raged on the long flanks of the mail-car. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>rôle</i> 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 <i>duvet</i>, 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). +</p> + +<p> +“Here!” she says, “go in there and wash yerself!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Me dada says let yees be hurrying!” he gasped, between spasms of +what was obviously whooping-cough. “Sweeny’s case is comin’ +on!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Between the two stood the interpreter—small, old, froglike in profile, +full of the dignity of the Government official. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="SWEENY"></a> +<img src="images/204.png" alt="SWEENY" title="SWEENY" /> + +<p> +<b>SWEENY</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Darcy hitched himself round, still with a shoulder propped against the +partition, and uttered, without any enthusiasm, a few nasal and guttural +sentences. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure William himself is no bad judge of gorsoons,” said Mr. +Heraty. “Hadn’t he a christening in his own house three weeks +ago?” +</p> + +<p> +At this excursion into the family affairs of the interpreter the grin broke +into a roar. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The monotonous and quiet Irish sentences followed one another again. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do. Now, William—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And ’twas to make mutton-broth for the pup she dhrove +Darcy’s sheep in the lake, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +A contemptuous smile passed over Darcy’s face as the Chairman’s +sally was duly translated to him, and he made a rapid reply. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It appears,” observed Dr. Lyden serenely, “that the dog, +like the gorsoons, was of both sexes.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have as good English as anny man in this coort,” said Sweeny +morosely. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, show it off man! What defence have ye?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>ullán</i> often repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“He says, yer worships,” translated William, “why +wouldn’t he know her! Hadn’t she the <i>ullán</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +It is probable that we looked some of the stupefaction that we felt at this +remarkable reference to Mr. Heraty’s wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Order now!” said Mr. Heraty severely. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ he says,” continued William, warily purging his +frog-countenance of any hint of appreciation, “that Sweeny knew the +<i>ullán</i> that was on her as well as himself did.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Ullán!</i> What sort of English is that for an interpreter to +be using! Do ye suppose the general public knows what is an +<i>ullán</i>?” interrupted Mr. Heraty with lightning rapidity. +“Explain that now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yer worship, sure anny one in the world’d know what the +<i>ullán</i> on a sheep’s back is!” said William, staggered +by this sudden onslaught, “though there’s some might call it the +<i>rebugh</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Byrne!” continued Mr. Heraty without a smile, “we must +call upon you again!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Byrne’s meek scholastic face once more appeared at the rood-screen. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Lyden looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think Sweeny might go on with his defence?” he +remarked. “About the children, Sweeny—how many have ye?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have four.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how old are they?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one o’ thim is six years an another o’ thim is +seven—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and the other two eight and nine, I suppose?” commented Dr. +Lyden. +</p> + +<p> +The defendant remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Darcy spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“How d’ye know she was blind?” said Mr. Heraty quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Sweeny firmly regarded Mr. Heraty. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it glasses she was putting on the sheep’s eyes?” +suggested the Chairman, with a glance that admitted the court to the joke. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but an ointment,” said Sweeny stubbornly. “I seen her +rubbing it to the eyes, an’ she no more than thirty yards from me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Are ye sure it wasn’t the frog got the wakeness?” asked Dr. +Lyden. +</p> + +<p> +A gale of laughter swept round the court. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He says she could not, yer worship, nor as much as one perch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, what nonsense is this!” said Mr. Heraty testily; +“didn’t I see the woman meself at Mass last Sunday?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +William’s skinny hand covered his frog mouth with all a deserving +schoolboy’s embarrassment at being caught out in a bad translation. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure I was satisfied to leave it to arbithration, but Darcy wasn’t +willin’.” This statement was Sweeny’s. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Darcy’s reply, delivered with a slow, sarcastic smile, provoked a laugh +from the audience. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I said that,” growled the unfortunate Sweeny, “it was a +lie for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Lyden once more pulled out his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Lyden, already in the act of charging his pipe, nodded his head. +</p> + +<p> +Sweeny began to fumble in his pockets, and draw ing 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Lyden laughed for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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”. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +These things lie somewhere near the heart of the Irish problem. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="THE_DANES_BREECHIN"></a> + THE DANE’S BREECHIN’</h2> + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Say we’re out,” I hissed to her—“gone out for +the day! We are going into the garden!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure ye needn’t give yerself that much trouble,” replied +Julia affably, as she snatched a grimy cap off a nail. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, in spite of the elasticity of Julia’s conscience, the +garden seemed safer. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Decidedly Julia’s conscience could stand alone. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” said Robert hoarsely, and with the swiftness of panic, +“I’m off! I’ll get out over the back wall.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“And what, I ask you,” I said perorating, “what on the face +of the earth are we to do now?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what they think,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Luncheon!” she repeated with stupefaction, “luncheon! The +dear help us, I have no luncheon for the like o’ ye!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, anything will do,” said Robert cheerfully. His experiences at +the London bar had not instructed him in the commissariat of his country. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit of cold beef, or just some bread and cheese.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Coolahan’s bleared eyes rolled wildly to mine, as seeking sympathy +and sanity. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Julia’s run away with a soldier!” struck in Robert +brilliantly. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“The Dane’s coachman is inside!” +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously Robert and I removed ourselves from the purview of the door. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where had ye it last?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“I seen Katty Ann with it in the cow-house, sir,” volunteered a +small female Coolahan from beneath the flap of the counter. +</p> + +<p> +Katty Ann, with a vindictive eye at the tell-tale, vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Musha! Musha!” breathed, prayerfully, one of the shawled women. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="MUSHA"></a> +<img src="images/234.png" alt="MUSHA! MUSHA!" title="MUSHA! MUSHA!" /> + +<p> +<b>MUSHA! MUSHA!</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +“’Twasn’t in it,” she whined, “nor I didn’t +put it in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a pinny I’d give ye a slap in the jaw!” said Mr. +Coolahan with sudden and startling ferocity. +</p> + +<p> +“That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!” reiterated Mrs. +Coolahan, while the search spread upwards through the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” said Robert abruptly, “this business is going on +for a week. I’m going for the things myself.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go myself. If I had forty pencils I couldn’t explain to +Julia the flies that I want!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are they, Julia?” I whispered. “Have they had +lunch?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Are they out of the dining-room?” broke in Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“May the devil choke ye!” +</p> + +<p> +Then again the Dean, this time near the kitchen door. “Julia! Where is +the man who was secreted under the dinner-table?” +</p> + +<p> +I gripped Robert’s arm. The issues of life and death were now in +Julia’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you go out of the room on your hands and knees?” I moaned, +rolling in anguish on the potatoes. +</p> + +<p> +“ 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” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Ye can come out</i>!” 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="PART_II"></a> +PART II</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!’” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="CROPPY"></a> +<img src="images/244.png" alt=""CROPPY."" title=""CROPPY."" +/> + +<p> +<b>“CROPPY.”</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +His cap was tilted over the maternal nose, he glanced at me sideways from under +its peak. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Croppy measured me with his eye, grinned bashfully, and said:— +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Croppy,” I said in consternation, “how did you get it? Did +you borrow it from the coachman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it the coachman!” said Croppy tranquilly. “I did not, +Miss. Sure he was asleep in the snug.” +</p> + +<p> +“But can they get home without it?” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden alarm chilled me to the marrow. +</p> + +<p> +“Arrah, why not, Miss? That black horse of the Dane’s +wouldn’t care if there was nothing at all on him!” +</p> + +<p> +I heard Robert reeling in his line—had he a fish? Or, better still, had +he made up his mind to go home? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re dead! They’re dead!” said Croppy, with +philosophic calm; “’twas the parasol started him.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +To this mental picture the howls of Miss McEvoy during the process of +extraction from the covered car lent a pleasing reality. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Croppy was firm and circumstantial in laying the blame on me and the sketching +umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure, I seen the horse wondhering at it an’ he comin’ up the +hill to us. ’Twas that turned him.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I hold with Julia. +</p> + +<p> +“’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.” +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="MATCHBOX"></a> +“ MATCHBOX”</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“She wouldn’t go tin pound in Banthry fair.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Dinny Johnny ran to the door, moved by an impulse for which I think the hot +whisky and water must have been responsible. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you twelve pounds for the pony, ma’am!” he +called out. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +There was no disputing the fact of the pony’s crossness. +</p> + +<p> +“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:— +</p> + +<p> +“Sour! I niver see the like of her! Be gannies, the divil’s always +busy with her!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“Did he put in the hounds yit?” +</p> + +<p> +“He did,” said another voice, “he put them in the soud-aisht +side; they’ll be apt to get it soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get what?” thought Dinny Johnny, all his bristles rising in wrath +as the idea of a drag came to him. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Will they be poisoned, Mr. Denny?” she gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t we catch them up?” cried Mary, almost incoherent +from excitement and horror. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil I shall!” said Dinny Johnny, and an unworthy thought of +what his friends would say flitted across his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Poison!” gasped Dinny Johnny, falling down at full length on the +grass, “the wood’s poisoned!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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”. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="AS_I_WAS_GOING_TO_BANDON_FAIR"></a> +“ AS I WAS GOING TO BANDON FAIR”</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi! bay horse! Pull in here! Foxy mare! Hi, boy, bring up that foxy +mare!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Arrah!” she says; “the divil himself wouldn’t plaze ye +in clothes.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +The would-be purchaser silently tests it with a wrinkled finger and thumb, and +shakes her head. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="HORSE"></a> +<img src="images/276.png" alt="A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING" title="A HIERARCH +OF HORSE-DEALING" /> + +<p> +<b>A HIERARCH OF HORSE-DEALING</b> +</p> +</div> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<h5>THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.</h5> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc98e2c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16766 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16766) diff --git a/old/16766-8.txt b/old/16766-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c81545 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16766-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6665 @@ +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 _mle_, 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 +_dbris_, 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 _rgime_ 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 _dbut_. + +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 "Bolle," 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 "Bolle" 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 "Bolle," 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 _ 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 _dbut_, 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 vidence_ +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 dept. 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 rle +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 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 souffl, 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 Rntgen 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'tre_ 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 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 curaoa 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 +anmic 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 _rle_ 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 _ulln_ often repeated. + +"He says, yer worships," translated William, "why wouldn't he know her! +Hadn't she the _ulln_ 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 _ulln_ that was on her +as well as himself did." + +"_Ulln!_ What sort of English is that for an interpreter to be using! +Do ye suppose the general public knows what is an _ulln_?" interrupted +Mr. Heraty with lightning rapidity. "Explain that now!" + +"Why, yer worship, sure anny one in the world'd know what the _ulln_ 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 cursd +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 +crabbd--By dam, she's as crabbd 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 crabbd 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 sthetic 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE *** + +***** This file should be named 16766-8.txt or 16766-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/7/6/16766/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/16766-8.zip b/old/16766-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..37000f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16766-8.zip diff --git a/old/16766.txt b/old/16766.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23c8e8c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16766.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6665 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE *** + +***** This file should be named 16766.txt or 16766.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/7/6/16766/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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